WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES OF SHARIA LAW IN BANDA INDONESIA

Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i. Br.

vorgelegt von Sita Hidayah aus Banyumas Indonesien

SoSe 2019 Erstgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe Zweitgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Johanna Pink

Vorsitzender des Promotionsausschusses der Gemeinsamen Kommission der Philologischen und Philosophischen Fakultät: Prof. Dr. Christoph Huth

Datum der Disputation: 26.09.2019

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

ii Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Das gegenwärtige Scharia-Recht unterscheidet sich von demjenigen des letzten Jahrhunderts. Ethnolog_Innen haben sich in den jüngsten Debatten zum Thema Religion im öffentlichen Raum, zu Frauen und zu den Menschenrechten sowie zu den Grenzen des Rechtsbegriffes in vergleichenden Studien über das Scharia-Recht engagiert und in unterschiedlicher Weise damit auseinandergesetzt. Neuere Studien beschäftigen sich mit den paradigmatischen Rechtsgedanken der staatlichen Souveränität, der rechtlichen Einheitlichkeit und dem Säkularismus. Im Rahmen dieser Diskussionen und auf der Grundlage einer zehnmonatigen empirischen Feldforschung, untersucht diese Studie die Erfahrungen von Frauen mit dem Scharia-Gesetz in der Stadt Banda Aceh in Indonesien. Aceh hat einen Sonderautonomie Status in Indonesien inne und ist die einzige Provinz, in welcher das islamische Recht gilt. Die Feldforschung zeigt, dass Erzählungen von Frauen und verkörperte Praktiken des Scharia-Rechts in der Provinzhauptstadt eine Vielzahl von Formen der Diskriminierung im Alltag deutlich machen. Den Rahmen dazu bilden Theorien des Rechtspluralismus, der Anthropologie der Erfahrung und der Intersektionalität. Das Alltagsleben der Frauen wird durch die ständige Aushandlung der normativen Agenda der Disziplinierung durch die Scharia bestimmt und geprägt. Diese Aushandlung und die Ausdrucksformen von Agency (Handlungsfähigkeit) der Frauen sind mit verschiedenen strukturellen Differenzen und Ungleichheitsdimensionen verbunden. Eine gemeinsame Religion des bedeutet weder eine eindeutige Zugehörigkeit zu Aceh-Rechtsordnungen noch bringt sie notwendigerweise dieselben Erfahrungen mit dem Scharia-Recht hervor. Nicht nur Religion und Geschlecht beeinflussen die Erfahrungen. Ethnizität, Klasse, Alter und Raum betreffen das Erleben der Scharia Gesetze ebenfalls. In Bezug auf die ethnische Herkunft zeigt diese Studie, dass eine matrifokale Tradition, als Teil der kulturellen Abstammung und des Rechts (), ein Mittel sein kann, um Agency im Rahmen der Erfahrungen mit dem Scharia-Recht in Banda Aceh durchzusetzen. Dies wird als ein entscheidendes Element des

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh iii Rechtspluralismus gesehen. In Verbindung zu dem Begriff der Klasse zeigt die empirische Untersuchung der Erfahrungen mit dem Scharia-Recht die große Bandbreite von Diskriminierungserfahrungen aufgrund sozioökonomischer Bedingungen. Die Position in einer stratifizierten sozialen Hierarchie beeinflusst die Erfahrung des Scharia-Gesetzes in hohem Maße. Zum Beispiel können wohlhabende Frauen teure Autos mit stark getönten Fenstern oder modische muslimische Kleidung haben, die ihre Position in der Oberklasse signalisieren und auf die ungleiche Handhabung der Politik der Scharia abzielen. Die Reichen und Mächtigen können es sich leisten, sich dem ständigen Blick der strafenden Scharia Autoritäten zu entziehen und sich von den Folgen der Scharia frei zu kaufen. Außerdem sind Scham und Ehre in unterschiedlicher Weise in die Erfahrungen der Scharia-Gesetze eingeschrieben. Das Konzept von marwah (Ehre) weist auf die Klassenunterscheidung in den Erfahrungen von Frauen mit Scharia hin. Das Problem der Peinlichkeit tritt in verschiedenen Geschichten und Formen auf, insbesondere wenn es sich um Frauen handelt, die arm und marginalisiert sind. Wohlhabende und privilegierte Frauen erzählen andere Arten von Geschichten. Nicht von Peinlichkeit, vielmehr von einer anderen Art von Schande. Es ist wichtig, marwah aufrecht zu halten –das Ansehen und die Ehre eines Einzelnen, sei es als reiche Person, als Adlige oder in Bezug auf die Stellung im gampong (Wohnviertel). Diese Studie beschreibt auch, wie Frauen aus verschiedenen Alters—und Lebensphasen die Scharia erleben. Die Erfahrungen mit dem Gesetz der Scharia hängen eng mit persönlichen Erinnerungen und Bedeutungen vergangener Ereignisse zusammen, insbesondere mit den bewaffneten Konflikten und dem Tsunami von 2004. Der Unterschied zwischen jungen und alten Frauen wird offensichtlich in Bezug auf das Wissen über das Scharia-Gesetz und den Grad des Eintauchens in das Bildungsprogramm der Scharia. Die jungen Frauen von Banda Aceh sind mit einem etablierten Scharia-Gesetz groß geworden. Daher glauben viele junge muslimische Frauen, dass die Normen und Praktiken der Scharia ein normaler Bestandteil ihres Lebens sind. Schließlich werden die geschlechtsspezifischen Erfahrungen des Scharia-Rechts mehr oder weniger ausgeprägt auch durch räumliche Dimensionen vermittelt. Erzählungen und Praktiken von Frauen bestehen aus einem komplexen Wissen darüber, wie das Gesetz der Scharia und bestimmte Behörden in bestimmten Räumen arbeiten. Im Fall von Banda Aceh haben sich Frauen, infolge der Einführung des gegenwärtigen Scharia-Rechts, innerhalb anderer Grenzen und engerer Räume zu bewegen als Männer. Der urbane Raum von Banda Aceh bietet einerseits ein gewisses Maß an Anonymität und Eigenverantwortung. Auf der anderen Seite gibt es die Überwachung durch bestimmte Behörden wie die Sharia-Polizei und Vigilanten. Wenn eine Frau über eine etablierte Zugehörigkeit iv Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh zu einem gampong verfügt, nimmt die Kontrolle der Scharia ab. Dennoch gibt es klare Anzeichen für ein zunehmendes Eindringen der Sharia in die Normen und Praktiken von gampong adat. Diese Forschung identifiziert daher die kulturspezifischen, sich kreuzenden Dimensionen von Geschlecht, Religion, ethnischer Zugehörigkeit, Klasse, Alter und Raum als entscheidende Elemente für das Verständnis der Erfahrungen von Frauen in Banda Aceh. Ihre strukturell eingebetteten, lebensweltlichen Denk-, Gefühls- und Handlungsweisen in Bezug auf das Scharia-Recht werden in dieser Studie in Form einer semi-fiktionalen Ethnographie dargestellt. Im Interesse der Anonymität und des Schutzes der Forschungsteilnehmenden wurde eine Reihe ausgewählter Lebensgeschichten von Frauen in Banda Aceh neu kombiniert. Eine Betonung der verkörperten Erfahrungen von sechs Personae bringt ihre sozial, rechtlich und ideell begründete Agency zum Ausdruck.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh v vi Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh SUMMARY

Anthropologists have sustained varied and active engagement with the recent debates on the topics of Sharia law, religion in public spaces, women and human rights, and the limit of the concept of “law” in comparative studies of Sharia law. Recent studies have challenged the paradigmatic legal thoughts of state sovereignty, legal uniformity and secularism. In the light of this engagement, and based on ten months of empirical fieldwork, this study explores women’s experiences of Sharia law in the city of Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Aceh has a special autonomy status within Indonesia and is the only province to enact Islamic law. Framed by theories of legal pluralism, the anthropology of experience and intersectionality, this research shows that women’s narratives and embodied practices of Sharia law in the provincial capital reveal a multiplicity of forms of discrimination in everyday life. The mundane routines of women’s daily lives shape and are shaped by a constant negotiation of the normative agenda of Sharia discipline. This negotiation and women’s expressions of agency are interrelated with several structural differences and dimensions of inequality. Thus, a shared religion of Islam neither warrants a singular belonging in Aceh’s legal orderings nor does it necessarily bring forth the same experiences of the Sharia law. It is not just religion that influences experiences. Ethnicity, class, age and space also affect how Sharia law is lived through. Referring to ethnicity, this study shows that a matrifocal tradition, as a part of cultural descent and law (adat), can be a means of asserting agency in the experiences of Sharia law in Banda Aceh. This is suggested as a crucial element of legal pluralism. With regard to class, the empirical study of the experiences of Sharia law shows the wide range of discriminations experienced on socio-economic grounds. One’s position in a stratified social hierarchy strongly affects the experience of Sharia law. For instance, affluent women may have expensive cars with heavily tinted windows or fashionable Muslim clothing signaling their upper-class position and informing the discriminatory Sharia policy. The rich and the powerful can afford to stay out

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh vii of the nonstop gaze of Sharia authorities and can buy their freedom from Sharia punishment. Furthermore, shame and honor are ascribed to the experiences of Sharia law in separate ways. The concept of marwah (honor) indicates the class distinction of women’s experiences of Sharia. The issue of embarrassment emerges in various stories and forms, especially when it comes to women who are poor and marginalized. Wealthy and privileged women relay different kinds of stories. Not of embarrassment, but a different kind of shame. It is essential to hold marwah—one’s prestige and honor—be it as a wealthy person, one of noble genealogy, someone with a prominent position in the gampong. This study also describes how women of different ages and life phases are subjected to Sharia law. Experiences of Sharia law are intimately related to personal memories and meanings of past events, especially the armed conflicts and the 2004 tsunami. The contrast between young and old women is obvious in their relation to the knowledge of Sharia law and the levels of immersion in Sharia educational programming. Young Banda Acehnese women grew up with an established Sharia law and thus many young Muslim women view Sharia norms and practices are a normal part of their life. Finally, the gendered experiences of Sharia law are mediated to a greater or lesser degree by spatial dimensions. Women’s narratives and practices consist of a complex knowledge of how Sharia law and certain authorities operate in particular spaces. In the case of Banda Aceh, with the introduction of the contemporary Sharia law, women are positioned to move within different boundaries and narrower spaces than men. The urban space of Banda Aceh offers, on the one hand, a degree of anonymity and individual accountability. On the other hand, there is also surveillance by specific authorities such as Sharia police and vigilantes. In the gampong, in contrast, it is established that once a woman belongs to the gampong, the level of Sharia scrutiny on her diminishes. However, there is a clear indication of an increase in Sharia encroachment on the gampong adat norms and practices. Hence this research identifies the culturally specific, intersecting dimensions of gender, religion, ethnicity, class, age and space as crucial elements for an understanding of the experiences of women in Banda Aceh. Their structurally embedded, life-worldly ways of thinking, feeling and acting in relation to Sharia law are represented in this study in the form of a semi-fictionalized ethnography. For the sake of the anonymity and protection of the research participants, selected life-histories of women in Banda Aceh were re-combined. An emphasis on the embodied experiences of six personae brings their socially, legally and ideationally grounded agency to the fore.

viii Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG iii SUMMARY vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ix LIST OF PICTURES xi LIST OF ABBREVIATION xiii GLOSSARY xv NOTES OF TRANSLITERATION xxi

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER I Maps To Aceh Sharia Law 5 1. The City of Banda Aceh 5 2. Plurality of Laws in Aceh 11 2. 1. Legal Pluralism – Colonial Legacy 13 2. 2. Adat Aceh 14 2. 3. Between Adat and Sharia 16 2. 4. The Wide Expense of Sharia Aceh 22 2. 5. Aceh Adat Council and Wali Nanggroe 25 3.Uqubat: How Sharia Becomes Known 27

CHAPTER II Theories of Experiences and Legal Pluralism 31 1. Theories of Experience 32 2. Intersectionality: Gender, Class, Ethnicity, and Religion 38 3. Spatiality of Law 40 4. Intersectional - Spatial Experiences of Sharia 42

CHAPTER III Research Method 45 1. Meeting Research Participants 46 2. Research Positionality and Shared Experience 49

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh ix 3. Participant Observation 51 4. Choice of Methods and Data Collection 52 5. Text Production and Representation 56 5.1. Anonymity and Characters 57 5.2. Double-Sided History Representations 58 5.3. Language and “Semi-Fiction” 58

CHAPTER IV Her Stories About Sharia 59 1. Stories of the Past (Jameun): History and Biographies 59 2. Of Marriage and Kinship 66 3. Governing Aceh: Gampong and Adat 71 4. Covering Aceh: The Muslim Dress Code 74 5. Wounded Past 79 6. Between You and God, there is Sharia Law 82 7. Covering Banda Aceh: Mapping, Navigating, and Handling the Law 92 8. Urban Covering: Space, Class, and Piety 97

CHAPTER V Sharia Law, Legal Pluralism, and Women’s Experiences 103 1. Assumptions, Historicity of Sharia Law and Legal Pluralism 103 2. Everyday Experiences of Sharia Law 110 3. Contemporary Sharia Aceh: Changes in Women’s Status 124 4. Sharia Rhetoric on Women and Culture 129

CONCLUSION 135 BIBLIOGRAPHY 139

x Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh LIST OF PICTURES

Picture 1 Wali Nanggroe Malik Abdul Al-Ahthyar gave speech at Maulud Nabi and Peusijeuk Partai Aceh Office Picture 2 City of Banda Aceh Map Picture 3 Billboard Seminar on Aceh Women’s Leadership Picture 4 Graffiti “Banda Aceh Makes Sense” Picture 5 Public Discussion on Banda Aceh Night Curfew Policy Speaker Mayor Illiza S. Djamal Picture 6 Gayo Wedding in Banda Aceh Picture 7 Indonesian Independence Parade in Banda Aceh Picture 8 Muslim Women’s Dress Code Picture 9 GAFATAR Demonstration Picture 10 Public Uqubat Picture 11 A Contestant of Aceh Fashion Show Picture 12 BSUIA meeting in 2015 Picture 13 The Geuchiks of Sagi XII Picture 14 Baiturrahman Mosque “Occupation”

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh xi xii Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh LIST OF ABBREVIATION

AFP : Agence France-Presse AJI : Aliansi Jurnalis Independen/ Independent Journalists Alliance AMAN : Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara/ Nusantara Adat Community Alliance ANLF : Atjeh National Liberation Front ASWAJA : Ahlul Sunnah Wal Jamaah, see the Glossary BBC : British Broadcasting Company BPJS : Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial-Kesehatan/ the Indonesian National Health Insurance System BSUIA : Balai Syura Ureung Inong Aceh/ All-Aceh Women Alliance DOM : Daerah Operasi Militer/ Military Operation Area DI : DLLAJ : Dinas Lalu Lintas Angkutan Jalan/ Bureau of Traffic and Transportation DSI : Dinas Syariah Islam/ Bureau of Sharia Islam DVD : Digital Video Disc FPI : Front Pembela Islam/ Islamic Defender Front GAFATAR : Gerakan Fajar Nusantara/ Dawn of Nusantara Movement GAM : Gerakan Aceh Merdeka/Geurakan Aceh Meurdeka HUDA : Himpunan Ulama Dayah Aceh/ Association of Ulama Dayah Aceh HMC : Mommy Hijabers Community ICJR : Institute for Criminal Justice Reform IUD : IntraUterine Device JKMA : Jaringan Komunitas Masyarakat Adat Aceh/ The Aceh Adat Community Network JPA : Jaringan Pemantau Aceh/ Aceh Watch Network JWPS : Jaringan Wartawan Peduli Syariah/ Journalists for Sharia Custody Alliance KAMMI : Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Muslim Indonesia/ KPK : Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi/ Corruption Eradication Commission

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh xiii LDK : Lembaga Dakwah Kampus/ Campus Da’wa Institute LGBT : Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender LoGA : Law of Governing Aceh LP : Lembaga Permasyarakatan/ Correctional Center MA : Mahkamah Agung/ Supreme Court MAA : Mahkamah Adat Aceh/ Aceh Adat Council MK : Mahkamah Konstitusi/ Constitutional Court MPR : Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat/ People’s Representative Council MPU : Majelis Permusyarawatan Ulama/ Aceh Ulama Council MUI : Majelis Ulama Indonesia/ Indonesian Ulama Council MUNA : Majelis Ulama Nanggroe Aceh/ Nanggroe Aceh Ulama Council NAD : Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam NGO : Non-Governmental organization PA : Partai Aceh/ Aceh Party PESINDO : Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia/ Indonesian Socialists Youth PKBI : Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia/ Association of Indonesian Family Planning PKI : Partai Komunis Indonesia/ Indonesian Communist Party Posyandu : Pos Pelayanan Terpadu/ Community Integrated Health Service PUSA : Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh/All-Aceh Ulama Council RBPUPKI : Rapat Penyelidih Usaha-usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia/The Investigating Committee for Preparatory Work for Independence Indonesia RPIJM : Rencana Pembangunan Investasi Jangka Menengah/ Mid-Range Development and Investment Plan SATPOL PP : Satuan Polisi Pamong Praja/ Civilian Police Unit Sekber : Sekretariat Bersama/ Joint Secretariat SMUN : Sekolah Menengah Umum Negari/ State High School WH : Wilayatul Hisbah/ Sharia Polic

xiv Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh GLOSSARY

Abangan : (Jv.) One of Geertzian trichotomy , , . Abangan. The abangan refers to Javanese Muslim population, who keep to folk religion of Java (Kejawen), a syncretic stream of belief of animistic, Hindu, Islam. Adat : (Ar.) ādāt, considered synonymous with urf. Custom and habit. (Ind.) long-standing customary norms and practices Algojo : (Ind.) executioner Ahlu-Sunnah wal Jamaah : (Ar.) Ahlussunnah Wal Jamā’ah. The majority members of Sunni school of intrepretation Aneuk daro : (Ac.) daughter, maiden, Bride-to-be Aneuk Jame’ : (Ac.) an Acehnese group of Minangkabau background. Asl, Asal : (Ar.) asl (Ind.) origin, descent Asyura : (Ar.) the Mourning of Muharram commemorating the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons (Hassan and Hussein) in the Battle of Karbala Aulia : (Ar.) awliyā. Custodian, protector, helper, friend. See wali Bladéh Geurutee: (Ac.) Beyond Geurutee upland, hinterland Bladéh Seulawah: (Ac.) roughly it refers all Aceh proper Baitul Mal : (Ar.) Bayt al-mal. House of Money, treasury Bentor : (Ac.) motorized rickshaw Burgerlijk Rechtvordering: (Nl.) the civil code. Civitas Academica: Academic society, a term for the whole body of people consisting of a university/college in Indonesia. Dara Baroe : (Ac.) Bride Darurat Akidah: (Ind.) faith emergency Da’wah/Dakwah: (Ar.) Da’wa. Preaching of Islam Dayah : (Ac.) traditional Islamic boarding school. (Ar.) zawiyah. Islamic religious group or Sufi monastery Fatwa : (Ar.) fatwā. Non-binding but authoritative opinions of ulamas Fiqh : (Ar.) Muslim jurisprudence, interpretation of the Qur’an Gampong : (Ac.) Village. Malaysian and Indonesian spelling: Kampong and Kampung

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh xv Geuchik/Keuchik : (Ac.) Village head Hadih madja : (Ac.) Aceh traditional proverbs Hadith : (Ar.) hadīth. Records of the saying or traditions of Prophet Muhammad Hak Ulayat : (Ind.) ethnic community’s right to avail to the land. (Dutch) beschikking recht Hukum : (Ind.) Law. (Ar.) ukm. Arbitration, judgement, authority, rule Hukuman cambuk : (Ind.) Flogging Ibadah : (Ar.) ibadat. Worship Ijma : (Ar.) ijmā‘. Consensus or agreement of Muslim scholars Ijtihad : (Ar.) ijtihad. Jurists’ legal reasonings Imeum : (Ac.) (Ar.) imām. Worship leader Jum’at : (Ar.) al-jumu‘ah. Friday prayer Jeunamee : (Ac.) equivalent to mas kawin and (Ar.) mahr Jilbab : (Ind.) head-cover (Ar.) jilbāb. Cover, veil, wrapper Jinayat : (Ac.) Islamic criminal code. (Ar.) Al-Jinaya Kandhang : (Ac.) Grave Kadhi : (Ac.) arbiter of Sharia law; (Ar.) qadi. Judge Kabupaten : (Ind.) Regional administrative division Kantor Dinas : (Ind.) Office Bureau Karong : (Ac.) Maternal extended family Kawom : (Ac.) Family. (Ar.) qawm. People, nation, tribe Keerkhof : (Dutch) Cemetery Kejruen Blang : (Ac.) Rice field caretaker Kenduri/Khanduri : (Ac.) (Sansk.) Thanksgiving communal feast Khadam : (Ar.) In Aceh, this refers to graveyard caretaker Khalwat : (Ar.) Solitude. In Islamic jurisprudence is a state when two unmarried adults from the opposite sex being in “close proximity” Khamar : (Ar.) Khamr. Liquor Khatib : (Ar.) khatīb. Person who delivers sermons during the Friday Prayer Kopiah : (Ind.) Male head piece KTP Merah Putih : (Ind.) Indonesian ID card forced in Aceh in the 2000s Lebenswelt : (Ger.) Life-world Linto Baroe : (Ac.) Bride Liwat : (Ar.) liwāt. Anal sex between men Lorong : (Ac.) Alleway Madzhab : (Ar.) madhab. Muslim schools of interpretation Mahar : (Ar.) mahr. A mandatory payment to the bride from the groom at the time of marriage Maghrib : (Ar.) al-maġrib. A prayer after sunset xvi Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Marwah : (Ar.) marwa. Marvellous. (Ac.) honor, prestige Maisir : (Ar.) maysir. Gambling Mas Kawin : (Ind.) Lit. Marriage gold. See Jeunamee Matrifocality : the relative egalitarian relationships between the sexes and the relative equal statuses of men and women in economic and ritual positions (Tanner. 1974) Mayam : (Ac.) traditional weight unit, equivalent to 3, 3 grams metric unit Meugang : (Ac.) communal meat feast which is celebrated three times a year. Known as Meugang Puasa, Meugang Uröe Raya (Eid Al Fitr), Meugang Uröe Haji (Eidul Adha). Village festivities are also known as Meugang Gampong Meuligo Gubernur : (Ac.) Governor Palace Meunasah (Aceh) : Village and praying hall Meuripe-ripe : (Ac.) communal donation and cooperation Moeity : each of two social and ritual groups Momism : excessive attachment to or domination by one’s mother Muamalah : (Ar.) muāmalāt. Civil acts in general, transaction, exchange Mudabbirul Muluk : (Ar.) in Aceh this refers to the Custodian of the Sultan Mukena : (Ind.) praying cloth for female Mukim : (Ac.) Administration division, federation of several gampong. (Ar.) muqîm. Remaining, residence, non- traveler Musyawarah Mufakat : (Ind.) consensus Nadzar : (Ar.) nadr. Offering promised or made in consequence of a vow Nagari : (Minang.) Land, village Nanggroe, Nanggro : (Ac.) Land, State, Country. In Bahasa Indonesia, it is translated as Negeri Negara Hukum : (Ind.) constitutional state, rule of law. (Ger.) rechtsstaat Panglima Laot : Sea and fishery overseer Pawang Glee : Mountain caretaker Pegawai kontrak : (Ind.) Temporary member of staff Pendatang : (Ind.) immigrant, foreigner Pengadilan Tinggi : High Court Peusijuek : Aceh thanksgiving ritual Piagam Jakarta : Po Rumoh : (Ac.) owner of the house Polisi Masyarakat : (Ind.) Community Police Priyayi : (Jv.) the aristocratic Javanese population section, as the embodiment of smooth acculturation of Islam and Javanese culture

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh xvii Qiyas : (Ar.) qiyās. Islamic jurisprudence Rajah : (Ar.) āl raja. Hope. (Ind.) Arabic talisman Razia : (Ind.) raid, patrol Rantau : (Ind.) migration, foreign land Regerings Reglement : (Nl.) Dutch East India Constitutional Regulations Reusam : (Ac.) custom Rupiah : (Ind.) Indonesian currency Sagoe : Federation of mukims Sarakata : (Ac.) royal edicts Santri : (Jv.) a section of Javanese population who practice a more orthodox version of Islam. Contrast to Abangan Selamatan : (Jv.) communal feast Sewulangke : (Ac.) matchmaker Shalawat : (Ar.) plural form of salat, prayer, salutation, greeting and mercy Strafvordering : (Nl.) Criminal Code Syahbandar : (Ac.) Syahbandar (Ind.) Port authority Syeikh : (Ar.) Shaikh. Islamic scholars. Elders Syirik : (Ind.) a sin of worshipping other than Allah. (Ar.) širk Takbir : (Ar.) Takbīr refers to the phrase Allāhu akbar (God the greatest) Tuha Peut : (Ac.) Council of the elders Tuha Lapan : (Ac.) Council of Elderly Eight Qanun : (Ar.) qānūn, from the Greek κανών kanōn. Canon Uleebalang : (Ac.) Chieftain Ulu : (Ac.) Gampong originator Ummah : (Ar.) community, community of Islamic people Uqubat : (Ar.) 'uqūbah. Punishment with intentional injury. Flogging Ustad : (Ar.) ustād. Teacher Uxorilocal : matrilocal residence Wahhabism : (Ar.) al-Wahhābiya(h). Religious Salafi movement founded by Muhammad Ibn Abd. Al-Wahhab Wahdatul Wujud : (Ar.) wahdat al-wujūd. The unity of existence. One of major ideas in Sufi metaphysics Wali : (Ar.) walī. Lawful guardian, custodia, guardian, friend helper Wali Nanggroe : (Ac.) Custodian of Nanggroe Aceh Wudhu : (Ar.) al-wudū' (Ind.) Ablution xviii Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Zakat : (Ar.) zakāh (Ind.), (Ac.) almsgiving Zeitgeist : (Ger.) Spirit of the age (times) Ziarah kubur : (Ind.) graveyard visit Zikir : (Ar.) dikr (Ind.) devotional prayer

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh xix xx Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh NOTES OF TRANSLITERATION

The transliteration of Acehnese, Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic and other Non-English terms used in this dissertation appear in italics throughout.

A list of all the key Acehnese terms, along with terms, names of people and places in Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic are rendered according to the original spelling spoken in Banda Aceh and are printed in Roman, e.g., Hukum Syariah and musyawarah mufakat. Certain terms such as Sharia and ulama, appear without diacritic and in their accepted English form.

The English translations of Arabic terms listed in the index are standardized. The translations of these terms given by individual authors in various citations may vary.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh xxi xxii Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh INTRODUCTION

Frequent news reports about sharia floggings in Aceh invoke heightened public discussions about the prominence and the threat of the Sharia law in the region. This book problematizes why Sharia law matters in Aceh and how the law influences the lives of Banda Aceh women. The historicity of Sharia law is presented through life stories of Banda Aceh women from different backgrounds. There is more than one law in the conventional boundaries of Aceh province. This publication presents legal pluralism as a fundamental condition against the background of the conceptual homogeneity of Sharia law studies of Aceh. The existence of Indonesian civil law, Sharia law, and adat law in Aceh challenges the conception of state sovereignty, legal uniformity, and secularism—and what it means to be an Indonesian Muslim citizen of Aceh province. The search for an understanding of the role of Sharia law in Aceh’s modern life shifted away from the long standing-primacy of the singular state law and the postulation of citizens’ “equality before the law”. Legal pluralism in Aceh—and Indonesia in general—has vast governance implications. There had been a realization that Sharia law fits the interests and needs of certain members of Acehnese society (Siapno 2002; Afrianty 2015). The autonomous Aceh government runs with the force of Sharia ideology and the economy (Feener 2013). On the other side, Sharia law failed to conform to the aspirations of others, such as human rights activists, minorities and marginalized women. People spoke of the law as “tajam di bawah tumpul di atas”—that Sharia law acquits the strong and doom the weak, as therefore wrong because justice has not been delivered equally. In the process of implementing the law, the Sharia apparatus and supporters inevitably pitted the law against Acehnese women who traditionally are considered the po rumoh (owner of the house) in Aceh. Contestations of women as the po rumoh highlights the fact that adat informed Acehnese experiences of Sharia law. This study seeks to capture the nuances of women’s experiences of Sharia law and draws attention to women’s class-based experiences in their everyday lives in Banda Aceh. Embodied experiences of the law serve as a temporal unifying of the

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 1 plurality of the legal system and women’s intersectional identities and positions. This book illustrates the efforts of Acehnese women to grapple with the competing, sometimes paradoxical norms of the adat, Sharia, and civil laws mandated by the Law of Governing Aceh (LoGA). The introduction and implementation of Sharia law present challenges for the Acehnese women who must now understand themselves as Acehnese Muslim Indonesians and as people whose roots are in Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam. This publication extends the perspectives on Sharia law beyond the Aceh government’s religious policies to the everyday experiences of Banda Acehnese. It takes various social positions and gender differences into accounts. Also, this book considers the practices and understanding of Sharia norms are embodied processes lived through by women. Within the relatively new structural circumstances, the embodied experiences of Sharia law reveal the power relationships and hierarchies in Aceh society. I am aware the many experiences of Sharia law were lived through beyond the conscious structures of events and attribution of meaning was given retrospectively. While person-centred interviews were important during the ten- months fieldwork, a considerable part of this ethnography relied on participant observation of particular ways of “being in the world” in Banda Aceh. The integration of social processes and practices into women’s experiences of Sharia law in Banda Aceh was adopted within my personal narratives and practices of the law. As an Indonesian Muslim woman of Javanese background, experiences of Sharia law were not something “out-there” to talk about from a distance. Much of “being- there” in Banda Aceh for me was sharing experiences of the law and similar ways of “being-in-the-world”. Because of my shared identity with the research subjects, our experiences of the law were similar. To a degree, the participants’ view of the law resonated with mine. Yet, some social registers and positions separate Banda Acehnese women’s experiences of Sharia law from one another, as well as from mine. Also, as an outsider, I was not a subject of adat customary law. In the case of adat law, it was Banda Acehnese women who made me aware of the functioning of Sharia and adat laws and its contemporary interpretations and practices of the laws. As a Muslim woman, it was easier for me to build rapport and to do in- depth interviews with female interlocutors. This was due to the research focus and also circumstantial expediency: the Banda Aceh Sharia ruling (Qanun Aceh No. 14/2003) forbidding women and men to be in close proximity, which effectively prevented me from having proper in-depth interviews with male members of Banda Aceh society. This publication makes a distinction regarding Sharia law, according to Acehnese women. In the context of Banda Aceh, women represent more than half of the population. It is only natural to hear women’s stories equally, if not more. Women experienced Sharia law differently and they held different views of the law. With

2 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh the introduction of the modern Sharia law, women are positioned to move within different spatial boundaries and narrower spaces than men. More importantly now, women are the objects of interest in Aceh governance. This situation, in my opinion, is not accidental: during the armed conflict era, it was men who were the object and suspects to be monitored by the government. The internalization of Jakarta’ violent governance has in a turn changed the oppressed men to become the oppressor of their womankind. Thousands of Banda women could be pushed further into the corner as the skewed implementation of Sharia law continues to happen. The situation in Aceh is only expected to get worse because of Aceh’s poor social and physical infrastructures after centuries of armed-conflicts and the devastating tsunami. Women of Banda Aceh are the source of knowledge to make a better society as they too are the owner of Aceh.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 3 4 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh CHAPTER I Maps To Aceh Sharia Law

1. The City of Banda Aceh One evening in mid-November 2014 I found myself at the Jakarta Garuda Indonesia Departure Gate at Soekarno Hatta Airport. The passengers to Banda Aceh were exceptionally solemn that evening. I sat close to an older, striking man whose hand was being shaken with respect by men wearing distinctive Aceh House of Representatives pins in their lapels. I boarded the flight with Wali Nanggroe, the Custodian of Aceh Darussalam, and the former prime minister of Gerakan Aceh Merdeka/GAM (Aceh Free Movement), Malik Mahmud Al-Haythar. As an Indonesian, I knew Aceh had “special autonomy” status giving Aceh special governing rights, but I was not aware of the office ofWali Nanggroe in Aceh’s government. I arrived at the Sultan Iskandar Muda airport at 20:30 Western Indonesia Time. In the dark hours, the airport looked like a mosque with two giant domes. Thetopi meukeutop—a monument dedicated to the famous freedom fighter Teuku Umar— greeted all passengers at the entrance.1 At the entrance to the city is the Siron tsunami mass grave, the last resting place for thousands of unidentified victims. In the following days I saw that the beautiful monument resembles a giant blue wave framing the absent tombstones. The silent journey toward downtown Banda Aceh was disquieting. I imagined that a good part of the city was smeared with blood and tears from a long history of armed conflict and the devastating 2004 tsunami. The city of Banda Aceh is situated at the tip of Sumatra. Banda Aceh is the capital city of the Special Autonomous Region Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam Province. The city extends over the vast valley surrounded by Bukit Barisan plateau and the Seulawah Agam Mountain. The Malacca strait encloses the northern and western extremities of the city. In the morning of 26 December 2004, tsunami waves swept away Banda Aceh’s coastlines and killed one-third of its population. Today the beaches subside meters away from the pre-2004 coastlines. Only recently have people reclaimed these beaches with food stalls and small gazebos. 1 Teuku Umar or Lord Umar Johan Pahlawan was a fighter against the Dutch. TheTopi Meukeutop is a structure in the form of a traditional Acehnese men’s headpiece.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 5 The tsunami accelerated the cessation of armed conflict between the Indonesian government and Gerakan Aceh Merdeka/GAM (Free Aceh Movement). The Helsinki peace agreement between GAM and Indonesia was completed in 2005, and reconstruction and rebuilding projects commenced immediately. A decade after the tsunami, the population of Banda Aceh has surpassed the 2004 population. Markets, schools, offices, and beaches open regularly. Military checkpoints and military night curfews, common in the 2000s, are now completely gone. I came to the city when “masuk gampong sudah aman”— it had become safe to enter the core Aceh communities (gampong), which are also the strongest bastions of Aceh’s past resistance and adat institutions.

Wali Nanggroe Malik Abdul Al-Ahthyar gave speech at Maulud Nabi and Peusijeuk Partai Aceh Office on 7 April 2015. Photo: Author

Sharia law gained traction after the peace agreement in 2005. Before that, in 2001, the Indonesian Government allowed a limited application of Sharia regional law, but this did not work well, partly because in 2003 the Indonesian government declared martial law in the whole province of Aceh and launched the biggest military campaign since the invasion of Timor Leste in 1975. Even though the Free Aceh Movement did not seek an independent Aceh based on Islam (Bowen 2005:156 in Kymlicka and He, eds. 2005), the newly elected Acehnese government presented a united front supporting the introduction and application of Sharia law mandated by the Law of Governing Aceh (LoGA), which in effect allows Aceh to apply Sharia and adat law as an autonomous province. Sharia law was soon broadly accepted as the governing principle in Aceh.

6 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Originally, Banda Aceh was the Kutaraja—the King’s city—of the Aceh Darussalam Sultanate. Banda Aceh is centered around the market port area of Peunayong and sprawls outward along the bureaucratic center named after yet another Aceh freedom fighter—Daud Bereureuh—and the intellectual hub of the Darussalam area, the Batoh bus terminal, the Harapan Bangsa football stadium, and the Soekarno Hatta outer ring road. The Grand Mosque Baiturrahman stands between the Peunayong market and the Meuligoe Gubernur (the Governor’s Palace). The Sacred Heart Church, the Dharma Bakti Vihara Buddhist temple, and the Palani Andawar Hindu temple are also located in the downtown area. The Indonesian army offices and headquarters have now supplanted many Dutch-era buildings in the area. Banda Aceh is transforming itself into a modern city. It is no longer an agricultural area—almost half (42.07%) of the workforce are employed in the “chemistry and building materials” sectors, followed by the “food” and “clothing” sectors.2 The changing force of production imposed the conditions that changed the livelihoods and social relations. The relations of agricultural production were mutually dependent on property, social relations and the gampong structure.3 Speaking of changes in Aceh, the gampong structure has also changed with the introduction of the Law of Governing Aceh (LoGA) and Sharia law.4

2 This statistic came from RPIJM Kota Banda Aceh (The City of Banda Aceh Mid-Range Investment and Development Plan) 2010-2014. 3 Jayawardana makes an interesting assessment of the reproduction of social ties, in this regard to kinship, and the forces of production: “In his classic study of the Acehnese, the Dutch Islamicist, Snouck Hurgronje (1906, I: 44), surmised that the kinship system of the Achehnese had been derived from a matrilineal system. He did not press the point because he recognized that there were features of Achehnese kinship that were not consonant with such a proposition and went on to discuss its patriarchal features derived partly from Islam. What led him to such a surmise is the general prevalence, in a near universality in Acheh Besar and Acheh Pidie, of uxorilocal residence and the ownership of key productive resources by women, with the consequence that many men work the rice lands owned by their wives” (1977: 22). 4 Article 98 of the LoGA authorizes the adat institutions Majelis Adat Aceh (Aceh Adat Council), Imeum Mukim (mukim cleric/imam), Imeum Chiek (village cleric), Keuchik (ambiguation, Geuchik, village head), Tuha Peut (Council of four Elders), Tuha Lapan (Council of Eight Elders), Imeum Meunasah (meunasah imeum), Kejruen Blang (rice farming coordinator), Panglima Laot (sea commander), Pawang Glee (mountain guardian), Peutua Seunebok (the head of Seunebok), Hari Peukan (caretaker of the marketplace), and Syahbanda (caretaker of the docks and fish markets).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 7 City of Banda Aceh Map. Source: City of Banda Aceh

Present-day Banda Aceh is a city of 270,000 people. The name Aceh itself encompasses the people of the city of Banda Aceh, the kabupaten (districts) Aceh Besar, Sigli, Aceh Utara, and Aceh Barat (Siegel 1969/1976). Other than the Acehnese, Banda Aceh is the home to people of Gayo, Alas, Tamiang, Aneuk Jamee’, Singkil, Javanese and Bataknese descent, as well as small and well-integrated Arab, Chinese and Indian populations. The diverse ethnic make-up of residents of Banda Aceh meant that there were a variety of and languages spoken. The city was composed of nine municipalities: Banda Raya, Baiturrahman, Jaya Baru, Leung Bata, Ulee Kareng, Kuta Alam, Syiah Kuala, Kutaraja, and Meuraxa. During the research period, the Mayor of Banda Aceh was Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, the daughter of the ulama and New Order-era political figure Tengku Sa’aduddin Djamal. Female leaders are not at all unusual in Aceh. The most famous grande dames of Aceh are the four Queens (Sultana) of Aceh Darussalam,5 Admiral Malahayati, Cut Nyak Dhien and the many female freedom fighters inong( bale). In the past, adat (customary law) was seen as the domain of Princess Phang,6 leading

5 Sultana Safiyat ud-Din Taj-Alam (1641-75), Sultana Naqiyat ud-Din Nur al-Alam (1975- 78), Sultana Zaqiyat ud-Din Inayat Syah(1678-88), and Sultana Kamalat Syah Zinat al-Din (1688-1699). For a study of female leadership (queenship) in the seventeenth century Aceh, see Khan, Sher Banu. “Men of Prowess and Women of Piety: A Case Study of Aceh Dar al-Salam in the Seventeenth Century.” (2013). 6 Princess Kamaliah of Pahang, Queen of Aceh and the wife of Sultan Iskandar Muda.

8 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh to the saying that “the power of hukom (Sharia) was held by Syiah Kuala,7 the adat by Putroe Phang.” In the years 2014-2015, the face of hukom was the Mayor: Bunda (Mother) Illiza appeared in almost every government Sharia campaign.

Billboard Seminar on Aceh Women’s Leadership. Banda Aceh Mayor Illiza S. Djamal. Photo: author

There were plenty of rooms for women inadat Aceh. Adat practices and values were subjects that were constantly discussed throughout the research period. Adat is considered to originate in the distant past.8 In the past, adat was an established concept—something conventional and customary—but in contemporary Aceh its overtness is contested by a newer and more paradigmatic concept, Syariah (Sharia). Colloquially, adat is sometimes understood in terms of tangible practices and heritage such as traditional clothing, architecture, and rituals of a particular ethnic group in Indonesia. Scholars have dismissed adat law as a subject unworthy of consideration in Aceh 7 Syeikh Abdur-Rauf as Singkili the Qadi Malikul Adil of is one of the main figures shaping the form of Sharia in Aceh. Syiah Kuala has continued to influence discourses on Sharia law in contemporary Banda Aceh. 8 See Koentjaraningrat 1986.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 9 study, but it works in parallel with and sometimes overlaps with Sharia law.9 The application of Sharia and the variety of adat in Muslim communities have remained relatively understudied subjects.10 It is safe to say that many principles of adat no longer carry much religious weight for many Acehnese: many consider adat as something from the past, part of their history.11 In Aceh, still, adat is heavily associated with the golden era of the Aceh Sultanate, especially during the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607-1636). Women were part of this golden era: the four Queens era (1641-1699).12 During the reign of the four Sultanas, Syiah Kuala or Tengku Syeikh Abdurrauf Al-Jawi Al-Singkily (1615-1697) was designated Kadhi Malik al-Adil.13 He wrote a text about Sharia, Mirat al-Turab fi Tashil Ma‘rifah Al-Ahkam Al-Syar‘iyyah li al-Malik al-Wahhab,14 commissioned by the Sultana Safiatuddin. He also wrote the most comprehensive Qur’anic translation in the Malay world and a substantial body of Islamic literature. It is also widely believed that he was the author of Syair Ma’rifat, a very popular Sufi poem in the Indonesian archipelago. Syiah Kuala’s part cannot be left out from the discussion of current Sharia law. The current interpretations and application of Sharia law may be part of or a split from the past. Many speak of a traditional postulation: hukom ngon adat lagèe zat ngon sifeut, that Sharia and adat are separate but complementary laws. The postulation is the basic principle of Aceh plurality. The traditional legal pluralism informed separate jurisdictions symbolized by the Sultan, ulama, noble-chiefs (uleebalang) and village leaders and elders. And when we speak of Aceh “state”, the “state” in Aceh has never been as unified as one might think. According to Hurgronje (1906), Spiegel (1969), Takahashi (1984) and Habsji (1983), there has been no hierarchical unification of the state among the jurisdictions dispensed by the separate arbiters of law in Aceh’s court, mukim (village confederacy) or gampong (village). This is due to the “complex balance of powers” between the Sultan, uleebalang (chieftains), and the ulama as well as the plurality of laws in the Aceh Sultanate. 9 Law No. 11/2006 on Aceh Government (Undang-Undang Pemerintahan Aceh) was promulgated after a considerable delay in August 2006. The earlier legal basis for adat law is the same law as Sharia law: Act No. 44/1999 concerning the Specialty of Aceh Province. 10 Note: “in the last two decades the key question that has occupied many feminist theorists is how should issues of historical and cultural specificity inform both the analytics and the politics of any feminist project?” (Mahmood 2005: 31). 11 Nilasari 2010: 149. 12 Fatima Mernissi briefly mentions these Queens in her book, The Forgotten Queens of Islam: “Four of them, however, managed to hand down power to each other in the Atjeh empire in the northernmost part of Sumatra at the end of the seventeenth century. Not surprisingly, they faced religious opposition, which contested their right to rule, on the basis of a fatwa brought all the way from distant Mecca,” (1993: 30). 13 He was the Kadhi for the Queen Safiatuddin Tajul Alam, Naqiatuddin Nurul Alam, Zakiatuddin Inayat Khan and Queen Zianatuddin Kemalat Syah. See Lombard 2006; Hurgronje 1906; and Hasjmy 1983. 14 He did not write about ibadah (worship), but muamalah (trade and civil law), marriage law and jinayat (criminal law).

10 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh The separation of legal jurisdictions has been imprinted in Aceh society’s mental map. The Aceh Code (source) of division and balance in governing power and legal authority was implemented within each territorial and cultural boundary of each authority. The traditional division of power between Sultan or Sultana, ulama, noble chiefs (uleebalang) and village heads (geuchik) are the background of the broadening of the contemporary Sharia territory and jurisdictions in Aceh. To situate Sharia law in Aceh socio-political contexts, we will take into consideration how Sharia (Aceh) law emerged within the ‘secularized’ Indonesian legal system. Modern Indonesian legal system acknowledged legal pluralism, suggesting the parallel despite unequal between national civil law, Sharia law, and adat law. At the national level and jurisdictions, Sharia law is limited to the “domestic” sphere of Muslim citizens. It regulates mostly marriage and divorce, as well as religious alms and inheritance. The Law of Governing Aceh mandated Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam province an autonomous status and granted the Acehnese government to apply Sharia and adat laws. Hence, at the Aceh province level, Sharia law tries to regulate all aspects of public and personal affairs: from governance, trade, criminal codes, to morality. The difficulty of understanding Aceh Sharia law here is that it is used beyond its legal jurisdiction. Once Sharia law had been accepted, the only way to move forward was to enact the resulting legislation. Aceh’s current socio historical context does not present a strong reason to the contrary. It is not unique to Aceh that the Sharia legal system runs parallel to the more stable state (civil) legal system as in Malaysia (see Peletz 2014). However, broader political autonomy means that Aceh has more room to “experiment” with Sharia law beyond the existing state legal system.15 There are examples where Sharia discourses and practices intervene in other social and cultural spaces which have traditionally been “compartmentalized” and only met Sharia at the boundaries. In a way, the current Sharia law liquefies social boundaries in terms of both norms and practices.

2. Plurality of Laws in Aceh Sharia law in Aceh needs to be situated as a part of Indonesian legal system and a broader culture where there are hundreds of ethnic groups, sizeable local belief systems and six recognized world religions yet Islam is overwhelmingly dominant. Legal pluralism stands as one of the central concepts to guide the historical and politically engaged descriptions of Indonesian and Sharia law in Aceh.

15 Contrary to Sharia law, which endorses “Seclusion Law,” in December 2017, the highest Indonesian legal arbitrator—the Constitutional Court—rejected a petition asking it to criminalize all sex outside marriage. The unsuccessful petition would have affected unmarried heterosexual couples and gay couples, who cannot marry in Indonesia. “Indonesian Constitutional Court Declines to Ban Extramarital Sex” in [http://www. france24.com/en/20171214-indonesia-constitutional-court-declines-ban-extramarital- sex].

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 11 The Indonesian legal system is complex; that it is a confluence of three different laws: the state civil law, Sharia law, and adat law. There is the Indonesian civil law was inherited from the Dutch civil law and is applicable to all Indonesian citizens. Historically, Sharia law “was not a codified legal tradition monopolized by the state (Hefner 2012: 2), The Dutch colonial government differentiated the Dutch East Indies population based on race and religion. The Dutch law applied only for Europeans and Christians. Thus, Sharia law and the diverse customary adat law were codified to govern the Muslim and the native, non-Muslim population respectively. The central domain of Indonesian Sharia law is family and personal laws binding solely Muslims citizens and Indonesian Islamic court (Pengadilan Agama) run parallel to the civil courts (Bowen 2005: 160). The least formalized law is the adat law, which refers to various customary local norms in several adat communities throughout the Indonesian archipelago. This is true for Indonesia and other Muslim countries; post-colonialism and modernization have been characterized by the etatization of the religious law of Islam and formalization of customary adat law in selected areas. And in Aceh, the recent Law of Governing Aceh (LoGA) has brought forth truly fundamental shifts, yet it is nevertheless of value to chronicle the history of Sharia law. Another form of Aceh’s new experimentation challenging the Indonesian state legal system is the introduction of corporal punishment—caning—known as hukuman cambuk in the province.16 Fast forward to the 2000s, and the first execution of caning in Indonesia was held in Bireun, East Aceh, on Friday 24 July 2005 even though the Qanun banning gambling and establishing the appropriate punishment was signed in 2003. The Indonesian Police and Army were involved in the first caning in Banda Aceh. The inherent problem in the application of Sharia law is the “dualism” of law, where two laws apply in the same legal territory. There are efforts driven by the Indonesian central government to override Aceh’s legal autonomy, especially on the issue of corporal punishment such as caning. Many human rights activists in Aceh seek to abolish public caning by bringing the issue to the Constitutional Court and Human Rights National Committee in Jakarta. In the past, it was these same human rights activists who challenged the Indonesian government on its human rights abuses in Aceh. The debates over public caning and the potential other brutish punishments such as stoning and mutilation (Aceh does not enforce these punishments, unlike other Muslim countries that officially enforce Sharia law)

16 In Aceh, the best-known historical example of state-enforced corporal punishment is the case of Sultan Iskandar Muda’s only son, Crown Prince Meurah Pupok, who was sentenced to death by his father. According to legend, the prince took his subordinate’s wife for himself. He was ostracized even after his death: he was buried inKeerkhof in Banda Aceh, a Dutch soldier’s cemetery.

12 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh continue even though the practice is relatively well established there continue to be protests about this form of punishment.

2. 1. Legal Pluralism – Colonial Legacy The legal system in practice in Indonesia today is part of the Dutch colonial legacy. Legal pluralism appeared in the Dutch East India Constitutional Regulations (Regeringsreglement) of 1854. TheRegeringsreglement served as a constitution for the Dutch East India Company colonies.17 Article 109 provided definitions of legal categories for the colony’s European, Indigenous and Foreign Oriental (Chinese, Arabs, and Indians) populations.18 Further, the same Regeringsreglement section 75 (3) specified thatadat law and the religious law of Islam would apply to the indigenous population.19 The article separated the native populations from European settlers and Dutch civil law. This apartheid system was later removed to meet the “equally indigenous”20 spirit of the newly independent Indonesian Republic and the republic adopted Roman-Dutch civil law as state law. “Legal pluralism goes far deeper than the joining of European and traditional forms of law,” Sally Engle Merry explains. She states that legal pluralism “is generally defined as a situation in which two or more legal systems coexist in the same social field” (Merry 1988: 870; See Griffith 1986a).21 The plurality of laws in the colonial era meant that different laws applied to different people based on racial distinctions mentioned in the Regeringreglement. The Dutch civil law was applied singularly for European subjects, so civil law remained foreign to most indigenous populations in the Dutch East Indies. Even though independent Indonesia abolished the legal separations based on racial differences, Indonesian legal pluralism, in essence, is a corollary of the Dutch colonial legal system. Historically speaking, many post-colonial nation states have inherited colonial legal pluralism. However, the reality of legal pluralism dates back to periods before European colonialism. In most Muslim colonies in Asia and Africa, a separate customary law co-existed with Sharia law. Many ethnic and religious groups were also able to manage their internal affairs without European colonial governments. 17 The Dutch colonial judiciary system separated Europeans from indigenous populations. European subjects were covered by two legal codes, the civil code (Burgerlijk Rechtvordering) and criminal code (Strafvordering), while native people were subject to one procedural code (Indisch/Indonesisch Reglement) which was promulgated in 1848 and later revised in 1926. Judicial institutions predating the colonial system, such as adat and Islamic courts, were accessible only for the native populations. In 1914, the Dutch promulgated the Landrech which applied to all population groups (European, indigenous and foreign Orientals) but only for minor misdemeanours. See Daniel S. Lev 2000: 16-17. 18 See Freek Colombijn 2013: 77. 19 See Van Vollenhoven 1918: 225. 20 The Indonesian Constitution declares in Article 26 that Indonesian citizens comprise indigenous people and foreigners who are lawfully granted citizenship. Article 27 states that all citizens are equal before the law. 21 See an elaborated definition of legal pluralism in the “Theoretical Frameworks” chapter.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 13 This legacy continues to exist today (Lev 1985; Merry 1988; Sartori and Shahar 2012; Hussain 2011). Later, however, the legal practices and sensibilities in many post-colonial Muslim societies were informed by the legal traditions inherited from the former colonial masters (Peletz 2013). In the colonial era, the goal was not to establish unified colonial societies but to maintain the segregated administrative system (Lev 1985). The concept of equal legal status and citizenry and its manifestation in legal universalism was not the rule in the colonies. There has never been a universal jurisdiction over the entire population—different courts administered different laws to accommodate diverse ethnic and religious relations in the colonies: “to each his own law” (Lev 1985: 60-1). Traditionally, Islamic political and legal thought concentrates on the non-state unit of analysis (An-Na’im 2000). When national independence and the unity of ummah in many multicultural Muslim communities were achieved politically after the colonial era, Indonesia chose to unite hundreds of ethnic groups in one ideological unity called Pancasila. Despite Muslims’ doubts over the legitimacy of the national ideology of Pancasila, Indonesian people mostly accept that Indonesia is neither a secular nor an Islamic state (Intan 2006). In modern post-colonial states, in the context of legal pluralism, citizens are granted different legal rights and obligations depending on which religious or ethnic community they belong to, while at the same time they are subjected to the universal legal rights and obligations of the state’s civil law. This situation “in which two or more legal systems coexist in the same social field” is a phenomenon described as legal pluralism (Merry 1988: 870). The Dutch were not the first to introduce a foreign legal system in Indonesia. Indonesian legal complexity is the result of centuries of encounters with many foreigners from China, India, the Arabian Peninsula, and Europe, as well as internal interactions between native populations.22 Take, for example, the word “adat,” itself an Arabic derivatization for “custom,” applied here somewhat paradoxically to the law that is viewed as outside the influence of Islamic law (Spyer 1996).

2. 2. Adat Aceh An examination of the relationship between Sharia and women’s experiences requires a basic understanding of Aceh’s legal traditions and the overall culture reflected in the law. This study challenges the view that Sharia law is the only locus of norms and tradition for Muslims (see Hussin 2016). There are centuries-long debates regarding the various aspects of Islamic law and their position concerning diverse norms in any given Muslim society. In the case of Aceh and Indonesia overall, Islam has functioned as an “effective bridge between local cultures” (Davidson and Henleys 2007: 31) and has provided a unitary idiom of expression despite social

22 See Lombard (2005) Nusa Jawa Silang Budaya Vol. I; II; III. Jakarta: Gramedia.

14 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh distinctions (Siegel 2003: 58). The state in Aceh has never been as unitary as one might imagine. One argument stands out: “Aceh was not a hierarchical, vertically integrated society, but one composed of four encapsulated groups existing side by side. These groups did not interpenetrate but met only at their boundaries” (Siegel 1969: 68 see Hefner 2009; Kell 1989). The same assumption appeared in various studies about the state and Islam in Aceh. Many have implied that Aceh was a unitary sultanate under Sharia law. This view, as consequence, confounds our current understanding of adat Aceh. The “legal aggregate” of Aceh’s legal tradition is highlighted to illuminate the intersectional experience of Sharia law, not only in terms of religion, ethnicity, and class, but also space. Adat Aceh is a complicated phrase it sometimes refers to the sultanate period; the world when royal edicts (sarakata), the Hikayat Aceh and the Bustanussalatin were made, framing the major part of adat Aceh (Takeshi 1984: 8). In his study on The World of Adat Aceh, Ito Takeshi highlighted that while Islamic rituals depicted in adat Aceh centered on the sultanate court, there were likewise different spheres of traditional rulers and legal practices. He concludes that the contemporary definition of adat “was ‘adat’ as laid down by the rulers to the Acehnese of earlier periods, into which part the old practices or the customary law of the land had probably been absorbed” (Takeshi 1984: 191). Furthermore, he explains: “Adat Meukota Alam or Adat Póteu Mereuhom the edict of 1726 clarifies the principles of the legal system. According to this edict, the sources of law consist of Sharia (described as hukum Allah) and the ‘adat.’ What is meant by ‘adat’ practice had already established as customary law by earlier rulers, i.e. Ala al- Din Ri’ayat Syah Al-Mukammil (1589-1604), Iskandar Muda (1607-1636) and Taj al-Alam Safiyyat al-Din Syah (1641-1675) … As for the law court and its jurisdiction, the edict of 1726 gives a picture as follows. The law court is held in the long council-hall (Balai Panjang), called Bait al’Rijal, in the presence of the Kadi Malik al-Adil, Orang Kaya, and jurists. The Kadi alone, presiding over the court, is always required to be present when justice is dispensed…The court’s jurisdiction excludes cases which arise in the Sagi and the Gampong. Internal disputes in the Gampong, even criminal cases, are handed over to a local arbitrator (1984: 189-191).”

The relationship betweenadat and Sharia law involves a spatial positionality and also classifications.23 In the agricultural past, the relationship was articulated in a proverb “umong meuateung, ureung meupeutua, rumoh meuadat, pukat meukaja”24 which means that “rice fields have embankments, houses have norms”—that things are situated and abide by their laws. According to Takeshi (1984), during the 23 For more on the classification of what can be considered Sharia andadat law in seventh- century Aceh, see chapter VI. 24 Disregarding considerations of lyricism, the literal translation is: “rice fields have embankments, people have leaders, homes have norms, and trawlers have nets.”

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 15 sultanate era, Acehnese understanding of adat involved the traditions of the rulers. Furthermore, there was a categorization of what was considered the jurisdiction adat and Sharia law were written in Sarakata (Royal Edicts). According to the Sarakata, assaulting a woman fell under adat law’s jurisdiction.

2. 3. Between Adat and Sharia A traditional proverb celebrated as hadih maja indatu25 “Matee Aneuk Meupat Jeurat, Gadoh Adat Pat Tamita” (when a child is dead, it is clear where her/his grave is, when adat is gone, it is nowhere to be found) conveys the importance of adat in Aceh. The story behind this proverb, which many believe to be true, is the Meruah Pupook legend. It concerns the Poteu Cut Meruah Pupook, the crown prince of Aceh Sultanate, the son of Sultan Iskandar Muda. The prince was accused of sleeping with his officer’s wife and Iskandar Muda punished him with the strongest form of Sharia law punishment: beheading. The proverb “Gadoh Adat Pat Tamita” means that adat is something to be treasured, more than kin. However, it is not clear what “adat” in the proverb refers to. The punishment was based on Islamic law (hudud), but the proverb uses “adat” instead of “hukom,” which traditionally referred to Sharia law.26 The localized religious and public law, known asHukum Syariah, operates in Aceh province cannot be made without taking into account adat institutions and practices, both in the past and the present. Presenting Aceh as unique regarding its legal tradition is important. Article No. 1, paragraph 2 of the Law of Governing Aceh (LoGA) provides a precise definition: “Aceh is a province constituting a legal social unit having unique characteristics and granted with a special authority to manage and administer its local governance and social interests in accordance with the laws of and within the system and principles of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia pursuant to the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, headed by a Governor.” Aceh’s special status provides Aceh Province with broader autonomy compared to other Indonesian provinces. The current regional legal system in Aceh is founded on the Law of Governing Aceh. Even though there is no direct reference to Islamic law in the Memorandum of Agreement between the Aceh Freedom Movement and the Indonesian government signed in 2005, there is a mention of Sharia law in the Aceh regional statute known as Qanun Article 125, which states that “Qanun Aceh will be re-established for Aceh respecting the historical traditions and customs of the people of Aceh and reflecting 25 “Proverbs of the ancestors”: the Acehnese word of “hadih” is ambiguation from the Arabic “hadith,” popularly understood to mean the “traditions of the Prophet Muhammad,” while maja is an Acehnese word equal to “locution” in English. Indatu approximately means ancestors. 26 In contrast to the other proverb, in which adat and hukom are clearly differentiated: “Adat bak po Teumeruhom, Hukom bak Syiah Kuala, Kanun bak Putroe Phang, Reusam bak Bentara.”

16 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh the contemporary legal requirements of Aceh.” Further, according to Article 127, the government of Aceh and its districts/municipalities are given responsibility for the implementation of Islamic law. Article 97 of the LoGA specifies that the resolution of community social problems shall be carried out through traditional means by adat institutions such as the Aceh Adat Council, or imeum mukim, and ten other traditional institutions. Although Islam is mentioned as the central principle of Aceh’s governance, adat is also referenced in the LoGA. In mid-2000 the Aceh provincial parliament took the first steps towards implementing the LoGA through the introduction of five new Regional Regulations (Peraturan Daerah/PERDA): (1) the implementation of Islamic Law; (2) banning the sale and consumption of alcohol, except by non- Muslims in their own homes; (3) implementing religious education in Aceh, (4) enforcing customary law (adat); and (5) establishing a new Majelis Permusyawaratan Ulama (Consultative Council of Ulama) (Miller 2008: 41, Feener 2013). While the formalization of legal pluralism and the general acceptance of the state as the arbiter of Islamic law have come about since the creation of the Indonesian Republic, there was no effective legal system applied in Aceh province prior to the LoGA. The Indonesian legal system was foreign to Acehnese people perhaps until 2006. Even though Aceh’s legal system has always been pluralistic, the principle of legal pluralism in the sultanate era was by no means the same as the modern version of it. During the armed conflict period, Sharia law was more an aspiration than a legitimate legal order. After the peace agreement, Sharia law became central to Aceh’s legal system. In the past, Islamic law in Aceh applied to matters outside the purview of adat and, as quoted from Takeshi, “the court’s jurisdictions exclude cases which arise in the Sagi and Gampong. Internal disputes in the gampong, even criminal cases, are handed over to a local arbitrator.”27 The implication of Takeshi’s assessment is that there has been an expansion of Sharia law into adat territory, not only in terms of changing jurisdiction but also in the categorization of violations.28 In Takeshi’s words, it may be suggested that during the Sultanate era “the Islamic legal system occupied a secondary position.”29 It would require another study to analyze whether Takeshi (and also Hurgronje) is correct in asserting that until the early twentieth century the majority of Acehnese life was governed more by adat than Islamic law.30 27 Takeshi 1984: 190. 28 According to Takeshi, one of the main sarakata of Aceh court “…this part, the edict of Syam al-Alam further that drinking, theft, and fornication are the Islamic prohibitions, and killing, wounding, and assaulting a woman are those of ‘Hukum Adat.’ This classification of various offenses is important in the sense that in the eyes of the Acehnese of the time, Sharia was understood as the ethico-religious norms and the “Hukum Adat’ which probably comprised both the ‘adat’ of the rulers and other unwritten customary law, supplying social and punitive norms” (Takeshi 1984: 191). 29 Takeshi 1984: 191. 30 In Hurgronje’s own words, “a very great portion of their lives is governed by adat and only

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 17 In modern Banda Aceh, the gampong is both an adat community and an administrative unit, and very much the main social context in which much of Banda Acehnese life takes place. There was an enormous change after the tsunami and the peace agreement, meaning that most of Banda Aceh’s gampong no longer “organically” followed the uxorilocal principle. This is especially true in areas where many gampong were completely swept away by the tsunami. However, Aceh’s adat law is being revitalized and its courts are acknowledged as a legitimate part of Aceh’s governance. Until 2014, especially in areas undamaged by the tsunami, the gampong structure consisted of a cluster of houses owned by daughters, sisters and aunts. This structure was also still observed in the area surrounding Banda Aceh where the majority of people’s livelihoods are centered on agriculture, such as in the Aceh Besar and Aceh Jaya Districts. But beyond the architectural landscape, there are cultural shifts happening Aceh. Long before Sharia law was introduced, Siegel suggested that reformist Islam provided an alternative social and productive relation to Acehnese men.31 With the decrease of adat nobility, the uleebalang, and the increase in influence of reformist Islam in Aceh in the nineteenth century, it was the ulama who got to define what it means to be Acehnese Muslims.32 While adat gampong has changed considerably, the Aceh Adat Council is gaining momentum with the acknowledgement of adat court as a legitimate “peradilan perdamaian”—peace justice—and adat gampong guards being recognized as Polisi Masyarakat under the supervision of the Indonesian police.33 In light of Qanun No. 9/2008 on Adat Life and Customs, which provides the legal basis of a special status for the Aceh government to establish adat courts and

a small part by hukom” (1906: 14). 31 According to Siegel, mostly quoting from Hurgronje: “…in the nineteenth century, most Atjehnese lived in terms of village and kinship. A man’s association and the course of his life depended on the ties given him at birth. The only exceptions to this pattern were offered by the reform movements and thepesantren …It was not expected that a man goes on the rantau in order to become a man. He ‘went to the East’ (dja’u timo), or the rantau, because he had no other means of earning a livelihood. If a man could make a satisfactory income in Pidie, he stayed at home…Islam did not furnish a basis of relationship and self-esteem which replaced kinship and locality for men on the rantau in the pepper areas. Kinship and locality were still the terms of relationship there, as we have seen. However, through the role of ulama, it offered men release from their traditional obligations; to those who did not become ulama, it offered an occasional alternative to village life… through their experience in the religious school they were removed from the world of the village and brought into the world of Islam. life can be seen as a form of the rantau...” (Siegel 1976: 66-71). 32 Morris produced an excellent study about conflicts among elite groups throughout the twentieth century. In his dissertation Islam and Politics in Aceh: A Study of Center- Periphery Relations in Indonesia, Morris argued that “the conflict has been about how one group of leaders rather than another came to be in a position to formulate the symbols of group identity, to provide a definition of what it means to be Acehnese” (1983:13). 33 The communal guards are different fromSatuan Polisi Pamong Praja (Satpol PP), or the Municipal Police who have now merged with Wilayatul Hisbah/Sharia Police.

18 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh give judicial authority to gampong and mukim communities,34 the former head of the Sharia Bureau stated that “adat sanctions could be applied to Sharia law offences.”35 Many Sharia offences have been resolved using adat courts staged by gampong communities.36 This partly explains the gap between the number of arrests by the Sharia Bureau and the number of Sharia Court cases.37 Adat Aceh will be discussed further in the next chapters in which Aceh’s legal tradition is juxtaposed with its modern manifestations and the understanding of adat and Sharia laws. For example, there are cases where adat law operates in the same area as Sharia law in Aceh. Some of the current Aceh administrative territories are replications of adat territories of the mukim and gampong.38 Many reusam (customs) are now being revived, especially those of environmental and autonomous governance practices. In 2008, the Aceh Adat Council, together with the United Nations Development Program, issued Guidelines on Adat Justice in Aceh: For an Adat Aceh that is Fair and Accountable. Qanun No. 9/2008 on Pembinaan Kehidupan Adat dan Adat Istiadat (Adat Life and Customs Development) gives a legal mandate for Adat Court (Peradilan Adat) to address eighteen types of case, one of which is Khalwat (mesum, seclusion). The qanun takes a different tone from Qanun No. 14/2003 about that same violation. Sharia police and the court enforce the qanun khalwat, and it operates differently from adat law.39 The principle of adat court is best expressed as follows: 34 According to LoGA, mukim is an autonomous territorial entity under the kecamatan (municipality). Mukim is an adat unit and exists only in Aceh and it is not a bureaucratic unit such as kecamatan. Mukim are smaller units under the kecamatan and supervise several gampongs. Mukim, according to Qanun Al ‘Asyi (Qanun Aceh Meukuta Alam, dated 1868) consist of five, seven or eightmeunasah , and at least three meunasah according to the customs in the given community. Further, according to this Qanun, adat structural societal units in Aceh Darussalam Sultanate consist of gampong (villages), mukim (federations of several gampong), Nanggroe (federation of several mukim) and Sagoe (federation of several mukim). Aceh has Sagoe XXII Mukim, Sagoe XV mukim and Sagoe XXVI mukim. 35 Srimulyani 2010: 224. 36 There is another court—a more violent one—pengadilan massa (mass justice). 37 For example, Institute for Criminal Justice Reform recorded 515 caning cases in 2014 and 548 caning cases in 2015 in the whole province. Number of arrests is no longer available at the Dinas Syariah official. 38 According to Law No. 11/2015, Aceh’s administrative territories consist of Aceh (Province), Region/City, Municipality, mukim, and gampong. But in the light of the Aceh Autonomy Law, Law No. 39/2014 on Regional Government, Law No. 6/2014 on Village Administration, and numerous local Qanun Aceh, Aceh’s administrative territories consist of autonomous territories, administrative territories, working territories, and adat territories. 39 Thekhalwat bylaws are codified law, mirroring Indonesian civil law, which “specify all matters capable of being brought before a court, the applicable procedure, and the appropriate punishment for each offense.” See “The Common Law and Civil Law Traditions” in the Robins Collection PDF, 2010. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/ robbins/pdf/CommonLawCivilLawTraditions.pdf. The maximum punishment for violation of khalwat is three to nine lashes and between IDR 2.5 million and IDR 10 million.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 19 “Ulee bak mate, renteng bak patah Bek tapeu sabe kai ngen are Nibak buta geut lee juleng Nibak putoh geut geunteng”

Theadat court at the gampong and mukim levels consists of the geuchik (village head), imeum meunasah (imam), tuha peut (council of the elderly), village secretary, and ulama, public figures, elders, and other figures relevant to the case (Qanun No. 9/2008 Chapter VI, Article 14). Abdurrahman, the Chief of the Adat Law Division of the Aceh Adat Council, explains that adat judgments should aim to memulihkan keadaan “restore the situation” and not to aggravate it. It has to be “serasi dan selaras” (appropriate and well-proportioned) using the “kemampuan” (capabilities) of all parties involved to establish harmony. Further, adat judgments should be made based on the principle of fairness and equality and based on adat customs.40 Adat punishments range from a caution to exclusion from the gampong. There is no corporal punishment applied to adat judgments. One member of Jaringan Komunitas Masyarakat Adat Aceh (JKMA, Aceh Adat Community Alliance) said that the expulsion of a woman from her gampong is entirely new in Aceh.41 Then there is theadat structure. Adat Aceh is structured based on the “balance of power” principle which distributes authority among several power holders. Kingsbury labels the principle as the “code of Aceh state” in which “Power rests with the King, Law with the great Imam of Syiah Kuala, Tradition with the Princess of Pahang, and the Regulations with the Bentara” (2007: 172).42 Further, Aceh’s traditional “complex balance of power” contains “the mediating influence of the Sultan, the traditional lords (uleebalang), and the clergy (ulama)” (Kingsbury 2007: 172; see Hurgronje 1906; Siegel 1976; Ali 1986). Adat, embodied by the Sultan, and Sharia, represented by the ulama, were considered separate but complementary entities. The sharper demarcation between the religious sphere of Sharia and the customary sphere of adat was made only after the Dutch occupation of Aceh (Salim 2010; Munir 2003; Sjamsuddin 1985). 40 Better expressed in the original sentence: “Kalau menimbang sama berat, kalau mengukur sama panjang. Tidak Boleh berpihak-pihak. Lurus dan Benar harus menjadi pegangan. Benar adalah menurut kehendak adat dan syariat. Tidak boleh condong ke mana angina kencang bertiup” Abdurrahman. “Jenis dan Tujuan Pemberian Sanksi Adat” (2015) from www.maa.acehprov.co.id [accessed November 2015]. 41 One Adat Council member told of a now defunct adat code that states that when an unmarried woman is pregnant and no man has taken responsibility, it is the duty of one of Geuchik to marry her. The marriage is a symbolic one. This marriage is undertaken to protect her child and her membership of her gampong. Today, a pregnant, unmarried woman is usually expelled from her gampong or subjected to Sharia law punishment, he lamented. 42 The principle in native Aceh language: Adat“ bak po Teumeruhom, Hukom bak Syiah Kuala, Kanun bak Putroe Phang, Reusam bak Bentara.” There are variations in wording, but the complex balance of power between four elements of authority persists.

20 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Essential to our understanding of Aceh’s Sharia system is the existence of adat law. Many studies regarding Sharia law have overlooked it because of the preconception of its irrelevance to the study of Sharia. In the case of Aceh, many anthropologists who did studies prior to the 2005 peace agreement—such as Siegel, Jayawardena, Bowen, and Siapno—recognize the multiple normative orderings in Aceh. However, contemporary anthropologies focus more on the issues of conflict, disaster recovery, and Islamic piety, and render adat law only a backdrop. This also relates to the unshakable preconception of the fixed nature of Sharia law discussed earlier. Before the 2005 peace agreement and Aceh’s autonomy, the Indonesian government’s presence in Aceh generally consisted of military controls and government-sponsored mining and logging companies. On a day-to-day basis, government presence was rare if not nonexistent throughout Aceh Province. Within this period adat Aceh functioned as the main normative order and in most cases was interrupted only by the Indonesian army and GAM martial rulings. The decline of adat, later discussed in the empirical chapters, corresponded with the rise of new legal orders—the state and Sharia laws. The Aceh Adat Council is a part of Aceh’s government institution, together with the office of Wali Nanggroe.43 The effort to codify adat Aceh was prompted by the need for “effective judicial diversity” and a grounded conjecture that “adat law can produce effective justice, and its application continues to support the development of new legal principles in Aceh’s governance” (Ismail 2008: iii). Thus, the implementation and synchronization of adat law with the Indonesian legal system is one of the suggestions made in the guideline. In his concluding remarks, the head of the Adat council, Badruzzaman Ismail, stated:

“Hopefully, this manual will encourage people to participate in the exploration and reconfiguration of adat justice, so it may become an effective, accountable, reliable and equitable tool—particularly in dealing with cases related to gender [sic]. This manual should serve as a reference for the Acehnese regional government as well as for local governments at the kabupaten and the kota levels.”

In various social spheres, adat law and institutions still occupy essential roles in Aceh’s society. Ample descriptions of how adat functions in everyday life will be provided in the empirical chapters. Many of the vital elements of adat Aceh, such as separate but complementary governing authorities, matrifocality and gampong communal reusam (customs) can be found in the following chapters.

43 See further discussion about these two adat at the end of the chapter.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 21 2. 4. The Wide Expense of Sharia Aceh To understand Sharia law in modern Aceh, this part takes a more comparative approach to examine the relationship between Sharia laws, historical contingency and the geographical spaces of Muslim communities. Consideration of the fundamental concepts in Sharia law is instrumental as a contextual précis for the study. Conversely, this part highlights the concepts developed in a tradition of legal anthropology and the anthropology of Islam. The relationship between historical, social and political developments and Sharia law is part of this research framework. In this regard, the defined legal authority and administration of Sharia law are part of a long history of Islamic jurisprudence, Dutch colonial legal policies, the Indonesian legal system, and Aceh’s matrifocal tradition. In today’s Indonesia, the legal system authorizes state civil law, Sharia law, and adat law with their respective, sometimes overlapping, jurisdictions. “Legal aggregate,” in the Acehnese context, is understood as legal authority granted to several bodies—the state, the local Sharia Bureau (Dinas Syariah) and traditional adat bodies—to administer justice in various geographical areas such as gampong, the city of Banda Aceh, Aceh Province, and Indonesia nationally. Aceh’s legal tradition recognizes both adat law and Islamic law. Following the peace agreement and the establishment of Aceh’s autonomous status, the introduction of Sharia law and adat law as parts of the Law of Governing Aceh made Aceh the only region in Indonesia where Sharia law is considered a territorial—not just a personal—law.44 Since then, Indonesian state law has been increasingly gaining an equal, if not superior, footing to the existing traditional Sharia and adat laws. The paradigm of legal pluralism, further developed in the subsequent paragraphs, makes it possible to represent the embodiment of a pluralistic legal world within a given territory such as Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam. In this way, in respect of Aceh’s legal tradition, it is possible to acknowledge multiple legal authorities and jurisdictions. Understanding the legal ruptures in many post-colonial Muslim worlds, the “etatization of Sharia law” alongside the “invention of adat law,” is useful in putting modern Sharia law in perspective. The plurality defies an implicit assumption that everyday life experiences of Sharia law take shape in homogenous, inert societal contexts. In addition, recent political efforts to extend the dominion of Sharia in spheres formerly not governed by the religious law of Islam have expressed themselves in the form of the “judication” of Islam in many Muslim communities. The “modern construction of Sharia law” (Hussin 2008). 44 A territorial jurisdiction of law, according to Richard T. Ford, is “the rigidly mapped territories within which formally defined legal powers are exercised by formally organized governmental institutions” (1999: 843). Personal law, distinguished from territorial law, is a law that applies to a particular person or class of persons, wherever they are situated. Sharia law in other parts of Indonesia is limited to marriage and family affairs and applies only to Muslims.

22 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh “Aceh’s Islamic legal system is one of the most complex experiments with state implementation of Islamic law in the contemporary world, as it deals simultaneously with complex dramatic social transformations while attempting to establish a new legal system within the broader constitutional framework of the Indonesian nation-state” (Feener, Kloos, Samuels. Eds., 2016: 9).

Sharia Aceh is differentiated from Islamic law in the sense that Sharia as divine law is founded in the sacred scriptures such as the Qur’an and Hadith and Islamic law implemented as Qanun,45 whereas Sharia Aceh involves localized interpretations (fiqh Aceh) of the religious law of Islam (see Afrianty 2015: 72). According to Feener, “the substantive legislation of Islamic law in Aceh is contained in regional regulation referred to locally as ‘qanun.’” Feener goes on to state that:

“In this system, the State Sharia Agency (Dinas Syariat Islam/DSI) performs coordinating functions in working with the other major institutions involved with the implementation of Islamic law in contemporary Aceh: the Sharia Courts (Mahkamah Syariah/MS), the Ulama Council (Majelis Permusyawaratan Ulama/MPU), the ‘Sharia Police’ (Wilayatul Hisbah/WH)” (Feener 2013: 286).

The Sharia Court was established according to Law No. 18/2001 and further by Law No. 4/2004, Article 15, No. 2: “Sharia Islam justice in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province is a special court within religious justice inasmuch as its authority is within religious justice’s authority and is a special court within general justice inasmuch as its authority is within general justice’s authority.”46 The Sharia Court has the authority to investigate, to prosecute and to deliver verdicts under the supervision of the Supreme Court. However, to this day, the Sharia Court has only been able to function within the religious court’s jurisdiction: marriage and marriage-related cases (such as divorce and child custody), inheritance, Muslim will and testament, charitable bequests (hibah), voluntary charity (zakat and waqaf), and Sharia economy (Sharia banking). The jinayah cases which generally fall within the criminal code under general justice authority are restricted to cases of alcohol (khamar), seclusion (khalwat), and gambling (maisir). Feener translates Dinas Syariah Islam as the State Sharia Agency. Considering the Aceh Broadened Autonomy Status, the Agency is under the regional government of Aceh Darussalam and does not necessarily represent Indonesian 45 According to Law No. 18/2001 on the Special Autonomy of Aceh, “the Qanun of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam are provincial regulations in the Province of Aceh Darussalam under the framework of the implementation of the special autonomy.” For complete formal regulations on Acehnese Qanun, see Dina Afrianty 2015: 72. 46 Indonesian: “Peradilan Syari’ah Islam di Provinsi Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam merupakan pengadilan khusus dalam lingkungan Peradilan Agama sepanjang kewenangannya menyangkut kewenangan peradilan agama dan merupakan pengadilan khusus dalam lingkungan peradilan umum sepanjang kewenangannya menyangkut kewenangan Peradilan Um u m .”

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 23 state law and government. A case in point is the Qanun Jinayat (Sharia criminal code), which continues to be the subject of debate between Aceh’s government and the Indonesian Ministry of Home Affairs.47 Even though the Sharia criminal bill (Qanun Jinayat) was passed in the Aceh House of Representatives on 27 September 2014, the debate between Aceh’s government and the central government about Qanun Jinayat continues. In 2015, the Ministry of Home Affairs replied to a letter from the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) stating that the Ministry does not have the authority to revoke Sharia Islam following Article No. 235, Law No. 11/2006 on the Governing of Aceh.48 The IJCR and the Women’s Solidarity Alliance subsequently brought a civil challenge against the Qanun Jinayat, taking it to the Supreme Court for Judicial Review. One significant factor in the working of the Sharia system and the shariatization of Aceh, according to Michael Feener, is the autonomous, Sharia-centered Aceh budget. Feener argues that Sharia law is used first of all to legitimate the power of Aceh’s rulers and later to conduct social engineering via the da’wah paradigm49 to materialize the Islamic developmental visions of “building a better Aceh.”50 The literal meaning of “building better” is the construction of the Aceh government main offices in Kuta Alam according to an ideal image in which the offices of the Aceh Governor, the Aceh House of Representatives, the Sharia Court, the Adat Council, and the Ulama Council are located adjacent to each other. The involvement of various government offices and departments in the execution of public caning (hukuman cambuk) is also an example of how Aceh’s government makes Sharia law an integral part of Aceh’s governance. Another government program is Dakwah Umum—a regular Public Propagation held afterJum’ah Prayers. The program requires government officers and school children to attend the sermon. On special occasions, usually Islamic holidays, the Acehnese government invites celebrity ulama from Jakarta (for example, Yusuf Mansyur, Arifin Ilham) or foreign ulama such as Syeikh Ali Jaber from Saudi Arabia and Syeikh Kamil El- Labaoudy from Egypt. Each Islamic holiday is celebrated officially with the support of Aceh’s government—Aceh’s treasury finances all Muslim events. The treasury of 47 “Mendagri Undang DPRD Aceh Bahas Qanun Jinayat” in Okezone News (7 November 2014), “Temui JK, Menteri Tjahjo Evaluasi 85 Qanun Aceh” in Merdeka (7 September 2014), “Aceh Loloskan Perda Sharia Islam” in BBC Indonesia (27 September 2014), “Pemerintah Aceh: Qanun Jinayat Akan Dikoreksi Mendagri Lebih Dulu” in Atjeh Post (27 September 2014), “Mendagri: Qanun Jinayat Harus Dievaluasi” in Harian Nasional (29 September 2014).” 48 “Mendagri Mengaku Tidak Bisa Melakukan ‘Eksekutif Review’ atas Qanun Aceh No. 6 Tahun 2014 Tentang Hukum Jinayat” (13 May 2015) in www.icjr.co.id [Accessed on 13 May 2016]. 49 Theda’wah paradigm, according to Feener is “at the intersection of Indonesian nationalism, economic development, and Islamic reform that has been influential in the formation of Aceh’s Islamic legal system” (2013: 10). 50 Michael R. Feener. Sharia and Social Engineering: The Implementation of Islamic Law in Contemporary Aceh, Indonesia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013.

24 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Aceh Province is called Baitul Mal,51 which receives zakat52 contributions and so mostly contributes to a social agenda such as providing scholarships for orphans and funds for the families of deceased combatants. Moreover, it assigns a special budget for cases of “Darurat Akidah”53 (Crisis of Belief), which requires emergency responses much like emergency disaster situations (Darurat Bencana).54 The etatization of Sharia law in Aceh takes the form of bureaucratization and the conflation of Islam in the governance of Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam. As part of Republic Indonesia, except the Sharia bureaucracy, the government structures and operations of Aceh province are similar to other regions. However, there are two informal governing institutions influential to the socio-political, Lembaga Adat Aceh and Wali Nanggroe.

2. 5. Aceh Adat Council and Wali Nanggroe An exemplary representation of Aceh’s Sharia complexities can be found in the Keistimewaan Aceh (Aceh Specialty) Complex: this includes the Governor’s Office and Aceh Regional Parliament building, and the Mahkamah Syariah (Sharia Court) and Dinas Syariah Islam Aceh (Aceh Sharia Bureau) buildings. Separate from the Sharia Court is the Mahkamah Adat Aceh (MAA/Aceh Adat Council) building. In 2015, the MAA building still contained the Wali Nanggroe office.55 The MAA and the Wali Nanggroe are part and parcel of the same Acehnese political and cultural constellations that construct Aceh’s Sharia law. The title ofWali Nanggroe was first used by Teungku Daud Bereureuh in the Batu Krueng Charter dated 21 September 1953. Subsequently, the title was used by Teungku Tjik Hasan di Tiro (Hasan Tiro) on 4 December 1976, the same day the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) was born.56 In 2005, the institution 51 From Arabic Bayt al-Maal, literally meaning the House of Treasury. 52 Religious alms. 53 Aqidah is popularly understood as the ultimate creed of Islam, the belief of Islam. 54 TheDarurat Akidah is mostly concerned with the idea of the “Christianization” of the northern part of Aceh Province (especially Singkil) and the border with North Sumatra Province, which has a significant Christian population (of the Batak ethnic group). In October 2015, three churches were burned down in Singkil. There has been continuous conflict between Aceh and Singkil Christian groups since 1995. The issue is usually that the rising populations of the North fail to get permission to build churches in Singkil. The central government sent the Army to Singkil to secure the area and maintain the peace agreement but failed to condemn the church-burning incidents. 55 The palace was built using a sum of 97 billion rupiah from Aceh’s budget. It is a massive 11 hectares palace built in a Hellenistic style and with no Acehnese architectural elements. Even the mosque resembles those of Middle Eastern mosques, not Aceh. When it was officially opened, the complex was not completely built. The eventual budget could reach 130 billion by the end of its construction. On 13 April 2016, the Meuligoe Wali Nanggroe was opened by Aceh’s Governor, Zaini Abdullah. 56 In an autobiography written by Hasan Tiro The Price of Freedom: Unfinished Diary of Tgk. Hasan di Tiro (1984) he called himself Wali Negara, not Wali Nanggroe. At that point in time, Hasan Tiro was arguing for an independent Acehnese state (separate from Indonesia), hence being the Custodian of Aceh State, not Nanggroe (see previous

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 25 of Wali Nanggroe was part of the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding between GAM and the Indonesian government.57 Appointed on 16 December 2013, the current Wali Nanggroe is Malik Mahmud Al-Akhyar, the former prime minister of the Free Aceh Movement and a leading figure in the peace negotiations. Malik Mahmud took over the title from Hasan Tiro, who passed away in 2010. Malik Mahmud Al-Akhyar is both a seasoned and controversial figure in Aceh. There is continuing controversy about the massive amount of funds used to build the Wali Nanggroe Palace, which today is still not fully functional (September 2018). Many female interlocutors could not explain what the function of the Wali Nanggroe is: he is something between a sultan and aulia (saint), a leader of GAM, and a member of Partai Aceh. A succinct description was given by a man from the Adat Council: the Wali Nanggroe is a “partisan instrument” that is pro-GAM elites. In his view, there is no cultural or religious justification for the institution of the Wali Nanggroe. The fact that Malik Akhyar has no direct link to former Acehnese Sultans continues to be a topic of discussion.58 There was a sense that the office of Wali Nanggroe is something off-limits in Banda Aceh. There were protests against it, especially from ethnic Gayo-Lues communities,59 students and Adat Council supporters. The protestors highlighted issues of discrimination against other ethnic groups in Aceh (among others, the Gayo people in Gayo Lues Regency), non-transparent budgeting and the Wali Nanggroe’s lack of cultural and religious legitimacy.60 The issue of theWali Nanggroe brought

explanation on “Nanggroe”). After the Helsinki Agreement in 2005, the titleWali Negara was no longer justified, as GAM agreed that Aceh is a province of the Republic of Indonesia. 57 The Helsinki MoU between the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement signed on 15 August 2005, point 1. 1. 1. states: “The institution ofWali Nanggroe with all its ceremonial attributes and entitlements will be established.” The institution of Wali Nanggroe then takes its validation from Qanun No. 8/2012 signed by Governor Zaini Abdullah. 58 Hasan Tiro, the previous Wali Nanggroe, was a descendant of Muhammad (Teungku Chik di Tiro), the Mudabbirul Muluk (the Custodian of the Sultan) appointed for Sultan Muhammad Daud who was only eleven years old. Aceh Sultanate was an independent kingdom until 1873 when the Dutch began the effort to colonize Aceh. On 28 January 1874, the power of the Sultan was given to Teungku Chik di Tiro, Hasan di Tiro’s great grandfather (source Munawar Al-Djalil). 59 Qanun Wali Nanggroe was first passed in 2009 but was not approved by Irwandi Jusuf, the governor at that time. TheWali Nanggroe Qanun was then re-approved by Aceh’s Parliament and Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah on 2 October 2012. “Masyarakat Gayo Tolak Qanun Lembaga Wali Nanggroe” in MedanBisnis [9 November 2012]; “Massa Gayo Tolak Qanun Lembaga Wali Nanggroe” in Tribunnews.com [accessed on 20 September 2013]. 60 TheAdat Council questioned the political effort to “revitalize” the bureaucratic purpose of mukim as the communal base of the Wali Nanggroe. Mukim was an “autonomous” territory; it was never directly governed by the sultanate, argued one of Adat Council members. The Free Aceh Movement had a territorial system of governance, with the most important territories being sagoe and mukim. Some mukim previously paid taxes to GAM (Affan, et al. 2015).

26 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh about the issue of territory in the discussion of adat. Within competing narratives of adat and Sharia, how and when Sharia and adat apply territory matters. The issue of territory [space] is the backdrop for many of the narratives of experiences of Sharia described in the next chapter. TheWali Nanggroe sanctifies the newly elected governor, members of parliament, parliament’s annual commencement, Aceh Party events, and social events with adat pesijeuk. Other than that, he symbolizes unity and provides counsel to both the executive and the legislative institutions in Aceh. Adat pesijeuk stands in contrast with the heightened spirit of Sharia law. The justification and validation of the existence of the Wali Nanggroe makes sense in the context of the history of the Free Aceh Movement.

3.Uqubat: How Sharia Becomes Known Public caning is the most controversial issue in Sharia law debates. Exacerbating the issue is that the Indonesian legal system has never accommodated legal corporal punishment such as caning, in contrast to neighboring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei who have all incorporated caning in their justice systems from the nineteenth century onwards.61 In matters such as “seclusion law” in Sharia law, there is no parallel law in Indonesian civil law. However, for cases such as gambling, there is a law which punishes gamblers to a minimum of one month and a maximum of ten years in jail. Against this, the option of a maximum of a dozen lashes makes for an easy choice for non-Muslim gamblers living in Aceh. After the caning, all convicts are released.62 It is certainly difficult to talk about Sharia law without discussing public caning. To some degree, at least in the public discourse, it would seem that public caning is what Sharia law is about.

61 This form of corporal punishment was first introduced by the British Empire and codified with the Straits Settlements Penal Code Ordinance IV in 1871. 62 “Berjudi, Dua Pria Buddha ini Dicambuk di Banda Aceh” in MERDEKA (10 Maret 2017).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 27 “Banda Aceh Makes Sense” Grafitti protesting Sharia Patrols Photo: author

During the first caning, there was a small demonstration led by the Lhok Awe- Awe gampong head, Moh. Amin AR. The “solidarity demonstration” was held because those who were punished were “just small people, the amount of money involved in the gambling was mere thousands of rupiah.” In subsequent years there have been other examples of caning being used as a punishment for offences ranging from bribery to prisoners escaping detention. However, there are recurrent complaints about how public caning is conveniently applied only to poor people. Since Indonesian law enforcement and security forces are no longer involved in public caning.63 The Sharia Bureau and Aceh’s government have come under greater pressure to work towards an improvement and legalization of the Qanun on corruption. Caning as a form of punishment has not been applied consistently in all Acehnese regions.64 These are issues challenging Aceh’s government and its Sharia regime. Given the complexities of contexts and history, there are multiple ways of seeing Aceh Sharia law. This study will considerably favor women’s points of view of the law based on their everyday life. Women of Banda Aceh had a tough enough time

63 In 2015, at least in Banda Aceh, Indonesian law and military enforcement were no longer involved in the event and Aceh’s local Sharia Bureau and government executed caning punishments independently. 64 Aceh Timur region only held its first caning in December 2017.

28 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh with the corollary effects of armed conflicts and tsunami, women were subjected to aggressive changes afterwards. The issue here is how a society sustains a law that in some aspect demands piety and Aceh’s honor disproportionately from the female population, and not from men.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 29 30 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh CHAPTER II Theories of Experiences and Legal Pluralism

This part aims to provide an exploration of the different concepts and the various notions linked to this study of Acehnese society. Another objective is to offer an introduction to an anthropological understanding of the analytical qualities considered to be “experiences.” The entanglement of the concept of “experience” with the meaning of Sharia law and the practice of legal pluralism and different social positions in the everyday life of Banda Aceh is central to this theoretical framework. Referring to women’s experiences with the law does not imply that women only “go through” standardized norms and practices of Sharia law. It is common among socio-legal scholars to think of experiences of law as experiences of state law (Roberts 2005) and to interpret the discursive practices of the privileged few lawmakers, in this case the Acehnese local government and religious authorities (ulama). This study focuses on women’s experiences of the law, while its discursive contexts have been previously discussed in chapter II.1 In the context of Aceh’s “legal aggregate”, women’s experiences with Sharia law are equated with the “experiences of differences” as a principal evaluation. While in the mainstream liberal tradition, an individual is presumed to have equal legal status—that is, identity differences are irrelevant (Yuval-Davis 1997; Robins et al., 2008)—this assumption is tested against fragmented, sometimes overlapping legal belongings mirrored in legal pluralism.

1 Several studies have focused on Aceh and Sharia law and its relationship to various aspects of Acehnese lives. For example, Bustaman-Ahmad (2007), Avonius (2007), Aspinall (2007), Milallos (2007), Salim (2009), Nur-Ichwan (2011), Siregar (2013), Feener (2013). Several theses and dissertations have also been produced in this area of study such as those by Muslimin (2005), Noerdin (2007), Srimulyani (2010), Jauhola (2010), Huda (2013), Samuels (2013), Kloos (2013), Großmann (2016), Feener (2013), Afrianty (2015). In comparative studies see Buehler (2008), Hooker (2008) and Bush (2008). From a feminist perspective see Weiringa (2006), Budiman (2008), and Suryakusuma (2011) who have also contributed to the scholarly discussion of the law.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 31 1. Theories of Experience This theorization of experience considers women’s narratives as in-depth, true- to-life representations of the everyday experiences of Sharia law. Despite taking this approach, I do not intend for “experience” to be “set against thinking and theorizing, as if they are different from practical experience” (Skeggs 2001: 432). There are several assumptions concerning the concept of experience. For example, Kant discussed causality as conditions of possible experiences. He saw human understanding as the source of the general law of nature that structures all human experience (Kant 2000). Husserl studied the structure of various types of experience or consciousness—from perception to embodied action and social activities. All of these forms involve what Husserl called “intentionality” (Husserl 1963). Another assumption is that experience is interchangeable with behavior. This study follows a different approach:

“Experience, in our perspective, is not equivalent to the more familiar concept of behaviour. The latter implies an outside observer describing someone else’s actions as if one were an audience to an event; it is also implying a standardized routine that one goes through. Experience is more personal, as it refers to an active self, to a human being who not only engages in both shapes and action … the distinguishing criterion is that the communication of experience tends to be self-referential” (Brunner in Turner and Brunner 1986: 5).

According to Brunner, experiences always involve processual activities “rooted in a social situation with real persons in a particular culture in a given historical era” (idem: 7). This research does not seek to find “women’s patterns of behavior” with regards to their relations with Sharia law, nor does it assume that experience can be known solely from observation. Also, this study takes into consideration the social and cultural contexts which possess specific regularities such as norms and institutions that structure Sharia experiences. Another assumption in the mainstream understanding of experience, emphasizes the significance of reason in patterns of experience,as Levy-Bruhl puts it:

“The essential role of experience….is to inform the sensing and thinking subject about the properties of beings and objects with whom he is placed in relation, in order to make him perceive movements, shocks, sounds, colors, forms, odors, and so forth, and to permit the human spirit, which reflects on these ‘givens’ and on their conditions, to construct a representation of the world. The general notion of experience that has resulted is, therefore, above all, ‘cognitive’ (Levy-Bruhl 1938: 9. Translated by Throop 2003: 374).

The penchant for reason is influenced primarily by the Cartesian duality of body

32 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh and mind. According to this dualistic tradition, in the most frequently described concept of experience “the mind is then invariably the subject and body is an object” (Csordas 1994: 8). Much of our theorizing “is heir to the Cartesian legacy in that it privileges the mind/subject/culture set in the form of representations, whether cast in terms of rules and principles by social anthropology, signs and symbols by semiotic/symbolic anthropology, text and discourse by structural/post-structural anthropology or knowledge and models by cognitive anthropology” (Idem: 9). In short, Western senses of experience, according to C. J. Throop, “often emphasize the significance of the faculty of reason in the patterning of experience” (Throop 2003: 380). Throop further discusses Durkheim and his established distinction in French anthropological tradition between sensory and conceptual experience:

“Durkheim tended to emphasize the significance of the faculty of reason and the stability of collective representations in giving orders and form to what would otherwise be a fleeting sensory impression. It is important to recall that one of the central theoretical thrusts of Elementary Forms was to suggest that the categories of understanding are themselves formed through socially generated affective and sensorial determinants (see Rawls 1996; and Throop and Laughlin 2002)” (Throop 2003: 370).

Throop sees that Durkheim’s view aligns with the empirical philosophy which “perceives that thinking is a continuous process of temporal re-organization within one and the same world of experienced things” (Dewey 1925: 67). At the same time, Throop also sees Levi-Strauss’s contrarian view against phenomenological philosophy in which Levi-Strauss’ discussion of mythology and totemism is grounded in “collective representations which are intellectual and social constructions that are not psychologically (individually) or experientially generated.” As he put it, these phenomena “are conceived, not experienced” (Levi-Strauss 1963b: 63). According to Levi-Strauss, experiences do not lead us to an explanatory framework, as he suggests that it is grounded in unconscious mental structures. In his view, we need to place an emic reality in its proper context: “not by destroying or mutilating its empirical reality, but by going beyond or behind such phenomenal manifestations” (1973: 682) to find all “underlying structures inferred from a scientific analysis of the manifest content of the cultural forms such as mythology and totemism” (Throop 2003: 378). There is another way of explaining the concept. Victor Turner follows Wilhelm Dilthey in making a distinction between mere “experience” and “an experience.” Turner problematizes this division between an active experience and experiencing. “Mere experience is simply the passive endurance and acceptance of events… An experience … stands out from the evenness of passing hours and years and forms what Dilthey called a ‘structure of experience’ … certain experience which

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 33 has been formative and transformative. Some of these formative experiences are highly personal, others are shared with groups to which we belong by birth or choice” (Turner 1986: 35). While experiencing is a constant temporal flow from the standpoint of an individual and therefore cannot be directly studied, an experience is “the intersubjective articulation of experience” (Bruner 1986: 6), and therefore can be studied. These are attempts to capture a sense of inescapable direct access to other peoples’ experiences, also identifying the conscious human agency2 in an experience and seeing an experience as an essential form of human intersubjective interaction. Following the previous thinking, this study focuses on embodied experiences that are not just practices and beliefs, but also attitudes and sensibilities in the everyday lives of women in Banda Aceh. This study views “experience” as the cognitive, affective and volitional elements as they are lived through beyond the conscious structures of events and attribution of meanings (Throop 2009: 222). Central to this study are practical experiences, the commonsense actions of women who live, work, struggle, and make changes to comply with Sharia law, or when they merely endure the implications of Sharia law in their everyday life in Banda Aceh. Also, much of the ethnography relies on participant observation of particular ways of “being in the world” in Banda Aceh. This study does not aim to find a deep structure or generalized reasoning behind particular women’s experiences. Instead I follow Geertz who sees anthropology as “not an experimental science in search of laws but an interpretive one in search of meaning” (Geertz 1973: 5). Thus I take David Yamane’s suggestion that “we do not study phenomenological descriptions of experiences, but how experience is made meaningful” (2000: 171), because at some points we cannot study “experiencing” and can only observe it in a real present. Any experience is of necessity linguistically mediated, thus we can only study what Yamane calls “retrospective accounts” in the form of linguistic representations. The first step is to clearly understand the concept of experience. The next involves knowing how to study experience. According to Csordas, “You cannot study experience, because language mediates all experience—therefore one can only study language or discourse, i.e., representation…One can instead argue that language gives access to a world of experience, or that language refers to an experience that can be known to a world of experience in so far as experience comes to or is brought to, language” (Csordas 1994: 11). The connection between the anthropology of experience and language, of all the social and subjective experiences of both researched subjects and an outside observer “is impregnated with meaning…Meaning arises when we try to put what culture and language have 2 I use the “provisional definition” of agency following Laura M. Ahearn as “the socio- culturally mediated capacity to act,” (2001:112) which means all action is considered culturally mediated and emergent in particular situations, places and times.

34 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh crystallized from the past together with what we feel, wish and think about our present point in life” (Turner 1986: 33). Experiences can only be part of ethnography when they are expressed (see Brunner’s differentiation of “a life-as-experienced” and “a life-as-told,” in Turner and Brunner 1986). As a matter of practicing the anthropology of experience, narratives are seen as true-to-life representations of social, in-depth views of the worldviews and lifestyles of a particular group. In taking this approach, women’s narratives are collected not merely to gather information on “what Sharia is about” but also on women’s meaningful relationship with themselves and their society. Experience, in this regard, is not just an analytical concept, but also “…a method of speaking that is not pre-appropriated by the discourse of the relations of ruling” (Skeggs in Atkinson 2001: 432). The way to know women’s experiences is to observe how the women do without thinking about it, as a matter of doing in their everyday lives in Banda Aceh. The political, social and legal contexts in which women experience Sharia law highlight the “structuring” patterns of relations and practices, but these do not mean that the experiences are passive and permanent. In an attempt to resolve the tension between individual agency and legal, cultural structures, this study seeks the link between individuals’ responses and engagement with Sharia law and its socio-cultural conditions of possibilities. This study focuses on the links between women’s social positions and the recent social transformations and situates women’s experiences within social processes and relations in Banda Aceh. In describing experience, for example, the supposition that Sharia law is a constraint that is highly restrictive on impassive women does not go far enough to account for the many articulations of women’s agency in Banda Aceh. Nor is the supposition that the experiences are the articulation of an individual agency devoid of social and political contexts. Common cultural processes and social structures inform participants’ lived experiences with the law. The vantage point here is to understand how the political and social structures work at the individual level (Caughney 2006: 8) and, subsequently, how the individual experiences embody the structure. The relationship of agency and structure can also be understood this way: “the flow of experience is not the product of human nature (personally, instinct) but the condition for its emergence is both shared and culturally particular, and therefore far from the determinative agency that has been claimed…” (Kleinmann and Kleinmann 1998: 201). This ethnography tries to attend to the problem of psychological reductionism properly. Thus, this study focuses on narratives grounded in the actual experiences of women and considers them as part of general cultural processes and structure. This framework is translated into methodological choices: the person-centered method of interviewing and life history “aims to gather

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 35 knowledge of social and cultural processes more generally” (Davies 1999: 168-9), as discussed in the next chapter. Additionally, insight from post-colonial feminist theories is particularly crucial in Okely and Smith’s understanding of experience. The definition of ethnography is not just the methods used (participant observation) but also data collection, the questions asked and how (person-centered, in-depth interviews) and how the results are analyzed. Also, this study adopts the view that there is no unadulterated experience of Sharia law and that power and structure set limits on what can be known as its experiences (Skegg in Atkinson 2001: 426). In an anthropological interpretive tradition, there is no such thing as an unmediated experience: “all experience is always already shot through with interpretation” (Yamane 2000). It is essential to access the embodied perception and action of women’s understanding of Sharia law. What I mean by this is that all experience is registered in both the body and mind and that includes my own embodied, intersubjective experiences with the law. Also, this approach takes into consideration the use of spatial perspective to construct a mental map of the experiences of legal pluralism. The intersections between gender, class, age, ethnicity, and space relevant to women’s experiences will be taken into consideration with the use of intersectionality as an analytical approach. As I place experiences of Sharia law at the center of attention, there is a chance that the everyday descriptions of Sharia law could be criticized as trivializing issues of abuse or simplifying the complex reality of Banda Aceh’s society. This problem adds to “a central methodological problem facing anthropology today [of] how to deal with the flow of intersubjective human experience without dehumanizing it, that is without deconstructing it as experience and transforming it into totalizing professional models of knowledge” (Kleinmann 1992: 190 via Hastrup and Hervik 2005: 6). Because “the researcher is both a filter for and interpreter of the data” (Borman, LeCompte and Goetz 1986: 43), a reflective approach is employed in my ethnographic research. Reflexivity, in this account, “Implies that the orientations of researchers will be shaped by their socio- historical locations, including the values and interests that these locations confer upon them. What this represents is a rejection of the idea that social research is, or can be, carried out in some autonomous realm that is insulated from the wider society and the particular biography of the researcher, in such a way that its findings can be unaffected by social processes and personal characteristics. (Hammersley and Atkinson 2003: 16-17).

It is important in the reflexive approach in designing this research to acknowledge criticisms of ethnographic methods and approaches. The most salient criticism of qualitative research is that it is too subjective and that it is too value-laden:

36 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh “First, the relationships qualitative researchers have with subjects, and hence, the data given to them are profoundly and unconsciously patterned by demographic factors such as those listed above [age, sex, ethnicity, social status or position within a society of origin, marital and family status, and professional training]. Thus, it is impossible to separate what is “true” from what subjects felt was appropriate knowledge to give persons of the researcher’s status, station in life, and so on. Second, in assuming particular roles within the research setting, the researcher acquires the third identity and accompanying values and perceptions, one that differs from those held prior to entry into the field as well as from those held by subjects and participants in the study” (Borman, et al., 1986:46-7).

There are solutions to these criticisms of excessive subjectivism and value- laden research, according to Borman, LeCompte, and Goetz. First, personal discipline and the explicit recognition that observers are also research instruments. Another procedure is the search for “intersubjective understanding” (see Erikson 1973 via Borman, et al., 1986). Intersubjective relationships in Banda Aceh were a fundamental part of my ethnographic process (see also Behar 2003). Added to these procedures is the systematic use of other sources, and criticism and comments from others such as researchers, journalists and activists. On an analytical level, the analytic discipline “requires triangulation of both methods for data collection and sources of data” (Denzin 1978 via Goetz, et al., 1986: 44-5). Further, systematic records of interpretive and analytical comments along with and distinct from field notes are vital “to retrieve the reference points concerning time and place as well as a stimulus for a specific conclusion” (idem: 46). The qualitative research stands accused not only of being subjective and value-laden: the most common criticism is that it fails to adhere to the canons of reliability—the replicability of scientific findings—and validity—the accuracy of scientific findings (LeCompte and Goetz 1982: 31-32). In other words, as stated by Denzin (2009), there are two kinds of validity in qualitative research: internal and external validity. “[I]nternal validity is the term used to refer to the extent to which research findings are a true reflection or representation of reality rather than being the effects of extraneous variables. External validity addresses the degree or extent to which such representations or reflections of reality are legitimately applicable across groups” (quoted in Brink 1993: 35). There are at least two applications of the insider/outsider dichotomy: one of social practices in the field and one of scientific practices of the academies. Kirin Narayan disagrees about the fixed dichotomies between the outsider/insider and the observer/observed. She argues that it is more profitable to see each anthropologist “in terms of shifting identifications amid a field of interpenetrating communities and power relations” (1993: 94). There were many aspects, such as education, age, class, ethnicity, religious interpretations, and the depth and extent of relationships

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 37 that aligned or separated me from my research participants. In my research I found that Narayan and Jackson were right: there were more interplays between the research subjects and myself. Similar to this is the idea that there is no a priori or static reality of “subject” and “object” in an anthropological project. Thus, the description of Banda Acehnese people arose from my relationship with my research participants (Jackson 2009: 240). Not only that, women of Banda Aceh communicate with visiting anthropologists on the basis of their estimation of the ethnographers’ experience and knowledge” (Goulet 1998: 120). The kind of questions being asked matters as much as the dialogue initiated by the questions. Because I am an Indonesian Muslim, some dialogues or encounters started with research participants checking my knowledge before proceeding to describe their personal view or experience of the issues being discussed. When I failed to comprehend some issues, for example some Islamic practices which are not observed in other places such as commemorating Aysura,3 as well as Sattariyah practices or some Acehnese figures, the answers given were not as enthusiastic or detailed as when my point of view and knowledge were good enough to sustain meaningful conversation. In ethnographic research, the instruments of data gathering are the researchers themselves and thus a reflexive approach is a way to keep the researcher’s bias and competence in check. Expressions of research participants’ experiences were made possible and were limited by my own experiences and knowledge. This concords with Behar’s view that the intersubjective relationship in the field is a fundamental part of the ethnographic process (2003). This ethnography is about shared experiences between the research participants and me. Nur, Cut Lily, Meutia, Badriah, Sofia, and Intan and I shared space and time, however temporarily, and held similar feelings and thoughts about our biographical existence. Uni Wikan spoke about the power of resonance as “an effort at feeling thought; a willingness to engage with another world, life, or idea; an ability to use one’s experience…to grasp or convey meanings that reside neither in words” (1992: 463). It is possible to see this ethnography as the product of collaborative representations—the convergence of feelings and thoughts—of women’s experiences of Sharia law.

2. Intersectionality: Gender, Class, Ethnicity, and Religion This study describes contemporary everyday experiences of Sharia law in Banda Aceh. The next chapters describe how Acehnese women’s understanding of Islam, the self, and their social world have meaningfully changed. As a retrospective comparison, Siegel describes how Islamic reformist ideas in Aceh provided an

3 Even though Aceh falls into the Sunni school of interpretation, there are remnants of practices that belong to Shi’i interpretation such as the Mourning of Muharram commemorating the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons (Hassan and Hussein) in the Battle of Karbala.

38 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh “idiom of experience,” giving a sense of individual autonomy for village men. The Islamic movement of the 1930s, in Siegel’s view, introduced the idea of interior experience and the movement’s religious goals sharpened the consciousness of Acehnese men about themselves and their society. This study provides an opposing description of what is arguably a new “idiom of experiences” of Sharia law from women’s points of view in the urban setting of Banda Aceh. Siegel’s understanding of the “idiom of experience” is explained thus: “Islamic ideas provided an idiom by which unity despite social distinction could be expressed” (2003: 58). Aceh’s social distinctions, as observed by Siegel and others (Bowen 1986, Jayawardena 1977, Hurgronje 1906), are those of religious, adat, and ethnic, as well as economic statuses. Islamic reformist movements and ideas, arguably, were seen as dominating forces affecting the subjectivities influencingadat sociability and Aceh’s hierarchies. In Siegel’s introduction chapter, he states that the sharpened consciousness reflects the individual and collective bodies and norms of Acehnese society. This empirical chapter includes the experiences of Sharia Aceh, of women’s consciousness and bodies that help to reflect cultural orders, boundaries, changes and fixities in Banda Aceh (see Ahmed 2004: 29, also Butler 1993: 9). For many social observers, everyday experiences in the Islamic Acehnese context are framed with virtues such as piety and faith (Samuels 2012; Kloos 2013). This statement holds true in Aceh and elsewhere in Indonesia, in the sense that Sharia law is increasingly normalized through governing administrative instruments, such as bylaws4 known as qanun. However, the brutal impacts of the implementation of Sharia law are matters beyond administrative hurdles. Legal pluralism has conditioned fragmented, intersectional experiences of Sharia law since it insists that a plurality of identities—such as religion and ethnicity— be recognized, and their distinct community rules should govern the members of the traditional community. There are many studies that argue that Islamic and adat laws have been used to exclude migrants, “foreign descendants” and to foster gender inequality (Blackburn 1999; Nordholt 2008; Mir-Hosseini 2010; Butt 2010). The reason behind this phenomenon is perhaps the state’s failure to guarantee the rule of law (Nordholt 2008) and the increasing internal migration to the outer islands of Indonesia. Also, it is most likely that the increasing revivalism of adat law is a strategy for claiming access to land and natural resources that were previously annexed by the central government and its business partners. In the case of Aceh, the central government’s responses to address Aceh’s grievances were militaristic or dialogues offering autonomy and Sharia law (Miller 2008). By introducing the concept of “experience,” this study embraces a view that “structure is transmitted into a process, and the subject re-enters into history” (Thompson via Scott 1991: 783). Discussing women’s experiences of Sharia law in 4 Literal definition: “local ordinances,” here referring to regional laws (I.Peraturan Daerah/ Perda).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 39 the context of Indonesian plurality encompasses issues of women’s belonging to communities and emotions attached to them. As Blackburn points out, in many cases, especially those of the marginalized and impoverished, people are more likely to be seen and to see themselves as members of communities based on kinship, ethnicity, and religion (1999: 202). Recent studies of legal anthropology have focused primarily on the individual’s rights and participation based on the image of a modern, homogenous society. Modern, liberal understanding of the individual’s relationship with the state— citizenship—aspires to eliminate all group privileges and requires all citizens to be equal before the law. At this point, I think we should abandon the modern inclination to see one single relationship between citizens and the state considering the long history legal pluralism has in Indonesia, as it is essential to highlight the diversity of citizens’ experiences of Sharia law.

3. Spatiality of Law The connection of the gendered experience of Sharia law and the spatiality of legal structures that influence people’s actions and social consciousness will shortly be discussed. Drawing upon Richard T. Ford’s idea of jurisdiction as a set of social practices (1999: 855), I assume that the practices and narrations of Sharia law are territorialized. On that note, the concept of the spatiality of law is used as a heuristic device. The concept implies a view thatadat , Sharia, and civil law jurisdictions, to various degrees, are cultural-geographic units with members with different social identities and statuses. In today’s Aceh, women move in a different, narrower space than in the past. During the armed conflict era, it was men who were controlled and constrained in limited spaces and times. Going further back in time, Siegel suggests that at least in the past, “men did not identify themselves by their membership in a particular nanggrau (whereas gampong, village, was a central term of identification). One can speak only of ‘residents’ of a nanggrau, never of ‘citizens’ or of any other forms of group identification” (1969: 35). Whether this kind of belonging, in the context of the matrifocal tradition, continues to affect experiences of Sharia law is one of the issues I would like to explore in this research. The various legal norms and divergent possibilities of experiencing law in the various law territories manifest in the ways in which Sharia law affects everyday life. This concept is influenced by Nicholas K. Blomey, in which he brings attention to “the relationship between legal discourse and the multiple geographies of social life” (1992: 663). In this sense, I hypothesize that Banda Aceh Muslims’ relationship with the law oftenvaries between being gampong members under the jurisdiction of adat law to being Muslims under the jurisdiction of Sharia law—in short, experiences of law shift “from status to locus” and vice versa. This research uses the

40 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh definition of jurisdiction as a social practice (Ford 1999: 855) as a heuristic device.5 This understanding comes from Richard T. Ford’s work “Law’s Territory (A History of Jurisdictions).” Ford states that jurisdiction is a set of social practices “that exist in the realm of discourse; they are representations of approved behaviors as well as the behavior itself.” Drawing upon this understanding of legal jurisdictions, I suggest viewing jurisdiction as a cultural-geographic unit. The jurisdiction ofadat law, for example, is the gampong as a cultural-geographic unit. However, it is hard to conceive of a cultural-geographic unit, for example a certain gampong or mukim, with clear social boundaries that is homogenous in its totality. An individual’s membership and status in a particular law’s jurisdiction influence the rights, obligations, and prohibitions applied to that individual. Again, following Ford’s argumentation, “jurisdiction produces political and social identities” in which the jurisdictional boundaries not only separate territory but also separates types of people: native and foreign, noble and commoner, male and female (1999: 844).6 Political and social identities (for example, gender, class, status, education) divide experiences in more than one way. Revealing women’s spatial contexts in this chapter is achieved by considering the research participants’ spatial practices. The concept of spatial practice follows Lefebvre’s definition: “how certain space is used in a specific way that defines and constitutes it; this happens through an interaction between the subject and their space and surrounding” (Lefebvre 1991 via Sharobeem 2015: 20). Women’s spatial practices such as driving and spending time in urban public spaces are the first things I noticed when taking up residency and roles in the everyday life of Banda Aceh. There is no lack of women’s presence in public spaces: women are present in all public areas, and there is no formal gender segregation in most of Aceh. One place that they are scarce, though, is in public transportation. There is a lot to say about how women do or do not make use of these modes of transportation in the era of Sharia law, but there is more to say about how women use the dominant Sharia order and deflect its power in everyday life. Gendered elements of women’s daily mobility, such as travel behavior,7 choices of mode of transportation and clothing unequivocally correspond to the Sharia policies being implemented in the city. The gendered practice of mobility has been discussed extensively by Robin Law (1999). The way women deflect the dominant 5 Compare this concept with Bourdieu’s “juridical field” in which a “field is an area of structured, socially patterned activity or practice’’ (1987: 805). 6 Bourdieu has the notion of “principle of division” in Theory of Practice (1972). 7 I use the concept of behavior and practice loosely: practices are made of repeated behaviors. The concept of behavior incorporates cognitive, physical and social dimensions. Bourdieu refers to “elementary units of behavior…in the unity of an organized activity.” Furthermore, the concept of practice reveals the dynamic relationship between actor and social (and material) structure manifested in the process of internalization of the social order in one’s behavior and how it makes and transforms the social world in which one lives (Bourdieu 1972).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 41 social order such as Sharia law, “which they lacked the means to challenge; they escaped it without leaving it” (De Certeau 1984: 65) is to employ a multitude of “tactics.”8 Successfully executed tactics require knowledge of Sharia rules and the city as well as the social environment of Banda Aceh. Social spaces in Banda Aceh are profoundly affected by Sharia law. However, there are opportunities for these spaces to also be sites where women defy gender constraints and demonstrate agency. In this line of inquiry, not only are these spaces viewed as gendered, they are also imprinted with cultural inscriptions which reflect and affect how gender and social relationships are constructed and understood (Massey 2005: 179). In other words, women’s behavior in their social spaces incorporates both restrictions and expressions of/for social structure and power relations.

4. Intersectional - Spatial Experiences of Sharia The idea of new legal jurisdictions of law that includes Indonesian civil law and Sharia law “seems to level and equalize social relations” (Ford 1999: 854), but the deep-rooted attitudes to kin and adat norms and practices make the principles of equality before the law and the autonomy of the law challenging to apply. Acehnese legal traditions define gampong and mukim as adat jurisdictions, while Aceh’s court is where Sharia has jurisdiction (see Takeshi 1984). Taking the principle of this “legal territorial compartmentalization” as a given, how are we to understand the current Sharia law which changes the jurisdictional constellation, breaking down the “personal” jurisdiction of Sharia law, usurping the “communal” jurisdiction of adat law and ultimately making Sharia a territorial law in the whole of Aceh Province? Hypothetically, Acehnese people experience Sharia law in a straightforward manner because the current Sharia law merges the different jurisdictions into one jurisdiction: The Province of Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam. But how is Sharia law translated into everyday life? Public spaces are arenas “where decisions binding on all are taken,” (Alubo 2011) and where several discourses and norms of Sharia, adat, class, and gender systems are experienced. The different behavior of women in different spaces, such as behavior at home, outside and “out there,” are presented in the framework of spatial practices. The gampong is the [village] territory where adat law operates as 8 De Certeau differentiated “strategy” from “tactic.” Strategy refers to “the calculus of force- relationships which becomes possible when a subject of will and power (a proprietor, an enterprise, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated from an ‘environment.’ The tactic, on the other hand, is a calculus which cannot count on a ‘proper’ (a spatial or institutional localization) …. Because it does not have a place, a tactic depends on time,” (1984:69-70). Structurally, “tactics wander out of orbit, making consumers into immigrants in a system too vast to be their own, too tightly woven for them to escape from it… Strategies, in contrast, conceal beneath objectives calculations their connection with the power that sustains them from within the stronghold of its own ‘proper’ place or institutions” (idem: 70).

42 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh mandated by Qanun No. 9/2008. In practice, however, the boundaries of adat and Sharia are not always clear: the norms and practices of Sharia and adat are mostly experienced simultaneously in single or more everyday occurrences. Meanwhile, this study focuses on local jurisdictions in Aceh, but the territorializing of Sharia law in Aceh can be recapitulated in Ford’s argument: “the production of local jurisdictions and local cultures was and is often a by-product of the centralization of political power” (1999: 845). The change in the scope of jurisdictions was “invented at the specific historical moment” (idem: 846) and was often one of the products of larger cultural hierarchies.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 43 44 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh CHAPTER III Research Method

Ethnography is considered the most basic form of social research (Atkinson and Hammersley 2003: 2) and the characteristics of ethnographic research “include participant and non-participant observations, focus on natural settings, use of participant constructs to structure the research, and investigator avoidance of purposive manipulation of study variables” (LeCompte and Goetz 1982: 30-10). Ethnographic research is also qualified by its method of data collection and analytical constructs, theoretical frameworks, choices of participants and analysis (Spradley 1980). In ethnographic research, the researcher is preeminently the research tool (Wolcott 175 via Goetz, Borman and LeCompte 1986: 43). The paragraphs below examine the issues of methodology in an ethnographic context in Banda Aceh and the factors influencing the research processes while also recognizing my part in the social world of Banda Aceh. The preliminary fieldwork was first conducted from November to December 2014. During this four-week period, I joined the fifth Aceh and Indian Ocean International Conference at Ar-Raniry Islamic State University Banda Aceh. The four-day conference was attended by dozens of local and international scholars. Following the conference, I joined a postgraduate workshop with fellow Ph.D. students from Aceh and other parts of Indonesia who were beginning or preparing to begin research on Aceh. My research proposal was presented here, but it later changed considerably. December is an important month in Aceh: it is the month of the Free Aceh Movement anniversary and the Boxing Day tsunami commemoration. I attended the 38th anniversary of GAM, which coincided with the opening of the new headquarters of the most prominent local party, Partai Aceh, on 4 December 2014. Several international events were being held to commemorate a decade since the tsunami in Aceh, attended most notably by the Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, as well as fourteen ambassadors and thirty-five countries’ representatives. After the preliminary visit, I went to Germany to develop my research proposal.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 45 After two months, I returned to Indonesia and commenced my fieldwork in Banda Aceh. The second round of fieldwork was conducted from April to November 2015. There was a short break in July 2015 when I had to return to Java to address a scholarship problem. Overall, I did ten months of field work in Banda Aceh, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province. In examining a culturally and politically charged issue such as local and public Sharia law, where dissenting views are sometimes considered valid grounds to subject someone to legal and corporal threats, the question of methodology is as much about getting everyday knowledge from research participants as it is about protecting them from compromising situations. The research result can also be highly politicized, so the methodological strategy deals with not only the research processes but also the representations (ethnography). Other factors that influence an ethnographic process are the researcher’s positionality and the socio-political conditions in the field.

1. Meeting Research Participants It did not occur to me that conducting an anthropological project in Banda Aceh would be a dangerous enterprise. Contrary to the outsiders’ view that there are dangers in Aceh—from the social strain of the decades of armed conflict, marijuana trade and the strict application of Sharia law to Aceh’s animosity towards Javanese people—I encountered no particular dangers. However, during the preliminary visit in 2014, I did experience considerable difficulties in introducing research focusing on Sharia law without unintentionally giving offense. Even trickier were the many instances when legal and physical threats were used to discourage open discussion of the law. There were exceptional circumstances that needed to be spelled out. The most immediate challenges for me were the night curfew and Sharia vigilantes. I made a plan to anticipate the worst case. One method of safely conducting ethnographic research with a difficult subject involves creating several “safety zones.” Williams et al. (1992) suggest finding individuals who can “locate and protect” in the field. Beyond finding one or more key informants to provide access to the field, I had many locators, and the protectors were mostly family friends who not only introduced me to restricted information but also protected me in unsafe situations such as arbitrary vigilante questioning and Sharia raids. Banda Aceh has attracted many scholars and research agencies in the last decade of Acehnese autonomy. Many scholars and agencies have taken advantage of the peaceful situation in Aceh and its opening up to the broader world after long decades of isolation. Overall, this was a good thing because it meant that the residents of Banda Aceh were familiar with strangers asking questions. There were government censuses; surveys undertaken in relation to the compensation of victims of armed conflict; the tsunami aid and recovery projects; and many scientific projects readily

46 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh held in the newly accessible area of study of Aceh. The results from this research were fundamental in providing the foundation of my project. To my delight, there were also at least four doctoral research projects based in Banda Aceh in the three years before mine. The negative side of this was the atmosphere of misgiving, including the view that “information is not free.” Some of the previous research projects, especially those within post-tsunami reconstruction and development programs, offered money or gifts in exchange for information. There were also “cash for work” tsunami recovery programs that lasted for more than five years, and somehow diluted the definition of “work”: documenting livelihoods and keeping journals were considered part of “work.” It was not ideal to have to select participants who assumed that they would “work for cash” for me or that there would be some reimbursement at the end of the research. Luckily, this misunderstanding did not last long, as I built rapport and took on roles in the everyday life of Banda Aceh. The research sites covered five out of nine municipalities in Banda Aceh and one municipality in Darussalam, Aceh Besar Regency. All municipalities in Banda Aceh consist of two kemukiman and six to sixteen gampong. The municipalities are Meuraxa, Baiturrahman, Kuta Alam, Kutaraja and Ulee Kareng. A “disputed” Darussalam municipality was selected because many residents consider Darussalam as part of the city of Banda Aceh. The decision to choose five municipalities was based on socioeconomic and ethnic groupings. Some stereotypical claims about specific areas revealed certain facts. For example, many Chinese, Arabic and Indian descendants live around Baiturrahman; Darussalam is a students’ area; residents of Sigli descent usually live in Lamgugop; Meuraxa is an area where development—and pendatang (migrants)— are most visible, followed by Gampong Jawa. Gampong Jawa, previously dominated by Javanese people, is no longer a Javanese village after the 2004 tsunami swept away almost all its inhabitants, but the marker of being a low-income, outcast gampong remains. Many migrants from other regions in Aceh Province and outside Aceh reside in areas worst affected by the tsunami. Before the tsunami, the northern part of Banda Aceh was considered the most cosmopolitan, Jakarta-leaning area. Some Banda Aceh residents held the opinion that after the tsunami these areas became hardened despite the diverse origins of their populations. I took residency in Gampong Lambhuk, Kuta Alam Municipality. It was increasingly common for women to live in rented houses with fellow students or workers, or with a family, so it was quite easy for me to find permanent accommodation in Banda Aceh. The house belongs to a family of six. We lived next to each other in a gated compound; my room was separated from the house but shared the backyard. The house survived the tsunami, but it often suffers from problems related to water and electricity: it was not uncommon for these services

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 47 to be interrupted. I lived in a relaxed neighborhood along Teuku Iskandar Street. Convenience stores, laundry services, and coffee shops were just around the corner. Gampong Lambhuk neighbors the notorious Gampong Beurawe. Beurawe added “Gampong Syariah” gates to all of its entrances after one of its residents— Haji Bakri—was arrested by the Sharia Police in 2012 but has been able to avoid prosecution up to the present day. The research began with an open, random selection of potential participants living in five different municipalities. Initially, both female and male prospective participants were chosen while I was settling in Lambhuk. I mapped the acceptable limits of male-female interactions because my research required personal, lengthy dialogue. However, a regional statute that specifically regulates male-female interactions had already been fully implemented. After a month, it was clear that it was much more comfortable and safer for me to build rapport with female participants. Later, only female subjects were selected as research participants. Other than sixteen female individuals who were selected as the main participants, there were also informants who work in Sharia Bureaus (at the city and province levels), Wilayatul Hisbah/Sharia Police officers, members of the Aceh Adat Council, NGO activists, university students and intellectuals, ulama, neighbors, and friends. Meanwhile, my rapport with female participants was generally immediate. Asking practical things such as “how-to” questions proved not only pragmatic but also showed participants that I had only a beginner’s knowledge of Banda Aceh. Even though no physical dangers ensued during the research period, I suffered two motorcycle accidents and received multiple Sharia warnings from both the Sharia police and regular men in Banda Aceh. Besides establishing rapport, I made extra effort to learn the things that women have learned to keep themselves safe. There were sixteen principal female participants in this ethnography. There were differences in levels of agreement and intimacy between these sixteen individuals and me. Several people agreed to participate, wanting their stories to be shared openly. These women emphasized the importance of women’s points of view and believed that their representations would make a difference in my effort to understand Aceh. Several others would only share their stories under the condition that their identity be unequivocally erased. The majority of the participants who agreed to participate off the record or in complete anonymity were women with low economic or educational statuses as well as minorities. There were ample prospective research participants in the city, considering I required residents of Banda Aceh between eighteen and sixty years old. At the end of the week, when curiosity and interest had grown, there were enough people to be interviewed. Research participants were selected randomly with the aim of obtaining a diverse pool of subjects and, in the process, obscuring the real identities of the research subjects so that they could not be easily identified. The randomly

48 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh selected participants were drawn from five municipalities in Banda Aceh.

2. Research Positionality and Shared Experience The overall research methodology involved utilizing the interpersonal relationship between the research participants and investigator. As an investigator, it is likely that my personality, status, and station in life affect the women that I study. This part brings into parallel both the women studied and me as active agents in Banda Aceh’s social world. I was frequently asked “Why are you here?” and it seemed quite telling me that I was asked “Who are you?” and “What are you doing here?” less than “Why are you here?” My outward appearance was distinguishable from many Acehnese women, but the question was quite direct; as if the people of Banda Aceh had anticipated a stranger asking around. However, it also mattered that the person doing the investigation was a Javanese Muslim. The fact that I am a Muslim “granted” me full access to Sharia experiences. Many researchers do not have this “privilege” because the law does not apply to non-Muslims, but this also meant that I was followed and arrested by Sharia police. The fact that I am Javanese, however, deterred some people from talking to me openly. They questioned my intention in staying in Banda Aceh. Some people told me about Javanese migrants who were killed in retaliation for the military operation that had killed many Acehnese people. For some Acehnese, Java represents the past oppression of the Indonesian government and military. On my third day in Banda Aceh, I was eating brunch at a stall, or kedai, run by a woman named Nur. I planned to visit the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque, fifteen minutes’ walk from the kedai. On my way to the kedai, I had noticed a warning declaring that the mosque complex was a “Muslim dress area.” I wore my hijab and loose, dark garments, but I did get the sense that I should perhaps have worn a skirt. I asked Nur, who was sitting behind a glass rack, for her opinion. Nur disapproved of my ensemble, so I did not go to the Grand Mosque. Nur was right; I would have been stopped at the gate by a male guard holding a rattan stick who fends off female visitors wearing jeans or pants. This guard even strikes these young women on their lower legs with his stick. The relationship between Nur and I continued, and Nur became not only a research confidante but also a friend. Other than my family friends and neighbors in Lambhuk, Nur was my constant companion. Every other day I ate at her kedai. When we finally talked about Sharia law, I noticed there were differences in the way she formulated her answers, depending on whether or not there were other people present. I was not yet able to grasp the slight differences in gesture and verbal communication. The problem showed the importance of examining life histories and conducting person-centered interviews in order to carry out a balanced inquiry into how women of Banda Aceh experience Sharia law.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 49 There is a view that “native” anthropologists possess an emic perspective (Kanuha 2000). It can be argued that I am a “native” because I studied women whose identities were similar to mine—female, Muslim and Indonesian. Despite the many similarities, there were also differences in ethnicity, age and social class which limited full immersion due to different life circumstances (Jackson 2009). It was obvious that there is no a priori or static relationship of “subject” and “object” in an ethnographic project. I conducted the ethnographic work via a process of saturation, which meant modifying research frameworks along the way (see Bertaux and Kohli 1984: 226). The apparent change was that I brought forth female voices and focused more on my relationship to the sixteen individuals from different classes, ages, ethnicities, and residencies. I was part of a bigger community as well—my neighborhood in Lambuk, as well as NGO, and university circles—but I scaled down the number of research participants. The focus also shifted from semi-institutionalized, religious and political structures of Sharia practice to lived experiences of Sharia law and a holistic view of cultural institutions, values, and practices. I owe much of the changes to participants and their insider knowledge about Banda Aceh’s culture and society. I looked into the view that there is such a distinction between “native” and “non-native” anthropologists and the insider/outsider dichotomy and viewed the conversation between Nur and me in light of these polarities. I interpreted Nur’s statement that she disapproved of my clothing because she did not want me to be humiliated as a sign of our mutual identification. There were no external differences between us, we looked similar and wore pants and head covers. Moreover, under Sharia law, our shared exteriority as Muslim women was highlighted. We would readily understand what was meant when we talked about “Muslim dress code” and we would probably even share the same understanding of what Islamic and Muslim dress is. We knew that the “Muslim dress code” applied to both of us and perhaps I got what Clifford Geertz called the “experience-near” in his article about seeing things from the native’s point of view (1974: 28-9). Besides methodology, the ideas of “native” (asli) and “non-native” (pendatang) are also relevant in Banda Aceh as they are deployed in everyday social interactions and are relevant to the implementation of Sharia law regarding the city’s inhabitants. Whether to use adat, Sharia or civil state law or a combination of these three legal matrices depends, at times, on whether one belongs to the native or non-native categories. The insider/outsider distinction is also used as a determinant of who is eligible for government assistance or NGO aid. In a gampong-centered life, being an “ulu”— first native—is still considered a source of status. My position in the eyes of my research participants was vital to me, but adat rules were never applied to me, as I was considered pendatang until the end of my residency. However, I was fortunate enough that I was often referred to in daily interactions as a sister or

50 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh daughter belonging to Banda Aceh families.

3. Participant Observation Marshall and Rossman defined ethnographic observation as “the systematic descriptions of events, behaviors, and artifacts in the social setting chosen for study” (1989: 79). This is considered as one of the most important methods in anthropological studies, as a learning process “through exposure to or involvement in the day-to-day or routine activities of participants in the research setting” (Schensul and Schensul and LeCompte 1999: 91). It provides the context and the setting during the preliminary stages for developing research guides and in-depth interviews. A research method deeply rooted in Anthropology promoted especially by Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski, the core definition of participant observation is:

“…in some ways both the most natural and the most challenging of qualitative data collection methods. It connects the researcher to the most basic of human experiences, discovering through immersion and participation the hows and whys of human behavior in a particular context” (Guest, Namey, and Mitchell 2013: 75).

Participant observation is not just a method of data collection; it is also a method for measuring our research strategies. When I first met Nur, she worked at a kedai—a small food eatery—strategically situated between Peunayong and Aceh Market. I was there to have my first brunch in Banda Aceh. She served the typical nasi gurih1 and kupi sanger.2 She did not own the place, but she gave the impression that everything in the kedai was under her control. She decided that I should have kupi sanger rather than kupi pancong,3 which according to her would be too strong for me. In one of our conversations we talked about Sharia law. I noticed there were differences in the way she formulated her answers depending on whether or not there were other people present. When we were alone, I asked why she had two different opinions on the same issue. She said we needed to be mindful when discussing the law, especially when strangers are present. That caution4 is necessary to avoid problems arising. Participant observation helped me to grasp the slight differences in Nur’s gestures and intonation. Jorgensen’s persuasive statement about participant observation can serve as a vignette of my first encounter with my participant: “the methodology of participant observation encourages the researchers to begin with the immediate experience 1 Rice cooked with coconut milk. 2 Coffee with condensed milk and sugar. 3 Aceh black Arabica/Robusta coffee. 4 This is different frompandai “ olah-olah” and “tipu Aceh” which include manipulation and ill intent.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 51 of human life in concrete situations and settings and make the most of whatever opportunities are presented (see Whyte 1984)” (Jorgensen 1989: 18). This immediate experience brought to the fore my commitment to being involved directly in the here and now of people’s everyday lives (idem: 9) to facilitate my inquiry into how women understand and enact their lives in everyday Banda Aceh.

4. Choice of Methods and Data Collection This project uses person-centered ethnography, in-depth interviews and life history methods to account for women’s diverse experiences in Banda Aceh. One reason for using these methods is that they may privilege the “profound resonance between the personal, political, and theoretical” (Okely and Callaway 2005: 14). In- depth interviews drew on techniques from person-centered ethnography developed by Robert I. Levy which he used in studying the subjective experiences of Tahitians and their relation to the structure of social interaction through engaging informants in psycho-dynamically informed interviews. A person-centered approach in ethnography has issues aptly discussed by Caughney (2006). In traditional ethnographies, the research subjects are typically described as a collective (whether as an institution, a group, a community, or a society). Typical traditional ethnographies, Caughney observes, usually focus on individuals as being “representative” of the particular collective. Also, these ethnographies usually emphasize the “shared” system of meaning and relationship. These ethnographies then construct (to some degree) a generalization of how members of a community or a group stereotypically think and act. In describing a particular collective, traditional ethnographies usually agglomerate differences among individuals who make up the collective (2006:7). The analyses will note the use of a first-person and a third-person perspective as used by Csordas:

“The role of the individual is inherently different in each. The third-person perspective places the individual concerning the moral code either as enacting it, being constrained by it, or negotiating its ambiguities. The first-person perspective places the individual about others and how they affect and are affected by one’s actions, whether they respond with approval or approbation, and the overall tenor of social relations. The third person tends toward abstraction in the form of principles, the first person toward intersubjectivity in the context of episodes” (Csordas 2014: 151).

The person-centered interviews and life history methods discussed in the methodology chapter are used to account for women’s diverse experiences in Aceh. One reason for using this method is that it may privilege the “profound resonance between the personal, political and theoretical” (Okely and Callaway 2005: 14).

52 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Another reason is that these methods support the theorization of experience discussed above. The experiences, communicated to an observer in the form of various expressions and narrations, are gathered via person-centered interviews and life history methods (see chapter IV). The field interviews followed what Levy and Wellenkamp (1998) describe as an open-ended field interview. Levy and Wellenkamp also made a distinction between “informant” and “respondent” in the open-ended interviews:

“Individuals being interviewed are used in part as informants, providing their own presumably objective reports, views, and interpretations of phenomena related to [psychological experience]. At the same time they serve as respondents, objects of systematic study in themselves, in which their discourse—and in particular the forms of that discourse and their behavior as they talk— indicates something about the organization of [psychological experience] in that particular individual…in open interviews, the investigator attempts to let the interview follow the respondent’s lead to a large degree, to see how the respondent presents his or her statements on the assumption that the organization of these presentations may reveal patterning of both cultural and personal significance... (Levy and Wellenkamp 1989: 223-4).

The researcher’s study of individuals does not mean that I studied “individuals primarily in or within themselves,” but rather that I attempted to relate individual experiences to their sociocultural contexts (Levy and Hollan 1998: 334). Regarding how to engage individual interviewees, Levy and Hollan explain:

“To the extent that person-centered interviews engage the interviewee as an ‘informant,’ that is, as a knowledgeable person who can tell the anthropologist- interviewer about culture and behavior in a particular locale…However, person-centered interviews also engage the interviewee as a “respondent,” as an object of systematic study and observation in him- or herself... It is the balanced combination of informant and respondent modes of interviewing that is characteristic of person-centered interviews, and that distinguishes them from most other types of interview” (idem: 335-6).

Furthermore, Levy and Hollan suggest going beyond the surface of apparent discourses and taking notes on the hidden dimensions of the normative patterns of social discourse.

“The interviews we will be centrally concerned with are not just samples of discourses—not one kind of local discourse among others, not just narratives, not just life histories or autobiographies. They are in part such things, but they are conducted in an attempt to attenuate and disrupt ordinary and conventional patterns of social discourse. In so doing, we hope to elicit behavior that moves

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 53 beyond role-determined surface scripts to suggest hidden or latent dimensions of the organization of persons and the sociocultural and material matrix and their interactions” (1998: 334).

The research participants provided me with the semi-biographical and structural contexts of their stories. Their narratives about Sharia law were linked to their interpretations of their lived experiences in the past and present, and their expectations about the future in Banda Aceh. They have adapted to Aceh’s cultural surroundings and have developed their knowledge about the law. This research also utilized life stories rather than a life history method. This method means that the ethnographic representation takes the form of collected narratives of sixteen female individuals in Banda Aceh. It is by no means “the history” of Banda Aceh women. Such a view was exemplified by Peacock and Holland (1993) when they cataloged varieties of life stories and the complexities of the life story method. Peacock and Holland divided the method into two approaches: one that emphasizes the “life-narrated” and focuses on the “external reality” of the objective facts of historical and ethnographic events and one that embraced the subjective experience of the narrator (1993: 367-83). I use both life stories and person-centered interviews to tackle the issue of both the structure and agency of Sharia experiences. Life histories to be collected are “first-person accounts” collected through interviews. The data gathered in this research are mostly personal semi- biographical narratives and descriptions of processual activities which I observed and participated in. Personal narratives mostly comprise emotions and thoughts that preoccupied participants when speaking about or dealing with Sharia law. The processual activities shed light on how the law was embodied in the participants’ daily lives and how the succession of events affected participants’ moral resolutions and actions. The focus on processes extends to greater time and space spans. The participants’ interpretations of historical conditions, which both enable and inhibit cultural changes in Banda Aceh, are understood as Sharia law’s contexts. The historical contexts are gathered from historical accounts of the development of Sharia law in Banda Aceh from participants’ biographies. The life stories were gathered mostly from individual in-depth interviews. These stories were gathered in fragments, as most participants did not engage in conversations of more than three hours in length. “Complete” life stories were never obtained in a single interview, but important vignettes of individuals were “constructed” throughout the fieldwork. Having more than ten individual participants made it hard for me to make exact “copies” of each interview and conversation. The quality of stories was also variable. This depended on the relationship and time spent with each participant. Most interviews were also

54 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh gathered informally. Many times, I did not hold an exclusive one-to-one interview and thus I proceeded with conversation in a group. Group conversations were usually used when talking with university students. Most of the time an interview would begin as an open-ended interview and end up as a group conversation as friends of the initial participant joined in. Much of the data was also collected in- between household chores, while some was obtained during sleepovers and casual chatting. Interpersonal relationships were important in determining not only formal- informal interviews but also in participation observation. The social differentiation between my research subjects and I affected the types of interaction we had. My status as a woman of a certain ethnic group and age, education and economic status affected my interviews and participant observation. For example, there were lots of questions about my position as a lone female researcher in many social interactions as well as advances from male individuals because I was single. The decision to buy a traditional gold engagement ring unique to Aceh saved me from repeated questions from men. Not only did the social differences between my research participants and I affect the participant observation and interview processes, but the relationships were also generally asymmetrical in the sense that I had greater privileges, for example in initiating the interview schedules and the topic of conversation. I tried to be as accommodating as possible; even though an ideal power balance was never reached with most of the participants, many stories were reciprocal. Most participants know as much about me as I know about them. Abu-Lughod’s experiences of her fieldwork among the Bedouins of the Egyptian Western Desert are relevant when discussing how interpersonal relationships shape participant observation and interview processes. Her admission that her Muslim background and the circumstances of her introduction to her research subjects facilitated her access to the field and the acquired role of an adoptive daughter is important (1985: 638). My circumstances were similar to those of Abu-Lughod; we both felt loyalty to our female interlocutors for the same reason. The gender segregation in Banda Aceh does not at all resemble the Bedouins, but the principle of “mutual avoidance” between female and male persons could be found in Aceh. Also relevant to my ethnographic process was the women’s proficiency in the law. This means both their understanding of the law as well their agency within it. Attention was paid to narratives to examine the way women’s experiences were conveyed verbally, such as the language used to convey the experience and the gestures accompanying the communication. Common words used in these narratives are highlighted to point out the prevalent personal and cultural themes in Banda Aceh. It is also important to notice how the women “formulate” the stories. This can be seen in how one of my participants described a language-related

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 55 misunderstanding between us or our difficulty in dealing with emotional stories. The type of data gathered during the fieldwork included not only interviews, observation notes, government statistics, and regulations, but also unofficial data such as gossip and slander. Much of it was political—it mostly addressed specific public figures, even though some could not be taken at face value. New reports are also important but need to be seen critically. Sharia law is an important issue; hence news about it is often used for political ends. Many Banda Aceh journalists were organized under Jaringan Wartawan Peduli Shariah/ JWPS (Journalists for Sharia Custody Network) or in Aliansi Jurnalis Independen/ AJI (Independent Journalists Alliance). There were fortunately abundant secondary sources from scholarly research and government reports and censuses. The Public Information Transparency Law was ratified in 2011, and most Aceh government statistics were made public upon request, and some were available online. This ethnography shifts from the descriptions of the processes and experiences of Sharia law to the analysis of the empirical data. The analysis connects the personal experiences with the social structure and differentiation in Banda Aceh. Singular life stories are considered as a seamless part of moral orders, social structures and hierarchies in Banda Aceh. There are many examples where actual stories, such as day-to-day gender relationships, define a fundamental anthropological issue in everyday life in Banda Aceh.

5. Text Production and Representation A formal definition of ethnography is a “written account of the cultural life of a social group, organization or community which may focus on a particular aspect of life in that setting” (Watson 2008 in Humphreys and Watson 2009: 40). Humphreys and Watson embark on explaining the fourfold typography of ethnographic writings: the plain, the enhanced, the semi-fictionalized and the fictionalized follow a continuum “from minimally manipulated written accounts to highly manipulated or ‘fictionalized’ accounts” (idem: 41). Humphreys and Watson explain that at the midpoint of the continuum, ethnographic writings move away from the traditional social science. Moreover, the key to this shift is epistemology:

“The basis of the claim for truth or validity is no longer in what philosophers call ‘correspondence’ terms. The ethnography is not true anymore in terms of saying ‘this is exactly what happened.’ Certain ‘facts,’ we might say, have been altered by the writer, for a variety of reasons, the most obvious one being the protection of the research subjects. However, the key truths about processes— about ‘how things happen’ or ‘how things work’—are retained” (idem).

This ethnography is a semi-fictionalized ethnography, which Humphreys and Watson characterize as “a restructuring of events occurring within one or more

56 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh ethnographic investigations into a single narrative.” Also, the claim of truth from this type of ethnography is made “mainly in pragmatist terms: ‘this account is truer than other accounts to the extent to which it better informs human practices than do those other accounts.’” To call it a “fiction” is unfair, considering the long fieldwork and the rigorous data collection and documentation. This position, according to Humphreys and Watson “is a matter of technique and presentation as opposed to a shift towards fiction” (2009: 47). What I have in mind is Narayan’s “tools to shape texts.” She is considered a “native” anthropologist, yet she acknowledges similar challenges of writing personal narratives in her ethnography. She suggests using personae as a way to present the ethnographer and her subjects as characters (2007: 132-4). I create six characters that are complex, occupied with moral dilemmas, living with existential difficulties, and who possess the capacity for transformation. These characters are created to serve a purpose: to protect my research subjects and confidentiality. There are other reasons why I created the characters. The “characterization” may raise empiricist criticism based on claims of truth and validity—whether things that are written happened, or whether the subject existed. In this writing style it is “the reality of interest,” and not the “data” or “empirical basis” that matters. This style was chosen because the data is sensitive, and some subjects had confidential information regarding specific influential figures and institutions in Banda Aceh.

5.1. Anonymity and Characters Earlier in this dissertation I relayed a story involving a woman called Nur. In fact, however, there was no woman named Nur. Nur is a character, a montage of female individuals who were formed into one character. Later I will introduce Cut Lily, Meutia, Badriah, Sofia, and Intan, all of whom are semi-fictionalized combinations of sixteen actual female individuals living in Banda Aceh. This ethnography and all of the characters can be related back to actual persons, events, and interviews. This kind of representation is needed because this dissertation covers many sensitive issues in Banda Aceh. Sharia law has constantly been a subject of discussion at the center of Aceh’s government and society. In the light of the Special Autonomy status, many argue that Sharia law defines the “specialty” of Acehnese society. Examining a culturally and politically charged subject such as Sharia law—where dissenting views are considered “reasonable” grounds to subject someone to legal and corporal dangers5—necessitated taking potential consequences into serious consideration.

5 There have been cases where people were accused of being “blasphemous” and were socially and legally charged (see chapter VI). There have been at least two cases where women were targeted because of their views about Sharia law, the first being NM, an NGO activist, and RSA, a university lecturer, who received death threats and were forced to leave Banda Aceh for months. The threats were also sent to their families and loved ones.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 57 I take James Clifford’s recommendation that “the writing of cultural description [be] properly experimental and ethical” (1986:2) seriously. However much I disguise my research participants by removing individual traces and other identifying features, I am still ethically accountable for my research participants. It is hard to heavily disguise descriptions of the subjects without losing essential information about each embodied experience and the symbolic forms they used. I wrote the ethnography about women of Banda Aceh as much as I wrote it for them. Ultimately, this anthropological project seeks to bring back this ethnography to the people of Banda Aceh.

5.2. Double-Sided History Representations The double-sided (Poyer 1994: 53) representations of the past are culturally conditioned points of view (Marshall 1994: 972) and this chapter tries to strike a balance between emic and etic views of the past. While Acehnese understanding of the self and society through a century of changes informed by scholarly sources is important, this part amplifies descriptions of how the Acehnese past, or interpretations of it, affect the present lives of Banda Aceh women. Although this ethnography by and large is interested in present-day Banda Aceh, engagement with the past is useful in explaining the context of what it is like to be a woman living with Sharia law.

5.3. Language and “Semi-Fiction” In the production of this ethnography I have to come to terms with the foreignness not of the “native” languages—by extension, of culture and society— but of English. Much of the writing was translation work. Crapanzano writes that an ethnographer does not translate the way a translator does; there is no primary text other than his/her own. Ethnographers first have to produce the ethnographic text of a foreign culture, community and their language (1986: 51). My job here is to translate familiar cultural metaphors and expressions into English. English is the fourth language used in this research after Acehnese, Bahasa Indonesia, and Arabic. When my limited proficiency in Acehnese failed me, my participants would translate their stories into our national language, Bahasa Indonesia. In many other instances, we came to an understanding of specific ideas and practices by speaking of Arabic or even Javanese ideas. Clearly, I agree with Clifford’s statement that ethnographic truth is inherently partial (1989: 7) and the relationship between experiences and their representations presents a substantial epistemological problem (see Jackson’s article “Paths towards a Clearing”). There is debate about the poetry and politics of ethnographic representations and these are challenges that I should overcome. Faced with the question of ethnographic validity, I take the “more facts, better theory” stance.

58 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh CHAPTER IV Her Stories About Sharia

There are ways to present Aceh history. Historical representations available mainly are the written narratives constructed by scholars. The other history is “stories” told by women of Banda Aceh. Women’s views about the emergence of Sharia law and its historical, political, and social contexts, were garnered from their everyday knowledge and experiences. The distant past of the Aceh sultanate, Acehnese classical literature, customary practices and traditions are constructed from these women’s own biographies and points of view. Nur, Cut Lily, Badriah, Meutia, and Intan had stories to tell about the historical facts and explanation of how things came to be under Banda Aceh.

1. Stories of the Past (Jameun):1 History and Biographies Meutia was born in the 1990s. Both her parents worked for the Indonesian government as civil servants, even before the peace agreement was signed. Her father was Kepala Dinas Pendidikan (Head of the Bureau of Education) during the armed conflict, so he “disgracefully” travelled to Java to visit the Ministry of Education in Jakarta. It was hard to be perceived as Indonesian loyalists in a region where many people fought for their independence from Indonesia. Loyalty to the Indonesian government nevertheless provided the family with security and stability throughout the most tumultuous times in Aceh. The Blower area2 where Meutia lived is an area in the proximity of the barracks and headquarters of the First Division of the Indonesian Army. She was surrounded by people working with the government, the army, or private citizens from many parts of Indonesia. She had lived in the northern part of Banda Aceh for her whole life. Her parents told her that the Blower area was a “cosmopolitan” area with people from various backgrounds and ethnicities. Sadly, the area was swept away by the tsunami and many, if not most, of the residents perished. After the tsunami, the area

1 Jameun is an adjective that qualifies something as old, antiquated or something of the past. It is mostly, but not exclusively, translated as “time,” “period,” or “era.” 2 Blower area was owned by an East European Jewish trader, Avram Meier Bolchover (See G. A. Geertz. 2007).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 59 was deserted. Less than two years ago, new people came and settled there. Meutia felt that her neighborhood was less open. She supposed it was because the new residents mostly came from the inner parts of Aceh province; many had never lived in a city where different groups, including different Indonesian ethnic and religious groups, resided. Her appearance tells me she is the result of a long history of inter-marriage in Aceh; she could pass as someone with Chinese heritage. Remarkably, her cousins looked more like Arab or Indian descents. All of them identify themselves as Acehnese, and unreservedly abide by Acehnese traditions. Like all women before her, she lived in her mother’s house. And like her family predecessors, two of her aunties lived nearby. They shared an alley. Meutia’s family no longer lived in a matrilineal compound. In 2015, the traditional living arrangement was rare to be found in the city of Banda Aceh. When we met, Meutia was a senior university student at the Psychology Department, Syiah Kuala University. She graduated from “the best” high school in the city, SMUN (the State High School) 1 Banda Aceh. As a member of a generation “thriving in a peaceful era,”3 She was well versed both in Acehnese—her native language—and the national language, Bahasa Indonesia. She graduated from Dayah4 Terpadu (Integrated Islamic Junior High) as one of its top students and was accustomed to using Arabic and English as her third and fourth languages. The live- in school system abetted the dual system of traditional Islamic subjects and modern scientific ones. History was one of the subjects, but Syiah Kuala’s history and its jurisprudence were not part of her school curriculum. I first met Meutia at a coffee festival in Banda Aceh in November 2014. Several weeks later, I met her again at a public discussion at her university. She was the vice president of a Psychology student union, as well as a reproductive rights volunteer—Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia (Indonesian Planned Family Association). Both of us were interested in the discussion organized by the Syiah Kuala Executive Council of Students and two Muslim students’ associations.5 The discussion hosted the then Banda Aceh mayor, Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, where she explained her night curfew policy for women in the city of Banda Aceh. It’s quite unusual to see chairs inside a mosque, but there she was, the mayor sat on a sofa next to a male ustadz. The audience was separated by gender—female audience on the right side facing the speakers. Mayor Illiza was the sole narrator; the ustadz

3 This sentence was translated from her statement that she is from a generation who grew up in Banda Aceh after the peace agreement was reached. 4 Dayah is etymologically derived from the Arabic Zawiyah: Islamic religious group or a Sufimonastery. It is similar to Madrassa. The Indonesian term of pesantren comes to mind. See Federspiel 2001: 336. 5 Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Muslim Indonesia and Lembaga Dakwah Kampus Universitas Syiah Kuala. The discussion was held on Friday 5 November 2015 in Jamik Mosque, Syiah Kuala University.

60 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh was there to back her up, supporting the night curfew for women with Islamic lectures on morality. The discussion was late, the organizers waited for the invited journalists to arrive. It lasted more than an hour, with a half an hour “Question and Answer” session. Later, Meutia told me that she abhorred the mayor’s policy, and she thought the discussion was completely staged. She knew all the students who asked questions to Mayor Illiza. All the questions were pre-prepared, she was sure of it.

Public Discussion on Banda Aceh Night Curfew Policy Speaker Mayor Illiza S. Djamal on 5 November 2015 Photo: author

Meutia and her friends were the first generation to experience a great shift in the education system in Banda Aceh. They were the first to have to wear head coverings early in elementary school, to take Islamic subjects in addition to their Qur’anic studies at the meunasah6 or mosque, and perhaps also the first generation to experience the night curfew after the peace agreement. Most of them have vague memories of the armed conflicts and the military curfew. They were only children when the tsunami destroyed the city. Many of this generation are no longer expected to a visit an ulama’s grave. For them, it is considered better to never to visit any graveyard. To give an idea of the debate on grave visiting (ziarah kubur), there was an episode where Meutia was involved in a heated discussion with her peers. It was the 54th Syiah Kuala University anniversary, it was late afternoon and I joined five female students who were part of the organizing committee for the university

6 Literal translation: village communal hall.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 61 anniversary. There were lots of family games after the official ceremony at the Darussalam Monument. Most of the event’s participants were university civitas academica.7 When the anniversary was finally over, we took a short motorcycle ride to one of the coffee shops in the area. I waited for them to choose the table. They were comfortable patronizing a coffee shop during the day. However contentious, it is permissible for women to convene in coffee shops. This is something that would have been unimaginable prior to the peace agreement. Since the tsunami, women have joined men drinking in coffee shops, a situation that many men openly lamented in conversation with me. We sat at the back of the coffee shop surrounded by predominantly male regulars.8 I knew only Meutia, so most of the talks were about introductory stories; who we were ethnically, why and how I came to Banda Aceh, and how they know each other. One identified themselves as ethnic Jame’ and the other as Kluet. They understood Acehnese, but they spoke better in their respective ethnic languages and Bahasa Indonesia. The other three were Acehnese, natives to the city. As they just finished up their works at the university anniversary, I asked them about Syiah Kuala—the Grand Ulama of the Aceh Sultanate. After all, their university is named after him. One of the students explained that many people still visited Syiah Kuala’s graveyard for a nadzar.9 “They even pray at his grave,” one girl said. Some of them nodded with apparent disappointment. She continued, saying “That’s not right. That’s syirik.”10 It was a strong statement, coming from a lay person. There was a minute or so of silence. Then Meutia said,

“But isn’t it part of the adat? We have done it for centuries. Was not Syiah Kuala the Kadhi Malikul Adil of Aceh Sultanate? It is not that we pray to him,”

Meutia placed careful emphasis on her last sentence, because Muslims are not supposed to worship but Allah. All of her friends seemed ready to disagree at the same time. They started arguing about whether Syiah Kuala was a Sufi master and whether his interpretation of Sharia was “relevant or flatly wrong” today. They also brought up the other prominent ulama, Nuruddin ar-Raniry,11 who the Islamic State

7 Civitas Academica is a widely used term used in Indonesia. It refers to all university staff members, lecturers, students, alumni, and their families. 8 In 2018, the city of Bireun forbade male and female customers from sharing tables in coffee shops, and women are completely forbidden to buy coffee after ten at night. 9 Nadzar, sometimes spelled as nazar, means “making vows in the name of Allah.” People pray at Syiah Kuala’s grave, making wishes and vowing that if they get what they want, they will do something for Allah’s sake. In Aceh and many parts of Indonesia, nadzar is related to petitionary prayers to saints or ancestors. 10 Syirik, syirk: the sin of deification or worshipping anyone or anything other than Allah. 11 Nuruddin Ar-Raniry is another prolificulama of Aceh. He was the Kadhi during Sultan Iskandar Tsani’s reign and wrote twenty-nine books, the most important of which is Bustan Al-Salatin. Nuruddin Ar-Raniry destroyed the Sufi teaching of Hamzah Fansury’s

62 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh University of Banda Aceh is named after.12 Ar-Raniry’s interpretation of Islamic law received newfound support by Sharia supporters in Aceh. The discussion moved onto the subject of whether Syiah Kuala’s backing, which ultimately sanctioned four consecutive female Sultanas to rule Aceh, was a proper interpretation of Islamic Law. Meutia pointed out that they had a female mayor and questioned whether they also had a problem with having a female leader. Meutia was alone in her defense of Syiah Kuala but there were sympathetic nods among her friends regarding Bunda Illiza—Mother Illiza, the mayor of Banda Aceh.13 The discussion stopped briefly because the electricity went off; probably the third time in a month that we had experienced this. “A good Muslim would not pray at a kandhang (grave),” The quietest young woman trailed her words off. Both Muslimah and one of the girls named Nadia came from Aceh Timur. One woman added this point of view, “we do shalawat nabi, but we do not pray to our prophet. We expect overflowing blessings (limpahan berkah) from the prophet.” And another silence. I could tell that they struggled to discuss this issue. It was a far cry from our earlier talks about schools and activities. Both Meutia’s friends shared an opinion that a Muslim should not pray to Syiah Kuala. And again, there was an awkward silence. I did not ask whether any of them ever visited Syiah Kuala’s grave in Krueng Aceh, Dayah Raya. What I gleaned from the discussion was that Syiah Kuala’s interpretation of Sharia would not meet today’s standard for Sharia in Banda Aceh. The meeting ended before maghrib (evening prayer). This was also the time for children’s religious studies14 in Banda Aceh. A couple of days after my conversation with this group of students, I spoke to Intan of my intention to visit Syiah Kuala’s graveyard since I knew that she did visit the grave. Intan was slightly built but strong. She was blunt, but perhaps it was just my Javanese upbringing intervened. Javanese people stereotyped Acehnese “keras” or “blunt”. In a Javanese’s standard, her tone and straightforwardness were expressions of frustration. But her straightforwardness was actually liberating for me. She did not hold back her opinions or knowledge, even things that are hard to share with others. Wahdlatul Wujud (unity of existence). Hamzah Fansury was Syiah Kuala’s uncle. Syiah Kuala took Ar-Raniry’s place as Kadhi and supported Sultana Safiatuddin’s reign. She was the first Queen of Aceh. In the contemporary Acehnese public discourse, Ar-Raniry’s works are preferable to Syiah Kuala. 12 In many debates, Syiah Kuala and Ar-Raniry are framed as two opposing schools of Islamic interpretations in Aceh. 13 Indonesians prefer to use their first name than surname to address a person. Many Indonesians, Acehnese included, do not have or take a patrilineal surname. Even though Mayor Illiza has a surname, Sa’aduddin Djamal after her father (an ulama and a former Member of Parliament), it did not change the Indonesian habit of addressing a person with a first name. 14 Mixed Acehnese and Arabic words: Beut Al-Qur’an Ba’da Magrib (Al-Qur’an Study after Maghrib).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 63 By that time, I had known Intan for five months. She was in her late thirties when she first met me. She worked in a clothing store in Punge, still in the northern part of Banda Aceh. Intan travelled thirty-minutes by motorcycle from her gampong in Indrapuri, district of Aceh Besar. She owned a rice field and worked occasionally in the field during the planting and harvesting seasons. She is a widow with two children. Her husband passed away five years ago after a long illness that many neighbors suspected was tuberculosis. Her children go to school in Indrapuri. The oldest son took care of her sister until Intan got home at around six in the evening. She did not worry about leaving her children at home, alone. Their aunts and grandmothers lived just next door. They lived in a grandmothers-aunts-sisters compound surrounded by their karong family.15 Intan’s children were very close to their maternal relatives, rarely visiting their father’s family in other gampong. During the day, they went to the only elementary school in the gampong. Later on, the oldest son will have to travel for a half an hour to the municipal secondary school. I spent much of the time with the younger daughter at home. We dried the boh limeung (or asam sunti/blimbi) in the yard.16 We both learned to cook Acehnese specialties in the evening. Intan rarely cooked in the morning, because she left home even before the children went to school. In the evening all children went to meunasah to study Qur’an and Arabic. The son would sometimes stay and sleep at the meunasah with other teenage boys. When he was home, he usually would watch European football matches. He was a Manchester United fan. Dinner time was the only time I saw all members of the family: Intan, her father and mother and her two children. In the eyes of Aceh’s government, Intan was considered poor. Intan received government assistance for her children’s school fees. She also receives a small amount of funds from her village because her children are considered “orphans.”17 When her husband was still alive, she consented to having an IUD (intrauterine device) birth control implant, in exchange for free government birth delivery services. The government might see her as a marginal subject, but in the eyes of the community, she was still considered the gampong’s ulu (primal families) and her mother was respected as an elder in the village. Unfortunately, she said she only had an elementary education and it prevented her from becoming one of the adat elders. She confessed to being “maladjusted” to the new—government sanctioned—adat bureaucracies. I asked whether she ever visited the ulama’s graveyard in Dayah Raya. Intan said 15 Karong family refers to all relatives from the mother’s side. 16 One of Aceh’s special seasonings. Boh limeung is part of the Belimbing (starfruit) family. Because of sourness and acidity, dried boh limeung tastes like tamarind. Another Aceh seasoning is cuka Aceh, made of fermented air sadapan nira (liquid harvested from young coconut fruit). 17 The term “orphan” (Ind.yatim-piatu ) is used when one or both parents are deceased. Indonesian Muslims differentiated whether a child has no father “yatim” or mother “piatu”.

64 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh she did visit the graveyard many years ago.

“I had this ear problem, maybe an infection. I did not have money to see a doctor. At that time, it was not as easy as it is now, no BPJS.18 So I said to myself, if my ear was cured, I would pay a tribute to Syiah Kuala. Rich people would slaughter a male goat or a chicken to pay their nadzar, but I was so poor, I could only pray at the mosque there,”

She further explained that people would go to the graveyard with various requests, such as a love partner, a child, or a successful venture. “Whatever problem you have,” Intan told me, “you can go there too.” Intan knew my life story as well. I let her know that I appreciated her advice, and then asked how the visit worked for her.

“You go there, there will be an imeum who will receive your request and he will write rajah19 to be worn. In my case, he wrote it on a white scarf. And then you pray with it.”

Intan knew that praying at Syiah Kuala’s grave had been considered blasphemous for some time, but she said she had no choice. There were no affordable health services. And it worked out well for her—she was cured. She said that had she been able to afford something she would have slaughtered a goat and brought the goat back to her gampong to have a kenduri.20 She could not even afford a chicken to be slaughtered. She was rather sad remembering this. Later that week, I went to Syiah Kuala’s grave. The graveyard was an unassuming complex where the four Queens and some of the old royal families were also laid to rest. The graves of Syiah Kuala and the four Sultanas were located inside a simple building. Every visitor is expected to take off their shoes and take wudlu (ablution) before entering. I talked to the khadam, the gatekeeper, briefly. As I said I was not making anynadzar , the gatekeeper kept me from going inside because there was a group of people already inside the building. He made sure that they had time and privacy. He mentioned that privacy was

18 In 2013, the Indonesian government launched universal health care known as BPJS/Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial-Kesehatan (Social Security for Health). 19 Rajah is an Arabic calligraphy talisman. 20 Kenduri (variations: Kanduri, Khenduri), etymologically is a Hindi word. It is sometimes confused and integrated with a similar ceremony, selamatan, a communal feast on a joyous occasion or celebrating auspicious days in Java (Geertz 1976). According to Federspiel, “an important belief attached to kanduri was that it gave religious merit to the host. The food took the form of a gift to the visitors, and since several poor and destitute persons were generally invited, that portion of feast given to them was considered to be alms. The religious merit accruing to the host was increased by the recitation of prayers, portions of the Qur’an and the dhikr” (2009: 87). From a superficial point of view, there are many similarities between kenduri in Java and Banda Aceh.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 65 important for visitors, considering grave visits were no longer considered “Muslim proper.” I respected the khadam’s request to leave the premises as I had no intention of praying at the complex. Visiting graves is no longer popular or considered to be up to Sharia guidelines endorsed by the Dinas Syariah (Sharia Bureau) and many groups in Aceh. Ziarah kubur is something that is to be done “no more” for the people of Banda Aceh. In the capital city and other parts of Aceh Province, the most popular Islamic ritual is the “zikir and shalawat massal”21 led by Saudi Syeikhs—most importantly Syeikh Ali Jaber, and young populist ulama such as Tuanku Syeikh Teungku Muda Samunzier. Ali Jaber and Samunzier’s popularity were signs of a different religious trajectory in Banda Aceh.22 The shalawat and zikir are more public in terms of the issues and the number of participants. Sometimes it serves as a petitionary public prayer for the safety and welfare of the community, forgiveness, as well as to commemorate important Islamic holidays and the tsunami. This event does not require a kenduri, only some merchandise to buy.23 The vanishing devotions toulama and aulia (saints) are a small part of bigger changes in Banda Aceh. Adat practices, such as the ziarah kubur and also pesijeuk (thanksgiving) are heavily contested in Banda Aceh. They are no longer part of Banda Acehnese life- cycle rituals and were no longer part of Acehnese labor to meet their needs. Their suffering had supposedly been ameliorated by government welfare programs and the market system; their precarious lives were behind them and their security was guaranteed. While the younger generation of Aceh enjoyed a relatively free education and healthcare, Intan experienced an impossible situation in which she had to choose her well-being or her children. She visited the graveyard because she could not afford health care and she did not have the support to secure her family’s well-being. Arguably, it was not just the state that influencedadat practices and norms— market capitalism also influenced Banda Acehnese religious life and Banda Aceh innermost parts such as piety and marriage.

2. Of Marriage and Kinship The new Sharia standard in Banda Aceh proved increasingly difficult to live up to, despite the fact that many people claim that Sharia and adat have coexisted since time immemorial. Sharia and adat coexistence is considered to be the most

21 Zikir/Dzikr, remembrance, is an act of devotion, associated mainly with Sufism, in which the worshipper recites and is absorbed in the repetition of the name of God or his attributes. 22 See Bowen’s quotes from Hurgronje about the local ideas of spirits, jinn and aulia, which local scholars and ulama have dubbed as “Islamic” and “allow people to make extensive petitionary prayers to saints” (2015: 3). 23 People buy white attire, recitation books and DVDs to attend the zikir and shalawat as in the case of the event led by Tengku Muda Samunzier.

66 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh important moral order and worldview in Aceh: “Adat ngon hukom hanjeut cree bre, lagei zat ngon sifeut,” “Adat bak poteumeureuhom, hukom bak syiah kuala,” They claim that adat and Sharia have both long been cornerstones of Acehnese society and that there was separation of powers between customary rules and the governance of the Sultan and Islamic law of the ulama.24 Many Acehnese see in today’s Acehnese society an Islamic society as it has always been, that includes adat and the matrifocal25 tradition. Cut Lily told stories about her own wedding to make this point. Cut Lily comes from a noble family—hence her title “Cut.” Her family is deeply connected to many renowned figures in Banda Aceh. But there was a time when having a title like this was a problem. Through discussing her wedding stories, I came to know that Cut Lily added the title “Cut” only in her late teenage years. It was her mother that told me that her father’s family house in Pidie was burned down during the war known as the Cumbok War (22 December 1946-13 January 1946).26 The Cumbok War represented the first modern “social revolution”27 in Aceh and the fall of the “colonial feudal power and authority” of uleebalang—both as a ruling class and a social group. This era marked the rise ofulama power. Cut Lily’s family history demonstrates the broader societal change that occurred when uleebalang supremacy was challenged and then replaced by that of the ulama.28

24 Hurgronje made an observation about the relationship between adat and Sharia in Aceh: “They are trained up in the doctrine thatadat (custom law) and hukom (religious law) should take their places side by side in a good Mohammedan country—not in the sense inculcated by the Moslem law-books that they should fall back on the adat whenever the hukom is silent or directs them to do so—but in such a way that a very great portion of their lives is governed by adat and only a small part by hukom” (1906:14). In 1889, Teungku Chik Kutakarang wrote to Tadhkirat Al-Radikin discussing the same issue, saying: “adat ban adat hukom ban hukom, adat ngon hukom sama keumba, takkala mufakat adat ngon hukom, nanggroe seunang hana goga,” It is obvious that there have been persistent determinations condoning the maintenance of balance between adat and Sharia, but less so recently. 25 Matrifocality, quoting from Nancy Tanner, is concerned with two constructs: “kinship system in which (a) the role of the mother is structurally, culturally, and effectively central, and (b) this multidimensional centrality is legitimate, and (2) the societies in which these features coexist, where (a) the relationship between the sexes is relatively egalitarian and (b) both women and men are important actors in the economic and ritual spheres” (1974: 130). 26 Theuleebalang was at war with the Islamic militia led by Teungku di Tiro. According to Anthony Reid, “The Aceh Residency Government of T. Arif was still too weak to act as a mediator and was still busy with the Japanese evacuation and the arrival of the Allied Forces (including the Dutch who wanted to re-establish power). Theuleebalang -militia conflict went out of the government’s control. Believing that they were defenders of the Republic against the uleebalang who sided with the Dutch, the people’s militia declared holy wars against the nobles” (2006: 126-8). 27 Taufik Abdullah 2009: 159-60. 28 An interview between Morris and a PESINDO leader was revealing: “Actually the uleebalangs had little choice. They know that what the Japanese had taken away—their judicial powers—would not be returned without the Dutch. There was a vacuum and they knew that if they did not fill it others would. This made them traitors, but they were

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 67 Cut Lily’s ancestry could be traced back to an uleebalang (chieftain) in Pidie and yet her status was no longer as powerful as it had been in the past.29 Because of the past conflict, Cut Lily’s relatives went to Java and overseas (Malaysia and Singapore). During the conflict era, many wealthy families sent their children to Medan-North Sumatra, Java, Malaysia or Singapore. The armed conflicts disturbed schools, and many felt there was no future for their children in Aceh. She graduated from the same university as me, Gadjah Mada University in Java, then continued her graduate study in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She had recently married a man from another noble family and like many members of the Acehnese nobility, her marriage was “arranged.” It is no longer a tradition, but many families with high social standings marry only their equals. Moreover, not only in terms of economic status, it is not advisable to marry bukan pesisir (lit: non-coastal people)30 and it is much better if one marries someone with a title from the same gampong origin so the seulangke (matchmaker) is close to both families. Marriage customs in Banda Aceh are mostly still observed, prominently in the marriage ceremony and clothes. It is no longer a given that the newlywed couple will move in with aneuk daro’s (the bride’s) family, but the kinship principle and marriage rituals remain.31 Perhaps the most pressing change was the jenamee (mas kawin/bride money)32 which in 2014 was increased to twenty mayams33 of gold.34 The huge sums of bride money had caused “an existential crisis” among Acehnese

acting logically. In turn, we had no choice but to oppose them” (1983: 130). PESINDO is a youth wing of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia) which was effectively banned in Indonesia in 1966. 29 On the Cumbok War, Antje Misbach in Separatist Conflict in Aceh: The Long-Distance Politics of the Acehnese Diaspora writes: “After the Japanese departure from Aceh left behind a power vacuum, the long rivalry between the uleebalang and ulama organized under PUSA broke out in Pidie and then spread to East and Central Aceh. Theuleebalang favored the return of the Dutch in order to restore their pre-war status and positions. The Dutch, however, did not dare to set foot in Aceh because of bad memories of previous resistance, although they reoccupied most other parts in Indonesia. In contrast, the ulama gained more power during the war in Aceh, which they would not easily relinquish. Tension exploded in the Cumbok War, which the uleebalang lost badly (Siegel 1969). Many were murdered or detained, those who survived fled to Medan, Jakarta and the Acehnese settlement in British Malaya” (2012: 33-4). 30 “Non-coastal people” refers to Acehnese highlanders, who are mostly from the Gayo or Lues ethnic groups. 31 See Adat perkawinan Aceh. 1989. 32 Note that the Indonesian translation of jenamee is mas kawin, literally equivalent to “marriage gold.” Jenamee is an amount of money transferred from the groom (linto baro) to the bride (dara baro). In addition to jenamee, the groom is expected to provide peng angoh (uang hangus)—burned money—upon the proposal (Jak Ba Ranub) and when agreed by both families. 33 One mayam equals 3.37 grams. 34 In Aceh Bladéh Seulawah region (roughly covering all of Aceh proper), custom has it, the jeunamee was between 10-20 mayam, while Bladéh Geurutee (“Beyond Geurutee upland, hinterland) the jeunamee was between 3-10 mayam.

68 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh men, one male interlocutor jokingly suggested. Cut Lily believed that the bride’s money must be raised because Acehnese women are the po rumoh, the owner of the house. If a woman is to be the “po rumoh” no longer then the bride’s money should compensate for the loss of her “Aceh birthright.” In Cut Lily’s case, her father had already provided her with a house. Her jeunamee was sixteen mayam, the same amount her mother received from her father.

Gayo Wedding in Banda Aceh Photo: author

Some other marriage practices are also changing. Many families hold wedding receptions in rented halls or hotel ballrooms, and uxorilocality is increasingly diminished. Following the marriage rituals, Acehnese men still have obligations both to their wives and their wives’ parents even though the married couple no longer live with the wife’s family. One of the most important obligations for men is supplying the meugang meat for their wives and wives’ families on every Islamic holiday. Speaking of meugang tradition, I observed the three non-official35 feast days of uròë ma’meugang to celebrate the beginning of the month of Ramadhan (1436 Hijriah/Islamic Calendar) or meugang puasa.36 On one of these days, temporary stalls selling beef could be found on every busy street corner in Banda Aceh. In a rare event, men throng these markets and buy overpriced meat.37 Custom

35 Even though it was not an official holiday in the Indonesian calendar, many people skipped work and celebrated the feast. 36 Other meugang days are, among others, Meugang Uröe Raya (Iedul Fitr), Meugang Uröe Haji (Eidul Adha), Meugang Gampong. 37 The price of meat rises threefold or more duringmeugang days. In 2014 and 2015 it

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 69 “requires” men buy a minimum of five kilos of meat to be brought to their wives’ families. The pressure to bringmeugang meat to the in-laws is so enormous that men will do anything to get it. I heard “si thon ta mita, si uröé ta pajoh!” many times—a year’s work consumed in just one meugang day. The makeshift markets are overwhelming, crammed full of men (and occasionally women) selling and buying meat, and overlaid with the smell of blood, mixed with the sweltering air of the month of July. When I conferred with Intan about the change in livelihood and gender relationships, she reminisced about the time when all men in her village worked in the rice fields owned by her female relatives, with women occasionally helping them and providing the men with food. Nowadays, women are “di barisan depan”—in the front line—in charge of the household and livelihood. I went to Tungkop, in the outskirts of Darussalam, and saw that men were notably absent from the rice fields, so I asked why there were only women in the fields. A lady said that men just “forgot to go back to work in the rice fields after the war.” When I shared this story with Intan, she snapped

“Says who? Some men indeed joined [the fight for GAM], but some did not. In the old days, men would go to the rice field. Young men nowadays hastily get married and don’t want to work…maybe they could not help themselves, young men!”

According to Intan, not all men were GAM fighters, but they would say they were. Intan believed that today’s young men just wanted to “get laid” as soon as possible and did not want to be responsible for their wives and in-laws. I saw that many young, working-age men could be found spending extraordinarily long periods of time in coffee shops. I consider this a substantiation of Intan’s view. However, this is only one way to see the change in gender relationships in Banda Aceh. In the past, in the pesisir (coastal) area of Aceh proper, the kinship system prioritized matrilineal (si karong) over patrilineal (wali karong) family.38 This system is different from the southeastern and eastern parts of Aceh, which follow either bilateral or patrilineal lines.39 Aceh is matrifocal, one manifestation of which, according to Intan, is the transfer of inheritance through female lineages:

“Houses belong to the women…But take my father [as an example]; I do not

reached around 125-150 thousand rupiah. 38 Wali Karong refers to family by marriage. In Islamic marriage law, only the father or a paternal relative can be the wali (lawful guardian) in a marriage ceremony. Karong refers to an extended family from the mother’s side, while kawom refers to all family members both from wali family (from the father’s side) and karong family (from mother’s side). Matrifocal tradition remains the norm in the gampong in Aceh Besar, Aceh Selatan and other regions in Aceh, hence a greater affinity to the karong family. 39 See Bowen (1992) in Gayo, East Aceh.

70 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh get the rice field, just a house; the rice field is for his sons, my brothers. Sons also get another plot to build a house. I just got a house, so I could not say anything, because the [Sharia] law says so, he said…my gampong’s term, a house belongs to a woman, not for men.”

Intan sensed the change in inheritance practice in which men not only received the rice field, but also a plot for a house. Intan further explained that, according to her father, that is the Islamic religious law. Intan’s assessment was different from that of Meutia, who said it was the mother’s decision to give or not give the house. I asked Meutia to elaborate the relationship between si karong and wali families:

“It is more important (for us) the women’s line (si karong), but now it has changed Kak, sometimes people can no longer afford to give a house, then the husband builds a house. But this husband would not be from [the wife’s] gampong, he would be a husband from ‘outside.’ Husbands [who came] from the gampong wait for their mother to give them [a house], as children we would never know. But when the husband is an outsider, he is shamed for staying more than a year [in his wife’s parent’s house] and then [he] would build [a house], however small, it’s his own.”

While Intan spoke about how her father was the one who made the decision, Meutia still held the conviction that it was the mother who made the decision. In Islamic inheritance law, men get twice as much inheritance as women. Meutia also made a distinction between Acehnese and non-Acehnese with regards to men’s rights and obligations. Meutia told me a story about how a young couple began the process of living separately from the wife’s parents:

“But my friend was different, Kak. She is a Banda Acehnese, married already. It was already too long that she and her husband had lived in her [parents’] house. Until they had a child, the second one, they got out of the house. Her husband, out of the blue, brought a lot of meat [to her parents]; he wanted to live separately and to bring his wife with him. [He] bought meat…it meant her husband was able, that’s the term. Usually this man, his in-laws feed him, isn’t that so? [Asking her friend] When one lives with in-laws, the in-laws feed him.”

These subjects of marriage and kinship are private issues and there were no [new] Sharia legal regulations stipulate marriage, inheritance, or meugang obligations. Yet, changes in the legal system have inadvertently transformed other areas of life in Banda Aceh. The change affected not only Acehnese, but everyone living in the city.

3. Governing Aceh: Gampong and Adat Badriah was born in Medan, North Sumatra Province to a Batak Muslim family in 1970. She finished her education in the same city and obtained her vocational

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 71 college degree shortly after the 1998 Reformation.40 She described herself as someone who was not particularly religious or political, but like many children in her Muslim neighborhood, she learned to read the Qur’an at the mosque close to her parents’ house and actively voted in every local and national election. She never voted for Islamic parties. She moved to Banda Aceh as a volunteer in a governmental rebuilding project after the tsunami and then met her Acehnese husband. The rest is history. As a non-Aceh Muslim woman, Badriah could tell that being considered a gampong member was important. She was married to a man working in the Dinas Kesehatan (Health Bureau) and she was, at most, considered a “long-time resident” of her gampong. She described her gampong as a community divided into some kind of moiety of lorongs (alleyways). Since she and her husband are not native to the gampong, she lives in a lorong pendatang (migrants’ alleyway). The difference between the native and migrantlorong s is usually, according to Badriah, “migrants’ alleyways are better off than the natives.” I had not developed sufficient understanding about who was considered “migrant” or “native”, but this differentiation affected how Sharia law was operated. Badriah is a stay-at-home mom and has four children aged between six and sixteen years old. She formerly worked in the Dinas Sosial (Social Bureau) as a pegawai kontrak (a contractual employee). The children’s schedule consumes Badriah’s time because it was she that drives all her children to their elementary school, with the exception of the oldest child who now rides his own motorbike— despite being too young to get a driving license. Her youngest children, Icut and Ibang, need to be driven to their madrasah too. Badriah generally drives her children four times a day—to their school and then madrasah. Qur’anic studies in the meunasah, a village hall where religious studies were usually held in the past, are increasingly transformed into modern madrasah, with a fixed schedule and levels. Badriah told me that the madrasah is located at the Islahiah Mosque. “We no longer have a meunasah. I think not in Banda Aceh. Only some gampong in the outskirts have meunasah.” The village mosque is big compared to those in other parts of Indonesia. The dome is decorated with beautiful, handcrafted geometric designs. Many mosques were built after the 2004 tsunami and were funded mostly by donors from Middle Eastern countries, especially Saudi Arabia. The mosque is used solely for religious activities. Since the meunasah, which is a communal and religious hall, is gone, villagers in Badriah’s gampong use the village hall located in the village administrative office41 and the Kantor Geuchik (Village Head Office). The village hall is essentially

40 Indonesian Reformation 1998 refers to the fall of the Soeharto and the thirty years of his “New Order” authoritarian regime in 1998, since when Indonesia has been in a period of transition. 41 According to Qanun No. 9/2008 about the Adat Institution and the Qanun about

72 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh a big room with folding chairs. A relatively new communal structure is the “Balai Gampong”—this superficially looks like a small version of a meunasah, but it is usually used as men’s quarters for Ronda (night watchmen). Badriah’children went to the madrasah at four o’clock in the evening. Theustadz was professionally hired (it simply means he received a monthly salary). Children, both male and female, were separated based on Arabic reading technique called “Iqra” level. Children who were already reading the Qur’an studied in a different room with a designated ustadz. The young ones learnt Arabic, basic Islamic teachings and practices, and children’ songs. The older ones learnt thefiqh and memorized Qur’an. During the break, children would buy snacks and play outside the mosque. Most of them spoke to each other in Bahasa Indonesia. Their parents spoke Acehnese, yet the children responded in Bahasa Indonesia. The children seemed to be more comfortable speaking in Bahasa Indonesia because some of these children were not all Acehnese. In an everyday sense, there is no difference between natives and migrants. Badriah recalled that there were differences in tsunami aid distribution, and she was quite sure that she would never be elected as a gampong leader or to positions such as a Posyandu42 administrator, of women’s associations, such as pengajian (religious study group) and arisan (community savings scheme). There is, however, a huge difference in how Sharia law is applied to migrant residents. Badriah took me as an example.

“I think if you are a asli Aceh (native), the adat law applies to you. So, for example, if you violate a night curfew, such as receiving a guest from the opposite sex at night, if you are native, you will get adat fines and your fate will be decided in a gampong meeting. But if you are a pendatang, you will be straightaway sent to the Sharia Police. And you might not be allowed to come back.”

Some adat gampongs were more unified than others, for example, in Intan’s gampong in Aceh Besar, the matrifocal residence and kinship system were still in place, young men still sleep in the meunasah, khenduri tron u blang43 was still regularly held, and meuripe-ripe (communal donations) are still the most common form of village cooperation. The number ofpendatang was very low, so society’s

Gampong Government No. 5/2013, the legislative body of the gampong is the Tuha Peut. The latest regulation stipulates that a female member(s) be part of theTuha Peut in Aceh Province. 42 Pos Pelayanan Terpadu (Posyandu) is a community integrated health service post for pre- and post-natal care, and information for women with children under five. It also provides assistance for senior citizens. Posyandu is a national program of the Ministry of Health. 43 Thiskenduri is a feast to begin the rice planting. It usually consists of tepung tawar, pesijeuk (berteh, fried raw rice, and an egg), and leaves. The feast consists of wrapped rice and a curry (bu kulah). Farmers slaughter a chicken in the rice field and then hold Quranic recitations (usually the Al-Yaasin verse).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 73 customary rules applied in the gampong of Aceh Besar. The rulebooks for women in the gampong sometimes different from the downtown city, especially related to the Muslim dress code.

4. Covering Aceh: The Muslim Dress Code One major issue for Banda Aceh women was Sharia Muslim Dress Code. Head covering is the primary agenda of the Sharia Bureau as seen in the public campaigns plastered all over Aceh and the Sharia raids. Head covering is so emblematic that a member of the Aceh Regional House of Representatives, supported by many others, sued the Bank Indonesia for the portrayal of Cut Meutia without a head covering in the 2016 one thousand rupiah note.44 The recent portrayal of Acehnese women were different from the many female Aceh grand dames such Cut Nyak Dhien,45 Nyak Dhien, Admiral Malahayati46 and Queen Safiatuddin who did not wear a jilbab or head covering. After the introduction of Sharia law, Acehnese female heroes and important figures of the past were all suspects and scrutinized. The heavily demands of piety—symbolized by a head covering, weigh particularly on women.47 The 17 August 2015 Independence Day festivities in Banda Aceh were perhaps the most ebullient of all independence celebrations outside Java. In 2015, the Aceh Great War against the Dutch was reenacted with a “Cut Nyak Dhien” dance performed en masse in many district (kabupaten) capitals in Aceh province.48 On 18 August, almost all school children participated in the Independence parade. The parade participants predominantly wore Acehadat costumes. I have never 44 Azrizal H. Asnawi filed a case against Bank of Indonesia on 24 January 2017 in the Pengadilan Tinggi (High Court) Jakarta. In 1998, Bank Indonesia issued ten thousand rupiah notes with an Acehnese heroine, Cut Nyak Dien without a head covering and the note was never questioned. 45 Cut Nyak Dien was a freedom fighter against the Dutch (1848-1908). After the death of Teuku Umar, she led a twenty-five-year guerrilla war against the Dutch. In 1902, she was captured and then sent to Sumedang, West Java. She died while in exile on 6 November 1908. 46 Malahayati was a female admiral during the reign of Sultan Alaudin Riayat Syah IV (1585). She was anointed as an Indonesian national hero in 2017. 47 Jacques Siapno presents informative accounts about head covering in Aceh: “When I first began doing research in Aceh in 1992 and 1993, I was able to live in different cities and villages from North to South, East to West Aceh without wearing a veil. Now, after the ‘razia jilbab’ forced veiling phenomenon which began around mid-1999, most women, including non-Muslim women in Aceh, have put on the veil. According to an Acehnese female student and activist who did not wear the veil prior to razia jilbab, but who has now put it on, ‘no woman wants to take the risk of getting caught without a veil,’” (2002:37). In her account, Siapno describes the risks of being reprimanded by having one’s hair forcibly cut by the Indonesian military, religious vigilantes or masked men pretending to be GAM fighters. Even though the razia jilbab phenomenon only continued for a few months in mid- to late 1999, the profound consequences of this harassment have remained for a long time. 48 Indonesian Independence Day is 17 August 1945. On 17 August 2015, 1,700 dancers performed the dance depicting the Acehnese’s fight against the Dutch led by Cut Nyak Dhien and Cut Meutia in Blang Padang Banda Aceh.

74 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh witnessed an Independence parade as extravagant as the parade in Banda Aceh. The female Aceh adat costumes, defying the common feature of traditional female clothing in other parts of the Indonesian archipelago—the kain tradisional (traditional wrap/skirt)—consisted of a long shirt and pants. Both female and male traditional Aceh costumes include pants and short wraps with fabulous headpieces and golden accessories. Women’s adat pants in Aceh took on new meaning when they ceased to be considered “appropriate” for Acehnese women in the early 2000s with the introduction of regional bylaws forbidding women to wear pants in public.

Indonesian Independence Parade in Banda Aceh 17 August 2015 Photo: author

On the subject of head covering, I went to the Independence Day parade with Sofia, who had two children participating in the parade. She was so absorbed in her children’s parade day she spent almost one million rupiah, almost half a month’s salary in Banda Aceh, on renting adat costumes, full makeup, and a photographer for the occasion. She woke up at five in the morning and drove her two children to a beauty salon. There was already a queue inside the salon, most children were dressed in almost identical adat costumes and wore makeup. It was a chaotic morning, with one makeup artist working on sixteen school children. The mothers of these children helped to dress their daughters. Sofia’s children aged ten and eight, started their makeup at six in the morning and then rushed to join their schoolmates in

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 75 Blang Padang. All female children had to cover their hair under heavy and intricate head pieces. The parade was organized both by the city of Banda Aceh and the Military Commander of the Sultan Iskandar Muda First Military Division. There were many cars decorated with Indonesian flags and crests, flowers and music. The first convoys were military vehicles decorated in traditional Acehnese designs, followed by government officials and then school children. But the actual organizers of this grand event were the mothers and their schoolchildren. The parade was quite challenging for elementary school children. They had to walk for hours on a very hot day dressed in heavy costumes. The parents waited for their children and after hours of long, hot marches around the main streets of Banda Aceh, these school children went to have their photographs taken with their respective parents. The city was filled with thousands of people, full of the participants and spectators for the many events held to celebrate the day. Sofia was able to tell some things about the issue of head covering. Sofia was a middle- aged woman and worked for the Acehnese government. She went to state (public) schools (Sekolah Negeri/ Public) from in the 1980’s, only a minority of her friends had a jilbab, but it was not an obligation to wear one at school. Sofia remembered that during Soeharto’s New Order era, the jilbab was even prohibited in public schools in Indonesia. Then she went to Medan for her secondary schools and university. She had started to cover her head only when she entered college. Different from Meutia and her children’s generations, who have been accustomed to having their hair covered since elementary school. Like most Acehnese Muslim women, she covered her hair faithfully. Sofia thought it was only natural for her to cover her hair. The head covering in general did not affect her life such as her access to public spaces and positions, Sofia herself who had decided not to work despite having a university degree. Her life was devoted to her family and children. However, she never actually contemplated what would happen had she not worn a jilbab. In 2006, for the first time in Aceh’s history, head covering became an obligation for Acehnese women, enforced by razia jilbab (head cover patrol).49 The obligation to cover had already enforced sporadically by gampong youths and other youth Muslim group. Before 2005, vigilante groups targeting women were so rampant, one of the founding figures of Sharia law, Prof. A. Abubakar mentioned that it was so urgent for Aceh to have Sharia law. Aceh needed rule of law, and Indonesian civil

49 The head-covering policy was eventually forcibly imposed by community members. The most important political force in Aceh, GAM, as well as the ruling party Partai Aceh, had previously vehemently rejecting forced veiling, “...while GAM had come out with a strong public statement vehemently denying involvement in public veiling, the ulama in Aceh have been silent” (2013: 37-38). However, with the ulama publicly urging head covering, GAM and Partai Aceh’s opposition to the head covering policy had diminished in recent years.

76 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh law would only exacerbate the problem. In the early 2000’s Acehnese people loathed Indonesian government and its law. As far as Acehnese concerned, Indonesian law was used to oppress them. According to Prof. Abubakar, one of the driving forces of the implementation of the Sharia law was to protect women. After the peace agreement was signed, and Indonesian police presence was minimal, the enforcement of head covering was accelerated by vigilantes. After 2006, the Sharia Police was mandated to enforce Sharia law and vigilante enforcement of head covering was considered illegal. In 2015, the campaign for Muslim dress was constantly enforced in the street of Banda Aceh. Women’s knowledge about Muslims dress, most interestingly, was not talked in the scriptural language of the Qur’an or Hadith, perhaps it was already considered as given. Many attributed the Muslim dress code and head covering as customary practices and trends in Muslim fashion. However, for Nur, the Muslim dress code was neither customary nor fashion, I Sharia was all about. Nur works in a warung kopi (coffee shop) in Peunayong market. She married young, before she turned twenty. She graduated from junior high school and then went straight to work in the market. At the time of my visit she was thirty-four years old. She has two children who are now in elementary school. She lived in Ketapang, an area on the outskirts of Banda Aceh. One of the cheapest areas to build houses, Ketapang was a wetland just a few kilometers from the city center. Prior to the peace agreement, and until Soekarno Hatta outer ring-road was built, Ketapang was an undeveloped area. Nur married a bentor driver and neither of them is native to Ketapang. She grew up in Tungkop, but then moved to the city to join her husband. She is most articulate in Acehnese but speaks colloquially in Bahasa Indonesia with an Acehnese undertone. On the issue of head covering, she said:

“… in the gampong, I do not wear pants…only a skirt or sarong…only at home I would wear something like this [pointing to her casual pants and waist- length shirt] …Going outside, [I] would wear a sarong to cover my pants. If [I] want to go out [I] wear a skirt. Going to the city, [I] wear a skirt because in the streets, it’s tricky, who knows what’s going to happen…Wearing pants, the shirt should be this long… [pointing out the length of the shirt, just above the knee].”

Against the backdrop of the Sharia Bureau’s Muslim dress campaigns, Nur’s explanation regarding her clothing sounds a bit relaxed. The Sharia Police raided some clothing stores selling pants, especially skin-tight jeans and pants, which was a trend in other parts of Indonesia. Nur herself wore pants under her sarong every day in the market. The placards distributed by the Sharia Bureau, found in one of the malls in Banda Aceh, specify what acceptable as Muslim dress and what is not.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 77 Sharia Bureau Muslim Dress Code at Suzuya Mall Banda Aceh Photo: author

Muslim women’s dress illustrated not only the change in Aceh’s dressing norms as well as the spirit of Acehnese ideal women. The invocation of Cut Nyak Dien and Cut Meutia were used not as the symbols of Acehnese “nationalism”, but Indonesian nationalism. The Muslim women’s dress issue also reiterates the tension between adat and Sharia norms and practices in the most visible way. Acehnese women have changed, as many Muslim women around the world have. In many parts of the Muslim world the growing social force of self-conscious Muslim identity and the deliberate way people adopt this identity to conform to Muslim values.50

50 Abu-Lughod prefers the term Islamism to describe the striking change not only among Egypt’s urban middle class, but also in the Awlad ‘Ali village community as attested in her observation: “By the mid-1990s, local young men had set up small mosques, separate from the one associated with the nearby saint’s tomb to which the family’s men had regularly gone for Friday prayer. Many of these young men had beards and were strict with their sisters and wives, sometimes even their mothers. The older women complained that weddings were becoming less fun and there was less freedom for women. However, many of the poorer families in the vicinity seem to have embraced the new piety. Some of these women and girls had traded the distinctively tied black head covering (tarha) or the normal kerchief for a plain hijab, like that worn for prayer in the urban areas. Young educated Bedouin women from the towns followed instead the changing fashions of the urban Egytian hijab; rather than signaling any particular piety, wearing the hijab was

78 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Even though there was a general consensus among interlocutors that there was no antagonism between adat and Sharia, there were nevertheless questions whether the increased clashes between factions in the community were about the competing adat and Sharia justifications.

5. Wounded Past The large military presence was one thing most women mentioned about Banda Aceh during this period. Badriah made the assertion that “masuk gampong sudah aman”—it is safe for a stranger to enter a gampong. Gampong boundaries were clearly drawn during the armed conflicts and strangers absolutely were not welcomed in the gampong.51 Being Javanese myself, Nur said, it would not have been possible for me to travel, let alone conduct interviews in Banda Aceh gampong. That was especially true during the time in which Aceh was declared a Daerah Operasi Military/DOM (Military Operations Area) in the 1990s. Martial Law was imposed in all regions of Aceh province. The DOM status was lifted in 1998 and GAM resumed its fight for independence. While one-and-a-half million people demonstrated in Baiturrahman Mosque Banda Aceh, demanding a referendum on 8 November 1999,52 the Indonesian army continued their brutal “counter insurgency” operations.53 The 2000s were a relatively peaceful time in Banda Aceh,54 there were rarely open hostilities and attacks were sporadic. Intan told of how women stayed in their gampong while their men either left to fight for GAM or fled for safety from the Indonesian army:

“Almost all adult males went away, either to fight or to seek refuge in the forest. Only women and children stayed in the gampong. We did what we had to do to survive. Both TNI (Indonesian National Army) and GAM combatants knocked at our doors for whatever they wanted to get from us, coffee, money for them a way of marking their education and difference without jeopardizing their respectability” (2016: xiv). 51 There were stories about Javanese visitors, some of whom were civilians, killed during this period. The anti-Javanese sentiment grew because Javanese soldiers comprised the majority being sent to Aceh and Java representing the once centralized government of Indonesia. 52 Including Akmal Abzal (Master of Ceremony), Muhammad Nazar (SIRA), Faisal Ridha (Organizing leader), Tgk Nuruzzahri (HUDA), Tgk Bulqaini Tanjongan (Rabithah Thaliban Aceh), Fajri M Kasim (students’ leader), Cut Nur Asikin (women’s activist), Tgk Muhammad Yus (Aceh Parliamantary leader), and M Nasir Djamil (member of parliament). 53 See Elizabeth F. Dexler’s book Aceh, Indonesia: Securing the Insecure State. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2008. 54 The period described by Anthony Reid during the reign of the first female Indonesian president, Megawati, after the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in 9 December 2002. Reid notes about this period: “on the ground, military actions continued, but in a form that daily worsened the government’s position. The TNI troops, which had publicly been withdrawn by the new administration, were replaced by Police Mobile Brigades, many of them veterans of the Timor fighting” (2010: 310).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 79 or information. I heard they kidnapped women, just to get our husbands. We continued to work in the fields. After the conflict men forgot to go back to work in the fields, they wasted their time in coffee shops.”

Several women minimized the severity of the conflict, saying that hostilities between the Indonesian military and GAM combatants were isolated incidents mostly occurring in the interior of Aceh. Women living in the Banda Aceh downtown area rarely heard gunshots. People travelled less because of martial curfews, so it was also less likely that there would be any encounters with combatants or strangers. Banda Aceh on the whole was shut down after six p.m. Adult males were constantly monitored and everyone had to have a KTP Merah Putih.55 People who worked for the government lived in clustered areas in the city. Gampong entrances were guarded by local men and strangers were screened off from thegampong . That was how Sofia grew up. Sofia lived a protected life. During the conflict, her young life entirely took place between her home and school. Her schools from elementary to high school were surrounded by military offices and barracks. Her parents were well-off and well connected to city government officials. In her adult life, she identified herself as a founding member of the Mommy Hijabers Community (HMC) Banda Aceh. As a proud member, she displayed a huge HMC sticker on her SUV car. She was also the organizer of the Aceh Fashion Week in 2015. Sofia did not know of any “horrendous incidents” of kidnapping, shooting, torture, or rape. As a child, she lived around Lingke, Banda Aceh, which was heavily controlled by the Indonesian Army. Her life was parallel but distinct from that of Nur who lived in the outskirts of Banda Aceh and whose brother was kidnapped and killed for a false accusation that he was a GAM member. Nur’s brother’s body was found in a gutter a week after his disappearance. His crime was that he travelled a lot for work, and he had no proper identification card. For these women, the Aceh conflict was not their war. Sometimes they had to defend themselves, their homes and children from both sides of the conflict, the GAM and Indonesian army, at least in Intan’s view. And they did so for a long time. Intan fought a different battle than others who joined the GAM. Female warriors fought the wars in the Aceh Sultanate era, Dutch colonialism, and Indonesian armed conflicts. These female warriors were named inong balee. Inong Balee—loosely means widow warriors—was a title revered and held in the highest Acehnese’ pride. It was first known as the Admiral Malahayati56 armada and in then it was used to name the female unit of Aceh Freedom Army. I met one 55 “Red and White” identity card issued by the village head and approved by the Head of Municipality and the Municipality Military Commander. The ID card was printed on red and white paper, resembling the Indonesian flag. 56 Admiral Malahayati was under Sultan Saidil Mukammil Alauddin Riayat Shah (1589- 1604).

80 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh of the GAM inong balee. She joined GAM in 1999 when she was only fifteen with her father’s approval. Her mother was against her joining the armed militia. She had military training in Jiem Jiem and had actually met the GAM Chief Commander Abdullah Syafi’I (Teungku Lah). She said there from Aceh Rayeuk alone, there were thirteen women who joined the training. She was the youngest woman at the GAM camp with 700 combatants. She lived in gampong Lamteh and worked in one of Aceh Province Bureaus. The conflict-ridden period looked likely to continue until the devastating impact of the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, which effectively ended the armed hostilities between the Indonesian army and GAM. The sheer number of tsunami casualties was beyond any society’s capability to endure. Aceh opened itself to the world and it facilitated the peace process in the province. The peace agreement was signed on 15 August 2005 in Helsinki, Finland. After the peace agreement, the difficult path toward “reunification” began.57 The peace agreement was broadcast live in the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque and it was also attended by thousands of people. It was a very emotional moment. Nur attended the event and remembered that there were takbirs and tears. After the tsunami, former GAM combatants replaced the Indonesian military officers in Aceh’s government. Decades of armed conflict had destabilizedadat and placed Sharia law and men front and center in the life of Banda Aceh. All happened after the destructive tsunami devastated Banda Aceh. The memory of the tsunami engendered a raw emotion that oftentimes resurfaced especially in the month of December. Sofia lost her first husband and a child in the tsunami. Sofia and many women in the city found strength in their faith, Islam.58 Women seek refuge in Islam, but some find it yoga. In Banda Aceh Yoga was “not acceptable” for many, if not blasphemous for its Hindu influence. However, there were at least two yoga groups in the city. I had joined an all-women’s yoga group with members from diverse walks of life, including NGO activists, stay-at-home mothers, and civil servants, and these all came from various ethnic backgrounds: Acehnese, Gayonese, Javanese, Chinese and Arabic. The day after the ten years anniversary of the tsunami we did our morning yoga session in a closed studio with shuttered windows. Everyone told each other where they were ten years ago and almost everyone broke into tears. That day I came to know that my yoga instructor had lost her

57 One of the biggest problems was the reintegration of thousands of armed combatants into civilian lives and the victims of conflicts. For a thorough report on Aceh’s post- conflict period read International Crisis Group Asia Reports No. 139 “Aceh: Post-Conflict Complications” 4 October 2007. 58 Similarly, Annemarie Samuels observes, “Already central to everyday life before the tsunami, Islam became crucial to grieving and rebuilding after the disaster. As many tsunami survivors saw the disaster as an act of God, they interpreted the tsunami as an opportunity for religious improvement of themselves and society” (2012: 208).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 81 husband and her youngest son. Everyone in the room had lost somebody close to them in the Tsunami. Sofia said, for the first time, it was OK now to cry: “We no longer need to be strong for everybody else today. It hurts, still. It is not selfish to cry.” She referred to the fact that it was important for her to be strong for the surviving children and their elderly parents and relatives. Ten years after the tsunami, these women publicly surrendered to their emotions and found strength in each other. To many observers, life in Banda Aceh is framed by spiritual virtues such as piety and faith.59 Religious as it is, Sharia law in Aceh is experienced through regulation and bureaucracy, and in mundane, day-to-day activities.60 The fact that the introduction and application of Sharia law cut across divisions of gender, class, ethnicity and age marks the most significant turning point in Acehnese socio- cultural life. Women’s narratives of the law transcend storytelling: they convey the meanings of the law as reflected and constructed by women.

6. Between You and God, there is Sharia Law There is an anonymous saying that goes: a sure sign of bureaucratization is that the first person who answered the call cannot help you. That was certainly the case when I called the Dinas Syariah Islam (DSI Sharia Islam Bureau). I paid a visit to the Sharia Bureau and was referred to a Public Relations officer.61 He gave me lists of books written by Al Yasa’ Abubakar62 and also brochures about the hierarchy of commands of the Sharia Police, the DSI structure and functions. But it did not stop there. The DSI PR Officer told me about his employment history, starting from the very bottom, a Satpol PP officer and then Satpol PP Commander, to his current position at the bureau. His work transfer was made possible when Satpol PP was merged with the Wilayatul Hisbah, the Sharia Police unit.63 I took in his enthusiasm

59 See for example Samuels 2012; Kloos 2013. 60 From a Malaysian context, Izzy Hussin perceives “…for the majority of Muslims, the encounter with Islamic law takes place neither through spectacular violence, nor through extraordinary forces, but in the mundane, repetitive and indispensable negotiations that characterize most encounters with the administrative state: identity cards, marriage and divorce, child custody, inheritance disputes.” Quoted from “The Politics of Islamic Law: An Introduction” in https://tif.ssrc.org/2016/08/29/the-politics-of-islamic-law-an- introduction/ [accessed on July 2016]. 61 The official website of Dinas Syariah Islam https://dsi.acehprov.go.id/konsultasi-syariah/ has “consultation services,” “objection filing,” and “application forms,” and provides all regulations, structures, and information regarding Sharia in Aceh. 62 Al Yasa Abubakar is the director of the Graduate Programs at Ar-Raniry Islamic University and the leading figure in the Sharia law drafting process. He was the first chief of the Sharia Bureau and led the Bureau for six years. 63 After 2006, the Acehnese Government tremendously cut the regional budget for the Sharia Bureau. As part of the budget cut, the Sharia Police was merged into the Pamong Praja civilian police unit (SATPOL PP). Quoted from Feener: “As already discussed, when Governor Abdullah Puteh saw it to be in his political interests, he lavished a flood of money. By 2007, however, the situation was very different. With the election of Irwandi

82 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh when he said that his office received many visitors, most notable of which were delegations from Malaysia and Papua. He could not hide his pride as he told me that Aceh would be a model for a modern Islamic government.64 It is reasonable to say that the Sharia bureaucracy in Aceh imitates the civil law bureaucracy. It works in parallel with and similar to the Indonesian civil courts, police and the attorney, but with one acute difference: the influence of the council of ulama.65 The work of the Sharia Bureau and Sharia Courts were quite similar as well. It was full of classifying, recording, filing, and retrieving reports and cases. There were no accentuated Islamic symbols in the office; there were no Arabic calligraphies of Allah or any quotes or hadiths from the Prophet Muhammad or the Qur’an. Both male and female employees and visitors interacted with each other. There was no gender segregation in sight. For example, it seemed like it was perfectly normal for a woman to come to the Sharia Bureau without a male guardian. There were also the typical symbols of a government office: piles of paperwork on top of identical desks, absent-minded staff members and long afternoon breaks. The Bureau building is also as ordinary as any government office in Indonesia: a multiple floor building with rooms designed for public services and rooms for the officeholders. Only in Aceh, however, does every office have a sign with both Roman and Arabic inscriptions, though all read in Bahasa Indonesia. After Sharia law first entered into force following the peace agreement in 2005, it was soon broadly accepted as the governing principle in Aceh. Even though the Free Aceh Movement had not sought an independent Aceh based on Islam, the newly elected Aceh government presented a united front supporting the introduction and application of Sharia law. The reconstruction of Aceh’s government was underpinned by Sharia regulations and directives. The workings of Sharia law exude the autonomous status that Aceh had recently gained and, moreover, public acceptance of Aceh’s government as the legitimate authority and source of the religious law of Islam. It is by no means true that Sharia governance is fixed and limited to the government apparatus: multiple actors take up various positions in Sharia discourse and practice. The formalization of Sharia law did not change social interactions and gender relations in public. There is no gender differentiation in terms of education and work opportunities, except for transgender people who are discriminated against in public positions. Women have occupied various jobs in all government offices, and the fact that the Mayor of Banda Aceh was a woman did

Yusuf as governor in 2006, the DSI’s budget was drastically cut” (2013: 213). 64 The Papuan delegation visited the Bureau as part of an official visit to the parliament and government offices to learn how Aceh implemented autonomous government, budgeting, and regulations. 65 Within the Indonesian justice system, the Sharia Court is considered a “Special Court.” Other specialized courts in Indonesia are Children, Human Rights Abuses, Corruption, Commercial Trade, Industrial Relations and Fishery Courts. For further discussion, see chapter II.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 83 not trouble the Acehnese, perhaps because of her strong stance in favor of Sharia law. One significant bureaucratic oddity that I noticed early in the research was the massive gap between the number of WH arrests reported and the number of court trials of Sharia offenses in the city of Banda Aceh.66 This begged a question, how it was possible for hundreds of arrests to result in so few Sharia Court verdicts? This highlights how important it is to pay particular attention to the everyday deployment and experiences of Sharia law and when examining how Sharia law operates and the ways in which Acehnese people encounter the law. There was inconsequential one-to-one correspondence between a specific Sharia rule and the experience of it. A court trial in a District General Court illustrates how a young woman experienced it. A few months into the fieldwork, I attended a blasphemy trial67 in the Pengadilan Tinggi (District Court) Banda Aceh. It was not held at the Sharia Court because the trial was a violation of the Indonesian Criminal Code No 156 (a) known as the Blasphemy Law. This case was the trial ofGerakan Fajar Nusantara (GAFATAR) Aceh.68 Among the general population, there was conflation between GAFATAR and Milata Abraham, which had been “detected” as a sect as early as 2011 in Aceh.69 GAFATAR booklets had been circulated in Bireun and Banda Aceh and had agitated many elements of society, as demonstrated by the vast rallies against communism, Wahhabism and erroneous sects known as the “ASWAJA rally,”70 held almost annually in Banda Aceh. However, the subject of the following paragraphs is Ana (alias), the only female defendant in the blasphemy case. The circumstances that led to me getting to know Ana were somewhat unusual. She was a university student in her early twenties and lived in Baiturrahman. There were rumors about her, but from what I substantiated, she was not a Banda Aceh native. Initially, she was interested in GAFATAR because of its humanitarian activities such as blood donors, voluntarism, and education. But later she also received the movement teaching about the coming of the Messiah. Her brother had

66 As of 2017, statistics from the Sharia Bureau and the Sharia Court are no longer available. Total numbers of 2014-2015 arrests and courts cannot be verified. 67 The case was formally filed on 27 February 2015 underKejahatan terhadap Ketertiban Umum (Crimes against Public Order) of the General Criminal Code. 68 GAFATAR, also known as Milata Abraham in Malaysia and in other regions known as Millah Abraham, is a new Messianic sect (founded in 2012) that draws its teachings from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Indonesia, under Ahmad Mussadeq’s leadership, it transformed into Gerakan Fajar Nusantara (GAFATAR). 69 In 2011, there was a case where six teenagers were asked to re-read the declaration of faith (shahada) in front of (then) Deputy Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal in Pango, Banda Aceh. See “Tobat Ikut Aliran Sesat Milata Abraham, Enam Remaja Aceh Baca Syahadat” in Republika (6 May 2011). 70 ASWAJA is an abbreviation of Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama’ah, the most prominent Sunni Muslim schools of interpretation. On 15 September 2015, thousands of people participated in the ASWAJA rally in Banda Aceh.

84 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh some bearing on her decision to join, he was also an active member of GAFATAR. Later I met her shortly at the Lhoknga Correctional Center, but no acquaintance of mine knew her personally. One day, an activist friend brought in information about the blasphemy case just a day before the trial. It had not been announced, and only selected journalists had been informed about the trial. I did not get the info from Sekber71 Banda Aceh, the usual place where journalists meet. On Friday 8 April 2015 I was the only civilian outside the District Court building—my friend only joined the trial later. The building complex was rather small. There are several courtrooms, offices, and a detached detention building with separate cells for women and men at the very back of the complex. There is a small front yard, which is also used as a parking lot. Some policemen stood guard in the front yard while others sat in the backyard, their guns resting at their sides. It seemed that I was not supposed to be at the court, this immediate feeling being reinforced by the fact that there was only one group of people assembled in the main courtroom of the District Court. The room where the trial was supposed to happen was in fact used for religious study (dakwah umum). There was ulama giving a sermon from a judge’s seat. The room was full, mostly containing women who seemed to know each other. After thirty minutes a policeman told me that the court session had been postponed until “sometime in the afternoon” because the defendants’ lawyers were not in attendance. I kept looking for a specific court time, anything more precise than “sometime in the afternoon,” but to no avail. So, I waited until the sermon finished and all the participants left. Outside the room, the participants signed an attendance list and received a lunch box. Many people asked me which news organization I was from, assuming that I was a journalist. Then came the Friday prayer; the men went to the mosque in the Banda Aceh Police Headquarters, adjoining the District Court. The court was deserted around midday. I had no information and I was not even sure whether the trial would be held at all. After an hour or so, I went back to the court to see a platoon of Indonesian police watching over a demonstration against “Aliran Sesat (Erroneous Sect) GAFATAR” demanding that GAFATAR be banished from Aceh. The demonstrators were mostly middle-aged women led by a man wearing a Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders’ Front) vest. The demonstration lasted for approximately another hour.

71 Sekber is an abbreviation of Sekretariat Bersama (Joint Secretariat) of the Aceh Journalist Association, located in Kampung Baru, Banda Aceh.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 85 Demonstration Against GAFATAR Banda Aceh District Court 8 April 2015 Photo: author

The blasphemy trial was a public court session, but other than my friend and me, every single person sitting in the courtroom had attended the sermon, signed the attendance list, and participated in the demonstration. At the back of the room, I talked to the women sitting next to me. One beside me was a woman working in the Dinas Pendidikan (Bureau of Education). She pointed out that most people in the courtroom were from nine Aceh government agencies or “Kantor Dinas.” Even though her office required it, she wanted to witness the trial of the “misguided son of a famous university lecturer” herself. She could not fathom how the son of a scholar, who graduated from the best madrasah in town, could be the leader of a heretical sect. “I am worried about my children. There are lots of external influences. Who knows what my children would become if we did not protect them from these false teachings?” She didn’t think to lower her voice and in fact other people nodded their agreement. These women were chatty; some took pictures of the court sending them to their friends and inviting them to join. Then a man approached me and asked me to turn off my cell phone and camera, despite the fact that other court attendees were speaking on their phones. Shortly after this we all were silenced because court was about to begin—by this time it was approximately three in the afternoon. Two male judges and one female judge took their seats. All of the defendants’ lawyers were junior lawyers from Lembaga Bantuan Hukum (Legal Aid Institute) Banda Aceh; two females and one male lawyer. The chief judge opened court and the cases were read consecutively by two female prosecutors. This was a long, winding description of the litigation, five cases against four males and a female defendant— most of them students. The “misguided son” the woman was talking about was the

86 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh GAFATAR leader. His father, considered a liberal public figure and a prominent scholar in Banda Aceh, was also present. The only female seated on the defendants’ bench was Ana. She was extraordinarily composed and sat at the end of the bench. Her orange uniform was too big for her. Ana was later placed in Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Perempuan (LP/Women’s Correctional Center) in Lhoknga. According to the news, she had been placed in a separate area because her case was “sensitive”. However, she had participated in all LP activities. It was a relatively new building,72 with a huge yard at the side. I arranged a meeting with Ana there. I waited for her in a common room which was more like an upgraded tin-roofed shed than a proper common hall. Ana walked in in her uniform, with a small figure and a calm demeanor. There were others, a mix of prisoners and visitors. Most visitors were prisoners’ family members. Different from others who brought food, cigarette, and life supplies, I brought her books and she was happy as only her mother had visited her in prison. She had volunteered to manage the prison library, she told me. At that time, Ana was waiting for new lawyers from Jakarta. She accepted, in her words, the inevitable fate of not being able to continue her studies or to return to her gampong. She said she would go to Jakarta once she had served her jail time.73 It was a heartbreaking story, but I could not continue our conversation. I exhausted all her permissible time. If we want to be stringent, one might ask whether Ana’s experience falls into the category of “experiences of Sharia law.” The blasphemy case fell under the jurisdiction of Indonesian civil law, not Sharia law and Sharia court per se. One may compare the Aceh blasphemy case with that of the Jakarta Governor’s blasphemy case against Basuki Tjahaya Purnama (Ahok), in which there were different workings at play. The Jakarta government, as well as President Jokowi, insisted that the government present themselves as impartial.74 The mere fact that government employees were mobilized to attend the GAFATAR trial was indicative of the exceptional Acehnese circumstance. I was under no obligation to attend the blasphemy trial, and there was similarly no requirement for me to appear at the public caning. It was a desire to give a full 72 The old Correctional Centre, further into the coastal area, was utterly destroyed by the tsunami. Most prisoners, many of whom had been Aceh Freedom fighters, were killed inside their cells. The center was in the process of being transformed into a Juvenile Correction Center. 73 She received a three-year sentence in 2016. “Nistakan Agama, Pengurus GAFATAR Aceh Divonis 4 Tahun” in Tempo (15 Juni 2015). Her plea at the Supreme Court was rejected in 2016. 74 Governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama (Ahok) is both Chinese and Christian. He was jailed for two years for “abusing the Qur’an Verse Al-Maidah 51.” President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) was previously the Governor of the Indonesian capital city Jakarta, and Basuki Tjahaya Purnama was his Vice Governor. After Jokowi was elected President, Basuki took Jokowi’s place as the Governor of Jakarta. The trial was held during the Jakarta Governor Election Period in 2017. He was voted out and replaced by Anies Baswedan, Jokowi’s former Minister of Education.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 87 report that brought me to Uleekareng to witness an uqubat, a public caning, held on 27 September 2015. It was a Friday and Baitussalihin Mosque hosted the event.75 I knew where to go because the uqubat had been announced on the radio and in local newspapers. The mosque is located at a busy intersection and neighbors a renowned coffee shop, the legendary Kopi Ulee Kareng. Since women do not usually go to Friday prayer,76 I went to the mosque only after the prayer ended. There was already a gathering of men and women of all ages in the front yard. The men also slowly descended from the mosque; government officers readied themselves outside the mosque perimeter. At least five government agencies were involved: The Sharia Police and Satpol PP; Sharia Court officers; Aceh Ulama Council members, the Office of Banda Aceh’s District Attorney, the Department of Health, and the Department of Transportation and the Traffic Management Agency (DLAJ). The star of the day was Banda Aceh’s mayor, Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal. There was a one-meter high platform covered with a green carpet. Black fences had been erected around the platform. Sharia Police (WH) and Satpol PP guarded the platform and the mosque’s perimeter. An ambulance was parked meters away from the platform and the DLAJR officers directed the traffic. By around three in the afternoon there were already hundreds of people present, both inside and outside the mosque. Inside the mosque, some people chose the upper floor to get a better view. The mosque was an unfinished building: there were no walls on the second floor, but this did not prevent the men from witnessing the caning from a higher position. A photojournalist had positioned himself on some scaffolding just above the platform. I was standing among women on the left side of the platform facing Mayor Illiza, her staff, and the prominent Sharia administrators. The women’s section was only a quarter of the whole area. An hour after the Friday prayer, a dark green Wilayatul Hisbah car arrived with seventeen defendants. The defendants were immediately brought inside the mosque. People reacted with interest and antagonism; they pushed against the fences to get closer to the Sharia offenders. All kinds of shouting were heard, from cursing aimed at the offenders totakbir . All of the defendants wore long white shirts and the women had head coverings. They were seated and given an explanation of the uqubat procedure. In the other room, two Sharia police were appointed, the strongest among their colleagues, to be the algojo (executioners). The number of algojo depends on the number of defendants and the number of lashes. Thealgojo ’s 75 Public caning (hukuman cambuk) usually takes place after theJum’ah Friday Prayer, but in 2016 some canings were held on Mondays. The mosques hosting theuqubat were distributed in various municipalities. The Baiturrahman Grand Mosque has never hosted a public caning. There were at least four public canings in Banda Aceh during my ten-month research period. 76 Different from Friday Prayers in Arabic or African countries where women may join the Friday Prayer in a separate room. Modern mosques in Aceh and Indonesia do not have segregated spaces for worshippers. Men pray at the front row and women at the back. Some mosques have parallel spaces for men and women, separated only with curtains.

88 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh faces and hands were covered with black masks and industrial gloves. Canes of one meter in length and 0.75 centimeters in diameter were prepared nearby. Then an announcement was made about rules for the public caning. A Sharia policewoman delivered the protocol: the importance of order; the segregation of women and men and their respective spaces; Muslim dress requirements for all; and children being forbidden from the vicinity. After that, Mayor Illiza gave a speech, stating that the caning was God’s way of reprimanding sinners for their transgressions, asking the audience to forgive the defendants and not to stigmatize those who were punished that day. Caning is made public to create a deterrent effect (efek jera), so it is permitted to take pictures and record video, and the news media are allowed to broadcast or publish the faces of the convicts for maximum humiliation of the offenders. Mayor Illiza was perhaps aware that the stigma of having been flogged would remain for as long as these images existed.77 The head of the Aceh Ulama Council (MPU) then led a prayer. The caning procession started when another female announcer from the Prosecutor’s office read all the charges against the defendants and the subsequent Sharia Court verdicts.78 The announcer only partially read the charges and then proceeded to the verdicts. Even the abridged version of the litigations took almost an hour to read. Most of the charges involved gambling (maisir) and seclusion (khalwat). Following the announcement, an officer from the district attorney, two Sharia police officers and one executioner (algojo) positioned themselves in the middle of the platform waiting for the convicts to be brought in. At that point, I understood why Nur said that she had no time for the “tontonan”—spectacle. None of my research interlocutors had attended a public caning. There were at least four public canings in Banda Aceh from mid 2014 to 2015 and I made time to attend at least one. However, none of my interlocutors were not keen to do so nor could afford the time. Many were just oblivious: “public canings are just for the poor,” Sofia said. Those who work, such as Nur, did not have time for them. Understanding Nur’s perception of caning, she said “why would you want to see it? It is just a caning. Not a big deal. In the past, people got killed for less or for no reason at all,” Nur was talking about the armed conflict era and how her brother was

77 Most often, women are the ones who are ousted from theirgampong . An interview described how humiliations follow a public caning. Indra, brother of Yuni, who was flogged for violating the Seclusion Law, told Junaidi Hanafiah, a Sinar Harapan reporter, about his sister’s woeful story: “She was already punished for what she did. She should not be humiliated when she returned home…[she] Could not take insults anymore, she did not want to go back to continue her study in Aceh, and she wants to study away from this town…My parents feel ashamed because they have been accused of failing to raise their children properly [so they] rarely go out to talk to others in the neighborhood,” the quotation is taken from “Trauma Tak Hilang Pasca Dihukum Cambuk” in Sinar Harapan (27 October 2015). 78 There were eighteen charges, but only seventeen defendants were flogged. Rumor had it that one defendant was spared because she had just given birth to a baby boy.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 89 murdered.79 There were tones of indifference among these women. Perhaps the canning had been so normalized, they did not bother to take interest in. Or maybe I bored them with all questions. The defendants were then called one by one in order of case number. Female officers escorted female defendants, and male officers led the male defendants. Then the caning began. An attorney decided whether the canings were being executed correctly. The male convicts were punished standing up, while the females knelt down. The executors positioned themselves on the left side of the convicts one meter away—precisely the same length as the cane. At one point, the officer stopped the algojo because a defendant—a female student—had fainted. She was rushed to the ambulance and was taken to a hospital nearby. That day, the lowest number of lashes given out was eight, and the highest was forty, given to a man convicted of organizing a sizable illegal gambling operation.80 Among the journalists who were present, there were international and local news media reporters from outlets such as Serambi Indonesia, Atjeh Kita, Haba Aceh, Reuters, AFP, and BBC. More men than women attended the uqubat. Many men shouted takbir, while women held their breath or cried. And people, both men and women openly took pictures of the whole spectacle. The convicts were repeatedly lashed on the back, strictly below the neck. Some women muttered that the punishments were too cruel, and some were in a state of disbelief. Then the youngest convict fainted; women gasped even more. More pictures were taken. The caning took hours: male convicts put on brave faces, female convicts cried and lowered their heads, and one algojo quit mid-way through and was replaced by another. I started to lose focus, so I turned my camera to video mode and tried to stay as long as I could. The sound of whipping rattan could be heard meters away from the platform. I questioned myself for attending the event, and finally left before it ended.

79 Sofia told me a story about how an Indonesian soldier shot a man because of a linguistic ambiguity. The soldier asked a villager to tell him where his fellow villagers were, “Bilang sama saya!” and the villager confused the order “to tell” (bilang) with “to count” (bilang, in Malay), he answered, “Saya tidak bisa bilang,” which can mean both “I cannot tell,” and “I cannot count.” Unfortunately, the soldier took the first meaning and interpreted it as a disobedient act and shot the poor villager. 80 There have been cases where non-Muslim gamblers were punished with caning. Many non-Muslim convicts voluntarily choose Sharia law because the course of legal action is faster than the general law. Rather than spending years in jail, most of them choose caning because they can immediately be released. I had no opportunity to corroborate these stories that I heard from the Sharia Bureau officer and also news media reports. Article 129 No (1) Law No. 11/2006, the Law of Governing Aceh, states that non-Muslim defendants may or may not be punished under Sharia law. They have the right to choose between the general law and Sharia law. The law stated that: Dalam“ hal terjadi perbuatan Jinayah (Tindak Pidana) yang dilakukan oleh dua orang atau lebih secara bersama-sama yang diantaranya beragama Bukan Islam, pelaku yang beragama Bukan Islam dapat memilih dan menundukkan diri secara sukarela pada Hukum Jinayah.”

90 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Public Uqubat Photo: author

One day, Cut Lily received a note from the Satpol PP requesting that she come to the Satpol PP office to review her boutique store permit. She asked me whether I would like to come along to see Sharia Police/Wilayatul Hisbah headquarters. I said to myself, “who in their right mind would go to a WH office?” I had had two “encounters” with the Sharia Police already, and I was stopped because I was wearing culottes that day. Undeterred, Cut Lily continued gaily, “You would want to know the headquarters, though?” to which I concurred. I was stopped twice by the Sharia police before, but I had never been arrested. Her relaxed attitude about going to the Sharia Police headquarters was alien to me. Cut Lily drove her new SUV to the headquarters next to Banda Aceh City Hall. The WH/Satpol PP headquarters was an unassuming, even oddly underwhelming place. There were old food carts piled up in front of the building. The Sharia Police building was different from the state-of-the-art buildings it neighbored: the discolored walls and dated furniture showed that this office had not been refurbished for quite some time. The building did not at all match with the image of the Sharia Police in the news media. Cut Lily insisted that I accompany her to the main hall on the second floor where the two officers received visitors. Nobody seemed concerned about my culottes. We waited our turn to talk to the designated officer in an office room full of bootleg alcohol boxes. There were only four rooms on the second floor, one of which is used as a praying room. While we waited, three young women were being questioned about their whereabouts that day. They had been arraigned for violating the Muslim dress code. A male officer asked whether they knew why they were there, and they

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 91 silently nodded. These high-schoolers were not from Banda Aceh, and they had come to Banda Aceh to buy “jilbab Fatin” at the market.81 There was no female officer in sight and considering the gender-specific nature of the law I found this quite surprising. The officer wrote a report and asked the girls to sign a citation record, something that Badriah had warned me never to sign. “Three records mean you will be flogged publicly. You might be able to bear three lashes, but you will not survive the embarrassment,” Badriah swore. I remembered Badriah’s story about her experience with a Sharia patrol. The Sharia Police around Pasar Aceh had stopped her because she was wearing slacks. She was exhausted after driving all her children back and forth—her fourth ride to be exact—so she became furious when one of the Sharia officers mentioned that her body size made her slacks tighter. Badriah was quite large, her slack was a bit snugged. She snapped back, asking the officer “Would you buy me a fitting skirt? I do not have any more skirts. They are in the laundry now.” She said she did not have one, refused to sign the citation record and walked away from the patrol despite the protests of the Sharia officers. I recalled my fear when I was surrounded by multiple Sharia officers. I would never walk away from a Sharia patrol for fear of more severe retribution. However, on one occasion I did argue with the Sharia officers and managed to avoid signing the citation record just by pointing out the inconsistency of their arrest patrol. When I looked at these high schoolers at the Sharia Police headquarters, I knew that one might be required to sign the record on site. I had no idea why these students were at the headquarters to sign the arraignment record. I was relieved when the students were sent home with cautionary advice concluding with, “Do not repeat this!” Then, it came our turn to see the Commander. The issue turned out to be a misunderstanding—the notice was supposed to have been sent to the owner of the building from whom Cut Lily rented her store. We chatted a bit as a courtesy. Cut Lily left the office with a pleased smile as she was released from the obligation to deal with the permit issue again. The Sharia police had never stopped Cut Lily and she said she bore them no resentment. Also, the visit to the WH headquarters made it easy for her to say that she has no particular opinion about Sharia law.

7. Covering Banda Aceh: Mapping, Navigating, and Handling the Law How women perceive the junction between Sharia law and social spaces was my first interest. Women’s experiences of Sharia law incorporate both restrictions and expressions of social structure and relations as found in everyday life. This part

81 On-trend head covering style at that time was “Turkish or Russian” style, with distinctive satin fabric usually paired with coats, Malaysian/Indian gold/diamond with Silwar (pair loose, pleated trousers, usually tapering to a tight fit around the ankles and a long tunic) style. This was the style used by soap opera actresses (Dewi Sandra, Angel Lelga, and many others) and TV talent show stars (Fatin’s instant head cover).

92 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh is about how Banda Aceh women travelled, socialized and occupied social spaces in the city. Women’s spatial practices such as driving and spending time in urban public spaces were the first things I noticed after taking up residency in Banda Aceh. There was no lack of female presence: women were present in all public areas and positions, and there was no formal gender segregation. One thing that influenced women’s daily lives was public transportation, or the lack of it. The public transportation system in Banda Aceh comprisedlabi-labi, 82 motorized rickshaw/bentor, and a limited number of taxis. Many women rode motorbikes, while a lesser number drove cars. There was much that can be said about what women were or are not able to do due to constraints of the modes of transportation available in the era of Sharia law, but there was more to say about how women maneuver around Sharia regulations in the streets of Banda Aceh. In public, women were required to wear loose skirts and were strongly advised not to ride on motorcycles with men. There was a special city instruction forbidding women from straddling motorcycles.83 This instruction was implemented in various regencies in Aceh. Riding motorcycles or cars had different ramifications for women. Riding a motorcycle made one fully visible to others. It would always include an element of danger, but in Banda Aceh the risk included the watchful Sharia vigilantes. As I rode a motorcycle in Banda Aceh, it influenced what I saw and how I came to see women’s actions in the streets of Banda Aceh. The first time I was stopped by the Sharia police was just a week into my research period. I remember that I immediately shared my experience with a friend from my hometown in Java. Her response was to ask me “How on earth could you be arrested? You are an anthropologist. You should know better.” Her words stung. Perhaps I was offended because there was a suggestion that I was ignorant of the application of Sharia law, or maybe I felt sad about her dismissive reply. The comment outlined a sense of uneasiness I had felt throughout my first period of fieldwork. I had been stopped because my shirt was not long enough, even though I wore long, loose- fitting culottes. The fact that there were others wearing similar clothing to me but not being stopped during the same patrol made me feel that the patrol was arbitrary. The WH let me go without a record because I was a newcomer from Java. “Consider this a warning,”—it sounded like a broken record as it was repeated to other women behind me. As a Muslim woman, that was my first experience of being warned by a person in authority about my clothing. Experiences of Sharia law occur beyond the range of personal faith and piety. Meutia’s friends lived in a boarding house in the Darussalam area just a hundred

82 Labi-labi is a small pickup van, with a customized roof and parallel benches. It is equivalent to angkot in many parts of Indonesia. 83 The Qanun No. 02/2003 that forbade women to ‘straddle’ motorcycles is also known as Perda Dhuek Phang.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 93 meters away from their university, and they rarely travelled far. When leaving their boarding house at night, for example going to a performance or a discussion, or merely going to a library,84 she kept track of the time. Generally, they did not drive after ten p. m and when they did, they would drive as a group. The interesting part of Banda Aceh was that some stores would open until very late at night, especially during Ramadan month. To accommodate customers who would buy after tarawih, malls and shops open until past midnight. These were the rare occasions when people would be out at night. Students would throng mosques and shops and public spaces until past the night curfew. On the other side of the city, Nur opened her coffee shop early in the morning to cater to agricultural laborers. She rode her old motorcycle from Ketapang before the sun rose, but she had to drive her motorcycle. To avoid Sharia patrol, she wore sarong over slacks, a long shirt and a one-piece head scarf made of dark jersey. She used her sarong as a spread to cover her legs or wrap her produce. Nur suggested that a sarong would prevent you from an “embarrassing” situation such as a WH arrest or being scolded by people. If one drives a car, there is not the same risk of embarrassment, but a different kind of a shame can arise. It is essential to hold one’s marwah—prestige and honor— high, Cut Lily said to me. The car that Cut Lily drove had startlingly dark windows.85 “A car is a protector of women’s honor,” she said. Of course, she could drive without a head covering and at times she drove alone without people suspecting who was behind the wheel. A car is a kind of bubble shielding women from ever-present stares. If one could draw up a hierarchical pyramid of street users, those on foot would be at the bottom. As an example, a male stranger once shouted at me as I walked to a store nearby: “What a shame that you have to walk!”86 There are lots to say about what women did (and did not do) in public or how they used modes of transportation in Banda Aceh, but there was more to say about how women used the dominant Sharia law and deflected its power in everyday life. Steering away from the Sharia apparatus was one tactic among many: On the streets of Banda Aceh there were special gestures women used when driving and spending time in public. Women signaled to each other to secure their skirts when they were likely to be tangled in the chain or wheels of a bike. Women also used cues to signal to other females about male strangers or Sharia officers approaching their vicinity. Women shared sarongs whenever situations required it, such as when they were entering a mosque or other Islamic institutions, or whenever there was Sharia patrol. An example of a desperate measure was that some young girls wear

84 To be able to access the library at night, a student of Syiah Kuala University may contact LateNight@Unsyiah-lib. The official opening hours are 8.30 a. m to 11 p. m. 85 Generally, completely dark tinted windows are, by law, illegal. Cars with tinted windows are reserved for security transports only (bank, justice, police or military cars). 86 “Hina kali adoé jalan kaki!” a mixed statement of Acehnese and Malay languages.

94 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh mukena (praying clothes) when they drove at night. Mischievously, some women wore their hair and clothing like men—short hair, large jacket, full-face helmet and rode the night. Sometimes women sidestep Sharia rules in a concealed way. I joined a yoga class where the members were mostly middle and upper-class women. Razia WH— Sharia police patrols—were often a talking point in the after-session conversations. The women exchanged information on where and when the Sharia police would be on patrol. Sources of information were many: a friend in City Hall, somebody’s husband or family member, or other yoga members who happened to know or had passed the patrol. Information was shared via text message to make sure we avoided areas that were scheduled to be patrolled by the Sharia police. I drove a lot, so I availed myself of the opportunity to have a Sharia patrol-free research period with this strategy. Sharia law did not only affect Banda Aceh women. A case in point here was the requirement for men to attend Friday prayers, which was harshly enforced in Aceh. A typical Friday midday in the city was that most activities were halted, and men disappeared from their job to pray or to hide. Women’s spatial experiences intersected with men’s gendered constructions of public space. A decade ago, it was men who were not allowed to go out after six at night, and Indonesian military forces enforced the curfew.87 Now men can enjoy the night and more, as Nur explained:

“Yes, during conflicts men indeed rarely went out to the market or work, because they were afraid. No, even though they were not a member of GAM, still they would not dare, fearing what they would be accused of. Until today, the wives carry on … women have more work. Doing dishes, laundry, bringing water. … How many times do we go back and forth? The rice field works, we also have to go to the rice fields. Then the kids need to go to school. We get to the school, and our husbands still would not take care of the smaller kids.”

Men freely enjoyed their time at coffee shops, which could be found all over the city. In the past, coffee shops were usually situated in the outer corner of a gampong or next to the village fields, where a man “could have release from his wives’ families,”88 a man once told me. However, Banda Aceh is not like the gampong in rural Aceh, as Intan explained:

“Like here [Banda Aceh] we would not know, [because] the coffee shop is not located in front of our house. In a gampong, [we] would know where the husband is. Like, [the husband] goes to work in the morning, [the wife] sends him off, and the husband says [he] works. However, in reality, he goes to a coffee shop. When we lived in a gampong [a wife] would know that her husband is in

87 See Miller’s work 2016: 236. 88 See Spiegel 1969/1976.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 95 a coffee shop, we would know where her husband is. When someone looks for [him], for example, ‘where is your father?’ ‘In a coffee shop.’ However, here, that is not the case. One may have coffee in Ulee Kareng, while he is from Ulee Leue, who knows? Who would know?”

The coffee shops in Banda Aceh were almost exclusively male-dominated spaces. Men went to a coffee shop for coffee, free internet, and football matches. Even though there was no formal gender segregation in Banda Aceh, there were practices that made a clear separation between male and female spaces, for example in Islamic da’wah/Islamic propagation, school assemblies at universities, concerts and especially in beauty salons. Beauty salons occupied a problematic position in society. Most Acehnese LGBTQ people worked in beauty salons.89 Unfortunately, it was an underhanded knowledge that many beauty salons were façades for brothels.90 Beauty salons, beauty clinics, and spas were quite easy to find in the city of Banda Aceh. Most usually implement “women only” policies, while others just left the salon doors and windows open if they have both female and male customers, meaning that people could see through the salon from the outside. Meanwhile, beauty clinics provided “men’s day” services on Wednesdays. Further accounts portray how Sharia law invents spatial boundaries and practices involving the transformation of the perceptions of space and social relationships in Banda Aceh. The urban spacesin Banda Aceh evokes the Aceh Code presented in the previous chapter.91 Here I venture the argument that these places serve and represent the traditional power-sharing and legal authorities: the Grand Mosque represents the ulama and Islamic legal authority, Blang Padang embodies the state (and military), Sultanah Safiatuddin Park symbolizesadat . Thegampong and mukim continue to be “encapsulated societies” and subject to unique governance related to the sultanate past. My mental map of Aceh’s traditional spaces is constructed as follows: Lapangan Blang Padang is the place where all government events are held, from the Independence Day celebrations, the government’s Eid-Adha and Eid Fitri prayers, to concerts sponsored by the Indonesian Army. Lapangan Blang Padang is also the location of the tsunami memorial. A little further away is the Lapangan Ratu Safiatuddin (Aceh Cultural Park) where the adat houses of thirteen Aceh Province ethnic groups are built and where cultural adat events such as traditional food and dance festivals are held. The Grand Mosque, the highest symbol of Aceh, is where the religious power and authority lies. 89 In an uneventful case, Mayor Illiza’s stylist was a transgender woman. 90 See Haji Bakri’s case. 91 The traditional landscape of the city of Banda Aceh follows the traditional pattern, influenced by Hindu Mandala, found in almost all Indonesian city centers called alun- alun (see Peter J.M. Nas and R. J. Sluis 2002: 132). The Grand Mosque is situated on the west side and hence correctly faces the direction of Mecca. The official residence of Aceh’s Governor (Meuligo Aceh), also Bupati (town or village head) is situated in the north or south. East is generally reserved for markets.

96 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh The Grand Mosque was built by Sultan Iskandar Muda in 1612 and was burned down by the Dutch in 1873, then rebuilt by the Dutch in 1877. A 458-billion- rupiah renovation project completed in 2016.92 The pride of Aceh’s people, it represents Aceh’s unbowed spirit against colonial aggressors,93 is a symbol of Aceh’s perseverance after the 2004 tsunami and is now a symbol of Aceh’s development. The peace agreement was broadcast from the Grand Mosque in 2005 and a tsunami commemoration is held annually in the mosque, but as far as this research goes, the Grand Mosque has never been used to host a public caning. Within the mosque perimeter, everyone is required to follow the Islamic dress code. There is a transitory space where foreign visitors may borrow long kaftans and scarves for women as well as sarong and kopiah for men. As the symbol of Islamic authority, many Muslim factions in Aceh have sought to make use of its symbolic power by occupying it.

8. Urban Covering: Space, Class, and Piety The primacy of Islamic identity and the decentering of the communal identity and other forms of identification (such as “rebel” GAM, ethnic, mukim, and so forth) are idealized in the public appearance of fully covered Muslim women. Women have always been put on a pedestal, but this was no longer because they were the center of Aceh’s social universe as appeared in the previous matrifocal social structure. Women are now fair game for men, especially regarding their public presence.94 The pressure to cover was propelled by the Qanun requiring women to cover themselves “properly.” Since the women of Banda Aceh were required to wear clothes according to a specific code, sometimes putting on a head cover in Banda Aceh is a matter of repeating orders, not a matter of making pious choices or passive submission to the rule.95 Nur and I had a conversation about how best for women to dress. I planned to meet Meutia in the Darussalam area. I was wearing slacks and a shirt and had properly covered my head. I asked her opinion about my outfit: “…so long as it is not too tight, it is all right, in my opinion. However, we do not know about other’s [opinions], right? Not too tight, that is the point…because this

92 The total budget for the Grand Mosque renovation is 1. 4 Trillion rupiah. 93 General Köhler, the leader of the Dutch forces, was gunned down on 14 April 1873 in front of the mosque, so the Dutch burned the mosque. 94 Marjanaa Jauhola brings forward the relationship between the post-conflict contexts in understanding the importance of Islam in constructing masculinity in Aceh in relation to Sharia law: “…that one effect of the shariatization of gender discourse in Aceh is that it constructs Acehnese women’s subjectivities and identities primarily around Islamic identity, which has several social consequences for feminist agency and forms of politics” (Jauhola 2013: 51). 95 However, many stories validate Rinaldo’s point that follows the trend (such as in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the Muslim worlds), that there is growing pressure and harassment from society and local governments against women who do not wear a veil (2010: 594).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 97 is a university area, so, many [students] wear skirts. However, for us commoners, and just for a short time, it is all right. These slacks will do, but the shirt should be longer, yours is not…” In her assessment of my outfit, Nur referred to the area where I was going— Darussalam—our status as “orang biasa”—commoners—and the length of the visit, not in the scriptural language of the Qur’an or hadiths. Nur referred to herself signifierIbu and addressed me using Adek, both intimate yet courteous designations. This short conversation exhibits how women were others-oriented rather than self- oriented in their decision to wear or not wear Muslim clothing. Nur positioned herself and me in an imbalanced position in relation to intellectual-higher class- stranger others: my clothes were good enough for us, but not others.96 On a different occasion, Badriah described her everyday outfit and “circumstantial” standard of Muslim dress:

“[When] I am in the gampong, [I] do not wear pants…I would wear…only at home, I would wear something like this [pointing at her casual pants and waist-length and long-armed shirt] …Going outside [I] would wear a sarong. If [I] want to go out [I would] wear a skirt. Going to the city, [I would] wear a skirt because in the streets [it’s] tricky, who knows what’s going to happen. [When] wearing pants, [the shirt] should be this long … [pointing out the length of the shirt, just above the knee].”

Badriah differentiated between Muslim clothing based on where the clothing items were worn: “at home,” “outside the home,” “out there,” and “in the city.” The issue here was that the Islamic dress code, in Badriah’s view, was not necessarily related to private and public boundaries, but the “distance” from someone’s home or gampong. Women crossing boundaries were marked by the clothes they wore. This because in the city, it would likely that Sharia law would be fully enforced. The implementation of Sharia law, nonetheless, was also influenced by the social “distance” of someone with the officers and the government. There were cases where someone caught in the “illegal” act and got arrested in broad daylight (Haji Bakri comes to mind) and walked free after it was known that the offenders worked for the government or had money. For Nur and Badriah, even though they did not mention Sharia law, both of them were aware of the risk of being caught not wearing proper Muslim dress. The unspoken anxieties were very much present in their conversations. It was straightforward for us to talk because Nur, Badriah and I shared the same fear of being subjected to the hyper-critical eyes of Sharia vigilantes or police in the streets of Banda Aceh. Both Nur and Badriah used ‘kami,’ an Indonesian word in a third

96 See Kathleen L. McGinn and Eunsil Oh “Gender, Social Class and Employment” in Current Opinion in Psychology 18, 2017.

98 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh person plural form, to mean “I.” Curiously, I heard Banda Aceh people use this kind of colloquialism a lot. The more or less harmonized use of “kami” in many interviews suggests that my interlocutors related to their experiences of Sharia law through an individualized voice of ‘I’ rather than a group “we.”97 These accounts are a far cry from Cut Lily’s experiences of Sharia law. She had no apprehension regarding the Sharia police and Sharia vigilantes as she had had few or no bad experiences with the law. When framing Muslim women’s practices and norms regarding Islamic head covering, it’s important to consider the emotional and embodied class sensitivities regarding Islamic dress code as the essential practices of different individual actors. Gender and class factors also influenced experiences of Muslim clothing: experiences were split across gender, class, and age lines. Each woman told a different story. Sofia is concerned about the need to cover her body properly. In her own words, she was not always a “good Muslim,” but this changed forever on Boxing Day 2004. That morning, she had already awoken and readied her small boy to go out with her husband—they planned to enjoy breakfast in Blang Padang. Just as they left the house, they felt the violent shock of the 9.1 magnitude earthquake. Sofia remembers the sound of everything falling and everyone was thrown to the ground. They were stunned, and minutes later they heard the rush of water approaching from the north, submerging everything. In panic, she and her husband ran to the south, towards the Army complex, but the tsunami caught them first. Within seconds both her husband and her boy had disappeared under the treacherous water. She was safe, miraculously stranded in a tree. Profoundly shaken, she remained on top of the tree for hours until a young man saw her and rescued her. All she could remember from the long hours in the tree was the thought of why she was the only one to survive. She had lost her clothes and when the young stranger saved her, she was in only her underwear. This left her with the view that when her time came to meet God, she would be sure to be appropriately dressed.98 For Badriah, covering herself was a performative, repetitive act of conforming societal convention. Badriah was not comfortable with the head covering rule. She always said, “But this is Aceh.” She once confessed to being more pragmatic than pious. The hegemony of Sharia law was demonstrated by the way Badriah saw the Sharia rule as inevitable and naturally “how things are” in Aceh.99 For Cut Lily, her head covering depended on her activities (yoga, travelling, parties), her accessories (shoes, handbag), or the people she was about to meet (Javanese or other Indonesian ethnic groups—batik or other ethnic dress, members of the Hijabers Community, 97 The use of “kami” (we) in speech is also frequent in Javanese conversations. 98 Sofia constructs her ideal self as a good Muslim by covering her body an accomplishment she comes to believe in and perform in the form of a belief (see Butler 1997: 401). 99 Performativity, according to Butler, “has to do with repetition, very often the repetition of oppressive and painful gender norms…This is not freedom, but a question of how to work the trap that one is inevitably in…” (1992).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 99 members of Banda Aceh elites, her gampong childhood friends, and so forth). She never questions the idea that she should cover herself properly in public. She did not necessarily wear a head covering in a private yoga studio or her car. She saw the need to be appropriately dressed—and fashionably covered. Sharia law was introduced in 2003 and before long, the people of Banda Aceh took the head-covering practice to a new level. The dark, plain jilbab became rather uncommon in Banda Aceh. There was a trend of women wearing fashionablejilbab to mark their status as demonstrated by Aceh Hijab Fashion Week and the presence of jilbab stores all over the city. The Muslim dress fashion came with a hefty price tag. Nur and Intan would not spend their weekly salary to buy a “modest” dress. But definitely there were enough people able to buy such dresses in Banda Aceh. On 14 May 2015, the Fashion Week was held in the Amel Convention Hall, supported by the Banda Aceh Tourism Office. An event organizer from Medan was in charge, but the host was the “Aceh Mommy Hijabers Community,” a women’s organization in which Cut Lily was one of the founding figures.100 There were five hundred participants from children to young adults. The event was opened and the next day was closed by Mayor Illiza, and one of the judges was Sarah Vi, a former actress from the “Inem, the Sexy Maid” soap opera who later transformed herself into a Muslim fashion designer and introduced her khimar to Banda Aceh.

A Contestant of Aceh Fashion Show Photo: author

The fashion show catered for middle and upper middle-class Banda Acehnese. Judging by the numbers of participants, it was considered successful. This evidently 100 “Hijaber Community” refers to a group of fashionable, middle- to upper-class Muslim women. The community can be found in major Indonesian cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Balikpapan, etc. They have become the trendsetters for many urban Muslim women with considerable social media followers. The first Hijabers community was launched by Dian Pelangi, the owner of Dian Pelangi Muslim Women’s Boutique, which has its store in Medan Street, Banda Aceh, Km. 7. Aceh Besar.

100 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh women-centered event was a government-approved activity, and the winners of the fashion pageant were awarded both by sponsors and Aceh government. The Aceh Hijab Fashion Week too was part of women of Banda Aceh living with Sharia law. There are stories about different ways women experienced Sharia Aceh, some stories were too familiar to hear to foreign observers. From attending two fashion shows, cooking Acehnese cuisine at ordinary kitchens, to witnessing the public uqubat, the fieldwork in Banda Aceh was emotional and intense. It was also beautiful. I had the opportunity to learn from many Banda Acehnese activists, especially those in Balai Syura Ureung Inong Aceh (All Aceh Women Alliance).

BSUIA meeting in 2015 Photo: author

The All Aceh Women Alliance (BSUIA) was established in 2000 with hundreds of active members from ten regions in Aceh Province, organizing Aceh women from all walks of life and mobilizing women to fulfil their mission:

“To achieve a dignified, a just and a peaceful life for Aceh women; to uphold Sharia Islam which accommodates women-centered interpretations and implementations; to apply adat customs which are respectful and relevant to women’s progress and women’s bargaining position in all areas of economic, political, social and cultural life.”

In March 2015 the BSUIA launched the Reports of Violence against Women in Aceh in cooperation with the Aceh Monitoring Network 231/JPA101 and the Women’s Study Center at the Ar-Raniry State Islamic University. The report is the most comprehensive and up-to-date report on abuse cases against women 101 Jaringan Pemantau Aceh 231 refers to the Aceh Watch Network which oversees Article 231 of the Law on Governing Aceh (Law 11/2006) about the obligation of Aceh’s government to protect women and children in Aceh.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 101 and children available in Aceh. The report was delivered to government agencies such as the Women and Children Protection Agency and the Ministry of Social and Women’s empowerment. The report is updated in real time on a special server which documents all human rights violations.

Norma M. coached the Geuchiks of Sagi XII Photo: author

Within ten-months fieldwork time, I had the fortune to witnes women worked for betterment of Aceh society and Acehnese women in particulars. I attended several workshops and campaigns with non-governmental organizations as a volunteer documenting their events and agenda. These activists and volunteers from Relawan Perempuan untuk Kemanusiaan/ RPuK (Women Volunteers for Humanity) Aceh, Jaringan Komunitas Masyarakat Adat Aceh/JKMA (Aceh Adat Communities Network), Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia/PKBI Banda Aceh (Indonesia Family Planning Association), Forum Komunikasi Umat Beriman Banda Aceh/FKUB (Inter-Faith Communication Forum), Flower Aceh, and especially All Aceh Women’s Alliance (BSUIA) had provided me with insight and support. It was my decision to not only do interviews and participant observation for my dissertation in Banda Aceh. These memories and experiences were too part of my fieldwork and all activists deserve their publications of their own.

102 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh CHAPTER V Sharia Law, Legal Pluralism, and Women’s Experiences

Sharia law does not operate in a vacuum, cut off from the historical and cultural contexts of Aceh. Soon after Sharia law first entered into force, it was broadly accepted as the governing principle in Aceh. Even though the Free Aceh Movement did not seek an independent Aceh based on Islam, the newly elected Acehnese government presented a united front supporting the introduction and application of Sharia law. The reconstruction of the Acehnese government was driven by the principles of Sharia regulations and directives. It is not that Sharia governance is limited to the Acehnese government apparatus: multiple actors take up various positions in Sharia discourse and practices. Many questions have been asked about present-day Sharia law following its implementation in Aceh Province. This part addresses how the ethnographic method was used and seeks to shed some light on what Sharia law is and how it fits with Banda Aceh women’ own beliefs and practices (see Asad 2009).

1. Assumptions, Historicity of Sharia Law and Legal Pluralism The first chapter started with discussion of the historicity of Sharia law, highlighting that Sharia values and practices in the particular Acehnese context are historically contingent. As the previous chapters have made clear, this research problematizes the conceptualization of Sharia law as an “absolute” law devoid of socio-historical contexts and out of socio-political influences. Sharia law in Aceh is differentiated from Islamic law in the theological sense—Sharia law in general is seen as founded on the sacred scriptures of the Qur’an and Hadith, whereas this particular, Sharia law refers to the local law and its bureaucracies, which involve localized Acehnese interpretations and practices (see Afrianty 2015; Feener 2013). Hence this study seeks to understand not only Sharia norms and practices, but also the social locatedness of Sharia law in Banda Aceh (see Comaroff and Roberts 1981). This study focuses on the everyday undertakings of Banda Acehnese women in navigating the competing, sometimes paradoxical norms and practices of adat, Sharia, and national civil law mandated by the Law of Governing Aceh (2006).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 103 This study offers descriptive accounts of a legal pluralism that does not simply an enmeshment Dutch-inherited civil law, Sharia and traditional adat laws. In Aceh, modern Sharia courts run parallel to the national civil courts and the adat courts have also been revived at gampong and mukim levels, thus many Banda Aceh Muslims live in a situation in which two or more legal systems coexist in the same social field (Merry 1988: 870). Based on the historical investigations conducted by Hurgronje (1906), Siegel (1969) and Takeshi (1984) and fieldwork interviews, I maintain the argument that prior to the introduction of this contemporary Sharia law, the Aceh region was governed mainly by customary adat and not Islamic law. The argument follows an assertion that the old Sharia law applied only to matters outside adat’s purview. Furthermore, the old Sharia law excluded cases arising in the sagi and gampong. This is not to say that Sharia and adat represent binaries of “little” and “great” traditions as Evan-Pritchard claims (1949); nor that there is a higher, scriptural Islam of the Aceh Court and a traditional, lower Islam of the gampong as suggested by Gellner (1981). Similarly, the juxtaposition of an urban, conservative Islam and a customary, tribal Islam propagated by Abu-Lughod (1986) and the binary distinction between modern reformist and traditional customary Islam by Ali (2007) do not accurately capture Aceh circumstances. The relationship betweenadat and Sharia is one of “zat” and “sifat”—of “substance” and “essence” (hukom ngon adat lagèe zat ngon sifeut)—a unitary, and not binary, pair. In this view, adat and Sharia are only separated in practice according to separate spatial jurisdictions. It is valuable in the study of Aceh’s history to examine our modern propensity to see Aceh’s sultanate period and society through a modern, national perspective. There was no Acehnese “state” of the modern sort. The prevailing tendency to see Sharia law as an absolute law has to do with our understanding of modern states’ unified monopoly on legal sovereignty and if this is projected into the past, it implies that Sharia was the sole, all-pervading law exercised by the Sultan over all his/her subjects. There was in fact a complex balance of power in Aceh’s traditional code which contained the “mediating influence of the Sultan, the traditional lords (Uleebalang) and the clergy (Ulama)” (Kingsbury 2007:172). Therefore, the guarantor of justice was not only the Sultan, but also the uleebalangs, ulama and the gampong leaders (among others, imeum and geuchik gampong), with different legal jurisdictions. The Acehnese code “separated” Aceh’s Court, theSagi and Gampong as legal and administrative spaces, while bringing them together through the principle of the unity of Sharia and adat, as well as matrifocality in various social spaces. Many of the discussions in this ethnography focus on the presence of the past in women’s everyday lives. The distant past of Sharia norms and practices are reconstructed and described with double-sided narrations—from both women’s points of view and scholarly literature, but most importantly from Banda Aceh

104 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh women’s own biographies and points of view. This dual narrative is a form of historical ethnography that depicts Aceh from different points of view and, moreover, different points in time. The aim is not to highlight the differences between historians’ and women’s perspectives, but to show how the past affects the everyday lives of Banda Aceh women and how women acted based on their understanding of the past. This also points to the historicity of Sharia law—the interpretations and meanings of what constitutes Sharia law change through time. By asking questions about what Sharia law means to Banda Aceh women, this ethnography aims to describe Sharia law as it was in 2014-2015 in Banda Aceh by focusing on how knowledge of Sharia law came about at that present moment and in consideration of the history of Sharia law. Presenting historical contexts from both women’s perspectives and scholarly accounts alludes to the significance of ever-changing ideas and practices related to Sharia in Banda Aceh. It also shows that anything that touches the issue of Sharia law, today and in the past is clearly topical and profound for the people of Banda Aceh. This introductory chapter, moreover, points to the shifting discourses through which Acehnese women give expression to the Sharia law by which they are governed. “The historical world in which we live affects the ways in which we experience things, it affects the very form of our experience, and different forms of experience, in turn, find expression in different narrative forms” (Meretoja 2011: 76). I use the discourses and the terms used by Banda Acehnese women when discussing Sharia law, past and present, doctrinal concepts, renowned Acehnese Muslim scholars and their works, adat gampong, Islamic concepts, as well as memories of armed conflict and the tsunami. Many women combined their personal views with identification of their respective groups, defined by factors such as class, education and age. There is a disposition to insert contemporary political and religious narrations into the historical narratives. For example, the issue of women’s leadership was discussed by describing the historical Acehnese female sultanas framed within the contemporary Banda Aceh governance, which was led by a female mayor, Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal. Interpretations of social and Islamic concepts and practices such as kéndhuri, ziarah kubur and the practice of head covering both past and present were susceptible to being construed as justifications among different social strata and Islamic interpretations. One of the topical issues on the subject of Sharia law in Aceh is the principle of matrifocality. The concept of matrifocality as defined by Tenner (1974) emphasizes the relatively egalitarian relationship between the sexes and the relatively equal statuses of men and women in economic and ritual positions. Acehnese matrifocality places women in the position of “po rumoh”—the owner of the house and property—as much as the origin of gampong households (the ulu matrilineal families).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 105 Information about Aceh’s kinship organization, forms and degrees of matrilineality and matrilocality in Aceh’s society was mostly obtained from secondary sources. Previous studies conducted by Hurgronje (1906), Siegel (1969/1976), Jayawardena (1977), Hasjmy (1983), Siapno (2002) and Srimulyani (2010), do indicate the existence of consanguineal, matrilocal, and matrifocal features of Aceh’s society. Unfortunately, further research on this matter could not be done due to lack of time and financial constraints. For the purpose of this ethnography, the term matrifocality is used not to refer specifically to female- headed households, but rather to indicate matricentric values. Matrifocality refers not just to kinship relations, but also to economic relationships and women’s positions in society. This is akin to a point of view from an older tradition of economic thought dating back to Aristotle and Xenophon that the study of economics (oeconomia) is about politics as much as it is about the economy. Older economic thought focused on the management and running of a household and “was concerned with activities that were not only private and economic in character, but it also involved governmental functions and a whole set of assumptions about justice, right and social hierarchy” (Van Horn Melton 1994: 276). And this relates to an older analysis of gender and economic relationships proposed by Friedrich Engels. In the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1942), Engels likewise argues that “women are originally equal, if not more powerful than, men in communal forms of production with matrilineal family organizations. Women lose power when private property comes into existence as a mode of production” (via Ferguson 2004). Hurgronje (1906), Siegel (1969/1976) and Jayawardena (1977) found that the owners of the key productive resources and homes in Aceh were women. Acehnese women are the po rumoh and every Acehnese child is born in their mother’s house.1 The customary practice during Hurgronje, Siegel, and Jayawardena’s research period was for women to be given full possession of the house and, if the parents could afford it, rice fields as well. During the armed conflicts with both the colonial powers and the Indonesian army, women were able to provide for themselves and their children as their rice cultivation was not labor intensive. In the past, many men had to leave to work in the pepper regions2 to be able to provide for their wives and in-laws. In the nineteenth century, many men were also mobilized for the war against the Dutch.3

1 Siegel 1969: 66. 2 In the seventeenth century, Aceh provided half the world’s pepper, but pepper agriculture collapsed early in the nineteenth century (Siegel 1976). 3 Both Acehnese and foreign scholars argue that the long, gruelling wars between the Dutch and the Acehnese were religiously motivated. A different view is proposed by Tiwon who argues that “…the notion of community centred on matrifocal household was inimical to the required development of individual, alienable properties…and militate against contractual relationship,” (1991: 21 via Siapno 2002: 51). The Dutch education system

106 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh After Indonesian independence in 1945, large numbers of men fled from the village to avoid capture and killings by the Indonesian army, again leaving women to their own means of survival.4 Jacqueline Siapno explains the change in Aceh’s matrifocality with a historical example. Siapno takes on Sylvia Tiwon’s analysis of “the process of the Dutch colonial state’s domestication of the all-too-powerful matriarchal societies for the purposes of taxation.” Siapno reiterates Tiwon’s view that the Dutch perspective on communities centered on matrifocal households was that it “was inimical to the required development of individual, alienable property… [It] militates against contractual relationship” (Siapno 2002: 51). Siapno herself believes that the Dutch enforced a Western-style secular educational system to effectively tax and colonize Aceh: “the purpose of these secular schools was twofold: ‘to emancipate the Muslims from their religion’ (Hurgronje cited in Steenbrink 1993: 89, emphasis added) and to assimilate the Acehnese into supposedly more politically effective arrangements of the family and household (for purposes of taxation) based on male property holders as heads-of-the-family” (2002: 52). What we can understand from the works of Engels, Siegel, and Siapno on Aceh is that women were the center of Acehnese society. To this day, Aceh women’s ownership of productive properties tends to continue even though residential and economic relationships have changed. Even Siegel sees that economic factors are insufficient to explain the marginality of male lineage and positions in Acehnese society. The argument presented by Siegel is that the rationality and the esteem provided by new Islamic interpretations provide Acehnese men with a new position in society. Many observers might wonder whether the ownership of property and the centrality of a mother’s role have to do with the fact that there has often been “no regular male presence in the figure of father-husband” because men are away (as migrant wage laborers during the Dutch colonial era or simply fighting or hiding during the armed conflict) or because Acehnese men aspired to improve their social position by seizing on the new status offered by Islamic puritan movements which overcome gampong belonging and influence (see Siegel 1969/1976). Tanner (1974) insisted on the structural importance of matrifocality. According to Tanner, matrifocality cannot be effective in a society where women have no real structural power. Aceh’s traditional power holders have mostly been men. The history of the four queens of Aceh, female warriors and admirals, female mayors and the relative balance between the sexes in terms of office holding may indicate women’s structural power in Aceh. This research ultimately indicated the need

agenda was to emancipate Muslims from their religion and assimilate the Acehnese into a more politically effective arrangement of a single-family unit for taxation purposes. But the effort of the individuation of males as property-holders and citizens was not possible due to the matrifocal tradition in Aceh. 4 Further descriptions about armed conflicts will be continued in the following parts.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 107 to explore the question of whether matrifocality is a structurally and culturally motivating force in todays’ Acehnese society. Even so, the concept of matrifocality is a valuable heuristic tool for examining women’s status in Aceh. Since law and society are mutually constitutive, the previous Acehnese legal tradition left imprints in people’s memories. Even though the previous Sharia and adat laws have been revoked, the legal tradition has nevertheless been retained in Banda Aceh’s social relations. “Legal revocation is not social eradication” (De Sousa Santos 1987:292) and this includes, I argue, Acehnese matrifocality. How matrifocality now fares following the introduction of a more hegemonic Sharia law is also a valuable question. Part of the institutionalization of Sharia law in Aceh is the increasing influence of property transfer through the male line and consequently the older tradition of inheritance through the female line is contested. Even before the 2006 Law of Governing Aceh came into force, the gampong character, with its principle of women being the owners of houses and the ulu (originals) of the gampong, was already disappearing. Women’s experiences, of women’s consciousness and bodies, help to bring to the surface cultural orders, boundaries, changes and fixities in Banda Aceh (see Ahmed 2004: 29, also Butler 1993: 9). With the increasingly established state and Sharia laws, Acehnese people are seen more as individuals rather than a collective (such as a gampong) to be administered. There is a shift in understanding which implies that “ties can exist between individuals and the state or between individuals” (Rouland 1994: 166). In women’s everyday lives, the influence of kinship, matrifocality, and adat law weaken as they are increasingly confined to thegampong . The weakening of adat and matrifocality means that one consequence of the introduction of Sharia law is the breaking up of the collective matrifocal traditions and norms (see Jean and John Comaroff 2003: 466) along with the individuation of modern Acehnese women and men. Sharia law influences gender constructions in Banda Aceh. The importance of Islam in constructing masculinity in Aceh has been proposed by James Siegel (1969/1976) and Jauhola (2013). Jauhola stated that “the post-conflict context could have opened a new understanding of the crisis of masculinity that the conflict and tsunami were potentially exacerbating” (Jauhola 2013 via Daly et al., 2016: 195). She argues further:

“…that one effect of the shariatization of gender discourse in Aceh is that it constructs Acehnese women’s subjectivities and identities primarily around Islamic identity, which has several social consequences for feminist agency and forms of politics” (Jauhola 2013: 51).

From Banda Aceh women’ stories, the principle of matrifocality rests especially in terms of kinship, inheritance and family obligations. Intan and Meutia

108 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh observed the change in the Acehnese understanding of adat and the principle of matrifocality. Both agree with Siapno (2002) and Srimulyani (2010) that the shifting of matrifocal practices in contemporary Aceh can be attributed to urbanization and modernization.5 But there was also a resentful mood that the current interpretation of Islamic law disadvantaged women in Aceh, as illustrated by the shifting of inheritance distribution between sons and daughters. This is exactly the issue of the disadvantages that prevail beyond the extreme application of Sharia law, such as public floggings and Sharia police raids. This contemporary situation tests the statement that “Sharia law does affect the social life of women, but it does not affect the matrifocal values of the community.”6 The application of Sharia law affects both women and men. Two decades ago, the matrifocal values of the community were widely seen as part of a uniquely Acehnese Islam. However, with the post-conflict autonomous status and the introduction of Sharia law came pervasive social and cultural changes such as a growing Islamic economy, higher educational levels and different gender construction and relationships. Individual sentiments are intensified when affirmed collectively.7 How the issue of Sharia enters the legal and governmental sphere in Aceh has been discussed earlier. This example adds a description of the constitutive capacity of Sharia law to alter the cultural understanding of gender relationships and spaces in Aceh. On an abstract level, the situations seem to indicate that many women in Banda Aceh have difficulty separating “law” from “culture” (see Laura Grenfell p: 66). Acehnese traditional proverbs (hadih madja) saying that both Sharia and adat laws are part of the inseparable essence of Aceh’s culture and society have been used to explain the contemporary, formal, and bureaucratized Sharia law. Women do not experience Sharia law in a cultural vacuum. The contemporary, hegemonic Sharia system challenges the traditional “parallel but separate” implementation of Sharia and adat laws and jurisdictions. Women’s experiences show us how Sharia law is expanding and decentering adat norms and jurisdictions to an unprecedented level. The changing, increasingly imbalanced, power structure is expressed in the diminishment of women’s prominence, the spaces available to them and changing gender practices. The ways in which women perceive Sharia law are substantiations of the historicity of Sharia law. It is still to be seen how Sharia law develops in the future.

5 Srimulyani further argues that the emergence of a single nuclear family unit, the current modern workforce and “…growing market development dissolve some matrilineal bonds” (2010: 337). 6 Srimulyani 2010: 222. 7 See Weber 1915: 446.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 109 2. Everyday Experiences of Sharia Law The empirical works in Banda Aceh bring forth the idea of Sharia law and its meanings are based on a personal knowledge of the world and Aceh contexts. Such were the descriptions of Sharia law illustrated by Nur, Intan, Badriah, Sofia, Cut Lily, and Meutia. However, this study shows that at any given time, Banda Aceh women experience a variety of privileges and/or oppressions with regard to Sharia law. The privilege that Cut Lily enjoyed and the discrimination Badriah faced on a daily basis are a consequence of their unique social positions in the society: gender, class, and other social classifiers shaped women and men’s experiences of the Sharia law. When the Sharia law was brought against poor, marginalized women—women were seen as vectors doomed to fail to meet the normative practices and values of the Sharia. In many instances, poor marginalized women would receive the worst of Sharia retributions. Meanwhile, the elite and the privileged, both women and men were almost exclusively exempted from the law. This observation also corroborates the intersectional experiences of discriminations and preferences. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society; of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicities (Crenshaw 1989; 1991). To suggest that all Aceh women suffered greater oppressions than men under the Sharia law, it is necessary to acknowledge while men enjoyed greater privilege in Banda Aceh, to speak confidently of male privilege at the expense of women needing some refinements in order to be compelling. Generally, the number of males received Sharia punishments were more than female due to the nature of violations done generally by men, such as gambling, consumption of alcohol and the liwat (homosexual male intercourse). But this is just a partial observation of the experiences of Sharia law. There was a link between an individual’s social hierarchy (economic status, ethnicity, religion, and age) and the individual legal status and their experiences of Sharia law. The Sharia law discriminated against the minorities and the poor, which has demonstrably been displayed in the implementations of the law—as in the execution of uqubat—public caning. For the privileged few, violations of Sharia law were treated with leniency if not immunity. Thus, Sharia law created ambiguities of exclusions and preference depending on the degrees of dependency; might it be gender, gampong membership, traditional aristocracy, wealth, or age. The inconsistency of the law was the real problem here as the rich and powerful could buy their freedom from Sharia consequences at an appalling degree. Simply put, the problem with Sharia law in Aceh was that the quality of justice you could expect from Sharia law in Aceh was that it depended heavily on who you were. Another thing to consider is the cultural principles of honor (marwah) and its corresponding idea of shame having some bearings on the experiences of Sharia

110 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh law. Honor—marwah—has been an attribute of the elite, the wealthy, nobility, the ulu of gampongs. It seemed the society associated marwah with upper-middle class lifestyle and Muslim fashion. Marwah is also unduly conferred to nobility, of a different sort of those of “commoners.” Meanwhile, “the concept of shame is contrasted with and evokes honor as its opposite” (Ask 2005: 54). In Banda Aceh, shame had been used by the poor and marginal who were unswervingly affected by the Sharia law. There was a degree of shame in the experiences of Sharia punishment, and this had been considered a heavier consequence than the corporal punishment one received. This had to do with the importance of kinship andgampong in Banda Aceh; one way to grasp the Acehnese social relations is by seeing how family and gampong’s honor was on the line in the everyday operation of Sharia law. Corporal punishment played a lesser role than shame-avoidance as a deterrent to disobey Sharia law. Many would argue the corporal punishment was the worst kind of punishment, but as Badriah put it, one could bear the corporal pains, but not the shame brought about by the Sharia punishment. The most pervasive study on the concept of honor is one of Mediterranean anthropology. The paradigm is that honor/shame concepts function profoundly in the Mediterranean society. It is also argued that honor/shame are related to the gender separation and power relations in the society, that is, honor is an index of female chastity or economic stratification (seeHerzfeld 1980: 340). Since men hold the power, a male perspective dominates public discourses about honor and shame (see Peristiany 1966). To put the matter into perspective, Persitiany suggests that there is a binary opposition in which honor is associated with men and shame with women. Through the examination ofmarwah , I consider it as a localized term of honor, one can see that marwah had to do with the public evaluation of Sharia law in Banda Aceh; yet at the same the conceptual significance of it, it influencesgender relations and the degree of class consciousness within the same legal space in Banda Aceh, demand closer attentions to the Aceh social and cultural systems. Further argued, honor is “fundamentally public recognition of one’s social standing” (Moxnes 1993: 20). This brings us to Lila Abu-Lughod’sVeiled Sentiments (1986) in which she described morality in terms of the observance of the principle of honor, “Awlad ‘Ali honor code is asl (ancestry/origin/nobility), a term expressive of a range of ideas. As I discussed in chapter II, it is the basis for the proud differentiation of Bedouin from non-Bedouin…drawing the genealogical notion of roots, or the pure and illustrious bloodline, it is also implying the moral character believed to be passed through this line. Thus,asl is the primary metaphor for virtue or honor (Abu- Lughod 1986: 82). It is clear that asl—asal in Indonesian, and grossly compared, equivalent to ulu in Acehnese, also mattered in women’ experiences of Sharia law. In terms of how class influences Sharia experiences, a “sheltered” life of Sofia and Cut Lily and her aspiration of being the founding member of the “Mommy Hijabers

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 111 Community,” illustrates the point that Tanner describes as “momism”. In her examination of Javanese, Acehnese, and Minangkabau matrifocality, the centrality of a mother role in matrifocality and Anglo-American momism, “Among many middle-class whites, women create affectively central roles for themselves within the household as counterbalances to their economic and emotional dependence on their husbands; women can gain considerable power over their offspring, but this must be seen in the context of their powerlessness in the wider society” (1974: 132). There were degrees and spectrums of freedom and restrictions in the lives of Intan, Nur, Meutia, Cut Lily, Sofia and Badriah. However, the wealthy and titled women’ lives were built around their families and children; the lives of poor and ordinary women were harsher, but more independent than their fortunate fellow women of Banda Aceh. One of the most visible facts in the life of Banda Aceh women was the popularity of women Muslim dress and consumerism. Speaking for many, Abu-Lughod and other studies have parsed issues of Islamist movements, status, identity, and piety, as well as power and resistance to head covering.8 It has also been observed in many parts of Muslim world, the growing social force of self-conscious Muslim identity and the “very deliberate way that people who adopt this identity want society to conform to Muslim values (Abu-Lughod 2016: xiii, see also Mernissi 1987; Turner 2008; Hefner 2016). However, many Muslim women take themselves for granted that they are good Muslim disregarding their appearance (Abu-Lughod 2016: xiv). These evaluations are pertinent to describe the current women of Banda Aceh. On the other side of the discussion, there are also critics of the “Islamic dress code” such as Mernissi (1987) argues that the impulsion of veiling represents a reassertion of patriarchy; and view that the head covering rule signifies the revival of male dominance in the gender order in Aceh (Millalos 2007) are also valid. Much more had happened to Banda Aceh than meets the eye. Literally and figuratively: the issues of head covering, women’s intersectional identity, matrifocality, and Sharia corporal punishment, are discussed earlier though some more extensively than others. Still, fundamental in the study of the experiences of Sharia law is the spatial aspect of the experiences. To clarify how spatiality of the law affects women’s experiences, let me take as a point of departure the issues of the historicity of legal pluralism and the ensuing problems. Sharia law has the capacity to unite Aceh under a cohesive legal order. As

8 Rachel Rinaldo summarizes many arguments from comparative studies focusing on women and veiling practices. For example, MacCleod argues that “veiling empowers lower-middle-class women by blurring class distinctions and affording women enhanced mobility in spaces” (1993); Mahmood sees that “veiling is one of the most important ways for women to produce themselves as pious subjects” (2005); and Rashid argues that “veiling cuts women off from their pasts, but also gives women a sense of being agents in their own lives, allowing them to assert themselves in their families and social surroundings (2008). These views are quoted from Rinaldo 2010: 593-4.

112 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh mentioned above, however, the Aceh legal tradition leaves its imprint on the socio- legal relations they previously regulated: the partition of Sharia and adat jurisdictions in the Aceh court and the gampong. This is not an issue of partition, or of the center and the periphery relations: the structural, legal relationship between the advanced, higher “center” (Banda Aceh) and less developed peripheries of gampong. The issue here is that Aceh legal tradition is constituted by different legal systems operating simultaneously in different legal spaces. Acehnese people are not known for their resistance in docile submission towards any unified, centralized system. Be it legal or political. Acehnese people are ever defiant to the government’s “rule of law”. It takes time for the whole range of new values and practices implied by the Indonesian civil law, Sharia and adat laws, which sometimes are complementary oftentimes contradictory, to take a firm hold in Banda Aceh. Inadvertent aspect of the experiences of the complex of multiple legal orders is that it was confirming the existing social norms and resistance towards “others”. The specific way Sharia law was utilized determined the “hierarchical” positions of Banda Aceh residents: Acehnese with a membership with the gampong on top, the non-native Muslims (pendatang), and the minorities come in last. If we talk about a discriminatory system in the public spaces, one notion raised that Sharia authorities and, by extension, Aceh government were the proprietors of these discriminating practices. This exclusionary attitude towards the “others” reflects ambivalence of Sharia law: the principle of equality before law and the hierarchical statuses of the subjects of the law in Aceh based on a gampong membership. The specific issue of spatiality was so constitutive, that we need to attend to this issue again. Sharia legal order in Aceh, in a way, is all territorial. To analyze the relationship between Sharia law operates in different social spaces, I do not need to look any further than De Souza Santos’s view; “the relationship law entertains with social reality are much similar to those of maps and spatial reality. Indeed, laws are maps; written laws are cartographic maps; customary informal laws are mental maps” (1987: 283). Women of Banda Aceh used a mental map to navigate their everyday life in Banda Aceh, especially when driving in the streets of Banda Aceh. For example, women adjusting their behavior and clothing according to their understanding of how Sharia law operates on a different scale: the streets, gampong, university areas, government offices, etc. Banda Aceh women understood that the same individual can be perceived as different legal objects of Sharia, adat, and Indonesian civil law. The problem here, again quoting De Souza Santos, “that socio-legal life is constituted by different legal spaces operating simultaneously on different scales and from different interpretive standpoints” (1987: 288). Sharia authorities present in the street of Banda Aceh more than the police. The Sharia law over presence in the streets of Banda Aceh (patrols, demonstrations, public sermons/dakwah umum, campaigns, and Sharia prohibitions), one often

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 113 uses the term Sharia law to underscore that Sharia law is a myriad of phenomena of monitoring female and poor people’s movement, dress, and their behaviors. Aceh Province authority and legitimacy, being constituted and characterized by the Sharia law, the streets of Banda Aceh were also the focus on how it governs its people. Instead of enforcing the law in the streets, the Sharia police was engaged in the task of enforcing discriminatory social order in the name of Islamic morality. Driving a personal vehicle holds a special place for women. In Banda Aceh, mobility of women is subject to intense surveillance. Considering Ayesha Masood’s study how Pakistani women navigate rigid structures of privilege and injuries to re- appropriate the public roads once denied to them (2017). To be clear, Banda Aceh women enjoyed more spatial freedom than Pakistani women. However, one could see that women increasingly received unfair scrutiny in the city public spaces. Even though women of Banda Aceh could resist and negotiate the Sharia surveillance, the increasing male’ dominance over public spaces was clear. Knowing how to handle themselves in the street was important for women of Banda Aceh. Women possessed the “street smart” tricks of not being governed by Sharia law; it ranged from sharing information about the Sharia patrol hours and the area, orchestrating efforts to thaw the blunts of the law such as deliberate acts of wearing pants to get free sarong, driving motorcycles disguised as men, sharing information about the Sharia police raids, etc. The Sharia authorities’ efforts to control women had provoked deliberate efforts to live outside the reach of the Sharia law (see James Scott 1990). Sharia law, as in any social regulations, had to deal with not only problems of administration and bureaucracy, but also the problem of defiance. A deliberate attempt to proscribe particular forms of Aceh Muslims led to a narrow reconfiguration of Islamic norms and beliefs in Aceh—reflected in Sharia regime campaigns against “Aliran Sesat/ Blasphemous Cult”. A case of a blasphemy trial against GAFATAR, repeats a notion of blasphemous acts and blasphemy “depends not so much on theological or legal definitions, but rather on political and social conditions” (Favret-Saada 2016, see Fenwick 2017 for blasphemy cases in Indonesia). For months prior to the trial, a series of demonstrations against the threats of sacrilegious and seditious teachings of Communism, Wahabism, Shi’ism, and Liberalism, were organized in the city. Thousands of participants were mobilized, and the crowds were many, from trans-Islamism Islamic Defender Fronts to traditionalist Dayah people. Controversies over blasphemous groups in Aceh were routinely brought up against the normalizing narratives of Sharia Islam and the pious Aceh Muslims. There was evidence that the GAFATAR trial was staged, and Aceh governmental apparatus were assembled at the courthouse. The Aceh government seemed to have compulsive dependencies with these blasphemous groups or ideas. After all, the whole Sharia campaigns, other than “making Acehnese better Muslims,” were also to

114 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh regulate these “threats”. Many offices and millions of rupiahs were allocated to fight these groups and ideas, and to protect Acehnese in the time of “faith emergency/ darurat akidah). Aceh society without the ever-increasing blasphemous groups and sacrilegious people would no longer need Sharia Police and Bureau. No one paid more attention and curiosity to these “sinners” than the Sharia regime in Banda Aceh. For Banda Aceh women, there are agonies of ambivalence because of their special status as po rumoh, therefore, the gampong founding figures on one side; and on the other side, the “special” punishment of expulsion from gampong following Sharia court trial previously never transpired in the past. To many women, Sharia surveillance and trials had set up a situation in which the agonies of ambivalence itself were a condition that structures the experiences of Sharia law. A familiar women’s story who found themselves against the Sharia law was that they were judged as blasphemous persons/sinners and then rejected by their gampong. And this agony of ambivalence, dare I say, explain women’ experiences of Sharia law. Women are in the agony of the ambivalences of statuses: they are well aware that law disproportionately went after them, even though they saw themselves as equal, the po rumoh no less, citizens of Banda Aceh. In the Sharia era, public interactions increasingly took place under the ever- present gaze of Sharia authority. Sharia surveillance and control were increasingly invasive. The surveillance, at the same time, was seemingly normal in Banda Aceh. A revelation from the field was that there were people who could afford to stay out of the nonstop gaze of Sharia punishing authority, hence passed up all the Sharia regulations such as head covering rule, drinking alcohol, gambling and khalwat (seclusion) rules. The streets of Banda Aceh, where Banda Aceh people were most visible, and a heavily tinted car provided the concealment and afforded women and men personal space and protection from the Sharia authority and vigilantes’ gazes. Furthermore, experiences of Sharia law fell into two different kinds of experiences: one of individuals and the other of systemic experiences. Briefly speaking, lower class women such as Nur had the low individual privilege and experienced greater repressions all the while were subject to the Sharia system; meanwhile Cut Lily enjoyed privilege which could not be afforded even by a poor Aceh man. This might clear up the confusion as to why there were various alliances between women and men in supporting Sharia law. Other than a female Mayor, job opportunities were pretty much balanced between women and men in various occupations in Banda Aceh. Many women were part of the Sharia administration as it was staunch supporters of Sharia practices and values. The changes following the application of Sharia law can take many forms. The least noticeable change was the transfer of property as in the inheritance distribution and marriage payment. Experience with Sharia law is not necessarily about things

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 115 prescribed in the law, such as head covering and alcohol consumption. There are more sinister things going on that affect the welfare of Banda Aceh women and the position of women in society. There was a sense of resolve in Meutia’s statement that the character of Aceh is the woman as “po rumoh”. But it is not just the “po rumoh” entailed in Meutia and Nur’s statements about marriage payment and transfer of property. I reluctantly use bride wealth, following Stanley J. Tambiah, et.al, (1989). While a valid Islamic marriage required a form of bride wealth or bride price, most commonly, the mukena (praying attire) and the Qur’an. There was a strong suggestion that the amount of bride wealth in Aceh was linked to the women’s social positions and her right to inherit property. Also, the amount of bride wealth depended on the amount of the bride wealth received by the mother of the bride. The increased amount of bride wealth in Aceh and the changed attitude towards Aceh’s matrifocality had altered Acehnese’ view of jeunamee (a neutral equivalent to mas kawin—wedding gold) which was considered securing women’s positions as “po rumoh” into a “price” for women’s property. The broad-stroke conclusion of the empirical chapter is that women were disproportionately marginalized following the changing discourse on women’ position, that is, the decentering of older matrifocal tradition. Consequently, how women were perceived by others fellow citizens changed. The experiences of Sharia are underlined by distinctions of class and differing social strata. Not only gender, class, ethnicity, and age as interlocking categories of experiences of Sharia law but also emotion: historical trauma and memories, paradoxes of norms, self-consciousness of the intersections of identities and statuses, aspirations and fear of changing social hierarchies and structures following Peace Agreement and transformations. The meaningful relationship between the degree to whichadat , Sharia, and civil national law influence Banda Acehnese Muslim women and the recent priority given to Sharia law over the other laws were empirically examined by analyzing the everyday experiences of Sharia law and legal pluralism in the Acehnese context and it is clear that a shared religion of Islam in Banda Aceh does not automatically lead to similar experiences of Sharia law. The empirical work in Banda Aceh brought forth the idea that Sharia law and its meanings are based on a personal knowledge of the world and Acehnese contexts. Such were the descriptions of Sharia law illustrated by Nur, Intan, Badriah, Sofia, Cut Lily, and Meutia. However, this study shows that at any given time, Banda Acehnese women experience a variety of privileges and/or oppressions with regard to Sharia law. The privilege that Cut Lily enjoys and the discrimination Badriah faces on a daily basis are a consequence of their unique social positions in society: gender, class, and other social classifiers shape women’s and men’s experiences of Sharia law. When Sharia law was enforced against poor, marginalized women, women were seen as doomed to fail to meet the normative requirements and values

116 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh of Sharia. In many instances, poor marginalized women would receive the worst of Sharia retribution. Meanwhile, both female and male privileged elites were almost exclusively exempted from the law. This observation also corroborates the intersectional experiences of discrimination and preference. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society, including race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity (Crenshaw 1989; 1991). To suggest that all Acehnese women suffered greater oppression than men under Sharia law, that is, to speak confidently of male privilege at the expense of women, some refinements are required in order for the argument to be compelling. Generally, the number of males receiving Sharia punishments is greater than the number of females due to the nature of violations generally committed by men, such as gambling, consumption of alcohol and liwat (homosexual male intercourse). There is a link between an individual’s position in the social hierarchy (economic status, ethnicity, religion, and age) and that individual’s legal status, as well as their experiences of Sharia law. Sharia law discriminates against minorities and the poor, which has demonstrably been displayed in the implementation of the law, as in the execution of uqubat—public caning. For the privileged few, violations of Sharia law are treated with leniency if not overlooked entirely. Thus, Sharia law creates ambiguities of exclusion and preference depending on the degrees of dependency, affected by gender,gampong membership, traditional aristocracy, wealth, or age. The inconsistency of the law is the real problem here as the rich and powerful can buy freedom from Sharia consequences to an appalling degree. Simply put, the problem with Sharia law in Aceh is that the quality of justice you can expect from it depends heavily on who you are. Another thing to consider is the cultural principle of honor (marwah) and its corresponding idea of shame having some bearing on experiences of Sharia law. Honor—marwah—has been an attribute of the elite, the wealthy, nobility, the ulu of the gampong. It seems that society associates marwah with upper-middle class lifestyle and Muslim fashion. Marwah is also unduly conferred on the nobility, those of a different sort from the “commoners.” Meanwhile, “the concept of shame is contrasted with and evokes honor as its opposite” (Ask 2005: 54). In Banda Aceh, shame is attributed to the poor and marginalized who are disproportionately affected by Sharia law. There is a degree of shame in the experience of Sharia punishment, and this is considered a heavier consequence than the actual corporal punishment receives. This is due to the importance of kinship andgampong in Banda Aceh. One way to grasp Acehnese social relations is by examining how a family and gampong’s honor is on the line in the everyday operation of Sharia law. Corporal punishment played a lesser role than shame avoidance as a deterrent from disobeying Sharia law. Many would argue that corporal punishment is the worst kind of punishment

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 117 but, as Badriah put it, one could bear the corporal pains, but not the shame brought about by the Sharia punishment. In terms of how class influences Sharia experiences, the “sheltered” life of Sofia and Cut Lily and the latter’s aspiration to be the founding member of the “Mommy Hijabers Community” illustrates the point that Tanner describes as “momism.” In her examination of Javanese, Acehnese, and Minangkabau matrifocality, she emphasizes the centrality of a mother role in matrifocality and Anglo-American momism: “Among many middle-class whites, women create affectively central roles for themselves within the household as counterbalances to their economic and emotional dependence on their husbands; women can gain considerable power over their offspring, but this must be seen in the context of their powerlessness in the wider society” (1974: 132). There are degrees and spectrums of freedom and restriction in the lives of Intan, Nur, Meutia, Cut Lily, Sofia and Badriah. However, the wealthy and titled women’s lives were built around their families and children; the lives of poor and ordinary women were harsher, but more independent than their fortunate fellow women of Banda Aceh. One of the most visible facts of life for Banda Aceh women is the popularity of women’s Muslim dress and consumerism. Speaking for many, Abu-Lughod and other studies have linked Islamist movements to issues of status, identity, and piety, as well as power and resistance to head covering.9 It has also been observed that in many parts of the Muslim world there is a growing social force of self-conscious Muslim identity and there is a “very deliberate ways that people who adopt this identity want society to conform to Muslim values” (Abu-Lughod 2016: xiii, see also Mernissi 1987; Turner 2008; Hefner 2016). However, many Muslim women take for granted that they are good Muslims regardless of their appearance (Abu- Lughod 2016: xiv). These evaluations are pertinent in describing the current women of Banda Aceh. On the other side of the discussion, there are also critics of the “Islamic dress code,” such as Mernissi (1987), who make valid arguments that the impulsion to wear a veil represents a reassertion of patriarchy and considers that the head covering rule signifies the revival of male dominance in the gender order in Aceh (Millalos 2007). Much more has changed in Banda Aceh than initially meets the eye, both

9 Rachel Rinaldo summarizes many arguments from comparative studies focusing on women and veiling practices. For example, MacCleod argues that “veiling empowers lower-middle-class women by blurring class distinctions and affording women enhanced mobility in spaces” (1993); Mahmood sees that “veiling is one of the most important ways for women to produce themselves as pious subjects” (2005); and Rashid argues that “veiling cuts women off from their pasts, but also gives women a sense of being agents in their own lives, allowing them to assert themselves in their families and social surroundings (2008). These views are quoted from Rinaldo 2010: 593-4. [This entire footnote also appears at the bottom of p. 154 as footnote 222. Consider removing one instance. If you choose to keep this one, be sure to copy my changes applied to footnote 222 into this footnote.]

118 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh literally and figuratively: the issues of head covering, women’s intersectional identity, matrifocality, and Sharia corporal punishment have been discussed earlier, though some more extensively than others. Still, fundamental in the study of experiences of Sharia law is the spatial aspect of the experiences. In order to clarify how the spatiality of the law affects women’s experiences, let me take as a point of departure the issue of the historicity of legal pluralism and the ensuing problems. Sharia law has the capacity to unite Aceh under a cohesive legal order. As mentioned above, however, the Acehnese legal tradition has left its imprint on the socio-legal relations it previously regulated: the partition of Sharia and adat jurisdictions in the Acehnese court and the gampong. This is not an issue of partition, nor of center and periphery relations—the structural, legal relationship between the advanced, higher “center” (Banda Aceh) and less developed peripheries of the gampong. The issue here is that Aceh’s legal tradition is constituted by different legal systems operating simultaneously in different legal spaces. Acehnese people are not known for their docile submission to any unified, centralized system. In both legal and political senses, Acehnese people are ever defiant to the government’s “rule of law.” It takes time for the whole range of new values and practices brought about by Indonesian civil law, Sharia and adat laws, which sometimes are complimentary but oftentimes contradictory, to take a firm holds in Banda Aceh. One unexpected aspect of the experiences of the complex of multiple legal orders is that it is that they served to confirm existing social norms and resistance towards “others.” The specific way Sharia law is utilized determines the hierarchical positions of Banda Aceh’s residents: Acehnese with membership of a gampong at the top, above non-native Muslims (pendatang), with the minorities at the bottom. When discussing a discriminatory system in public spaces, one notion that was raised is that Sharia authorities and, by extension, Aceh’s government, are the propagators of these discriminatory practices. This exclusionary attitude towards “others” reflects the ambivalence of Sharia law: the principle of equality before law and the hierarchical statuses of the subjects of the law in Aceh based on gampong membership. The specific issue of spatiality is so constitutive that it is important to return to this issue once more. The Sharia legal order in Aceh is, in a way, entirely territorial. To analyze how Sharia law operates in different social spaces, we need look no further than De Souza Santos’s view: “the relationships law entertains with social reality are similar to those of maps and spatial reality. Indeed, laws are maps; written laws are cartographic maps; customary informal laws are mental maps” (1987: 283). The women of Banda Aceh use a mental map to navigate their everyday lives in Banda Aceh, especially when driving. For example, women adjust their behavior and clothing according to their understanding of how Sharia law operates on different scales: in the streets, thegampong , university areas, government offices, etc.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 119 Banda Acehnese women understand that the same individual can be perceived as a different legal object inSharia, adat, and Indonesian civil law. The problem here, again quoting De Souza Santos, is “that socio-legal life is constituted by different legal spaces operating simultaneously on different scales and from different interpretive standpoints” (1987: 288). Sharia law’s presence in the streets of Banda Aceh is not limited to the Sharia police: it is present in the form of patrols, demonstrations, public sermons (dakwah umum), campaigns, and Sharia prohibitions, and one often uses the term Sharia law to underscore that Sharia law is a myriad of phenomena of monitoring female and poor people’s movement, dress, and behavior. Much as Aceh Province’s authority and legitimacy are constituted and characterized by Sharia law, the streets of Banda Aceh are also a focus in how it governs its people. Instead of enforcing the law in the streets, the Sharia police are engaged in the task of enforcing a discriminatory social order in the name of Islamic morality. Driving a personal vehicle holds a special place for women. In Banda Aceh, the mobility of women is subject to intense surveillance. Relevant here is Ayesha Masood’s study of how Pakistani women navigate rigid structures of privilege and injuries to re-appropriate the public roads once denied to them (2017). To be clear, Banda Aceh women enjoy more spatial freedom than Pakistani women. However, one can see that women increasingly receive unfair scrutiny in the city’s public spaces. Even though the women of Banda Aceh can resist and negotiate against Sharia surveillance, the increasing male dominance of public spaces is clear. It is important for the women of Banda Aceh to know how to handle themselves in the streets. Women possess “street smart” tricks to avoid being governed by Sharia law, including sharing information about the Sharia patrol hours and the areas they cover, orchestrating efforts to circumvent the law such as deliberately wearing pants to get free sarongs, driving motorcycles disguised as men, sharing information about Sharia police raids, etc. The Sharia authorities’ efforts to control women have provoked deliberate efforts to live outside the reach of Sharia law (see James Scott 1990). Sharia law, just as any social regulation, has had to deal with not only problems of administration and bureaucracy, but also the problem of defiance. A deliberate attempt to proscribe particular groups of Aceh Muslims has led to a narrow reconfiguration of Islamic norms and beliefs in Aceh—reflected in Sharia regime campaigns against “aliran sesat//blasphemous cults”. The case of the blasphemy trial against GAFATAR repeated a notion of blasphemous acts and blasphemy “depends not so much on theological or legal definitions, but rather on political and social conditions” (Favret-Saada 2016, see Fenwick 2017 for blasphemy cases in Indonesia). For months prior to the trial, a series of demonstrations against the threats of the sacrilegious and seditious teachings of communism, Wahhabism, Shi’ism, and liberalism were organized in the city. Thousands of participants were

120 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh mobilized, and the crowds were comprised of members of many groups, from the trans-Islamist to the traditionalist Dayah people. Controversies over blasphemous groups in Aceh are routinely brought up against the normalizing narratives of Sharia Islam and pious Aceh Muslims. There was evidence that the GAFATAR trial was staged and Aceh’s governmental apparatus was assembled at the courthouse. The Acehnese government seems to have a curious dependency on the existence of these blasphemous groups or ideas. After all, the aim of the Sharia campaign, other than “making Acehnese better Muslims,” was to regulate these “threats.” Many offices and millions of rupiah had been allocated to fight these groups and ideas, and to protect the Acehnese at times of “faith emergency/darurat akidah). Without the ever-increasing number of blasphemous groups and sacrilegious people, Acehnese society would no longer need the Sharia Police and Bureau. No one paid more attention to these “sinners” than the Sharia regime in Banda Aceh. For Banda Acehnese women, there are difficulties arising from ambivalence because of their special status as po rumoh, and therefore the founding figures of the gampong, on one side, while on the other side, they are now subject to the new, “special” punishment of expulsion from gampong following Sharia court trials something that had never transpired in the past. To many women, Sharia surveillance and trials had created a situation in which this ambivalence itself is a condition that structures their experiences of Sharia law. A familiar story from women who found themselves targeted by Sharia law was that they were judged as blasphemous persons/sinners and then rejected by their gampong. And this ambivalence, I suggest, explains women’s experiences of Sharia law. Women suffer under the ambivalence of their statuses: they are well aware that the law disproportionately targets them, even though they see themselves as equal citizens of Banda Aceh—the po rumoh, no less. In the Sharia era, public interactions increasingly take place under the ever- present gaze of Sharia authority. Sharia surveillance and control are increasingly invasive. Surveillance, at the same time, seemed normal in Banda Aceh. A revelation from the field was that there are people who are able to stay out of the gaze of Sharia authority, hence avoiding all Sharia regulations such as those on head covering, drinking alcohol, gambling and khalwat (seclusion). In the streets of Banda Aceh, where people are most visible, a heavily tinted car provides concealment and affords women and men personal space and protection from the gaze of the Sharia authority and vigilantes. Furthermore, experiences of Sharia law fall into two different categories of experience: one of individual and the other of systemic experiences. Generally speaking, lower class women such as Nur have low individual privilege and experience greater repression under the Sharia system, while Cut Lily enjoys

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 121 privilege that even a poor Acehnese man would be unable to gain. This might clear up the confusion as to why there are various alliances between women and men supporting Sharia law. Other than the female mayor, job opportunities are generally balanced between women and men in various occupations in Banda Aceh. Many women are part of the Sharia administration as staunch supporters of Sharia practices and values. The changes that have arisen following the application of Sharia law take many forms. The least noticeable change was the transfer of property in terms of inheritance distribution and marriage payments. Experiences of Sharia law are not necessarily restricted to things prescribed in the law, such as head covering and alcohol consumption. There are more sinister occurrences that affect the welfare of Banda Acehnese women and the position of women in society. There was a sense of resolve in Meutia’s statement that part of the character of Aceh is that women are “po rumoh.” But this does not tally with Meutia and Nur’s statements about marriage payments and transfer of property. To illustrate this, I will (reluctantly) use the example of bride money, following Stanley J. Tambiah, et al. (1989). A valid Islamic marriage requires a form of bride money or a bride price, the mukena (praying attire) and the Qur’an. There was a strong suggestion that the amount of bride money paid in Aceh is linked to the woman’s social position and her right to inherit property. Also, the bride money amount depended on the amount that had been received by the mother of the bride. The increased bride money amounts in Aceh and the changed attitude towards Aceh’s matrifocality had altered the Acehnese view of jeunamee (a neutral equivalent to mas kawin—wedding gold) from something that secured women’s positions as “po rumoh” into a “price” for women’s property. The broad-stroke conclusion of the empirical chapter is that women are disproportionately marginalized following the changing discourse on women’s position in society, that is, the decentering of the older matrifocal tradition. Consequently, how women are perceived by fellow citizens has changed. The experiences of Sharia are underlined by distinctions of class and differing social strata. Not only are gender, class, ethnicity, and age interlocking categories of experiences of Sharia law, but so are emotion, historical trauma and memories, normative paradoxes, self-consciousness of the intersections of identities and statuses, aspirations and fear of changing social hierarchies and structures following the peace agreement and transformations. Speaking for many, Abu-Lughod and other researchers have parsed issues of Islamist movements, women’s status, identity, and piety, as well as power and resistance to veiling.10 Also observed in many parts of the Muslim world is a growing 10 Rachel Rinaldo summarizes many arguments from comparative studies focusing on women and veiling practices. For example, MacCleod argues that “veiling empowers lower-middle-class women by blurring class distinctions and affording women enhanced

122 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh social force of self-conscious Muslim identity and the “very deliberate way that people who adopt this identity want society to conform to Muslim values” (Abu- Lughod 2016: xiii, see also Mernissi 1987; Turner 2008; Hefner 2016). However, many Muslim women themselves take for granted that they are good Muslims regardless of their appearance (2016: xiv). Critics of the “Islamic dress code” such as Mernissi (1987) argue that compulsion to wear a veil represents a reassertion of patriarchy, or the revival of male dominance in the gender order in Aceh (Millalos 2007). The disciplining practices of Sharia law are perhaps the most ubiquitous method of training Acehnese people to obey the law and of correcting disobedience. However, the Acehnese government has done more to enforce Sharia law than simply hand out punishments. The purpose of the Acehnese government’s promotion of religious practices such as Dakwah Umum/Islamic Propagation, veiling, night curfew, Islamic teaching in public schools, etc., are described in terms of “becoming better Muslims.” Al Yasa Abubakar11 formulated the aim: “The law functions to help people to become perfect Muslims” (I. untuk menjadi Muslim yang lebih sempurna).12 The GAFATAR court case was one example in which the Aceh government mobilized its apparatus to further the Sharia agenda. The idea of the “normalization of Sharia” is useful here as it indicates things that are of significance in Banda Aceh. There are many things that are new to Aceh including head-covering patrols, night curfews, public Islamic lectures (Dakwah Umum), children’s Islamic instruction, and public canings—all of which are government public policies to construct idealized Muslim behaviors and perceptions. Given the context of political and economic transformations, Sharia law in Aceh is a cross- cutting issue covering many factors such as space, gender, and class. Concerning space, in Sharia law, the public/private space boundaries are redrawn, and social ties and even personhood are redefined. Many issues previously deemed to be private and personal in Indonesian civil law, such as clothing and relationships between consenting adults, have become legal issues in Aceh. With the introduction of Sharia law, women are required to move within different boundaries and narrower spaces than men. In the past, especially during the armed conflict and the period in

mobility in public spaces” (1993); Mahmood sees that “veiling is one of the most important ways for women to represent themselves as pious subjects” (2005); and Rashid argues that “veiling cuts women off from their pasts, but also gives women a sense of being agents in their own lives, allowing them to assert themselves in their families and social surroundings” (2008). These views are quoted from Rinaldo 2010: 593-4. 11 Al Yasa Abubakar was the first Head of the Sharia Bureau and was also the leading figure in Sharia law drafting. 12 Quoted from Feener’s book Sharia and Social Engineering 2013: 212. TheSharia jargon is well discussed in Marjanaa Jauhola’s chapter “Becoming Better Men and Muslims: Gender Mainstreaming as a Technique of Governmentality” (2013) and David Kloos’ newly published book Becoming Better Muslims: Religious Authority and Ethical Improvement in Aceh, Indonesia (2017).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 123 which martial law was applied in Aceh, it was adult men who were “suspects” and needed to be watched.

3. Contemporary Sharia Aceh: Changes in Women’s Status A reflection from the fieldwork is that the introduction of Sharia law reflects rising Islamic conservatism not only in Aceh, but also in Indonesia generally (Van Bruinessen 2013). This is hardly a new revelation. Indonesia and many other Muslim countries have witnessed a wave of Islamism, and its political conservatism shows no sign of abating. In Indonesia, Sharia local bylaws have currently been implemented in more than thirty districts, and various Muslim conservative agendas have been publicly sanctioned (Bush 2008). The establishment of Sharia law in Aceh—which is modern, mostly developmentalist in its agenda—reflects the new social control which has successfully replaced the traditional normative structure in Aceh province. Several topics stand out as being of crucial importance. When it comes to the implication of the application of Sharia law in Acehnese governance and society, Sharia law is now the primary, though continually contested and redefined, established law in the region. The long-armed conflicts had made Aceh a region where rule of law was an inconsistent mix of the draconian Indonesian Martial Law, applied across Aceh as a whole, and a localized form of customary adat control, mostly at gampong level. Today, Sharia law is effectively the Acehnese principle of government by law. The fact that Sharia law is the fundamental principle of Aceh’s governance can be seen in the expansion of Sharia bureaucracy and the intrusion of the law on personal and communal rights and territories. This broadens our view that Sharia law is not only a tool for social engineering (Feener 2013), but the first state law to gain legitimacy in Aceh. On the personal and social levels, there are some implications of the modern application of Sharia law in Aceh. First, there is the acceptance of the state law as the highest arbiter of justice and morality. This came to be in the expansion of state Sharia law and its power in adjudicating and defining an individual’s morality. This research problematizes the relegation of the issue of discrimination and underserved outcomes of this modern justice system to the traditional Acehnese legal system. It does not argue that Acehnese society was historically egalitarian and democratic. However, this research does indicate the traditional separation of legal jurisdictions and power during the sultanate era and the relative autonomy of the gampong and mukim from the sultanate. When these traditional structures were successfully dismantled, so was the complex balance of traditional legal systems in Aceh. The Acehnese government has the legal mandate to arbitrate on both individual piety and justice, and this modern system has merged all the traditional, previously compartmentalized legal authorities. This gives the Sharia authority unprecedented power in Aceh. Arguably, the current form of Sharia law creates distinct legal categories and

124 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh formalizes Muslim piety. On a social level, with the introduction of Sharia law, social ties and even personhood have been redefined. Moreover, public/private space boundaries have been redrawn. Many issues which were previously deemed to be private and personal in Indonesian civil law, such as clothing and relationships between consenting adults, have become legal issues in Aceh. The influence of kinship, matrifocality, and adat law weaken as they are increasingly confined to gampong domains. One consequence of the introduction of the law, therefore, is the breaking up of the collective along with the individuation of the modern Acehnese woman. Acehnese women and men are increasingly seen as individual citizens with sole legal rights and obligations. Simultaneously, the role of traditional adat and Islamic authorities as arbiters of morality and social control has gradually been eroded. Aceh’s government holds legitimacy over Aceh’s population in general. The current Acehnese government and Sharia administrators make considerable efforts to control and manage Aceh’s general population. In the past, the sultan, together with the traditional chieftains (uleebalang), Islamic authorities (imeum and ulama) and adat authorities took charge of regulating Aceh’s segmented territories and population. The change has also manifested in the shift of oversight of kinship and communal conflicts from adat authority to Sharia authority and law. The increasing use of Islamic law in the transfer of property (such as inheritance) represents a diminishment of the principle of women as “po rumoh” in Aceh. The enduring role of the traditional value of matrifocality has provided a context for women’s experiences of Sharia law in Banda Aceh. However, it can no longer be said that matrifocality is at the center of current Acehnese society. One may ask whether the relationship between the de-centering of Aceh’s matrifocal tradition and the positioning of Sharia law is one of cause and effect or whether the matrifocal tradition is partly responsible for the emergence of Sharia law. It is clear, however, that as a dominant system, Sharia law has changed women’s status and agency more than any other system. Women have been consigned to a narrower space in society and the relative autonomy ascribed to women in the gampong has been dismantled. Although matrifocality remains influential, male control over women and productive resources has gradually set in in society. The matrifocal tradition in which women rather than men were the primary protagonists has retreated to the background and women occupy narrower spaces, both literally and symbolically, than men. The implementation of Sharia brought about a reinforcement of patriarchal privilege and marked the decline of women’s relatively high position within marriage and public life. The dissolving of the communal and gampong unity in the justice system is seen in the fact that legal rights and obligations are now inhered by individuals. While belonging to a gampong or a group influences the quality of Sharia justice,

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 125 individuals and not the group are accountable for the violations. Expulsion from a gampong was unheard of in the past, but there are now reports of individual cases where women have been expelled or barred from returning to their gampong after Sharia punishment as described in chapter VI. Women have not only lost their central position in the gampong, but also receive punishments that are twice as harsh as those given to their male counterparts—the corporal and the social punishments manifested in the harshest form of derision and expulsion. In the case of Haji Bakri, he was never tried, remained in his gampong and at some point, was restored to a prestigious government office, though this was reversed after public uproar. Haji Bakri’s story is so different from that of Putri, who was no longer alive to tell her stories. One may argue that Putri lived in a small gampong in Aceh’s hinterland, hence her heartbreaking fate. More men receive public floggings because more men violate Sharia law. The fact that some non-Muslim men chose Sharia punishment over Indonesian civil law for its “convenience” does merit consideration. Another aspect that should be borne in mind is the shift of responsibility for policing minor and communal transgressions from adat authorities to Sharia authorities. In particular, responsibility for conflict resolution and mediation in domestic conflicts has moved from the community to the legal authority of the Sharia system. Theadat court has been given a mandate to arbitrate over minor communal transgressions, but in many instances Sharia justice has progressively taken over many adat justice functions and overrides adat law. When discussing adat law as the main alternative to Sharia law, we need to take into account the exclusionary nature of the adat community. Adat law, mostly present in gampong communities, is sometimes characterized with idealized unity and consensual values (musyawarah mufakat). However, gampong often do not allow for differences, be they religion, identity, class or ethnicity. This is where the argument that belonging to the same religion of Islam does not mean equal experiences of Sharia law applies. Belonging to an Acehnese gampong may protect someone, but it also may double the burden of Sharia punishments. The women’s narratives of Sharia law experiences contradict the abstract idea of equality before the law and a unified legal space in Banda Aceh. The fact that many observers, anthropologists and others alike, do sometimes approximately approach the subject with this in mind does not invalidate the normative force of the “ideal” view of the law. However, this study finds that Sharia law has introduced a new and ambivalent legal field in which claims to justice and to the ideal of universal human equality and dignity could now be inferred from Aceh’s pluralistic legal traditions. This concluding chapter shifts from the cruxes of Sharia governance to the ways in which women find meaning for and about themselves in Banda Aceh. It is in the everyday experiences of Sharia law that we can see the internal differences and fluidity of practices and beliefs, notwithstanding, that this is never independent from

126 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh the hegemonic Sharia ideology and structure. We can also see how women make sense of their lives under Sharia, sometimes acting purposefully to circumvent or to exploit the law for their benefit. This set of circumstances points to the constitution of “Sharia law” as a field of contest among various segments of society and shows that for women the law is experienced differently depending on class, ethnicity, age, and even where exactly the experiences take place. Class and ethnicity influence what can be known as Sharia law experiences. On a different level of analysis, the acceptance of Aceh’s government as the sole arbiter of the religious law of Islam has not been a smooth process. Many scholars of Islam, but specifically Acehnese traditional Islamic scholars, known as ulama dayah, claim the rightful authority of Islam. The confrontations over the correct practices and interpretations of Sharia law among traditional scholars, Aceh’s government, the sponsored ulama council, Salafi scholars and Muslim intellectuals is an indication of the shifting relations of power, which increasingly favor the government-sponsored ulama council. At the discourse level, there are ways in which Sharia discourses are reproduced and contested. The government-sponsored ulama discourse has silencing effects on Sharia dissenters as well as alternative Sharia discourses promoted by both the traditional dayah ulama and the transnational Islamic Muslim movements such as Hizbut Tahrir Aceh. The strongest outcome of Sharia law as the dominant legal order is the “excessive colonization of the life-world (lebenswelt) by law” (Habermas via Santos 1987: 281). Sharia law undoubtedly creates new norms and beliefs that testify to the emergence and consolidation of a less matrifocal, yet more modern Banda Acehnese society. Sharia law is also used as a symbolic emblem of Aceh’s autonomy. It is hard to disassociate Aceh’s governance from Sharia governance simply because the latter has permeated all branches of government in Banda Aceh. With the introduction of Sharia and the transformed adat laws as Aceh’s currency in a political bargain against the Indonesian central government, Sharia law is never going to be “just” Sharia law.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 127 Baiturrahman Occupation Photo: author

From an outsider’s point of view, the alliance of Dayah Ulama and Islamic Defenders Front/FPI is unique in the Indonesian context. Even more extraordinary their accusation towards the Grand Mosque board both as Wahabist and Liberals simultaneously. FPI has always been considered the nemesis of “traditionalist”— the majority moderate Muslim organizations with fiqh safi’iyah.13 The presence of FPI was also entirely new in Aceh. It was not until 2008 FPI was established under Tgk. Muslim at-Thahiri’s leadership14 because many ulama suspected that the army infiltrated that FPI. The presence of the AcehUlama Alliance (MUNA) is impressive, given there is already an established ulama council in Aceh—The Aceh Ulama Council (MPU Aceh), supported and sponsored by Aceh Government. The first subchapter introduces the importance of the state in shaping Acehnese’s Islamic piety. The Aceh government tries to instill Islamic morality and discipline

13 This school of interpretation is followed by the majority of Indonesian Muslim, especially (in Java), (in Lombok) and Muslim organizations. 14 Historically, it was Yusuf Qadrawi who linked up FPI with the dayah ulamas. The first FPI Aceh regional conference (Musyawarah Daerah I Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam) was held on 27 November 2008 a Dayah led by Tgk. Nasrudin in Leung Teungoh, Jeunib-Bireun. However, many dayah ulamas resisted FPI in Aceh. The main reason to be a view that “people with green uniform”—refers to Indonesian army uniform—was behind the FPI. According to Marzi Afriko, the alliance between FPI and dayah ulama was formed out of the shared concern that the “GAM Government” has a little commitment to implement Sharia law. Later, the alliance used the Zikir Akbar on 27 January 2008 to pressure Governor Irwandi Yusuf to uphold the Sharia Islam in Aceh (See Marzi Afriko in Arksal Salim and Adlin Sila (Eds.) 2010: 28-46). In recent years, the permit for FPI and Dayah students scheduled to be held in November 2015 was rejected by Nagan Raya regional government.

128 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh through various Sharia measurements and become the primary instrument of “social engineering” (Feener 2013). In a sense, Sharia law is increasingly normalized through governing bureaucracy and is expanded to spaces where previously were not governed by state law, including the Sharia law.15 The cohesive structure and processes of governing through Sharia law in Aceh are only possible in recent years after a decade of the peace agreement between Aceh Free Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government. The Aceh government’ practices of normalizing Sharia law operate through both discursive process, that is the introduction of the “becoming better Muslim” da’wah paradigm and the disciplining practices, such as razia (Sharia patrols), caning and other punishing practices such as jail time and sometimes violent measures. There are also incentives for supporting the Sharia: access to jobs and university seats for those who can memorize the Qur’an, financial support for Islamic missionaries and programs. Sharia law and practices have increasingly been seen as something that is Aceh: Hai Nyo Aceh. The general population takes up the Sharia discourses and practices in strides, many with great enthusiasm while others are more skeptical. The discussion of space as an elaborate construct of affecting spatial practices and perceptions can be seen in a division between spaces “patronized” by the Aceh government, Islamic authorities, and adat authorities. How women navigate their movement presents the knowledge of the workings of Sharia law and the spatial practices related to Sharia, and adat in their everyday life. The experiences of the movement were influenced much by gender, class and residency areas. The subsequent chapter describes the ways women’ spatial experiences form and expresses Aceh’ Sharia law.

4. Sharia Rhetoric on Women and Culture The nuance of women’s lives under Sharia law crosscuts many socio-cultural aspects which only make sense when viewed in their entirety. There have been cases where women were abused and forced to defend themselves, unaided, not even helped by their karong and kawom as in Putri’s case.16 By the same token, women’s participation may well show women’s backing of a conservative Islamist agenda. Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal epitomizes women’s participation and leadership in the normalization of Sharia governance. Mayor Illiza pursued the Sharia agenda zealously. Descriptions of experiences of Sharia law are riddled with contradictions:

15 In Tim Kell’s view, “Indeed, Acehnese society retains some of its nineteenth-century characteristics, which have been described in detail by anthropologist James Siegel. According to Siegel, at that time Aceh was not a “vertically integrated society”; rather its different elements—thesultanate , the uleebalang, the ulama, and the ordinary villagers— existed independently of one another as “encapsulated groups” and “did not interpenetrate but only at their boundaries” (2010: 77 see Siegel 1969: 68). 16 See the previous chapter. Putri, a sixteen-year-old girl, killed herself after she was accused of being a prostitute in her gampong.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 129 women have taken charge in public positions and have occupied the highest offices in the city, yet there are also women who have been put in humiliating, inhumane situations. One case that arose during the time of my research was that of a young widow who was allegedly having sex with a man in a gampong in Langsa, East Aceh.17 It was not the Sharia police who raided the couple, but a mob of gampong men. Eight men raped the woman while beating up her partner. The Sharia police decided that the couple be punished for adultery and the woman was flogged in September 2014. The rape case was sent to the Indonesian police, not the Sharia police. Ibrahim Latif, the head of the Langsa Sharia Bureau, said that the rape case fell under the jurisdiction of Indonesian Criminal Law18 and thus the Sharia police removed themselves from the rape case. There was public uproar about the injustice suffered by the woman. There was a sense of disbelief from people in other parts of Indonesia that in Aceh the adultery case was prioritized over the rape case. Before long, the debate shifted to accusations of Indonesian interference in an autonomous Aceh affair and even actions against Islam.19 This message was especially endorsed by Islamist groups. It is important to understand the accuracy of the following statement: “There is something about the Acehnese that connects us with Sharia and people from outside Aceh will never be able to understand that connection.”20 The “experimental” stage of Sharia law had a paradoxical significance for Aceh women. Sharia rhetoric on women is that women are the bearers of a reformed Muslim morality and Acehnese identity while at the same time Sharia undermined the previously central role of women in Acehnese society—the matrifocal tradition. It is women who notice when Sharia police are in the vicinity and it is also women who have to obey the law. It is women who are expelled from their maternal gampong should they violate Sharia law. Nonetheless, women are the po rumoh—the owners of houses. It is women that work for their families and raise their children, whose inheritance has been reduced because of the new understanding of Islam, yet it is also women that fill up the mosques. Nonetheless, the argument that women’s involvement in the Sharia system bolsters conservative gender norms has its counterarguments. A counterpart measure of the Acehnese government’s “becoming better Muslims” policy is endorsed by Aceh women’s NGOs under the banned Balai Syura Ureung Inong

17 The distance between Langsa and Banda Aceh is approximately 439 kilometers. Langsa is a region in which the harshest cases of abuse against women have occurred. Some informants told me that this was because Langsa was the armed combatants’ base and had suffered the harshest blow from military operations. 18 “Inilah Alasan Mengapa Janda Korban Perkosaan Diancam Hukuman Cambuk” in Hidayatullah (8 Mei 2014). 19 “Aktivis Muslim Aceh: Asing Jangan Perkeruh Penerapan Syariah” in VOA Indonesia. 20 Afrianty 2015: 171.

130 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh Aceh (All Aceh Women Alliance). Dina Afriany describes women’s responses to Sharia law in promoting women’s equality and civil rights within an Islamic framework. She explains women’s various points of view on the law and summarizes that the majority of female activists do not reject the law. There have been objections about the discriminatory implementation of the law, but most women believe that it is not an inherent problem of Sharia law per se.21 Marjaana Jauhola also describes the conflicting views. In describing the negotiation of gender norms through a gender mainstreaming initiative in post- tsunami Aceh, Jauhola notes the kinds of norms supported as “livable” or “enjoyable” in Aceh, which are not necessarily in line with international views of gender norms. The clothes that a woman wore, as well as when and where she wore them were critical. However, in the case of the Islamic dress code in Banda Aceh, “the concept of shame is contrasted with and evokes honor as its opposite” (Ask 2005: 54). Many consider head covering necessary as a demonstration of modesty and piety. Reconsider this perspective, as the women of Banda Aceh used spaces and clothing with a perceptive sense of place and social standings. Shame and honor are ascribed to the experiences of Sharia law, not as contrasting but as different forms of experience.22 This reminds us of Uni Wikan’s suggestion that the pervasive employment of the concepts of shame and honor “reflect a male bias in ethnographic analysis, which ascribes honor principally to males, leaving women with, if anything, only shame” (Wikan via Ask 2005: 54-55). Riding a motorcycle in Banda Aceh was an excellent research decision. The things I saw and my experiences of particular women’s spatial practices in the streets of Banda Aceh were only possible because the research participants and I shared a “practice of intimacy” as fellow female motorists in Banda Aceh. Orrico presents how gender emerges and gains significance in spatial interactions to “create a sense of a close and special quality of a relationship between people” (Jamieson 2011 via Orrico 2015: 474). Gendered behaviors of women’s daily mobility such as travel behavior,23 choices of mode of transportation and clothing unequivocally correspond to Sharia policies being implemented in the city. The gendered practice of mobility has been discussed extensively by Robin Law (1999). The point at issue here is the way women deflect the dominant social order of Sharia law, “which they lacked the means to challenge;

21 Dina Afrianty 2015. 22 See Karin Ask’s “Veiled Experiences: Exploring Female Practices of Seclusion” in Hastrup and Hervik. Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge. London: Routledge. 2005. 23 I use the concept of behaviour and practice loosely: practices are made of repeated behaviors. The concept of behaviour incorporates cognitive, physical and social dimensions as in Bourdieu’s concept, in which practice reveals the dynamic relationship between actor and social (and material) structure manifested in the process of internalization of the social order in one’s behavior and how it makes and transforms the social world in which one lives (see Bourdieu 1993).

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 131 they escaped it without living it” (De Certeau. 1984: 65). Fuller descriptions of women’s experiences show the uneven influence of Sharia law in their lives. Women who come from less powerful social backgrounds experience Sharia more closely than women from elite social categories and thus are more “savvy” in responding to the circumstances imposed by Sharia law, as evidenced by the multitude of successful tactics that they utilize. Successfully executed tactics require practical— perhaps less theological—knowledge of Sharia rules, as well as the social and spatial environment of Banda Aceh. There were specific ways in which women use spaces, in the streets or coffee shops, in Banda Aceh.24 Stories about how women traveled, dressed in public and dwelt were useful in understanding the modalities concerning women’s knowledge, their existential problems living in Banda Aceh with its Sharia law. These stories had spatial syntaxes which are revelatory concerning “modalities,” specifying the kind of modality concerning knowledge, existence, and the obligations entailed in Sharia law (see Certau 1984: 115). Speaking for many, Abu-Lughod and other researchers have parsed issues of Islamist movements, women’s status, identity, and piety, as well as power and resistance to veiling.25 Also observed in many parts of the Muslim world is a growing social force of self-conscious Muslim identity and the “very deliberate way that people who adopt this identity want society to conform to Muslim values” (Abu- Lughod 2016: xiii, see also Mernissi 1987; Turner 2008; Hefner 2016). However, many Muslim women themselves take for granted that they are good Muslims regardless of their appearance (2016: xiv). Critics of the “Islamic dress code” such as Mernissi (1987) argue that compulsion to wear a veil represents a reassertion of patriarchy, or the revival of male dominance in the gender order in Aceh (Millalos 2007). One case that arose during the time of my research was that of a young widow who was allegedly having sex with a man in a gampong in Langsa, East Aceh.26 It was not the Sharia police who raided the couple, but a mob of gampong men. Eight men

24 Spatial practice, according to Lefebvre, is “how certain space is used in a specific way that defines and constitutes it; this happens through an interaction between the subject and their space and surrounding.” 25 Rachel Rinaldo summarizes many arguments from comparative studies focusing on women and veiling practices. For example, MacCleod argues that “veiling empowers lower-middle-class women by blurring class distinctions and affording women enhanced mobility in public spaces” (1993); Mahmood sees that “veiling is one of the most important ways for women to represent themselves as pious subjects” (2005); and Rashid argues that “veiling cuts women off from their pasts, but also gives women a sense of being agents in their own lives, allowing them to assert themselves in their families and social surroundings” (2008). These views are quoted from Rinaldo 2010: 593-4. 26 The distance between Langsa and Banda Aceh is approximately 439 kilometers. Langsa is a region in which the harshest cases of abuse against women have occurred. Some informants told me that this was because Langsa was the armed combatants’ base and had suffered the harshest blow from military operations.

132 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh raped the woman while beating up her partner. The Sharia police decided that the couple be punished for adultery and the woman was flogged in September 2014. The rape case was sent to the Indonesian police, not the Sharia police. Ibrahim Latif, the head of the Langsa Sharia Bureau, said that the rape case fell under the jurisdiction of Indonesian Criminal Law27 and thus the Sharia police removed themselves from the rape case. There was public uproar about the injustice suffered by the woman. There was a sense of disbelief from people in other parts of Indonesia that in Aceh the adultery case was prioritized over the rape case. Before long, the debate shifted to accusations of Indonesian interference in an autonomous Aceh affair and even actions against Islam.28 This message was especially endorsed by Islamist groups. It is important to understand the accuracy of the following statement: “There is something about the Acehnese that connects us with Sharia and people from outside Aceh will never be able to understand that connection.”29 The “experimental” stage of Sharia law had a paradoxical significance for Aceh women. Sharia rhetoric on women is that women are the bearers of a reformed Muslim morality and Acehnese identity while at the same time Sharia undermined the previously central role of women in Acehnese society—the matrifocal tradition. It is women who notice when Sharia police are in the vicinity and it is also women who have to obey the law. It is women who are expelled from their maternal gampong should they violate Sharia law. Nonetheless, women are the po rumoh—the owners of houses. It is women that work for their families and raise their children, whose inheritance has been reduced because of the new understanding of Islam, yet it is also women that fill up the mosques. Dina Afriany describes women’s responses to Sharia law in promoting women’s equality and civil rights within an Islamic framework. She explains women’s various points of view on the law and summarizes that the majority of female activists do not reject the law. There have been objections about the discriminatory implementation of the law, but most women believe that it is not an inherent problem of Sharia law per se.30 Marjaana Jauhola also describes the conflicting views. In describing the negotiation of gender norms through a gender mainstreaming initiative in post- tsunami Aceh, Jauhola notes the kinds of norms supported as “livable” or “enjoyable” in Aceh, which are not necessarily in line with international views of gender norms.

27 “Inilah Alasan Mengapa Janda Korban Perkosaan Diancam Hukuman Cambuk” in Hidayatullah (8 Mei 2014). 28 “Aktivis Muslim Aceh: Asing Jangan Perkeruh Penerapan Syariah” in VOA Indonesia. 29 Afrianty 2015: 171. 30 Dina Afrianty 2015.

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 133 134 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh CONCLUSION

A key impetus for this ethnography was the desire to understand a localized religious and public law known as Hukum Syariah from the experiences of Banda Acehnese women. This part summarizes the key findings and arguments made across the study, proposing that by framing Sharia law within women’s everyday experiences, a new understanding of Sharia law, Acehnese culture, and society can be attained. The historicity of Sharia law—the transformations of Sharia law in Aceh—have been at the center of this publication. Normatively and culturally speaking, Sharia law today differs from that of the last century. The importance of the historicity of Sharia law lies in the fact that it is constructed from both women’s points of view and scholarly studies. This means,the distant past of Sharia norms and practices are described with double-sided narrations—from women’s and scholars’ points of view, but most importantly from Banda Acehnese women’s own biographies and life stories. At the outset of this research, I emphasized the prominence of Aceh’s cultural background wherein Sharia law is contextualized. In doing so, I located Sharia Aceh within the global discursive traditions of the religious law of Islam. It is important to state that the Sharia law discussed here involves localized interpretations (fiqh Aceh) of the religious law of Islam (Afriany 2015). With regard to Acehnese local legal practices and interpretations, for centuries Acehnese fiqh reasoning made allowance for local adat customs. Thus, this study challenges the view that Sharia law is the only locus of norms and tradition for all Muslims. I maintain the argument that prior to the introduction of this contemporary Sharia law, Aceh Province was governed by adat, and Sharia as an aggregate Aceh’s legal system and public governance of Acehnese society. I follow the suggestion proposed by Hurgronje (1906), Siegel (1969) and Takashi (1984) that the old Sharia law applied only to matters outside adat’s purview. Since the principle of the Law of Governing Aceh (LoGa) was effectively implemented in the 2000s, the new Sharia and adat laws have both officially been governing principles of the Province of Aceh Nanggroe Darussalam. The LoGA affirms the Acehnese legal tradition of the modern unity of Sharia andadat laws

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 135 (hukom ngon adat lagèe zat ngon sifeut). This is the very reason why I use the concept of legal pluralism, a situation in which two or more legal systems coexist in the same social field (Merry 1988), as an analytical tool for investigating women’s experiences of Sharia law in the city of Banda Aceh. As demonstrated in this thesis, both customary adat law and Sharia law are established Acehnese legal practices and norms, and thus it makes sense that the plurality of laws influences the experiences of Sharia law. A matrifocal tradition, as part of a cultural descent and law, can be a means of asserting agency in the everyday experiences of Sharia law in Banda Aceh. This is especially true in the case of ownership and transfer of property. This traditional assertion is different from asserting agency by claiming modern rights and choices. Then women’s embodied experience of the law does not imply that women only “go through” standardized norms and practices of Sharia law nor that the focus is supposed to be only on the interiority of the women’s piety. Within the focus of this study, experiences of Sharia law include the cognitive, affective and volitional characteristics of Sharia law as they are lived through in women’s everyday lives in Banda Aceh. This study ascribes experiences that are cohered through time by way of narratives (Throop 2009) and practices. This thinking guides the general research methods taken in-depth, person-centered interviews and participant observation. Experiences of Sharia law occur beyond the range of personal faith and piety, thus much of the research focuses on particular ways of “being in the world” in Banda Aceh, and restrictions and expressions of the social structure and relations as they occur in everyday life. There are some limitations and problems for the overall ethnography. One of them is the question of how Aceh is represented to and for an English-speaking audience by an Indonesian Muslim woman of Javanese background. From a personal point of view, the value of both detachment and involvement as modes of rethinking existing assumptions about Sharia law, the issues of legal pluralism within the modern liberal legal system, women as a category of investigation, as well as positionality in anthropological knowledge production have to be considered. There definitely was a struggle to push past my personal biases. In fact, I am yet to familiarize myself with examining my relationship with knowledge production from a position of an author. Beyond the native/non-native, Western/non-Western dichotomies, the major issue of positionality in this ethnography is my positionality in relation to the research participants and the form of ethnographic representation I have decided to produce. Secondly, the issue of the semi-fictionalized representation of Banda Aceh women needs to be reflected. The problem of creating six personae out of eighteen research participants is that it may be considered a form of “mutilation” of each unique individual participant. However, the erasure of the identifiable characteristics

136 Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh of the participants can be justified with the need to protect their safety. Still, there is a good chance that some important qualities are indeed missing or have been erased from this ethnography. At the end of the dissertation writing process, an ethnographic summary and photos were given back to the research participants to be evaluated. Based on the responses I received, none of the participants responded negatively to the six personae I have created and thus I consider the semi-fictionalized ethnography to be valid. This publication is the longer, scholarly version of the summary given to the participants. The common assumption of the research participants in the issue of Sharia law was that women are discriminated against because they are women, thus being a woman is the primary part of women’s experiences of Sharia law. But this assumption paints an incomplete picture of everyday life in Banda Aceh. The experiences of Sharia law are experiences of different identities. The use of intersectionality is intended to examine the hegemonic assumptions related to Muslim “women” as a single research category. This approach is beneficial to bring to the fore the social inequalities that condition a system of privileges and discrimination in Banda Aceh. This study shows that some women experience discrimination on multiple grounds while some others enjoy privileges under Sharia law and women experience the overlap of sometimes competing Sharia and adat laws depending on different identities and positions in their multiple social spaces. The primary factors affecting the experience of Sharia law in this study are class and space, but other identity markers also matter. And that is the primary problem with Sharia law in Aceh: the quality of justice one can expect from Sharia law in Aceh depends heavily on who and where you are. Thus, one of the primary findings is the issue of the inhumane, discriminatory and class-based disposition of Sharia law in Aceh. It almost goes without saying that in Aceh Sharia law is “tajam di bawah, tumpul di atas,” (sharp at the bottom, blunt at the top), referring to the discriminatory use of Sharia law, which is harder on the poor and marginalized than the rich and powerful. This is an addition to the reiteration that Sharia law is discriminatory against women in general. What is clear from the broad descriptions of women’s experiences of Sharia law is that it is not just religion, ethnicity, class and age that affect experiences of Sharia law, but also space. A significant part of women’s experiences is determined by space. Women’s narratives consist of a complex knowledge of how Sharia law operates in a particular space, be it “at home,” “outside,” “in the gampong” or “out there.” Women are highly attentive towards the different authorities and rules related to behavior in certain social spaces. Here we need to reconsider this perspective as the women of Banda Aceh use spaces and clothes with strong sensitivity to place and social class. The spatially bounded, life-world related ways of thinking and acting in relation to the Muslim dress code shows that women’s knowledge of Sharia law is not solely

Women’s Experiences Of Sharia Law in Banda Aceh 137 expressed in the scriptural language of the Qur’an or hadiths. This rumination could further add to the discussion about intersectional theory. Based on ethnographic research on women’s experiences of Sharia law, some conclusions push the boundaries of the question and relate the subject of Sharia law to broader issues in Aceh, such as adat customs and territories, and matrifocality. Some findings stand out, such as the issue of shame and honor, and the importance of space in experiences of Sharia law. Degrees of shame are apparent in the experiences of Sharia punishment. Social shaming is considered a heavier consequence than corporal punishment. This has to do with the importance of kinship and gampong in Banda Aceh. One way to grasp Acehnese social relations, I argue, is by seeing how family and gampong honor are on the line in the everyday operation of Sharia law. Corporal punishment plays a lesser role than shame avoidance as a deterrent from disobeying Sharia law Unfortunately, further research on this matter could not be done due to lack of time and financial constraints. While there are answers to the research questions, many other questions are still unanswered. For example, what will happen to matrifocality as a tradition and practice in Aceh? And it still remains to be seen whether it is possible for Indonesia to respect and make space for Sharia law and customary adat law in Aceh, while at the same time protecting the equal rights of women. It is clear that the shared religion of Islam in Banda Aceh does not automatically lead to similar experiences of the Sharia law. At any given time, the use of adat, Sharia or state civil law, or a combination of these three legal matrices depends on class, age, ethnicity and the social spaces in which they are to be applied. While belonging to a gampong or group influences the quality of Sharia justice, individuals and not the group, are accountable for violations. The experiences of Sharia invite us to see the individual experiences and sense of duty over the normative value of the community. Also, there have been profound transformations with the rise of Sharia law and the decentering of adat customary norms and practices. The transformations point to the constitution of “Sharia law” as a field of contest among various segments of society in general and adat communities in particular. This ethnography points to the multiple forms of discrimination and ways of asserting agency in women’s experiences of Sharia law. This knowledge can be attained through an attentive consideration of women’s narratives and everyday practices embedded in the historical and sociocultural context of Banda Aceh. This ethnography provides critical perspectives on the dynamics of legal pluralism and social inequality, as well as a means to rethink the existing assumptions about Sharia law, “women” as a category of investigation and the issue of anthropological representation and knowledge production beyond shocking media reports.

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