The dissemination of Islam in Indonesia in the twentieth century has been a process inextricably bound up with the active engagement of Southeast Asians with their emerging national communities. As Benedict Anderson has argued, such communities were increasingly “imagined” from the nineteenth century through the crucial engine of “print capitalism”, both regionally and in the world at large, and in ways that superseded older faith-based identities (Anderson 1991). For the Indonesian case though, I have argued that this process of imagining was more complicated, and that it drew upon, and was reinforced by, the communal experiences of Muslim pilgrims as they crossed the well-worn paths of their home isles or were carried by steamers across the sea-lanes of the Indian Ocean (Laffan 2003).

Over time, many such sojourners would return to their home ports or hinterland communities with thoughts about their faith, their place in the world, and how the practice of the former might impact on the rank of the latter. Certainly the debates that were set in motion — most often concerning modernity, independence and reform — suffused the growing public sphere. Indeed they had their after-effects well into the end of the twentieth century, although the present state of doctrinal alignments — between “modernists”, “traditionalists” and (more recently) “Salafists”, tends to obscure the instabilities and shifting nature of the positions taken by their forerunners.

In this chapter I therefore wish to revisit an early stage in the process of “modern” religious change in Southeast Asia by a close textual analysis of passages in the seminal Malay journal al-Imam (The Leader). I shall do so mainly in order to ascertain the extent to which its programme aligned with that imputed to the Cairo-based Muslim reformers Muhammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905) and Rashid Rida (1865–1935). More specifically, I will examine the arguments that were voiced in respect of the acceptable role of Sufism in the modern world.

By the end of 1918 Sinn Féin had achieved most of its important objectives – except, of course, the achievement of an independent Irish republic. It had converted and organized nationalist opinion, defeated the Parliamentary Party, and secured the election of a large Sinn Féin majority among Irish MPs. These representatives could now proceed to establish a parliament and government in Dublin. The new scheme of organization approved by the October 1917 convention had been in operation for a year. The party had expanded to the natural limit of its membership, it had reached its peak, and it would soon decline.

Between 1919 and 1921 British censorship and suppression, followed by the hazards and horrors of war, would limit Sinn Féin's effectiveness and undermine its organization. The activities of the Volunteers would relegate it to a subordinate position, and the party would even be displaced as the main civilian expression of Irish separatism. Its moment of triumph in December 1918 is an appropriate point at which to examine Sinn Féin under various headings: how it was organized; the extent to which its aims and structures responded to Irish realities; who its members were; what they did; and how party membership affected their lives.

Theory

In some respects Sinn Féin's constitution and its scheme of organization were abstract constructs, irrelevant to the party's real life and inappropriate to the circumstances of the time.

Sinn Féin's achievements of the previous two years reached their apogee on 21 January 1919 with the formal opening of the first Dáil Éireann, or Irish parliament. The Act of Union was formally repudiated, the Irish republic which had been proclaimed in arms in 1916 was now confirmed by a democratically elected assembly, and (at least in theory) the newly elected MPs could proceed to legislate for their country. The Sinn Féin deputies could choose a government and begin to implement Griffith's long-term programme.

While these events were taking place in the Mansion House, a group of nine Volunteers waited in ambush by the side of a road at Soloheadbeg in Tipperary. They then seized a cart laden with gelignite, and in the course of their action they killed the two RIC constables who guarded the consignment. The operation was on a small scale and it was bungled; the gelignite was taken, but the detonators were left behind. The killing of the policemen may have been unintentional, and may have been another sign of an operation which had gone wrong. However, this incident came to be seen in retrospect as the opening round in the Anglo-Irish War, or the War of Independence, which would last until the truce of July 1921. The achievements of the triumphant Sinn Féin party and of the newly elected Dáil would be overshadowed by those of the IRA, as the Volunteers were now more often called.

Soon after he displaced Asquith as prime minister in December 1916, Lloyd George decided to release all the remaining Irish internees; only those who had been tried and sentenced for their involvement in the Easter Rising remained in jail. This proved to be the first step in the revival of the separatist movement, and Redmond must soon have regretted his recent advice that ‘they can do much more harm as prisoners in Frongoch than at liberty in Ireland’. The combined efforts of political veterans such as Griffith and of younger activists such as Collins transformed Irish public life within the next six months. Herbert Moore Pim and others who had flourished in their absence were soon hustled back to obscurity.

Early in the new year the released prisoners and detainees began reorganizing the Volunteers, the body to which most of them had belonged before Easter Week. But they also reactivated the political wing of the separatist movement which had been dormant for many years. Gradually the tone of police reports became more apprehensive. In Clare, for instance, it was noted that ‘in each place where an interned prisoner has returned, the Sinn Feiners have begun to meet, use seditious expressions and up to a certain point defy law and authority’.