The Transnational and the Local in the Politics of Islam: The Case of West Sumatra, Indonesia

180 Pages·2015·2.88 MB·English

by  Delmus Puneri Salim (auth.)

Delmus Puneri Salim
The Transnational
and the Local in
the Politics of
Islam
The Case of West Sumatra, Indonesia
The Transnational and the Local
in the Politics of Islam
Delmus Puneri Salim
The Transnational and the
Local in the Politics of Islam
The Case of West Sumatra, Indonesia
123
DelmusPuneriSalim
The StateIslamic College STAINManado
Manado
Indonesia
ISBN 978-3-319-15412-1 ISBN 978-3-319-15413-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-15413-8
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Acknowledgments
This book is based on my Ph.D. thesis at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
University of Sydney. Credit is due to Springer and the reviewers for recom-
mending and publishing this book and making it available to a wider audience.
Chapter 2 of this book has been published in the Journal of Indonesian Islam, the
StateIslamicUniversity(UIN)SunanAmpelSurabayaentitled‘Islam,Politicsand
Identity in West Sumatra’.
Manypeoplehavecontributedtothisbookalongtheway.Ioweagreatdebtof
gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Michele Ford. Without her commitment,
guidance and deadlines, the completion of this manuscript would not have been
possible.Shehasaskedmanyquestionsandofferedmanyinsightfulcomments,and
helped me with the editing of the manuscript. I would also like to express my
gratitude to my associate supervisor, Professor Adrian Vickers, whose historical
insight has been very beneficial, to Dr. Novi Djenar, who advised me on critical
discourseanalysis,andtoDr.KeithFoulcher,whowentbeyondthecallofdutyin
his copyediting and proofreading of thetext. I would also like toexpress mygreat
appreciation to Dr. Minako Sakai, Dr. Nadirsyah Hosen and one anonymous
reviewer of my thesis. My thanks, too, to my colleagues and friends in the
Department of Indonesian Studies, Dr. Tiffany Tsao, Iskandar Nugraha, Thushara
Dibley,WaynePalmer,MartinSiraitandElizabethKramer,andtothelibrarystaff,
who helped me access the materials I needed for finishing the manuscript.
I owe a debt of immense gratitude to my beloved wife, Lies Kryati, who has
supported me in every way possible. I also need to mention my daughters, Chal-
ifaturrahmiandKharissa,whogavemerenewedenergywhenIwastiredofwriting
and my brothers and their families, who have given me the strength to finish the
manuscript. Finally, I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to my late father,
Sarwan Salim, and my mother, Suriati, whose love of education has motivated me
v
vi Acknowledgments
to pursue my studies. My father passed away in the early month of my doctoral
study in 2008. He had always reminded me, a village boy, that education would
change my life. He was right and I hope he would have been proud of my work.
I dedicate this manuscript to him.
February 2013 Delmus Puneri Salim
Abstract
Since the implementation of decentralisation, local governments in majority
Muslim regions across Indonesia have begun to promote, and in many cases, pass
regulations that mandate forms of social or economic behaviour seen to be com-
patiblewithIslam.ThisbooksituatesthepoliticalconstructionofIslamicbehaviour
in West Sumatra and in Indonesia more generally within a historical context in
which rulers have in some way engaged with aspects of Islamic practice since the
Islamic kingdom era. Its main concern has been to show that while formal local
Islamicregulationsofthiskindconstituteanewdevelopment,theirintroductionhas
beenaproductofthesamekindsofinteractionsbetweeninternational,nationaland
local elements that have characterised the relationship between Islam and politics
through the course of Indonesian history. In doing so, the book challenges the
scholarlytendencytoover-emphasiselocalpoliticalconcernswhenexplainingthis
phenomenon, arguing that it is necessary to forefront the complex relationship
between local politics and developments in the wider Islamic world.
Usingdetailedcasestudiesoffourdomainsofregulation(Islamicfinance,zakat,
education, and behaviour and dress) in a number of local government areas within
theprovince,thebooktracesthecontoursofthisrelationshipasexpressedinpublic
discourseandpolicy-making,asrepresentedinthelocalpress.Thisanalysisreveals
that although local factors have been stronger than the influence of global Islamic
networksinsomedomains,inothers,modelsofferedbytheMiddleEasthavebeen
as,ifnotmore,influential.Inallcases,however,politicalmotivationshavebeenan
importantdriverofIslamicregulation,ultimatelyeclipsingthesocialandeconomic
motivations of regional governments’ engagement in these domains. As this book
shows, these political ends are not driven by an ideological commitment to
Islamisation, but rather by a much more mundane concern with garnering and
maintaining political power in the context of decentralisation, albeit in some
instances with increasing emphasis on the forms of religious expression promoted
transnationally by the Arab states.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Islamic Regulation in the Regions: A Review of the Literature . . . . . . 4
Islamic Regulation as Social Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Transnationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Social and Economic Meanings of Islamic Regulation . . . . . . . . . 11
Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Case Study Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Documentary Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Interviews and Observer-Participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Book Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 Islam, Politics and Identity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
West Sumatra, the Malay World and the Coming of Islam . . . . . . . . . 22
The Arrival of Sufism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
The Coming of Syaria-Oriented Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Regulation of Islam Under the Dutch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Nationalism and Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The Rise of Political Parties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Legacies of the Japanese Occupation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Islamic Politics After Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
A West Sumatran Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Islam and Politics in Suharto’s Indonesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Islam and Identity Since Suharto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Conclusion: The Assertion of Islamic Identity in West Sumatra. . . . . . 46
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
ix
x Contents
3 Islamic Finance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Religious and Social Meanings of Islamic Finance . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Modern Islamic Banking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Islamic Financial Institutions and Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Assessments of Modern Islamic Banking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Islamic Finance in Indonesia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Hiccups in the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Islamic Banking Products Offered in Indonesia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Islamic Finance in West Sumatra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
The Public Discourse of Islamic Finance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Local Government Policy on Islamic Finance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4 Zakat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
The Religious and Social Meanings of Zakat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Zakat as Taxation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
The Administration of Zakat in Modern States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Transnational Zakat Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Zakat in Indonesia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Developments in the Post-Suharto Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Zakat in West Sumatra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The Public Discourse of Zakat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
The Regional Regulation of Zakat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5 Islamic Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
The Origins of Islamic Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Global Perspectives on Islamic Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
The Development of Islamic Education in Indonesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Islamic Education in West Sumatra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
The Public Discourse of Islamic Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Policies Promoting Islamic Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6 Behaviour and Dress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
The Religious and Social Meanings of Behaviour and Dress. . . . . . . . 128
Behaviour and Dress in the Islamic World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Behaviour and Dress in Indonesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
After Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Increasing Legal and Social Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Contents xi
Behaviour and Dress in West Sumatra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
The Public Discourse of Behaviour and Dress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Local Government Policy on Behaviour and Dress . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Transnational Factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
National Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Local Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
The Politics of Islam in West Sumatra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Appendix A: Newspaper Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Appendix B: Islamic Laws and Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Abbreviations and Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169