Which Islamization? According to Whom? Varieties of Shariah Normativization in Indonesia Today

• In Event: 296. (Mis-)Leading Religion and Politics: Islamization(s) in South and Southeast Asia

Abstract

Conservative proponents of the “Islamization” of state, society, and subjectivity often describe the process as a straightforward matter of bringing disparate experiential domains into alignment with Islamic ideals seen as uniform because based on a putatively unchanging shariah normativity. However, history and empirical research reveal that the ideals and practices of “Islamization” are anything but unitary. Their social and intellectual forms depend on an underlying concept of Islamic normativity, itself always shaped by a thoroughly contingent construction of Islamic knowledge and authority.
In this paper, I discuss and compare the process of Islamization in contemporary Indonesia in three different fields: in the implementation of Islamic shariah in the special district of Aceh; in discussions and debates over women and family law in the Aisyiyah women’s movement associated with the Muhammadiyah; and in the effort over the past ten years in the State Islamic College and University System (UIN/IAIN) to develop programs of civic education for use in Indonesian higher education. Actors in all three of these Islamization initiatives ground their efforts on what are said to be the core ethical values of Islamic revelation. But the ideals and “Islamization” at the heart of each of these initiatives vary. Their tensions and diversity demonstrate that the process of Islamization is always plural and contingent in form, as a result of its imbrications with other traditions of knowledge and other political projects and ethical registers.

Author

• Robert W. Hefner, Boston University