Reform Islam in Indonesia

Prof. Dr. Siti Musdah Mulia

Siti Musdah Mulia has been a Research Professor of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) since 2003. She is also a lecturer on Islamic Political Thought of the School of Graduate Studies of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta, Indonesia. Since 2007 she has been the Chairperson of the Indonesian Conference on Religion for Peace, a NGO which actively promotes interfaith dialogues, pluralism and democracy for peace. She was a Senior Advisor of Minister of Religious Affairs (1999-2007), and through that institution, in her capacity as the coordinator of the Team for Gender Mainstreaming she launched in 2004 The Counter Legal Draft of the Compilation of Islamic Law. She was also the head of the Research Division of The Council of Indonesian Ulema (MUI) (2000-2005). She is very active in the academic field; she has been an international visiting fellow in a number of universities all over the world.

Selected Publications:

Islam and The Inspiration of Gender Equity (2005), Kibar, Yogya.

Reformist Muslimah (2004), Mizan, Bandung.

Islam Criticizes Polygamy (2004), Gramedia, Jakarta.

Promoting gender equity through interreligious marriage. Empowering Indonesian women, ( 2009, in: Jones, W. Gavin/ Leng, Chee Heng/ Mohamad, Maznah: Muslim-Non-Muslim Marriage. Political and Cultural Contestations in Southeast Asia (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies pp. 255-281).

Reform Islam in Indonesia

The face of Islam’s reforms in Indonesia that I will refer to here shall be confined to efforts and discourse on intellectualism within the NU community. Contemporary progress on the philosophy of Islam within the NU community shows an interesting phenomenon, especially thoughts advanced by NU’s young intellectuals. They adopt a progressive Islamic point of view in response to modernity while still upholding traditional knowledge as their foundation. They are not only concerned with modernity which is continuously being criticized and responded to in a very cautious manner, but also in revitalizing traditions.

In revitalizing traditions, they do not hold sacrosanct those traditions, but also criticize them, both in regards to behaviors and ideas. They are generally more responsive to behavior and ideas compared to their seniors when addressing issues on modernization.

The emergence of NU’s young intellectuals and their daring progressive religious interpretations stemmed from the NU’s decision in a symposium in 1984 to renounce politics and return to the NU Khittah (NU’s Basic Doctrine) 1926. This important decision reinstated NU’s position as a religious organization (jam’iyyah or fellowship) and was a call to the NU community and elites to leave political practices behind and turn back to social activities (ijtima’iyyah or social justice), particularly the development of intellectualism. The appointment of KH Achmad Shiddiq and KH Abdurrahman Wahid as the Head of NU’s Syuriah (Advisory Board) and Head of the Tanfidziyyah (Executive Board) helped pave the way for critical and progressive thinking among the young intellectuals of the NU.

Now progressive thinking among young intellectuals of the NU has made such progress thanks to NGOs as well as to universities. It has crystallized even more with its unique characteristics that they call Post-Traditionalism Islam.

Post-traditionalism Islam has emerged as a response to at least four factors. Firstly, it is a response towards thoughts on Islam that began to emerge in the 1970s. Secondly, it was a response to efforts for the empowerment of the NU community spear-headed by Abdurrahman Wahid. These young people were the advocators of the grand ideas launched by Abdurrahman Wahid. Thirdly, this was a critical response to the phenomenon of transformation movement of NGOs at the social, political, economical, cultural sphere and in the revitalization of Islamic philosophy. Fourthly, it emerged in response the New Order government’s developmental program that shut down room for criticism and freedom of expression, and even blocked awareness of humanity. Dissatisfaction towards the government’s policies gave birth to a critical discourse regarding the state and those in power.

In this writing, we will discuss intellectual dynamics taking place within the NU community; the factors that influence that dynamism; issues and discourse on Islam that are being developed; and the implications and future of the post-traditionalism movement in the context of NU’s intellectualism.