The Study of Islam in Indonesia: A 75-Year Retrospective on a Post-Orientalist Collaboration

This special issue retrospective on the study of Islam in Indonesia chronicles several disciplinary approaches, methodological strategies, and theoretical interventions in the study of the social, economic, political, artistic, and religious life of Islam, across nearly eight decades of Indonesian independence. As a collection of essays in the spirit of reflection on a wide corpus of scholarship, these essays cover an incredible breadth of ground. This introduction offers some context for the intellectual vision of this panel (moving towards Post-Orientalist collaborations) and ponders possible future models of research and scholarship that are cognizant of trends in postcolonial theory and decolonial thought that seek to diversify and amplify voices on the margin, not simply for the sake of diverse representation, but especially to expand and sharpen our understandings of Islam in Indonesia

Gender and Islam in Indonesian Studies, A Retrospective

This essay considers continuities and discontinuities in the study of gender and Islam in Indonesia since the 1960s, tracing key themes that emerged early on and in many cases continue to animate contemporary scholarly discussion. Important themes include enduring patterns of matrifocality; the complementarity of gender roles; and the “essential bilateralism” of gender orders – which have led to assessments of the “relatively high status of Southeast Asian women.” This essay will focus on the impact of the resurgent interest in Islam on Indonesian gender studies from the 1980s until today, emphasizing the evolving status and role of women in the context of recent social and political developments and the rise of a new Indonesian Muslim middle class. It argues for the continuing importance of local, on-the-ground case studies that speak to broader regional patterns but also to Indonesia’s impressive ethnic and regional diversity

The Social Scientific Study of Islam in Indonesia: A 75 Year Retrospective

This essay provides an historical overview of broad currents in the social scientific study of Islam in Indonesia from the Modjokuto project of the early 1950s to today. It makes three broad points. First, the essay shows that a perennial influence on the refiguration of Muslim politics and ethics in Indonesia has been, not scriptural principles alone, but the global ascendance of the modern nation state and Muslim intellectuals’ and politicians’ efforts to craft a Muslim public ethics consonant with the realities of a modern and religiously plural nation. Second, the essay shows that another feature of the social scientific study of Islam in Indonesia has been the ascendance of Indonesia-born Muslim intellectuals to positions of intellectual leadership in the field. Third, the overview makes clear that one of the most important recent achievements of this social scientific research has been to explain how Indonesia succeeded in developing the most effective and sustainable democracy in the Muslim-majority world

Paradigms, Models, and Counterfactuals: Decolonializing the Study of Islam in Indonesia

Decolonializing the study of Islam in Indonesia is a complex process. It involves not only the critique of colonial paradigms as instruments of domination and assessment of the ways in which they have shaped “normal science” (Kuhn 1962) research, but also the ways in which findings from them can contribute to the development of post-colonial, post-orientalist perspectives. This paper focuses on three themes. First: the ways in which research by two important colonial scholars concerned with Indonesian Islam, Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) and Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) contributed to the formation of paradigms that endured for more than a century; second: the ways in which these paradigms contributed to the development of models of Indonesian Islams and finally steps necessary for the development of genuinely post-colonial, post-orientalist models and paradigms. Exploration of these issues relies on analytic tools from cultural anthropology, the philosophy of science and political science

Shedding Light on Indonesian Islam: The Latest Trends from Europe

On December 13, 2024, the Institute for Languages and Cultures of the Islamicate World at the University of Cologne held the “Indonesian Studies Day 2024” in Cologne, Germany. Chaired by Prof. Dr. Edwin P. Wieringa (Professor of Indonesian Philology, University of Cologne) and co-chaired by Muhammad Nida’ Fadlan (PhD researcher in Indonesian Islamic Philology, University of Cologne), this academic event focused on the intersection of religion, culture, and identity within the context of Islam in Indonesia. It served as a colloquium that gathered Indonesian PhD students in Europe to discuss the latest research on this subject. There were two main reasons for this event. First, Indonesia is a country that is globally still unfamiliar to many people, even though it has the largest population of Muslims in the world. The attempts to showcase the rich Islamic heritage of Indonesia have not yet been very successful. Second and relatedly, there is still a need to promote academic activities related to Indonesian Islamic studies. This forum brought together doctoral students from different European universities who are researching various topics related to Indonesian Islam, enabling profound and fruitful discussions. By coming together, this intellectual gathering encourages and furthers research in this area

Sharia Yes, Sharia State No: Negosiasi dan Akomodasi Syari’ah di Indonesia

Syafiq Hasyim. 2023. Shariatization of Indonesia, the Politics of the Council of Indonesian Ulama (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI). Leiden: Brill. Wael Hallaq. 2013. The Impossible State, Islam, Politics, and Modernity's Moral Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press. The two works discussed in this book review examine how Sharia norms are negotiated and accommodated in modern nation-states. This process is inevitable as Muslims are confronted with the persistence of the nation-state and the theological obligation to apply Sharia norms in their lives. Although Hallaq's work is very pessimistic in saying that paradigmatically the two systems are impossible to reconcile, his work can serve as an important background for understanding Hasyim's work which discusses in detail how Sharia is accommodated in the legal order and public life in Indonesia, highlighting the role of the MUI as the main institution of this accommodation process. Hasyim's work tries to answer three important questions: how and in what way MUI plays a role in the process of sharization; what its implications in law and public life in Indonesia are and how the process came about; and how the state and society respond to this sharization

Documenting the Half-Century Evolution of Islamic Education Research: A Probabilistic Topic Modeling Study of the Literature from 1970 to 2023

In this systematic literature review, I used Correlated Topic Modeling (CTM), a machine learning technique, to analyze 1,116 Scopus-indexed documents on Islamic education spanning 54 years (1970-2023). I identified 19 topics grouped into four thematic clusters: Foundational Concepts and Methods, Social Issues, Teaching and Learning, and Education Systems and Settings. My main argument is that Islamic education is inherently interdisciplinary, encompassing history, philosophy, leadership, policy, citizenship, gender, and technology. While some topics, like education history and values education, have seen consistent focus, others, such as citizenship, education policy, and student learning, remain underexplored. My analysis reveals the field’s adaptability to societal and technological changes. Particularly, I discuss the implications for Southeast Asia’s Islamic education, which has balanced modernization and national policies with global trends. By pioneering machine learning applications in this field, this review uncovers new research directions and demonstrates the potential of large-scale text analysis for Islamic education scholarship

The Scribe of Sufi-Philosophical Letters: Shaykh Yūsuf of Makassar’s Formative Decades (1640s-1660s) in Arabia and Syria

This article addresses the circumstances surrounding Shaykh Yūsuf’s pursuit of knowledge, which involved traveling overseas via India to study and teach in Ottoman Arabia and Syria. The article’s main objective is to focus on the period during which Shaykh Yūsuf played an intellectual role as a scribe in Aleppo, Damascus, and Medina between the 1650s and the 1660s. This will be achieved by utilizing the manuscript collections at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Firestone Library of Princeton University, and the National Library of Indonesia, in addition to other archival evidence. These underexplored manuscripts will provide a more comprehensive account of Shaykh Yūsuf’s Arabian years, which I contend were a pivotal period in his intellectual development. Moreover, this period offers an additional perspective on the dissemination of knowledge from the post-Timurid intellectual tradition, which was oriented towards the advancement of theological-philosophical sciences, and which became prevalent in Medina before being disseminated in the second half of the seventeenth century

Educating Ulama to Address Climate Change: The Greenpeace MENA-Ummah for Earth

To address the question of how extensively Islamic institutions have integrated climate change and environmental (CCE) issues into their curriculum, the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) at UIN Jakarta, in collaboration with Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Ummah for Earth, launched the Greenpeace MENA-Ummah for Earth program. This initiative, which began in July 2023, aims to analyze the curricula of Islamic universities and develop strategies for addresing climate and environmental principles into teaching materials. The program seeks to strengthen the role of Muslim community, particularly the Ulama, in promoting environmental conservation efforts

al-Ḥarāk al-ṣūfī wa al-daʿwah al-insānīyyah fī Indūnīsīyā: Ḥālah al-Ḥabīb Abī Bakr al-ʿAṭṭās al-Zabīdī

Studies on Ba'alawi preachers in Indonesia have predominantly focused on popular figures who utilize new media and popular culture in their preaching to appeal to young Muslims. However, there has been a lack of attention given to Ba'alawi preachers who avoid publicity and prioritize humanitarian activities. This article examines the case of Ḥabīb Abū Bakr al-‘Aṭṭās al-Zabīdī (popularly known as Abuya/My Father by his followers), who has garnered a significant following across several Indonesian provinces. His followers regard him as a generous, peace-oriented Sufi who not only advocates for spreading peace and kindness but also embodies these values through humanitarian acts towards those in need, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. This article explores his mobility in business and da'wah across Indonesia and analyzes the methods he uses to distribute charities and empower Muslim communities. The case of Habib Abubakar demonstrates that Sufism transcends mere individual asceticism and detachment from worldly possessions; rather, its spiritual essence is manifested through active involvement in social and humanitarian affairs