Islam in Indonesia

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Great mosque in Banda Aceh

The Islam is in Indonesia the religion of the majority of the country's population. 88% of Indonesians are Muslim . With over 191 million Muslims, Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.

Current situation

Internal Differentiation of Islam in Indonesia

Muslim girls at the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta

Almost all Muslims in Indonesia belong to the Sunni school . There are also around 100,000 Shiites and a minority of Ahmadiyya members .

The interpretation of Islam differs greatly according to the region and ethnicity of its followers. The Maduresen , Minangkabau , Achinese and the Macassars are known as Orthodox Muslims , while the Javanese and Osing traditionally practice a moderate form of Islam. In Lombok , the Wetu Telu have an Islamic-animist mixed religion. In Java, the worship of the Wali Songo, the nine saints who spread Islam on the island between the 15th and 16th centuries, is very important. Their graves are important places of pilgrimage. Traditional beliefs and pre-Islamic traditions have also been preserved among the inhabitants of Sumatra and Kalimantan .

Traditionally, the Sufi orders play an important role in Indonesia . One of the most important orders is the Combination Order of the Tariqa Qadiriyya wa Naqshbandiyya (TQN), which was founded in the 19th century by Ahmad Chatīb Sambas (d. 1875) and today has several hundred thousand followers in Indonesia, most of whom belong to the urban elite. The TQN is a combination of Qādirīya and Naqschbandīya and is a specifically Indonesian order. The Qādirīya in its simple form has been present on the territory of Indonesia since the 17th century. The Indonesian branch of the Qādirīya traces its Silsila back to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, the son of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī , through a certain Muhammad al-Hattāk .

The pesantren system is of great importance for the religious socialization of Muslim youth in Indonesia . Pesantrens are Islamic paid private schools run by a kyai , a religious master. Students and graduates of a Pesantren are called Santri .

The two largest Muslim organizations in Indonesia are the traditionalist Nahdatul Ulama (NU) and the modernist Muhammadiyah . Dogmatically, they are both aligned with the Ashʿarīya . The Nadhlatul Ulama is the largest Muslim organization in the world with over 30 million members. One organization with a militant orientation is the Front Pembela Islam (FPI; “Front of the Islam Defenders”) by Muhammad Rizieq Syihab. She fights for the introduction of Sharia law in Indonesia and uses violence against Muslims who violate the religious rules of Islam, referring to the Koranic principle of the right and forbidding the reprehensible . In dogmatics and norms, however, it is oriented similarly to the NU.

In addition, Wahhabi or Salafist Islam has spread in many provinces of Indonesia in recent years . An organization with an explicitly jihadist orientation is the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI; "Indonesian Jihad Fighters Council") by Abu Bakar Bashir .

One of the most prominent Islam preachers in contemporary Indonesia is Abdullah Gymnastiar . An Islamic association with a liberal orientation is the “Liberal Islam Network” ( Jaringan Islam Liberal ). Today around a thousand Indonesian intellectuals and activists are united in it.

Islam in the state system

In contrast to many other Muslim majority states, Islam is not the state religion in Indonesia . Rather , it is based on the state ideology Pancasila formulated by then President Sukarno in 1945 , which aims at a balance between the various peoples and religions of Indonesia and officially recognizes six religions or denominations (in addition to Islam, the Christian denominations Protestantism and Catholicism , Hinduism , Buddhism and the Confucianism ).

In 16 provinces the Sharia forms the basis of the judiciary. In this context, especially from Aceh , there are repeated reports of punitive actions such as public whipping for players or for couples who kiss in public. In the Indonesian city of Tangerang near Jakarta, kissing in public has been banned if it lasts longer than five minutes. In addition, the police banned women from walking alone after 7 p.m. At least one of the police officers responsible said that if the law was not complied with, there would be no immediate arrest. In Jakarta in early 2006, beverages with an alcohol content of over 5% disappeared from supermarket shelves.

There are six state Islamic universities ( Universitas Islam Negeri ) in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Makassar, Malang and Pekanbaru for Islamic-religious higher education . The state also helps finance the pesantren system.

The most important Islamic party in Indonesia is the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) . It is ideologically based on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood .

Interreligious and denominational tensions

In Western New Guinea there have been serious attacks on the predominantly Christian Papuan population by the militias of Muslim settlers from Java and by the Indonesian military for years . According to independent estimates, up to 100,000 people have been victims of politically and religiously motivated violence in this part of the country alone since the occupation by Indonesia.

In central Sulawesi , more than 1,000 people have died in similar conflicts so far. Parts of central Sulawesi (including the Poso district), a region in which the number of Muslims and Christians is roughly the same, are characterized by a more conservative Islam.

The Ahmadiyya movement has been prohibited from practicing religion in public since 2008 . Since then there have been several attacks on individual members by a militant Muslim Orthodox mob . In September 2010, Minister of Religion Suryadharma Ali called for a ban on Ahmadiyya.

history

Mosque in Medan

Islamization

Sumatra

The Islam reached Sumatra for the first time in the 10th century by Arab traders. With the traders came Islamic scholars who brought their Arabic culture and the gambus lute, which is mainly used in religious music . A tombstone from Lamreh in Aceh from 1211 is the earliest evidence of a ruler in what is now Indonesia who accepted Islam. The rulers of Samudera Pasai , another port in Aceh, converted to Islam in the 1290s. In the course of the 16th century, the Sultanate of Aceh , which was founded in the same region, developed into the most important Muslim trading power in the Malay Archipelago as well as an important center of Islamic learning. From here, Islam also spread among the population in the interior of the island. In the spread of Islam in Sumatra, the institution of the Surau and the Shattārīya order played a very important role. The Schattārīya goes back to the Gujarat Sheikh Sibghatullāh (d. 1606), who founded the order in India at the end of the 16th century and then internationalized it through a mission in the Hejaz .

Java

Darussalam Mosque in East Java

Around 1475, Demak, the first Islamic principality was founded on Java. For the history of Java it was of great importance that in 1527 the Sultan of Demak destroyed the last major Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of Majapahit . By 1550 Demak brought the most important north Javanese cities from Malang in the east to Cirebon in the west under his control. With the rise of Demak, the heyday of the Welsh began, the "friends of God", who began to spread Islam inland beyond the coastal areas of Java through their teaching, not infrequently also as militant heroes of faith. One of these Welsh, Sunan Gunungjati, founded the Sultanate of Banten in West Java in 1527, which was soon able to extend its rule to southern Sumatra and parts of Borneo.

Although the "Wali Songo" belonging to the various Sufi orders spread more or less strict religious doctrines of Islam, old religious ideas and cultural traditions were also modified, enriched with formal elements of Arabic culture and used for the entertaining dissemination of the new faith. One example is the Indonesian shadow play ( Wayang Kulit ) and especially for the island of Lombok the cycle of legends Serat Menak Sasak .

At the end of the 16th century, another empire emerged in Central Java, the rulers of which saw themselves as the successors of the old Javanese empire of Mataram , but who also attached importance to Islamic legitimation. Under Sultan Agung (1613–1646) this new Mataram empire reached the height of its power: it not only encompassed almost all of central and eastern Java, but also took parts of Borneo, southern Sumatra and parts of eastern Indonesia.

However, the relationship between rulers and representatives of Islam fluctuated greatly in Mataram. According to reports, Agung's son and successor Amengku Rat I (1646–1677) had 6,000 Islamic teachers ( kiyai ) murdered. From the 18th century onwards, the pesantren schools were of great importance for the further spread of Islam in Java. These are boarding schools set up by Kiyais in villages, where the students lived with their teachers for long periods of time in order to receive a religious education, in return for helping their teacher earn a living.

The remaining islands

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Islam reached the rest of the Indonesian islands. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Gowa Kingdom on the island of Sulawesi went over to Islam. One of the most important Muslim figures from the Gowa Kingdom was the Sufi scholar Yūsuf al-Maqassārī (1627–1699). He was at the center of a widespread Muslim network that reached across Ceylon and Arabia to South Africa.

From Sumatra and Java, Lombok as well as East and Southeast Borneo also came under Islamic influence by peaceful and military routes. Only Bali remained Hindu Buddhist. Christian religions often dominate the Lesser Sunda Islands and the Moluccas . In western New Guinea , ethnic religions and Christianity dominate. The Muslim share of the population has increased since the annexation to Indonesia through the Transmigrasi policy, so that it is now over 20%.

Islam in the Dutch East Indies

The cruel persecution of the Islamic scholars by Amengku Rat I triggered a series of uprisings in Mataram, of which that of the Raden Trunajaya from Madura was the most important. The ruler was then forced to seek the support of the Dutch East India Company ( Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie ; VOC), which had established a trading base in Batavia in 1617 . It intervened in 1677 in favor of the ruler. The increasing dependence of the court on the Dutch led to the decline of the Mataram dynasty, which was eventually divided up in 1755. The two most important states were Surakarta (Solo) in the east and Yogyakarta in the west. While Solo generally follows the Kejawen , i.e. H. the pre-Islamic ideological traditions of Java, maintained, the court (Kraton) in Yogyakarta tried harder to synthesize Javanese and Islamic ideas. The Dutch were able to establish indirect rule over the two sultanates in the course of the 18th century.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Padri movement arose on Western Sumatra. Some of their leaders had come into contact with Wahhabi ideas during their pilgrimage to Mecca . The Padris fought in particular the matrilineal traditions among the Minangkabau , as well as tobacco consumption and cockfighting . In addition, they led the fight against the Dutch colonial power. Between 1809 and 1830, the Dutch extended their colonial possessions to protect their political and economic interests; Java, Sumatra and other islands in the archipelago came under direct Dutch control to a large extent during this period. The Padris resisted this increasing colonial penetration. The so-called Padri Wars lasted until 1839. Only in this year did the Dutch succeed in taking Bonjol, the last stronghold of the Padris.

In the second half of the 19th century, there was a polarization process among the Muslims in Java with the formation of two groups, the Putihan ("white") and the Abangan ("red"). While the former were strongly oriented towards normative Islam, made pilgrimages to Mecca and strived for a purification of their religion, the Abangan continued to practice their syncretic form of Islam and set themselves apart from the purification efforts of the Putihan . Some representatives of the ruling elite ( Priyayi ) even completely turned away from Islam in the 1870s and began to glorify the pre-Islamic period of Java in literary works. In their opinion, the Islamization of Java had been a major civilizational mistake. Works in the Javanese language written in this spirit include the Babad Kedhiri , the Serat Dermagandhul, and the Suluk Gatholoco .

At the beginning of the 20th century, many Muslims in the Dutch East Indies came under the influence of the Egyptian reform thinker Muhammad Abduh and his magazine al-Manār (the lighthouse). It was soon divided into two camps: the barely muda (“group of young people”), who followed ʿAbduh's positions and dressed in European clothing, and the barely tua (“group of old people”), who rejected this.

In order to ward off the influence of the Wahhabiyya , in January 1926 the Ash'arite- oriented scholars in the Dutch East Indies united in the society "Elevation of the Scholars" ( Nahdatul Ulama ; NU). This association developed into one of the largest Islamic organizations in the Dutch East Indies.

Under Japanese occupation

After Japanese troops occupied the Dutch East Indies in 1941/42 , they tried to further strengthen the anti-Dutch Islamic groups there. The Japanese military government courted the various Islamic groups and united them in a joint representative body, the Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims (Madjlis Sjuro Muslimin Indonesia, Masjumi for short ). It also promoted the establishment of Islamic militias in order to have local auxiliary troops in the event of an Allied counterattack. In this way, political and militant Islam in the Dutch East Indies was considerably strengthened. As part of the Japanese vision of building a colonial empire of their own, the Muslim leaders of the independence movement in the Dutch East Indies were specifically promoted by the Japanese military administration. US documents from World War II show how Japan for decades radicalized the group of Islam as a political factor for its own ends. Japan hoped for strong resistance against the European colonial powers by strengthening the religion factor within the independence movement. With an independent Asian trading zone, Japan also promised more independence from the West.

After independence

The conflict over the Jakarta Charter

In April 1945 the members of Masjumi set up a committee to prepare for independence. This committee laid the foundations for Indonesia's national identity by working out a draft constitution. A very important point was the pancasila doctrine developed by the nationalist Soekarno . The five principles were: 1. Nationalism; 2. humanism; 3. consultation; 4. Social welfare; 5. Belief in the One and Only God. After the draft was presented, there was a long domestic political debate between secularists and representatives of political Islam about the role of Islam in the newly founded state, at the end of which was the so-called Jakarta Charter ( Piagam Jakarta ) of June 1945: the fifth principle was put in the first place in this version of the Pancasila and supplemented by the formula: "with the obligation of adherence to the Sharia of Islam by his followers" (dengan kewajiban menjalankan syariat Islam bagi pemeluk-pemeluknya) . This addition, known as the "seven words" ( tujuh kata ) in Indonesian , was not included in the preamble to the constitution, which Soekarno and Hatta proclaimed when Indonesian independence was proclaimed in August 1945.

The representatives of political Islam did not want to be satisfied with that. In November 1945 they founded the Masjumi Party, which called for the restoration of the Jakarta Charter. Only the appearance of Dutch troops trying to occupy the country again forced them to cooperate with the republican government.

The Darul Islam uprising

When the government ceded West Java to the Dutch in the Renville Agreement in January 1948 , however, there was an Islamic deposition movement led by the Masjumi politician Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosuwirjo . Kartosuwirjo, who had commanded two Islamic militias during the Japanese occupation, formed them in West Java as the "Indonesian Islam Army" ( Tentara Islam Indonesia TII) and established state structures in the area he controlled, which he called Darul Islam . While the Dutch troops were in the country, his troops came into conflict with the armed forces of the republic.

After the last Dutch troops had left Indonesia, Kartosuwirjo proclaimed the "Islamic State of Indonesia" ( Negara Islam Indonesia ) on August 5, 1949 . Kartosuwirjo tried to establish an Islamic republican order in which the Koran should form the ethical basis for an independent national culture. In 1952, a guerrilla leader in South Sulawesi joined Darul Islam . And in 1953 the military governor of Aceh declared the area under his control to be part of Darul Islam.

Soekarno countered the threatened split in the country in 1957 with an authoritarian turn. In 1960 he banned the Masjumi. As a result of Darul Islam, a general distrust of political Islam had arisen in the government, which also included the Majumi. Kartosuwiryo was captured by the Indonesians in 1962, but it was not until 1965 that the "Islamic Army" was finally defeated.

The rise of the Salafiyya

The pancasila was enforced even more strictly than before in the 1970s and developed into an official civil religion . At the same time, a process of re-Islamization was emerging in Indonesian society. Muhammad Natsir and other former leaders of the Masyumi party had founded the Indonesian Council for Islamic Da'wa ( Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia ; DDII) as early as 1967 , an organization that leaned heavily on Saudi Arabia. Through the DDII and the Saudi "Institute for the Study of Islam and the Arabic Language" ( Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Islam dan Bahasa Arab ; LIPIA) founded in Jakarta in 1980 , the Wahhabi form of Islam received a strong boost in Indonesia in the 1980s. LIPIA graduates who graduated in Saudi Arabia and participated in the war in Afghanistan spread Salafist teachings on their return.

In order to overcome his crisis of political legitimation, President Suharto , who was personally more closely related to Javanese-syncretistic beliefs, also put on the Islamic map from the beginning of the 1990s. As a counterweight to the Nahdlatul Ulama, he had the state- affiliated “Indonesian Organization of Muslim Intellectuals” ( Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia ; ICMI) founded by a member of the government . In 1991 he also traveled to Saudi Arabia for Hajj .

Reformasi era

With the beginning of the Reformasi era after Suharto's resignation in May 1998, Indonesia experienced a revival of political Islam. Within six months, 42 Islamic political parties were formed, including the PKS. Muhammad Rizieq Syihab, a LIPIA graduate who studied in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, founded his Salafist-oriented Islamic Defense Front (Front Pembela Islam; FPI) in August 1998.

When a conflict broke out between Christians and Muslims in January 1999 as a result of the decades-long Transmigrasi policy in the Moluccas , Indonesian Salafi Muslims founded various jihad militias , including Laskar Jihad (LJ) and Laskar Mujahidin Indonesia (LMI ), to defend the Islamic umma ). In the interreligious conflicts on the Moluccas in which these militias were involved, around 10,000 people were killed in fighting in the years up to 2002. Most of the victims were Ambonesian Christians. After the attack in Bali in 2002 , for which the transnational terror organization Jemaah Islamiyah was responsible, the two jihad militias mentioned were disbanded again, but the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), from which LMI was founded, still exists as a jihadist umbrella organization to this day further.

The Islamic parties, including the United Development Party (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan - PPP) and the Crescent Star Party (Partai Bulan Bintang - PBB), launched a political campaign in 2000 to reinstate the "seven words" of the Jakarta Charter in the constitution through an addition to Article 29, which deals with the status of religion in the state. Under pressure from the FPI, Hizb ut-Tahrir and the MMI, other Islamic parties represented in the People's Consultative Assembly joined this position in 2002 . The two Islamic mass organizations Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah opposed this initiative. Two other moderate Islamic parties, which were united in the so-called Reformasi faction, proposed adding a religion-neutral addition to paragraph 29 of Article 29, which obliged members of the various religions to comply with their specific religious regulations. This planned addition was referred to as the "Medina Charter" based on the municipal regulations of Medina , because it was supposed to reflect the religious pluralism of the Prophet Mohammed in his early phase in Medina . After long discussions in an ad hoc committee of the Consultative Assembly, the plan to amend the constitution was finally shelved.

In 2006, an anti-pornography law was passed in Indonesia under pressure from Islamic groups. Since in some cases traditional costumes and folk costumes also fall under the category of "pornography", this law met with fierce resistance from intellectuals, artists and women's rights organizations.

literature

  • Zachary Abuza: Political Islam and Violence in Indonesia. Routledge, London 2007. ISBN 978-0415394017
  • Azyumardi Azra: The origins of islamic reformism in Southeast Asia: networks of Malay-Indonesian and Middle Eastern Úlamāĭ in seventeenth and eighteenth century. Allen & Unwin, Honolulu, 2004.
  • Martin van Bruinessen: Shaykh ʿAbd al Qâdir al-Jîlânî and the Qâdiriyya in Indonesia . In Th. Zarcone, E. Işın, A. Buehler (eds.): The Qâdiriyya Order. Special Issue of the Journal of the History of Sufism . 2000, pp. 361-395.
  • Holk Dengel: Darul Islam. Kartosuwirjos fight for an Islamic state Indonesia. Stuttgart 1986.
  • Bahtiar Effendy: Islam and the state in Indonesia. Ohio University Press, Athens (Ohio) 2003. ISBN 0896802388
  • Giora Eliraz: Islam in Indonesia. Modernism, radicalism, and the Middle East dimension. Sussex Academic Press, Brighton et al. a. 2004.
  • Greg Fealy, Sally White (Eds.): Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 2009, ISBN 9812308504
  • Clifford Geertz : Religious Developments in Islam. Observed in Morocco and Indonesia. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1988. ISBN 3-518-58091-4
  • Noorhaidi Hasan: Laskar Jihad. Islam, Militancy, and the Quest for Identity in Post-New Order in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY 2006.
  • Robert W. Hefner: Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN 0691050473
  • Christine Holike: Islam and Gender Politics in Indonesia. The entry of Sharia law into regional legislation. regiospectra Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-940132-04-8
  • Fauzan Saleh: Modern Trends in Islamic Theological Discourse in 20th Century Indonesia: A Critical Study: A Critical Survey. (Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia) Brill, Leiden 2001, ISBN 978-9004123052
  • Arskal Salim: Challenging the secular state: the Islamization of law in modern Indonesia . University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2008.
  • C. Van Dijk: Rebellion under the Banner of Islam. The Darul Islam in Indonesia. The Hague 1981

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Country information on Indonesia. Federal Foreign Office, accessed March 30, 2011 .
  2. ↑ See Zulkifli: The Struggle of the Shi'is in Indonesia . ANU Press, Canberra, 2013. Digitized
  3. ^ Wali Songo: the nine Walis. Sejarah Indonesia
  4. ↑ Cf. van Bruinessen: Shaykh ʿAbd al Qâdir al-Jîlânî . 2000, pp. 361, 386.
  5. ↑ Cf. van Bruinessen: Shaykh ʿAbd al Qâdir al-Jîlânî . 2000, p. 377.
  6. ↑ Philipp Abresch: With the baton for the Sharia. Weltspiegel , June 18, 2017, accessed June 18, 2017 .
  7. ^ International Crisis Group : Resources and Conflict in Papua. Brussel 2002 PDF 737 kB ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 8 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.crisisgroup.org
  8. ↑ http://www.ag-friedensforschung.de/regionen/Indonesien/westpapua6.html
  9. ↑ Indonesia pressured over Ahmadiyah Muslim sect killings. BBC; February 8, 2011
  10. ↑ Anett Keller: Several dead in brutal attacks. In: the daily newspaper . February 9, 2011, accessed February 10, 2011 .
  11. ↑ See Sebastian Prange: "Like Banners on the Sea. Muslim Trade Networks and Islamization in Malabar and Maritime Southeast Asia" in R. Michael Feener, Terenjit Sevea: Islamic Connections. Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia. Singapore 2009. pp. 25-47.
  12. ↑ See Azra: The origins of islamic reformism in Southeast Asia . Pp. 87-108.
  13. ↑ See Christine Dobbin: Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy. Central Sumatra, 1784-1847 . London 1983.
  14. ↑ Cf. MC Ricklefs: Polarizing Javanese Society. Islamic and other visions c. 1830-1930. Honolulu 2007. pp. 176-213.
  15. ↑ Religion was discovered as a political weapon. Cf. Matti Justus Schindehütte: Civil religion as a responsibility of society. Religion as a political factor in the development of the Pancasila of Indonesia. (PDF; 8.8 MB) 2006
  16. ↑ See the books by Dengel and van Dijk.
  17. ↑ See Hasan 39.
  18. ↑ See Hasan 47-53.
  19. ↑ See Hasan 99.
  20. ↑ See Effendy: Islam and the state in Indonesia. 2003, p. 202
  21. ↑ See Hasan: Laskar Jihad. 2006, pp. 16-20.
  22. ↑ See Hasan: Laskar Jihad. 2006, p. 211.
  23. ^ Salim: Challenging the secular state . 2008, pp. 95f.
  24. ^ Salim: Challenging the secular state . 2008, p. 98.
  25. ^ Salim: Challenging the secular state . 2008, p. 93.
  26. ^ Salim: Challenging the secular state . 2008, p. 99f.
  27. ^ Salim: Challenging the secular state . 2008, p. 106f.