Islam in Contemporary Society

The question of how far the involvement of Muslims should go in matters of this world has of course not only affected their stand towards Eterature but concerns all spheres of social and poEtical life.

Here again it becomes difficult to draw clear lines. Traditionalists might have attempted to keep themselves away from this world and might have been persuaded more easily to accept any worldly rule whatever as long as they were allowed to live their religion in peace. But on the other hand, in the history of the archipelago traditionalists more than others have been involved in local uprisings and the struggle for an Islamic state. Ironically the modernists, who in many ways speak the language of the secularists, perhaps because of their involvement in the world, found themselves in sympathy with the ideals of the Darul Islam too. Masyumi, the political party of the modernists, was barred under Soekarno for its reluctance to dissociate itself convincingly from the rebellions, and for the same reason not even under the New Order was Masyumi allowed to reorganise itself.

The roots of the weakness of Indonesian Islam as a political force go back to colonial days and beyond. As was said earlier, already in pre-colonial times strict MusEms were usually more concerned with the life thereafter than with the world around them. Admittedly, if one takes for example the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century city-state of Aceh, there is evidence that this state maintained diplomatic relations with Turkey as the seat of the caliphate. (Turkish soldiers served as auxiliary forces with the Acehnese and Turkish cannons were much in use.) Court life in Aceh was moulded on the example provided by the Mogul court. Local rulers in Sumatra andjava (Banten) were concerned to have their authority sanctioned and their credentials certified in Mecca. When in the second half of the seventeenth century a succession of sultanas came to reign over Aceh, a timely fatwa from Mecca brought an end to this tradition.

Despite these examples and despite the courtly literature of seventeenth-century Aceh, it is questionable how far the government of the traditional Indonesian states was truly Islamic in nature as advocated by Raja AH Haji in the nineteenth century. It would seem that Islamic titles often had little more than token significance and served merely as an additional device to underpin ideologically a ruler’s authority and legitimacy. Few rulers are known ever to have made the pilgrimage.

In the twentieth century it was therefore not totally surprising that whenever Islam strove to assume real control over the secular authorities, it was to meet resistance. Nevertheless, in the eyes of Muslims it is tragic that, although the origins of the nationalist movement are closely linked with the foundation of a modernist Islamic organisation, the Sarekat (Dagong) Islam (Islamic (trading) Union), in 1911, the relationship between state and mosque has worsened so much that, since the defeat of the Communists by the New Order, organised Islam is now considered, to an unexpected degree, a major political threat to the state.

The basically secular foundation of the state and the pluralism of Indonesian society had obvious implications for the legal and political life ofits Islamic citizens. There exist courts of religious (i.e. Islamic) justice whose jurisdiction, however, hardly extends beyond the family sphere and relates only to marriage, revocation, divorce, custody and guardianship (Hooker, 1983). This of course is resented by many Muslims and it is an indication of the strength of their feelings that an attempt by the government in 1974 to bring the marriage law into line with civil law in general faltered in the face of Islamic opposition. Then, for the first time in the history of the Republic, a pressure group (Islamic students in this case) invaded Parliament and staged a demonstration inside the building which led the government to rethink the proposed bill.

Despite this particular success, Muslims have been least successful on the political front.

The fact that adherence to the sy aria was not made compulsory for all Indonesian Muslims in the Constitution of 1945 remains an unresolved issue. One draft of the preamble of that constitution which sets out the state philosophy in five tenets known as the Pancasila had as its first principle ‘the belief in one God with the duty for all Muslims to follow the syaria’. This particular draft, which contains in seven Indonesian words words this special proviso for Muslims and which is now known as the Piagam Jakarta or Jakarta Charter, was not acceptable to all those involved in drafting the Constitution, and in the final and constitutional version of the Pacasila the first tenet now reads (in an official translation):

1. Belief in the one supreme God.

The four remaining principles are (in the same translation):

2. Just and civilized humanity.

3. The unity of Indonesia.

4. Democracy led by the wisdom of deliberations among representatives.

5. Social justice for the whole of the people of Indonesia.

Generally, the political strength of Muslims bears no relation to their numerical strength and violent (re) actions by fundamentalist groups can be seen as an indication of sincerely felt frustration and as a response to unfulfilled aspirations rather than as proof of widespread grassroots support for the aims of any particular theology. The Darul Islam rebellions of the 1950s and early 1960s which mostly affected the islands of Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi, and which were brought to an end only after a prolonged military campaign, were one such indicator and response. Recent violent outbreaks seem to be as much inspired by current developments in countries such as Iran as reflections of how Indonesian Muslims perceive their own present situation in a basically secular state which strongly supports religion as a principle, but which ultimately seems to regard religious life and activities as an entirely private matter.

Again, the constant internal divisions among the Muslims themselves have not improved their position in political life.

Prior to the early 1970s there were almost as many Islamic political parties and other organisations in Indonesia as there were opinions and views. A decision by the government to ‘streamline’ the party political system in 1971 resulted in the abolition of all existing Islamic and other parties and the formation (by government decree) of three new parties and functional groups to express the political wishes of the electorate at large. The Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP) or United Development Party was designed to express the political aspirations of all Muslims but, as was to be expected, so far it has not been able to overcome its internal problems and conflicts. Members of the two major Islamic parties of the past, the traditionalist Nahdatul- Ulama and the progressive Masyumi, form clearly definable factions pursuing their own goals and interests within the new party. Hence the PPP has rarely been able to offer a united front or a common policy. The chronic weakness of Islam as a political force has been demonstrated again in 1985 when the Partai Persatuan Pembangunan accepted the Constitutional version of the Pancasila as the party’s guiding principle. Admittedly all political and social organisations in Indonesia had been asked to demonstrate their loyalty to the state by pledging allegiance to the Pancasila unless they wanted to be considered hostile to state and country; however, in denouncing the famous ‘seven words’ ofthejakarta Charter, the only party meant to defend the interests of Muslims had clearly given ground once more. The PPP was even forced to abandon its recognised symbol, the kabah, which never seemed to have found the approval of the government, and it had to replace it with the star-shaped symbol from the national coat of arms which stands for the first sila. The case of the PPP has not been helped either by the recent withdrawal from the party of the Nahdatural-Ulama whose own efforts to rethink its position and role promise to be of significant interest in the future.

With Islamic law and Islamic courts operating only on the periphery of society, with Islamic higher education under government control through the National Islamic Institutes (IAIN Institut Agama Islam Negeri), with (abangan) mysticism now classed as a govenment recognised faith called kebatinan, with the imposed formation of only one Islamic party in which traditional factions are still clearly at work, and which has had a limited response from the electorate, with a secular army whose loyalty is to the state in its present form, there is, at the moment, little Muslim activists can do democratically to alter their political status. Faith has indeed become the outsider (McVey, 1983).

Bibliography

Al-Attas, S.M.Ng. ‘A general theory of the Islamization of the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago in Sarbro Kartodirdjo (ed.), Profiles of Malay Culture (Ministry of Education and Culture, Jakarta, 1976), pp. 73-84

Bachtiar, Harsja W. The Religion of Java: a Commentary (Madjalah Ilmu-Ilmu Sastra Indonesia, 1973), pp. 85-118.

Benda, H. The Crescent and the Rising Sun: Indonesian Islam under the Japanese Occupation, 1942—1945 (W. van Hoeve, The Hague, 1983)

Boland, B.J. The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia (Nijhoff, The Hague, 1982), Verhandelingen KITLV 59

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Johns, A.H. ‘The role of Sufism in the spread of Islam to Malaya and Indonesia’ in Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, 9 (1961), pp. 143-61

----- ‘From Coastal Settlement to Islamic School and City: Islamization in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and Java’ inJ.J. Fox etal. (eds.) Indonesia, Australian Perspectives (ANU, Canberra, 1980), pp. 163-82

McVey, Ruth ‘Faith as the Outsider: Islam in Indonesian Politics’ in James P. Piscatori (ed.) Islam in the Political Process (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983), pp. 199-225

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Conversion to Islam (Holmes & Meier, New York, 1979) pp. 100-28

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Source: Clarke Peter et al. (eds.). The World's Religions. Routledge,1988. — 995 p.. 1988

Islam in Contemporary Society

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