Islamism and Dakwah in Late Modern Indonesia: Official Discourses and Lived Experiences of Leaders and Members of the Tarbiyah Movement
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Islamism and Dakwah in Late Modern Indonesia: Official Discourses and Lived Experiences of Leaders and Members of the Tarbiyah Movement Ai Fatimah Nur Fuad Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Leeds School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science September 2017 ii The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his/her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Ai Fatimah Nur Fuad to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2017 The University of Leeds and Ai Fatimah Nur Fuad iii Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to the great individuals and institutions that have been very helpful and valuable to me in my studies. My first thanks and respects I pay to my supervisor Prof. Sean McLoughlin, who, with his expertise in the academic disciplines of the Sociology and Anthropology of Islam, served as a continual inspiration during my PhD research. His critical and detailed reading of multiple drafts of my thesis has helped me to widen and sharpen my analysis. As his student, I have learned and benefited from his knowledge, commitment, guidance, and patience, not only in my PhD research, but also for my whole academic life in the future. I owe many thanks to the staff of the Leeds Humanities Research Institute (LHRI) and the Cavendish office, where I spent most of my working hours, and also to all the staff of the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (PRHS). I had many close friends and colleagues during my study in Leeds between 2010 and 2015. I am very grateful for their hospitality and generosity. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Ministry of National Education in the Republic of Indonesia, which provided me with a scholarship through the overseas postgraduate studies programme BLN-DIKTI (Beasiswa Luar Negeri- Pendidikan Tinggi). Without such financial support, it would not have been possible for me to pursue my PhD in one of the UK’s excellent universities. My thanks also go to my home campus – the University of Muhammadiyah Prof. Dr. HAMKA (UHAMKA) in Jakarta – particularly to the Rector, Prof. Dr. H. Suyatno, M. Pd. I would also to thank many people in Indonesia, especially my research participants in Jakarta for their kindness and helpful contributions and comments. I must express my gratitude to all the members of my large family and relations in Indonesia. Thanks go to my husband, M. Hilali Basya, for his consistent encouragement and to my sons, Rafyal Fikri and Kafyal Rusydi, who bring bundles of joy into my life. My deepest gratitude and love goes to my late father, Nana Sutisna, who passed away at the end of my first year of my PhD studies, and to my late mother Hj. Titin Kuraesin, who passed away at the end of my PhD studies. For their endless love, prayers and motivation, I dedicate this work to my parents. iv Abstract This thesis contributes to the analysis of the dakwah (Islamic preaching and mission) of contemporary Islamist movements with a case study of the Indonesian Tarbiyah movement. My analysis borrows from aspects of social movement theory and conceptions of lived religion to illuminate both the official discourses and everyday experiences of the movement in a novel way. I begin by providing an historical framework for understanding dakwah and Islamist movements in modernity (Chapter 1) and by locating Islam(ism) and dakwah in terms of the changing social, political and religious dynamics of colonial and postcolonial Indonesia (Chapter 2). To investigate the Tarbiyah movement, I collected qualitative interviews and fieldwork data in Jakarta during 2012–13 (Chapter 3). In the key chapters of this thesis, I focus on three main arguments: i) that the gradual transition of the Tarbiyah movement from a politically repressed network of religious purists in the 1970-80s into a fully-fledged dakwah political party (the Prosperous Justice Party/Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, PKS) was the outcome of new ‘political opportunities’ which emerged during a period of democratisation 1990-97 (Chapter 4); ii) that the movement’s weekly Liqo (circle of religious teaching) illuminates both the synergies and tensions between official, top-down framing by increasingly formal, outward- looking and pragmatic PKS leaders and the more informal and more conservative networks, the latter remaining a key resource for mobilisation (Chapter 5); and, finally, that the lived experiences of female trainees in the Liqo suggest that this is a space where Tarbiyah movement/PKS norms, lifestyles and dispositions are more or less successfully taught, learned and reproduced principally through the disciplined and repeated performances of embodied piety (Chapter 6). v Table of Contents Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. v List of figures and tables ........................................................................................... viii Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 1 Dakwah, Modernity, and Contemporary Islamist Movements . 37 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 37 1.2.1 The early period of Islam ..................................................................................... 38 1.2.2 The classical period of Islam .............................................................................. 42 1.3 Muslims' responses to modernity and dakwah in the modern period....... 46 1.3.1 Modernity and its impact on the Muslim world ......................................... 46 1.3.2 Muslims’ responses to modernity .................................................................... 49 1.4 The Islamist notion of ‘active’ dakwah in the modern period ....................... 55 1.5 The contemporary Islamist dakwah movement: the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt ...................................................................................................................................... 62 1.6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 69 Chapter 2 Islam, the State, and Dakwah in Indonesia ...................................... 72 2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 72 2.2 Muslim campaigns for Indonesian state independence ................................... 74 2.2.1 Muslims’ nationalist campaigns ........................................................................ 77 2.2.2 The establishment of Islamic organisations................................................. 79 2.3 The consolidation of Islamism during Indonesian independence ............... 82 2.4 The Islamists in the New Order period (1966-1997) ....................................... 88 2.5 New opportunities for Islamist movements ......................................................... 98 2.6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 103 Chapter 3 Research Methodology ........................................................................ 106 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 106 3.2 Research processes and methods .......................................................................... 107 3.3 The application of research methods ................................................................... 112 3.3.1 Review of written sources ................................................................................ 113 3.3.2 Semi-structured interviews ............................................................................. 115 3.3.3 Participant observation ..................................................................................... 124 3.3.4 Focus group discussions (FGDs) .................................................................... 127 3.4 Ethical issues ................................................................................................................. 132 vi 3.5 Subjectivity and positionality .................................................................................. 134 3.6 Analysing and interpreting data ............................................................................ 139 3.7 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 142 Chapter 4 The Dakwah of the Tarbiyah Movement: Official Discourses, Leaders, and Transformation ................................................................................. 144 4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................