Santri

With Santri line the normative to Islam orienting Muslims in Indonesia as opposed to the syncretic Abangan referred to in their interpretation of Islam also include Hindu-Buddhist and animist traditions.

Subdivision of the Santris

The Santri are divided into modernists or reformists and traditionalists. The traditionalists are attached to traditional Indonesian Islam, which is a mixture of Sunni and Sufi traditions. The traditionalist community is mainly connected through the network of religious schools (pesantren) and the religious scholars employed there ( ulama ) and is organized in the 35 million members of the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia , the Nahdatul Ulama (NU). Traditionalist Muslims can be found mainly in the rural areas of Java .

In contrast, the emergence of the modernists can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century when some Islamic scholars turned to Islam in the Middle East. The reformation movement of Muhammad Abduh taking place there called for a reform through a return to the actual writings of Islam, the Koran and the Sunna . Modernists are therefore characterized by a more orthodox interpretation of the scriptures. The majority of modernist Muslims in Indonesia are to be found in the urban centers of Java and in the student ranks or within the middle class. The most important social organization of the modernists in Indonesia is the Muhammadiyah with around 30 million members .

In addition to these two currents, a neo-modernist movement has emerged since the 1970s, which advocates a liberal Islam and includes both modernists and traditionalists. For liberal Islam, u. a. former Indonesian President and former NU Chairman Abdurrahman Wahid; and well-known Indonesian scholar Nurcholis Madjid .

In addition, there are also radical Islamists in Indonesia who have set themselves the goal of an Indonesian Islamic state, which has led to violent clashes in various parts of Indonesia. a. 1999 in the Moluccas .

Word origin

Santri is a Javanese term that has passed into the Indonesian senteri ("student") and refers to the Islamic student at a religious school (pesantren) . The word could come from Sanskrit sastri ("taught"), possibly via the Tamil form sattiri .

literature

Andrew Beatty (Ed.): Varieties of Javanese Religion: An Anthropological Account. Cambridge 1999 ISBN 0-521-62444-4
Clifford Geertz : The Religion of Java. Chicago 1976 ISBN 0-226-28510-3
Robert Hefner: Civil Islam. Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. Princeton 2000. ISBN 0-691-05047-3

Web links

Andreas Ufen: Islam and Politics in Indonesia International Politics and Society Online, 2001
Gary Dean Javanese Santri Islam. okusi.net/garydean, June 1999

Individual evidence

^ SO Robson: Java at the Crossroads. Aspects of Javanese Cultural History in the 14th and 15th centuries. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- and Volkenkunde, 150 Volumes of Bijdragen; A Backward Glimpse and a Forward Glimpse, 137, No. 2-3, Leiden 1981, pp. 274f

[1] SO Robson: Java at the Crossroads. Aspects of Javanese Cultural History in the 14th and 15th centuries. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- and Volkenkunde, 150 Volumes of Bijdragen; A Backward Glimpse and a Forward Glimpse, 137, No. 2-3, Leiden 1981, pp. 274f