News coverage on Indonesia since the resignation of former President Suharto has been filled with images of sectarian violence and separatist agitation linked to 'fundamentalist' Islam. The ascent of Abdurrahman Wahid, former head of the 'traditionalist' Muslim clerics association, the Nahdlatul Ulama, to the Presidency of the nation at first suggested a shaky vigour in 'moderate' expressions of Islam. But as his second year in office begins, grave doubts loom as to the strength of the middle ground between so-called 'secular' and 'extremist Muslim' forces

Howell, J.D.

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Indonesia's Urban Sufis: Challenging Stereotypes of Islamic Revival

Leiden University Scholary Publications

Regional IssuesI S I M  N E W S L E T T E R  6 / 0 0 17Julia Day Howell is a senior lecturer at GriffithUniversity's School of Asian and InternationalStudies, Brisbane, Australia.E-mail: J.Howell@mailbox.gu.edu.auN o t e s :1. Geertz, Clifford (1960), The Religion of Java,Glencoe: The Free Press, p. 182.2. Howell, Julia Day, Subandi and Peter L. Nelson,'Indonesian Sufism, Signs of Resurgence', in: N e wTrends and Developments in the World of Islam,edited by Peter B. Clarke (1998), London: LuzacOriental; and Howell, Julia Day, Subandi and PeterL. Nelson, 'New Faces of Indonesian Sufism: ADemographic Profile of Tarekat Qodiriyyah-Naqsyabandiyyah, Pesantren Suryalaya in the1990s', forthcoming.3. Johns, Anthony, 'Tareqah', in: M. Eliade and C.Adams (eds.), Encyclopedia of Religion vol. 14, NewYork: McMillan, pp. 342-352.4. See also the talk by Jalaluddin Rakhmat's 'TheRevival of Sufism: Does It Help? A Glance at theModern Sufi Associations in Indonesia' (ISIM web site).So uthea st  As iaJ U L I A  D AY  H O W E L LNews coverage on Indonesia since the resignation offormer President Suharto has been filled with imagesof sectarian violence and separatist agitation linkedto 'fundamentalist' Islam. The ascent of Abdurrah-man Wahid, former head of the 'traditionalist' Mus-lim clerics association, the Nahdlatul Ulama, to thePresidency of the nation at first suggested a shakyvigour in 'moderate' expressions of Islam. But as hissecond year in office begins, grave doubts loom as tothe strength of the middle ground between so-called'secular' and 'extremist Muslim' forces.Indonesia's Urban Sufis:  Challenging Stereotypesof Islamic RevivalTelling the future of this nation in turmoil isfraught with difficulties, not least because ofthe likely manipulation of religious sentimentby cynical contestants for power. Attempts tounderstand how popular commitmentsgrounded in religion become mobilized inpolitical contests are also hampered by ourlimited vision of what religion means in dailylife in Indonesia today. Not only are termssuch as 'fundamentalist,' 'traditionalist,' and'secular' loosely defined and likely to carry in-appropriate implications when reading fromthe experience of one country to another, buteven within Indonesia the religious landscapehas been rapidly changing. Some 'traditional-ists' (like the pluralist Wahid) are looking in-congruously progressive, while 'modernists'(such as in Muhammadiyah) have been ac-cused, even by their own avant-garde, of get-ting stuck in outmoded visions of reform.While differences still nettle relations be-tween 'traditionalists' and modernists, re-markable commonalities have nonethelessemerged. These have been best documentedin the areas of public piety in the Muslim com-munity at large and in the debate amongstthe intelligentsia on interpretation in Islamiclaw. The rapid spread of literacy through thestate school system, especially since the1970s, and the requirement that pupils studytheir nominated religion (in nearly 9 out of 10cases, Islam) at every level of formal studies,have made for a more doctrinally informedand 'bookish' ummat. At the same time, thedepoliticization of religion under Suharto'sNew Order lowered social barriers between'strict' Muslims and others. These factors, plusthe rising world prestige of Islam after theIranian Revolution, supported an efflores-cence of popular piety that has cross-cut oldreligious/secular party politics and runsacross the social class hierarchy. Veiling hasspread from the kauman (the old 'strict Mus-lim' quarters of cities) to the university cam-puses; employees in Jakarta office towers aswell as batik manufacturers in Solonese kam-pungs take time off for Friday services. As forintellectual engagement in issues of inter-preting and applying Islamic law in a modernsociety, the degree of convergence in ap-proaches is signalled by the frequent use of asingle term, 'Neo-Modernism,' to characterizeboth progressives within the 'traditionalist'camp (such as Wahid) and those coming outof the Modernist movement (such as Nurchol-ish Madjid).The upsurge in interest in SufismWhat is perhaps the most surprising changein contemporary Islamic religiosity, however,and one that has played a significant role inconvergences in popular piety and jurispru-dence, is an upsurge of interest in Sufism. Par-ticularly remarkable is the fact that this inter-est is evident in the cities, not just in the coun-tryside, and is pursued by cosmopolitan so-phisticates as well as by provincials. Being amodern Muslim in Indonesia does not neces-sarily imply salafi fundamentalism; 'outward'signs of intensified piety may well betoken anew commitment to 'inner', Sufistic engage-ment with the faith.Some of the most influential sociologicalrepresentations of the Islamic world in the20th century, notably those of Ernest Gellnerand Clifford Geertz, cast Sufism as a predomi-nantly rural phenomenon. At mid centurythey saw it fading away along with tribal andpeasant life as Muslim societies underwentmodernization. In these views, Sufism, origi-nally propounded by urban sophisticates,after its distant heyday receded into the hin-terlands and was compromised by its toler-ance toward folk customs. Once a disciplinedpath of asceticism for spiritual purification,Sufism became in these constructions a set ofmagical practices suited to inspiring petty po-litical loyalties; once a means of mysticalknowing, it became merely a form of quickemotional release through suspect rituals.Gellner argued that the 20th century wasparticularly fateful for Sufis. Although theyhave always been vulnerable to purificationmovements led by urban clerics (ulama) be -cause of their lax attitude towards customarypractices and the spiritual pretensions ofreckless syechs, before the 20th century chas-tened Sufis were able to rebound. However,after the turn of the 20th century, he observed,modernist reform movements took a moreuncompromising approach, seeking to dele-gitimize Sufism entirely and to establish legal-istic (or 'scripturalist') constructions of Islamas definitive of orthodoxy.Geertz's highly influential ethnography ofJavanese society around the town of Pare inthe 1950s graphically illustrated this image ofSufi decline in the face of Modernist reform.The traditional centres of Muslim educationhe observed (the pesantren or pondok) werecast as vehicles for basic learning in law andtheology, while the Sufi orders (tarekat), oncecommonly associated with these schools, ap -peared to have nearly died out. Not only werethere very few tarekat, but his characteriza-tion of the ones he did observe as 'a kind ofold man's pondok'1 strongly suggested theywould not be around much longer. Whenthose elderly, poorly educated farmerspassed away, so would Java's Sufi orders. TheJavanese penchant for esoteric learningmight well survive in the numerous syncreticmystical groups (the golongan kebatinan orkepercayaan), but not within the fold of Islam.The spread of Sufism amongstthe intelligentsiaThat this might not have come to pass (orperhaps never was impending) was im-pressed on my attention in the late1980s afterhaving spent some years researching themystical groups and their association withthe Hindu and Buddhist reform movements.It was at that time that I met the respectedGadjah Mada University economist and for-mer Rector of the Universitas Islam Indonesiain Yogyakarta, Professor Aceh Partadiredja. Bythen he was himself a new member of theTarekat Qodiriyyah-Naqsyabandiyyah (TQN)centred on Pesantren Suryalaya in West Java.He introduced me to several young lecturers,including my research colleague Drs. Suban-di, MA, and other young Yogya professionalsinvolved in TQN and other orders. I learnedthat the widely reported Islamic revival on thecampuses (and elsewhere) included an in-tense interest in 'inner' religiosity. It seemedthat in the 1980s kebatinan (literally 'inward-ness' but more broadly 'mysticism outside thefold of Islam'), had largely failed to attract theyounger intelligentsia, but Islamic devotion-alism and Sufi mystical practices were engag-ing them. Sufi books were amongst thefastest selling of the religious titles; studentsorganized lectures on Sufism along withother Islamic topics; and orders like TQN wereattracting members of the educated middleclass and even Jakarta elites.Through the surveys we carried out on theYogyakarta and Tegal regional branches ofTQN Suryalaya in 1990 and 1997, we wereable to confirm the involvement of well-edu-cated, occupationally middle-class people,both old and young, in this order. In 1997,nearly two-fifths had junior high or highschool education, and just over 10% had atleast some tertiary education. Five had actual-ly done an MA and one had a PhD. Occupa-tions covered the full spectrum; and agesranged widely, from 16 to 97, with the bulk ofthe membership between 35 and 64. Sub-stantial numbers of women were in the sur-vey, along with men. Significantly, both theoverall membership numbers for thesebranches and the proportion of urbanitiesgrew over the 1990s.2 This tarekat, at least,was hardly 'an old man's pondok' confined toa disappearing peasantry.The new 'neo-Sufism'Although demographic survey data onother orders are not yet available, severalscholars, including Martin van Bruinessen,have recorded their impressions that Sufis or-ders are enjoying a new appeal in urbanareas. Zamakhsyari Dhofier and others havealso provided evidence of the continuing vi-tality of Sufi devotionalism in the pesantrensat mid century and the vigour of the tarekats.Indeed in 1957, at the very time that Geertzwas engaged in his Javanese field project, theNahdlatul Ulama formed its first council to co-ordinate the affairs of the tarekats run bymember ulamas.Apparently there is something to AnthonyJohn's wry comment about Sufi orders, that'Rumors of their impending death…are verymuch exaggerated'.3 But the issue of the ap-peal of Sufism to cosmopolitans needs to betaken beyond the study of Sufi orders, andeven beyond the devotional life of the pe-santren. Indeed a whole range of novel activi-ties identified with 'Sufism' or tasawuf arenow popular in Indonesia's major cities: fromreading reflective and 'how-to' spiritualbooks, to attending academically-styled pri-vate courses, to joining informal prayergroups or healing workshops using dzikirchanting, to accepting the spiritual directionof non-traditional teachers outside the con-ventional tarekat. The key features of thesenew-style 'Sufi' activities are their stated linkwith sharica-based Islam, their pursuit of anexperiential or 'inner' dimension to religiouslife, and a moving away from, or even rejec-tion of, the supposed hierarchy, authoritari-anism and 'other worldliness' of conventionaltarekats.4 This last feature distinguishes theNeo-Sufism of past generations (that at-tempted merely to distance Sufism from idol-atrous local practices and reassert the central-ity of the syarica without attempting major in-stitutional change) from this new 'Neo-Su-fism'. The new 'Neo-Sufism' (as some indeedcall it; it is also called 'Tasawuf Positif' or 'Prac-tical Sufism') responds specifically to the newconditions of Indonesian urbanism. Notwith-standing the ideological imperatives of na-tion building for an unambiguous, prescribedreligious identity, people are propelled intoprivatized styles of religiosity by their experi-ences of social and geographical mobility, ex-posure to global economic forces and cul-tures, and participation in international cul-tural activities.  ◆

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Indonesia's Urban Sufis: Challenging Stereotypes of Islamic Revival

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