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8 - Salafism, Knowledge Production, and Religious Education in Indonesia
- Edited by Norshahril Saat, Ahmad Najib Burhani
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- Book:
- The New Santri
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 24 November 2020
- Print publication:
- 24 August 2020, pp 131-150
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Summary
Over the last decades, Indonesia has seen the growing impact of Saudi transnational proselytization and religious funding. Owing to the generous support by Saudi Arabia, dakwah activities focusing on promoting Salafism proliferated, and this is followed by the establishment of Salafi-oriented foundations and madrasahs in Indonesia. During the shifting political stance in the 1990s, the Salafis succeeded in establishing an exclusivist version of Islamic activism in Indonesia within the religious authorities. Due to the intensified Salafi campaign, Indonesian Muslims have been increasingly susceptible to the influences of rigid purification of faith that hardly accepts the diversity of religious expression and culture. This new type of Islamic activism also posed a challenge not only to existing religious authority but also to the legitimacy of established Muslim organizations.
The Saudi campaign impacted schools and university education through the production of Salafi-inspired literature. Translated works by ‘Aid al-Qarni, Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, and Muhammad Salih al-Uthaimin are among the favourite references taught in Islamic schools and colleges. Salafi-oriented publishers are concerned with the production of such literatures, and they work shoulder-to-shoulder with Salafi preachers who have completed their studies in Salafi centres of learning in the Middle East. The Salafis believe that their main mission is to purify Muslim beliefs and practices and to educate them based on “correct” interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah, in accordance with the example set by the pious forefathers (Salaf al-Salih). The first is called tasfiyya (purification) and the second tarbiyya (education).
This chapter explores the practices of knowledge production, religious authority and education among the Salafi circles in Indonesia, and how they have exerted their influence beyond their own circles. More specifically, I will be looking at how doctrinal competition and ideological conflict are reflected in the discourse and literature produced by Salafi authorities. I will also be examining the role played by Salafi preachers and authorities, both in producing literature and in contextualizing and appropriating Salafi messages into the education system. Before tackling these issues, the historical background of Salafism in Indonesia will be examined.
The Efflorescence of Salafism
The efflorescence of Salafism in Indonesia—evident by the growing number of young Muslim men wearing jalabiyya (Arab-style flowing robes) and women wearing niqab (a form of enveloping black veil) in public places—might not be isolated from Saudi Arabia's politics of expanding their geopolitical influence throughout the Muslim world.
8 - From Apolitical Quietism to Jihadist Activism: “Salafis”, Political Mobilization, and Drama of Jihad in Indonesia
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- By Noorhaidi Hasan, Islamic State University
- Edited by Azyumardi Azra, Kees van Dijk, Nico J. G. Kaptein
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- Book:
- Varieties of Religious Authority
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 30 April 2010, pp 139-156
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Summary
Jihad is often perceived as an expression of religious fanaticism and is mostly associated with the outrageous acts of irrational, insane individuals inspired by their firm belief in radical religious doctrines. Although there is some plausibility in this perception, it fails to uncover the deeper meaning of jihad. Jihad is also a language of protest that can be used by marginalized individuals to construct their identity and thereby their position in the public sphere. For them, jihad is a message conveyed to display attempts to transform and empower their marginalization and break out of their own sense of frustration.
The rise of Laskar Jihad, which from April 2000 until its disbanding in October 2002 mobilized more than 7,000 members to fight jihad against Christians in the Moluccas and other Indonesian trouble spots, perfectly represents an attempt made by a group of people to negotiate their identity through the call for jihad and the particular kind of violence it enacted. This organization was a paramilitary division of the Forum Komunikasi Ahl al- Sunnah wal-Jama'ah (Communication Forum of the Followers of the Sunna and the Community of the Prophet) established by those who identify themselves as “Salafis”, followers of the pious ancestors (Salaf al-Salih), active under the banner of the salafi dakwah movement.
THE SALAFI DAKWAH MOVEMENT
The salafi dakwah movement began to exert its influence throughout Indonesia in the mid-1980s, by developing a stance of apolitical quietism. Unlike other Islamic organizations, both home-grown and transnational, which had proliferated earlier, this movement was squarely within the puritanical classic Salafi-Wahhabi tradition. Its main concern covered matters of creed and morality, such as strict monotheism, anti-sufism, divine attributes, purifying Islam from accretions, and developing the moral integrity of the individual. True to their advocacy of the espousal of the return to the doctrine of the Salaf al-Salih, members avoided discussing politics, or, more precisely, engaging questions of political power.
9 - The Salafi Madrasas of Indonesia
- Edited by Farish A. Noor, Yoginder Sikand, Martin van Bruinessen
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- Book:
- The Madrasa in Asia
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 19 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 13 October 2008, pp 247-274
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Introduction
Indonesia has long been familiar with that Islamic education institution called the madrasa. In the contemporary Indonesian context, the term refers to primary and secondary Islamic schools adopting a modern system of education, in which Islamic subjects are taught alongside general subjects. The main aim of the madrasa is to produce graduates like those from modern-style ‘secular’ schools, called sekolah, but is distinguished by its having a better understanding of Islam. Today there are more than 37,000 madrasas scattered throughout Indonesia. Some of them belong to private Islamic organisations, and another important portion are controlled by the government's Department of Religious Affairs. Another Islamic education institution which operates in Indonesia is the pesantren. Slightly different from the madrasa, the pesantren is a rural-based Islamic educational institution which teaches exclusively Islamic subjects, using kitab kuning (classical Arabic books), with the main aim of producing religious authorities. This institution is overwhelmingly identified with the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). It is an exemplary Islamic teaching centre in which the kyai, the traditional Javanese ᒼalim, serves as the central figure. Spurred on by the emerging modernist discourse at the beginning of the twentieth-century, other Muslim organisations, including Muhammadiyah, Al Irsyad and Persis, have also developed their own pesantrens, which appear to be a strong embodiment of Islamic modernism, combining features of both the madrasa and pesantren systems.
Besides these older madrasas and pesantrens, known for their relatively moderate understanding of Islam, there has more recently emerged a number of conservative, if not exclusivist, Islamic educational institutions of a new type. Some of these have been involved in providing breeding grounds for violent mobilisation conducted by militant Islamic groups that rose in the aftermath of the collapse of Suharto's New Order regime in May 1998. These institutions generally grew out of Indonesia's increasingly closer connections with the dynamics of transnational Muslim politics over the last 20 years. One such example is the Salafi madrasas, Islamic teaching centres associated with those who explicitly identify themselves as Salafis, literally meaning the followers of the pious forefathers, al-salaf al-salih. They believe that to follow the salaf al-salih means to submit to the absolute literal word of the Qur’an and the sunna, and that this submission will determine whether one can be called Muslim or not.
15 - September 11 and Islamic Militancy in Post-New Order Indonesia
- from PART FOUR - IMPACT OF SEPTEMBER 11 ON ISLAMIC THOUGHT AND PRACTICE
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- By Noorhaidi Hasan, International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)
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- Book:
- Islam in Southeast Asia
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 03 November 2017
- Print publication:
- 21 March 2005, pp 301-324
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INTRODUCTION
On 11 September 2001, a tragedy occurred in the United States. Three jetliners hijacked by terrorists struck the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the principal symbols of American hegemony. Another hijacked jetliner tried to crash into the White House but failed, and plummeted into an open field in Pennsylvania. Within the space of twenty minutes, the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and part of the Pentagon collapsed, with the loss of more than three thousand lives. Mass hysteria and sorrow immediately afflicted not only American society, but also all civilized nations throughout the world. They strongly condemned the attacks and sent their sympathies to the victims. As an immediate response to the attacks, President George W. Bush proclaimed a “global crusade” against “terrorism”. He asked the entire world to join an anti-terrorist coalition, in order to defeat Osama bin Laden and his internationally operating terrorist network, Al Qaeda, which was accused of being responsible for the attacks. He even took a vow to retaliate by bombing Afghanistan, a country ruled by the Taliban regime and considered to have provided a haven for Osama bin Laden and his organization. From this tragedy, the world has apparently entered a new phase of global war, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war.
Various effects have been produced by the September 11 tragedy and its aftermath. Direct reactions to the tragedy appeared in different parts of the world. In the West there emerged sporadic attacks against Muslim immigrants and their symbols of existence, indicating the increase of anti-Islam sentiment. Such a sentiment was intertwined with the fear of the threat of terrorism associated with Islam, exacerbated by the anti-terrorist campaigns by the United States. Similarly, in the Muslim world, reactions to September 11 arose in many places, but with different concerns, where protests against George W. Bush's proclamation of a global war were voiced. These reactions significantly correlated with the increase of anti-American sentiment in particular and the rise of Islamic radicalism in general. Witnessing these events, it is difficult to deny that the clash between the Western world and the Muslim world is somehow really legitimizing Huntington's thesis about the clash of civilizations.