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- All Subjects: indonesia
- Creators: Doty, Roxanne L
- Creators: Edmonds, James Michael
Description
Several Islamic organizations have experience major changes in their theological frames and political identities away from fundamentalist and revivalist theological orientation to one that embraces a progressive Islamic theology that synthesizes these norms with classical Islamic teachings. What are the factors that explain these theological changes? What are the causal mechanisms that help to promote them? Using the moral authority leadership theory, I argue that Islamic groups would be able to change their theological frames and political identities if the changes are promoted by religious leaders with 'moral authority' status, who are using both ideational and instrumental strategies to reconstruct the theological frames of their organizations. In addition to moral authority leadership, intermediary variables that also affect the likelihood of a theological change within Islamic groups are the institutional culture of the organization - the degree of tolerance for non-Islamic theological teachings - and the relationship between the Islamic group and the state. This study is a comparative historical analysis of two Indonesian Islamic groups: the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the Muhammadiyah. It finds that the NU was able to successfully change its theological positions due to the presence of a charismatic moral authority leader, the tolerant institutional culture within the organization, and the ability of the organization to ally with the Suharto regime, allowing the reform to be institutionalized with little intervention from the regime. On the other hand, theological reform within the Muhammadiyah was not successful due to the lack of a leader with moral authority status who could have led the reforms within the organization, as well as to the dominance of a revivalist institutional culture that does not tolerate any challenges to their interpretation of Islamic theology. The analysis makes theoretical contributions on the role of religious leadership within Islamic movements and the likelihood of Islamic groups to adopt liberal political norms such as democracy, religion-state separation, and tolerance toward religious minorities. It identifies the mechanisms in which theological change within Islamic group become possible.
ContributorsArifianto, Alex (Author) / Iheduru, Okechukwu C (Thesis advisor) / Warner, Carolyn M (Committee member) / Rush, James R (Committee member) / Doty, Roxanne L (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Much of the anthropological and Islamic studies focus in recent years has addressed the shifting forms of Islamic piety across Muslim majority societies. The analysis of this shift in Islamic practice and belief has enveloped the changing sensibilities around technologies, social strata, democracy, law, and everyday life. In light of these transformations, after the fall of the Indonesian New Order in 1998, the performances of Islamic devotional songs (salawat) by Habib Syech bin Abdul Qadir Assegaf (Habib Syech) began bringing millions of people together across Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Although salawat has typically been performed in remembrance of the birth of Prophet Muhammad (mawlid) in localized celebrations. The performances of salawat by Habib Syech, on the other hand, occur fifteen or more times a month with crowds swelling to tens of thousands across multiple nation-states. Habib Syech’s salawat performances furthermore appeal to and bring together diverse Muslim populations that have historically been more divided. Habib Syech’s gatherings reveal how popular forms of piety are shifting in conjunction with profound societal changes in Indonesia and other Muslim communities. In untangling the popularity of Habib Syech’s gatherings, it was not until I became entangled in the rhythm of salawat that baraka, often translated as blessings, emerged as a slippery, elusive, and living helping propel the popularity of this phenomena. The guttural cries of my interlocutors (baraka, baraka, baraka) resonate and summon a methodology that takes the visible and invisible together in understanding the concept and life of baraka. I, like my interlocutors, began hunting baraka as an alternative, living concept that challenges understandings of Islam in Indonesia driven by Islamic civil organizations, prescriptive vs everyday Islamic piety, and Western interpretations of the world as disenchanted. This dissertation is an exploration of new opportunities for understanding religion in the modern world that emerge from the ethnographic field through the life of baraka.
ContributorsEdmonds, James Michael (Author) / Talebi, Shahla (Thesis advisor) / Bennett, Gaymon (Committee member) / Haines, Charles (Committee member) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021