Islam on the Move

Much nuance and variability have been lost in the process of the reductivist analysis of Islam post 9/11 and, as this study amply demonstrates, we are all the poorer as a result. This exhaustive examination of the rise and spread of the Tablighi Jama't, arguably the world's largest Islamic missionary movement, locates it in the larger perspective of global Islam and developments in the Muslim societies. Combining an overview of the history and current socio-political perception of the Tablighi Jama'at with a more analytical and philosophical approach to fundamental questions of identity, subject-positioning and representation, the author creates a comprehensive resource of interest to all scholars and students of Islam. Drawing on exhaustive research and records of conversion narratives of the new members of Tablighi Jama'at, cited here at length, the author creates a unique perspective on this complex phenomenon from both an internal and external viewpoints. Ahmad-Noor locates the spiritual framework of the movement in the context of its perception in the eyes of the political and religious authorities of the countries where it has a following, as well as the Western 'securocrat' approach.Dit uitgebreide onderzoek naar de opkomst van de Tablighi Jama'at plaatst deze massale islamitische missiebeweging in het grotere perspectief van de wereldwijde ontwikkelingen binnen de moslimgemeenschap. Noor vergelijkt het spirituele kader van de beweging met de opvattingen van de politieke en religieuze autoriteiten in de landen van herkomst van de aanhangers, en met de westerse 'securocratische' benadering

Re-orienting the ‘West’? The Transnational Debate on the Status of the ‘West’ in the Debates among Islamist Intellectuals and Students from the 1970s to the Present

This paper will look at the process of transnational transfer of ideas, beliefs and value-systems, with a special emphasis on the transfer of Islamist ideas and ideals through the vector of student movements and organisations that were set up in Western Europe and North America as well as the rise of a new generation of Islamist intellectuals in Malaysia in the late 1960s for whom the idea of the ‘West’ was turned on its head and re-cast in negative terms. It begins by looking at how the ‘West’ was initially cast in positive terms as the ideal developmental model by the first generation of post-colonial elites in Malaysia, and how – as a result of the crisis of governance and the gradual decline in popularity of the ruling political coalition – the ‘West’ was subsequently re-cast in negative terms by the Islamists of the 1960s and 1970s who sought instead to turn Malaysia into an Islamic society from below. As a consequence of this dialectical confrontation between the ruling statist elite and the nascent Islamist opposition in Malaysia, the idea of the ‘West’ has remained as the central constitutive Other to Islam and Muslim identity, and this would suggest that the Islamist project of the1970s to the present remains locked in a mode of oppositional dialectics that nonetheless requires the presence of the ‘West’ as its constitutive Other, be it in positive or negative terms

When the World Came to Banten: Images of Cosmopolitanism and Pluralism in Java in the Writings of Theodore de Bry 1601

This paper aims to demonstrate that pluralism has always been part and parcel of ordinary human lives in Indonesia, and that is was the normmas far back as the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries when Muslim power was at its height in Java and the rest of the archipelago, long before themadvent of European colonial-capitalism and long before the decline ofmMuslim political-economic power. It hopes to provide a counterfactual argument that shows that cosmopolitanism and pluralism were indeed part of daily political-economic life then, and that Indonesian Muslims were in fact able to live in such a cosmopolitan environment where pluralism was not regarded as a threat or a reason for mass-scale moral panic. The opposite was the case that when Muslim economic-political power was at its height in Java, Javanese Muslims were at their most accommodating and welcoming towards foreigners of diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds. In order to highlight such pluralism evidence, our reference will be the work of the writer Johann Theodorus de Bry, whose work Icones Indiae Orientalis was published in 1601.Keywords: Pluralism, Cosmopolitanism, Banten, Theodorus de Bry, Seventeenth Centur

When the World Came to Banten

This paper aims to demonstrate that pluralism has always been part and parcel of ordinary human lives in Indonesia, and that is was the normmas far back as the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries when Muslim power was at its height in Java and the rest of the archipelago, long before themadvent of European colonial-capitalism and long before the decline ofmMuslim political-economic power. It hopes to provide a counterfactual argument that shows that cosmopolitanism and pluralism were indeed part of daily political-economic life then, and that Indonesian Muslims were in fact able to live in such a cosmopolitan environment where pluralism was not regarded as a threat or a reason for mass-scale moral panic. The opposite was the case that when Muslim economic-political power was at its height in Java, Javanese Muslims were at their most accommodating and welcoming towards foreigners of diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds. In order to highlight such pluralism evidence, our reference will be the work of the writer Johann Theodorus de Bry, whose work Icones Indiae Orientalis was published in 1601

Islam on the Move

Much nuance and variability have been lost in the process of the reductivist analysis of Islam post 9/11 and, as this study amply demonstrates, we are all the poorer as a result. This exhaustive examination of the rise and spread of the Tablighi Jama't, arguably the world's largest Islamic missionary movement, locates it in the larger perspective of global Islam and developments in the Muslim societies. Combining an overview of the history and current socio-political perception of the Tablighi Jama'at with a more analytical and philosophical approach to fundamental questions of identity, subject-positioning and representation, the author creates a comprehensive resource of interest to all scholars and students of Islam. Drawing on exhaustive research and records of conversion narratives of the new members of Tablighi Jama'at, cited here at length, the author creates a unique perspective on this complex phenomenon from both an internal and external viewpoints. Ahmad-Noor locates the spiritual framework of the movement in the context of its perception in the eyes of the political and religious authorities of the countries where it has a following, as well as the Western 'securocrat' approach

Attack, Reprisal and dealing with the Media Fall-Out: The Battle of Quallah Battoo in 1832

Abstra

Commémorer les femmes, oblitérer l’Empire

For a host of disaffected, peripatetic Europeans, the invented « East » represented the antidote to their mental anguish, social malaise or personal angst, a haven whose facade of social liberation was underwritten by social subjugation. Julian Clancy-Smith, The Passionate Nomad Reconsidered. En janvier 2000, le film Anna et le roi sortit simultanément en Amérique, en Europe et en Asie, avec l’actrice Jodie Foster et l’acteur chinois Chau Yun Fatt. Le public occidental fut séduit par les imag..

The Burkini Debate in France: Triggering Painful Colonial Memories

The decision to ban the ‘burkini’ – a form of beachwear favoured by Muslim women today – in parts of France has sparked a reaction from Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It has developed into a heated debate about French identity and the assimilationist policies of the secular French state. But reports of women being forced to undress themselves in public have also triggered memories of France’s colonial policies in the past, and may do more harm than good to the process of integration in France today

The Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) in the landscape of Indonesian Islamist politics : cadre-training as mode of preventive radicalisation?

The Partai Keadilan Sejahtera PKS is one of the younger parties in Indonesia today, yet it has established itself as a national party with branch offices all over the Indonesian archipelago and representation in government at all levels. When it first came onto the scene of Indonesian politics it was criticized by Indonesian liberal intellectuals as a ‘Trojan horse’ for further Islamisation of Indonesia. However some of Indonesia’s more radical and militant Islamist groups have in turn criticized the PKS for ‘selling out’ by joining the democratic political process. This paper looks at the cadre-training system of the PKS, which may be the most disciplined and rationalized in the country today, and addresses the question of whether the PKS’s cadre-training system is the factor that has kept it on its political course, and within the bounds of constitutional-legal democratic politics

The 1Malaysia project : uniting and dividing at the same time

In the lead-up to the 13th General Elections in Malaysia, which remains divided along ethnic, religious and linguistic lines. Prime Minister Najib Razak has been promoting the idea of ‘1Malaysia’ as an inclusive nationalist project that brings together the disparate communities of the country. But his efforts to unite Malaysians have been dampened by resistance both from within and without the fold of his Barisan Nasional coalition