One could be forgiven for thinking that there is no limit to the broad usage Indonesians make of the term dakwah, which literally means ‘call’ (to religion), and is commonly extended to mean any kind of preaching, predication or Islamic outreach activity. Many activities without primarily religious meaning are described as dakwah, including performance of one's vocation and family duties, conduct of a commercial enterprise and various kinds of artistic expression. In fact, this broad understanding is completely in harmony with Islamic teachings on dakwah. Islam's normative sources make dakwah a compulsory activity for all Muslims, and the particular form to be practised should be one that is suitable to the talents, capacities and circumstances of individual Muslims. Nevertheless, at times the concept of dakwah entails surprising connections between daily life and religious meaning. A recent newspaper article reporting on the phenomenon of majlis taklim, the salon-style religious discussion groups currently popular among middle and upper-class women in Bandung, included a description by one member of the diverse activities performed by her majlis taklim. ‘A fashion show is also dakwah!’ (Fashion show itu juga dakwah!), the woman said.

Notwithstanding the ever-widening use of the term, there is one activity that has a strong claim to be regarded as the original or authentic dakwah activity, and that is oratory or dakwah bil-lisan (literally, ‘dakwah with the tongue’). Oratory is, to varying degrees, a central element in a number of activities that have evolved within the Indonesian Islamic tradition, including ‘great preaching’ (tabligh akbar)—that is, preaching to large audiences from a stage—study groups (pengajian), advice evenings (malam tausiyah) and discussion evenings (malam diskusi). The common characteristic of all these events is that the space is divided into two distinct zones: one to accommodate the preacher—the dai, muballigh or pendakwah— and the other to accommodate the listeners.

The status of oratory as the authentic form of dakwah is confirmed by the everyday use of the terms dai and pendakwah. These are cognate terms, both derived from ‘dakwah’. Only orators are described with these terms. No one would question the correctness of a painter, for example, choosing to describe his or her work as dakwah.

INTRODUCTION

This quote from the Jakarta Post encapsulates a grim daily reality faced by the residents of Indonesia's capital. Fear of extortion, harassment or violence at the hands of preman, a colloquial term for a street thug or gangster, is for many Indonesians a significant and recurrent threat to their personal security. While Western governments and media continue to focus upon an ‘Islamist threat’ in Indonesia, it is a more mundane but pervasive form of everyday terror that has a greater impact on the lives of ordinary Indonesians. Street-level thuggery at the hands of preman is a ubiquitous part of life in urban centres throughout the country.

There has been a discernible increase in premanisme since 1998. However, preman are by no means a new phenomenon. Throughout the New Order, a symbiotic relationship existed between elements of the regime and preman, many of whom were ‘institutionalised’ within paramilitary and youth organisations such as the regime loyalists Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth). Preman were allowed to operate protection rackets with virtual legal impunity on the condition that a proportion of their profits made its way through the state bureaucracy, and that they were available to be mobilised when the state felt its hegemony to be under threat.

Towards the end of the New Order, as the image of a unified regime began to fracture, the ideology and symbolism of many of these ‘entrepreneurs in violence’ began to shift away from reactionary nationalism and loyalty to Soeharto and Golkar, and was increasingly derived from militant Islam. This shift reflected the changing political dynamics. Many preman gambled on which political force would come out on top. Some flocked to the satgas paramilitary wings established by political parties to mobilise support and raise revenue in the wake of the 1999 elections. Others joined the ranks of the plethora of militant Islamic organisations that emerged after 1998. Many of these groups were mobilised in November 1998 as part of the civil militias deployed by General Wiranto.

Since the fall of the Soeharto regime in 1998, the political and ideological landscape has changed dramatically for Indonesian women. During the New Order, public discourse on gender focused on a woman's role as wife and mother, and on the contribution women were expected to make to the development of the nation. The principle of equality between men and women was enshrined in the 1945 Constitution. Nevertheless, there was relatively little discussion of women's rights; the focus was on a woman's obligations to her husband, her family and the state (Blackburn 1999). The New Order government downplayed gender issues, despite ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1984 and signing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995.

The rise of cultural Islam in the 1980s, with its emphasis on Qur'aninspired ideals such as equality and social justice, and of several NGOs dedicated to advocacy on Muslim gender issues in the 1990s, began to influence Muslim thinking on women's rights issues. But it was not until the reformasi period, when the state's tight watch on all matters to do with religion, ethnicity and public discourse in general was relaxed, that gender issues come to the fore. Major factors influencing the increased attention given to gender issues included the growth of Muslim radicalism, the rise of activism based on women's rights, the spread of democratic principles, and the implementation of regional autonomy with its decentralisation of political power.

The first indication of the extent to which gender would be a significant site of contestation in the reformasi period came in 1999, when Megawati Sukarnoputri was the front-running presidential candidate in the first post-Soeharto election campaign (Platzdasch 2000; van Doorn Harder 2002). The questioning of her suitability to rule this Muslim-majority nation, not because of her ability but because of her gender, and the strength of the passion on both sides of the debate, took observers by surprise. It also demonstrated the way in which gender could become a factor in a larger political game. It was clear in 1999, and it is even clearer now, that not all those who opposed Megawati's presidency did so on ideological or religious grounds.

Indonesia's first Islamic bank, Bank Muamalat Indonesia, was established in 1991. Since then, the institutional base of the Islamic economy in Indonesia has expanded rapidly. This sector now covers not only the conventional banking and financial sector, but also zakat management organisations, sharia economy training institutions and professional business associations. The microfinance institutions known as Islamic saving and loan cooperatives (BMTs) are one of the fastest growing areas of Islamic finance. They provide financial services to small and mediumsized businesses and the poor, as well as being a source of professional jobs for middle-class Muslims. The number of BMTs increased from just one in 1992 to 1,957 in 1999 (Lubis 2004). The newly formed Association of Indonesian BMTs (Asbindo) estimates that 3,200 BMTs were in operation in 2006.

What is remarkable about BMTs is that their development has been supported largely by individuals and private organisations rather than the government, which was the prime mover behind the development of Indonesia's commercial microcredit business. As Antonio observes in Chapter 14 of this book, their success demonstrates that microlending can be carried out profitably and sustainably. The World Bank (2005) finds that microlending is an effective way of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. It estimates that 50 per cent of Indonesian households may still lack access to the credit they need to fund their enterprises, despite the numerous microcredit schemes facilitated by the Indonesian government since the early 1980s.

Despite the intriguing financial success of BMTs, there have been very few social studies on the Islamic economy, especially Islamic microfinance, in Indonesia. With the exception of Hefner (2003), who describes the vision shared by the founders of Bank Muamalat Indonesia, previous studies have focused on the theological foundations of the Islamic financial system and the legal and institutional development of Islamic finance (Effendy 2005; Lubis 2004; Salim 2003). My interest here is in examining the perceptions of those who are directly involved in providing or obtaining Islamic microfinance. Why do people start a BMT? Why do people work for BMTs? Why do people use them?

Mark Twain observed that history doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. In the spirit of that observation, this chapter will pursue the possibility of historical rhymes in the history of Islam in Java. I will first examine a crucial period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and then ask whether that period can shed light on the complex developments currently being experienced in religious affairs in Java, and on broader Indonesian issues.

Java's Islamisation began—so far as we can know from the surviving evidence—in the fourteenth century. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there had evolved a religious consensus that I have labelled the ‘mystic synthesis’. Within the general context of Sufism, this mystic synthesis had three characteristic features: (1) a strong sense of Islamic identity; (2) observance of the five pillars of the faith (the confession of faith, the five daily prayers, fasting during Ramadan, paying alms and performing the pilgrimage if one can afford to do so); but nevertheless (3) acceptance of the reality of multiple local spiritual forces. While evidence for this period relates mostly to the elite levels of society, what little material we have on commoners suggests that this mystic synthesis was found throughout Javanese society.

POLARISAT ION BEFORE INDEPENDENCE

In the period from 1830 to 1930, every element of this mystic synthesis came under challenge. Thereby, a society that—so far as we can judge from the surviving evidence—was united in its religious identity became one conflicted by contending religious identities. This happened as a result of the arrival of contending versions of modernity: on the one hand European-style modernity brought by the colonising power, and on the other global Islamic reform.

The Dutch were genuinely in control of Java only after their victory in the Java War in 1830. Thereafter they introduced one of the most exploitative colonial systems ever devised, the well-known cultuurstelsel (cultivation system). But while this brought hard times for many peasants, for members of the Javanese elite (priyayi) Dutch rule brought new opportunities, greater security, often greater wealth and a host of new ideas. Many members of the elite embraced these new styles and ideas with enthusiasm. It need hardly be said that, for those who found service in the Dutch regime rewarding, enthusiastic Islamic devotionalism held little attraction, for it could only threaten their careers in colonial service.

Some 100 kilometres west of Jakarta, not far from Old Banten, stands the tomb of Sheik Muhammad Sholeh, an early preacher of Islam in the region. The tomb is at the summit of Gunung Santri, a tree-clad hill overlooking the rapidly developing harbour town of Bojonegara. Gunung Santri is a modestly popular place of pilgrimage for Indonesian Muslims. As pilgrims approach the saint's tomb, and even inside the mausoleum itself, they have to negotiate a series of alms boxes. Slipping money into the slot on an alms box, or giving something to a tomb custodian (kuncen or juru kunci), brings merit to the pilgrim and an income to the local community. But many pilgrims, especially poor ones, face a problem. There are so many alms boxes, and so many less than subtle invitations to make a donation, that to relinquish a banknote at each alms box—even the smallest denomination banknote—is more than many can afford.

Fortunately there is a convenient solution. On the path that winds up the hill to the sheik's tomb, dozens of rickety stalls feed off the passing flow of visitors. Among them is a microscopic money-changing operation—an amoebic ‘bank’. Standing beside a rough wooden table two women offer cash-strapped pilgrims a simple but essential financial service. They replace banknotes with coins, taking a 20 per cent commission on each transaction. If a pilgrim lays a Rp 1,000 banknote on the table (the smallest denomination of Indonesia's banknotes, currently worth about ten US cents), he or she receives back a pile of eight Rp 100 coins. These go one by one into alms boxes or into the hands of tomb staff, buying merit for the pilgrim, saving them money, and generating a tiny but valuable income for the women of the ‘single-cell’ bank.

THE GROWING POPULARITY OF LOCAL PILGRIMAGE

Money and pilgrimage go together. In fact, it is the central argument of this chapter that not only is pilgrimage an increasingly significant component of the domestic travel economy in Java, but commercial transactions in the marketplace of pilgrimage are also metaphorical actions that parallel devotional ritual and illuminate the relationship between believer and God.

Western perceptions of the character and role of Islam in Indonesia have shifted dramatically in the past decade. Much of the literature during the twentieth century portrayed the Muslim community in largely benign terms. There were several interlinked aspects to this approving commentary. The first remarked on the myriad ways in which local Muslim communities had ‘indigenised’ Islam, blending it with pre-existing religious practices to produce richly distinctive variants. Moreover, this Indone-sianised form of Islam bore none of the severity and rigidity attributed to Middle Eastern forms, earning it praise for its moderation and tolerance. Some scholars even approvingly observed that large numbers of Muslims appeared lax in their devotions and heedless of all but the most basic requirements of Islamic law. This was especially so for Java, where social scientists carefully recorded the heterodoxies of Muslim thought and behaviour.

This favourable portrayal of Indonesian Islam began to change in the late 1990s as many scholars and commentators wrote with concern about the perceived rise of radical and sectarian tendencies. Bloody Muslim– Christian conflict broke out in various parts of the archipelago—most notably in Ambon and Halmahera in Maluku and in Poso in Central Sulawesi—resulting in thousands of deaths on both sides. Attacks on Christian churches and clergy also leapt, exceeding by some estimates several hundred per annum in 2000–01. Militant Islamist groups, including violent paramilitary groups such as Laskar Jihad and Laskar Jundullah and vigilante groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), also proliferated from 1998. These developments prompted the American anthropologist Robert Hefner to write in 2000 of the growing strength of ‘uncivil Islam’ and the concomitant threat to Indonesia's pluralist Islamic culture.

The perception that Indonesian Islam had dangerously radical elements sharpened dramatically following the October 2002 Bali bombings in which 202 people died, most of them Westerners. The 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had already made Islamic terrorism a central preoccupation of the United States and its allies, and following the Bali bombings Indonesia was added to the list of countries with groups that posed a significant terrorist threat. This impression was reinforced by three major terrorist strikes against predominantly Western targets in Indonesia between 2003 and 2005.

INTRODUCTION

Indonesia is often cited as the best example of a thriving and continually maturing democracy in Southeast Asia. However, the phenomenon of regionally based legislation linked to religious teachings, which in some instances curtails the democratic freedoms of citizens, appears to be an exception to the overall picture of reform. Despite the encouraging developments of a remarkably free press, successful elections at both the national and regional levels, and significant reforms of the judiciary, good governance remains a challenge for Indonesia. For instance, corruption, while improving, is still a significant problem; a lumbering and inefficient civil service structure impedes efforts to improve effective governance; and economic growth is barely making a dent on poverty (Ramage 2007). As we ponder the issue of sharia-related regional legislation, we need to consider whether such legislation is an anomaly in an otherwise thriving democracy or, rather, an unsurprising symptom of low governance capacity.

The appearance of sharia-related bylaws appears to be linked to the devolution of legislative authority to the districts/municipalities (kabupaten/kota) and provinces as part of the overall process of decentralisation in Indonesia; while the formalisation of Islamic law in Indo-nesia has been rejected at the national level time and time again, there appears to be an increasing number of districts, municipalities and provinces passing regional regulations (perda) that are said to be influenced by sharia. These regulations are frequently referred to in Indonesia as sharia-influenced regional regulations (perda syariah Islam). However, the many problems with that label include the fact that not all of the religionrelated regulations seek to support the implementation of sharia. One such draft regulation in the Christian area of Manokwari, Papua, for example, actually seeks to restrict the building of mosques and the wearing of Muslim headscarves. A second problem is that not all of the perda relate to Islam, as we shall see shortly. For the purposes of this chapter, I will refer to the perda as ‘religion-influenced regional regulations’, although, as we shall see, even this is not entirely accurate.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years a vast scholarly literature has built up on the subject of globalization. Yet there is a dearth of literature on an important facet or dimension of the globalization process which, since the late 1970s, has also had great impact both on the trajectory of internal social and political developments in a number of countries, and on contemporary global politics. This is the process of globalization of the various religious forces and movements sometimes categorized and labelled as “religious fundamentalism”.

Foremost among these worldwide religious movements is the globalization of the various Islamic resurgent movements that have driven a process now commonly described as the Islamization of state and society, through a kind of politics that has asserted itself not only in the traditional Muslim world of the Middle East, parts of Africa and Asia, but also, recently and increasingly, in European and Western countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States, where Muslim migrants are now sizeable minorities. The current global concern with the spread of terrorism is undeniably linked to this other dimension of globalization. This “Islamic globalization” (if we can call it by that name) has far broader, more penetrating implications, within many nations and in the international sphere as we shall see in this chapter.

This chapter examines the impact of such an Islamic globalization process in Malaysia, focusing mainly on the ramifications of the Islamization policies of the Malaysian government in the period of the Mahathir Administration (1981 to 2003). Taking the Malaysian experience as a case study, this essay describes how the globalization of various strands of Islamic resurgence movements of the 1970s–1980s has dominated political and social developments of a modernizing Muslim nation-state. Islamist movements in the Malaysian context have also largely determined the way in which the secular state shaped the course of nation building of a post-independent multi-religious country. The Islamization policies undertaken by the Malaysian government responded to the political pressure exerted by Islamist politics and resurgence movements that demand Muslim-majoritarian countries be governed by Islamic laws or shari'a if not by an “Islamic state” type of government. What an “Islamic state” entails is in itself a part of the contentious rhetoric, debate and political struggle of most Islamist contemporary movements.

The idea for this book was initially conceived by IKMAS not long after the successful convening of the Third International Globalization Studies Network (GSN) Conference held at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in August 2006. IKMAS hosted this conference as a member of GSN, which is a worldwide consortium of centres of globalization studies. Fellows at IKMAS brainstormed the idea with a view to start a new research project to be conducted under the auspices of the incoming holder of the Pok Rafeah Distinguished Chair in International Studies, Professor Joan Nelson, from the American University, Washington, D.C. and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institute.

IKMAS’ first project on globalization had been conducted under the auspices of the first Pok Rafeah Chair, Professor J.H. Mittelman, who was at IKMAS in 1997 and 1999. That project resulted in an important publication by Routledge, London in 2001 under the title, Capturing Globalization, edited by J.H. Mittelman and Norani Othman. In that book, besides analysing a number of empirical cases, we explored the various theoretical perspectives on globalization and drew two important conclusions: first, developing countries like Malaysia need to adopt what is known as the ‘transformationalist approach’ in order to capture globalization, and second, we have to contribute to the debate on globalization to reflect the experiences of the South so that the globalization discourse can be made more global.

Thus, when Professor Nelson arrived at IKMAS in early October 2006 to occupy the Pok Rafeah Chair for a period of nine months, we soon held a series of brainstorming sessions with her. While taking note of IKMAS’ first collegial project on globalization, started almost ten years earlier, and agreeing that any new project must build on this achievement, we concluded that we had to move beyond the debate of the 1990s which tended to emphasize the retreat of the state, and incorporate insights from the literature that had emerged since we entered the twenty-first century. We took the position that the issue of globalization and national autonomy, particularly state autonomy, had to be re-visited, and that Malaysia presented an interesting and important case study for that purpose.