ISIS, Jihad and Indonesian Discourses on Islamic Authenticity

• In Event: Islamic Authenticity and Uncivil Society in Indonesia - Sponsored by the Indonesia Timor Leste Studies Committee (ITLSC)

Abstract

The emergence of ISIS in 2013 has had a deep impact on Indonesian Islamic discourses. It has polarized jihadist communities, with the majority emphatically rejecting its ideology and strategies, but a small number, perhaps in the thousands, committing themselves to its extreme interpretation of waging holy war. Some of the pro- and anti-ISIS advocates have gone so far as to proclaim the other to be apostate. At a broader level, the presence of ISIS has worsened tensions between several mainstream organizations, most notably Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and so-called ‘transnational’ Islamist groups, such as ISIS, Hizbut Tahrir, Salafist movements and even the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired political party, PKS. NU is propounding itself as the champion of an indigenized ‘Archipelagic Islam’, which stands opposed to ‘Arabised’ forms of Islamic activism in Indonesia, of which ISIS is the most extreme manifestation. In this paper, I will examine the dynamics of this discourse and what these reveal about the increasingly contentious debate over authenticity and legitimacy in Indonesian Islam.

Author

• Greg Fealy, Australian National University