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and Politics: A on Political Religion Study Attitudes of Devout Muslims and the Role of the in Kyai Contemporary Java Endang Turmudi* The Indonesian Institute of Sciences,Jakarta There are two viewpoints concerning the relationship between religion and political behaviour (Hammond, 1979:20). One argues that religious membership and activities of members with distinctive values and orientations have a formative influence on political behaviour. The other suggests that the political preference of any group in society does not need to be motivated by its religious beliefs and that any relationship in this sense is "spurious". Scholars who take the first view have taken religious loyalty into consideration in their examination of political participation. Religious loyalty and affiliation in this sense are regarded as factors that affect the political behaviour of society. This perspective further suggests that religious group membership is a source of identity which differentiates it from other groups, since such involvement can provide members with particular norms and values that form a particular group culture. In democratic countries, people's advocacy of their religious ends can be realized through politics, since the system allows political parties to function as media through which people articulate their varied interests, including those of religion. Thus, a religious political party constitutes a means of bridging religious ideals and the reality experienced by believers. Through a party, believers articulate their religious ideas to regulate their worldly lives. This paper tries to analyse the relationship between the religious affiliation of Muslim society in Java and their political actions. It stresses the impact of ideas on socio-political action. The analysis will focus on voting behaviour, that is, the support given to a political party in general elections. The basic questions being considered are: "Why do Muslims give support to one political party and not to others ?" and "What makes certain political attitudes legitimate from their Islamic perspective ?" In looking at the pattern of support given by a Muslim community in Java, the analysis will also focus on the role of the ulama or kyai,l who is assumed to be dominant in * I am currently undertaking a Ph.D. in sociology at the Australian National University. The data presented in this article are derived from a survey I conducted during my fieldwork from November 1992 to October 1993. I would like to thank Prof. J.J. Fox and Dr Frank Lewins of the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology, ANU, with whom I discussed my research. Thanks are also due to Mas Sudamto from the Universitas Darul Ulum and Mustofa who assisted me in organizing the survey. I would like also to thank Greg Fealey from Monash University who spent some time with English editing and commenting on the . first draft of this article. Also I would like to thank Dr Chua Beng Huat, former co-editor of the Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, for his comments on an earlier version of this article. 18 terms of being able to induce socio-political action within society. How far does the kyai influence such political action? The quantitative data I present in this paper are derived from my field research in four villages of the regency of Jombang in East Java. It is located around 80 km west of the East Java capital, Surabaya. The regency has around one million people spread out over 20 districts. More than 95 per cent of them are Muslims. The majority of Muslims in Jombang are affiliated with (oriented towards or belong to) three Islamic organizations, i.e. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Muhammadiyah and Lembaga Dakwah Islam Indonesia (Indonesian Council for Islamic preaching). In addition, they are also members of tarekat (sufi, or mystical orders) such as the Jam'iyah Ahli Thoriqoh Qadiriyah Wa Naqsyabandiyah Indonesia, the Jam'iyah Ahli Thoriqoh Al-Mu'tabaroh An-Nahdliyyah and the Thoriqoh As-Shiddiqiyah. Moreover, in Jombang there are around 45 traditional non-formal Islamic schools, pesantren, and three Islamic tertiary educational institutions, one of which is the Darul Ulum University. These institutions are run by kyai (informal Islamic leaders). The presence of these Islamic institutions and the involvement of the kyai in organizing them have not only made the kyai's position important but also contributed to the formation of political Islam. ' ,')'= > = < Islam and political orientation In Indonesia, Islamic ideas influence the political behaviour of Indonesian political leaders and adherents generally. Some ideas pursued by Islamic leaders, such as their dream of an Islamic state, or other efforts to apply Islamic values, are proof of a strong Islamic influence. This religious orientation has been established through Muslims' understanding of Islamic values and Koranic precepts. However, the differences in interpretations and the existence of various subcultures attributed to Indonesian Muslims, have resulted in a variety of styles of political Islam. A general type of orientation presented by Geertz (1959a, 1965), who categorized religious orientation among Muslims into three kinds of subcultures, marked by differences in their political behaviour, is an expression of how varied the political behaviour of Indonesian Muslims are. These categories, santri, priyayi and abangan, depict the intensity and quality of Islam's influence on the ethos of a community and how a certain religious outlook informs a political orientation. This categorization gives a basic picture of a variety of Muslims' political orientations as have been expressed by their different affiliations with political organizations. Among the three categories, it was only the santri who were strongly influenced by Islam, in that they made this religion a guide for their lives and used Islamic political parties as a vehicle to realize the ideals of Islam. Geertz (1965) further highlights the general pattern of the political orientation of the three variants. The santri, as devout Muslims, belonged to or "leaned toward" either Masjumi or Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). These political parties were Islamic and constituted two of the four big political parties in the 1950s. On the other hand, the abangan, who were represented by a large number of rural Javanese and more syncretic in their Islam, leaned toward the Indonesian National Party (PNI) or to the Communist Party (PKI). The priyayi, who were white collar civil servants, were inclined to be supporters either of PNI or PKI. These three categories were called aliran or political .

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