The rise of Islamic protestantism in Indonesia

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, The Jakarta Post

This goes beyond a simple case of an "oddball" preacher in Malang leading prayers in Arabic and Bahasa Indonesia. The controversy over the preacher from East Java performing prayers in two languages is, unwittingly, part of the growing enlightenment that rejects the traditional dogma of state-sponsored religion.

It is not a challenge toward religion per say, but protestantism in response to the hegemony of organized religion in Indonesia and the state's monopoly over religious righteousness.

For over three decades the state ruled by proxy over the masses through state institutions and conservative clerics whose words and fatwa defined what was or what was not considered virtuous. Dissenters were branded heretic.

Thirty years of totalitarianism reduced people's capacity to think, producing a society in love with its own enslavement. If everything was so perfectly defined, what need is there for reason?

Reformasi is still wanting in its goal of creating a just, democratic society, but at the very least it provides a window for free thought.

This window has brought about revisionism in all areas of life once decreed sacrosanct. Authority over religion is quietly raging a battle that is becoming 'bloodier' by the day.

A group of young "liberal" Islamic thinkers like Ulil Abshar Abdala were condemned to death, by fatwa, for challenging traditional conservatism.

A draft Islamic Code of Law which included articles redressing the rights of women was struck down under pressure from theocons and fear of "inciting public unrest".

Most recently, Muhammad Yusman Roy of the Islamic boarding school Pondok I'tikaf Jama'ah Ngaji Lelaku was arrested for leading prayers in Arabic and Indonesian.

After the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict saying prayers can only be conducted in Arabic, Roy had thus allegedly violated Article 156 (a) of the Criminal Code on despoiling an organized religion. The crime carries a maximum punishment of five years imprisonment.

Strangely, the exclusive use of Arabic in Islamic liturgy has been a matter of debate for centuries.

Over a millennium ago two acclaimed Islamic philosophers -- Abu Hanifah (a Persian) and Syafi'i (an Arab) -- were already arguing this very point. The latter, not surprisingly, contending Arabic was the sole permissible language in prayers.

In the 1930s, Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal (Kemal Ataturk) instructed that the adzan -- the call to prayer -- be read in Turkish.

Repeated cases in Indonesia have also shown, there is an inability to differentiate between Islam and Arabic tradition.

The "grand old man of the republic", Haji Agus Salim, demanded the shroud between men and women participants in a 1927 Islamic youth conference in Yogyakarta be removed saying the separation of the sexes in such a manner was not an Islamic, but rather an Arab tradition.

Cleric Roy himself before he was arrested was not contesting the core tenets of Islam -- the belief in one God and fate, the Prophet Muhammad, shalat, and faith in the hereafter. His purpose seemed simply to make religious text more accessible. To engage in a more "tender" dialog with God.

Under political duress Roy has apologized but remains adamant about continuing his prayers in the two languages, albeit only with his immediate family.

Even the most conservative clerics would agree that Islam is a religion that encourages scientific and cognitive thought. Hence it is ironic that militancy, not rationale and debate, prevails.

As Salim has shown, debate was part of the healthy Indonesian Islamic culture in the pre-New Order days. In the 1950s there were articles on the opposing views of Persis and Muhammadiyah (two prominent Islamic organizations) on religious issues.

The analogy of Martin Luther and his excommunication by Pope Leo X in the 16th Century may be offensive to some Muslims, but the historical parallel is worth studying.

No one here is hammering a list of demands on a church door. Nevertheless the social environment which permits free and rational thought is challenging the parochialism of organized religion. It is neither an organized nor a conscious movement. It is trend which stems naturally from humanity's desire to find sequential truth based on reason, not doctrine.

It is no threat to religion, especially Islam. It is however intimidating to those who exploit religion as a means of mind control.

Maybe Muslims in this country are undergoing their own initial phase of religious enlightenment and reformation. A welcome end result would be a rational approach to religion which would eliminate religion from politics -- An end to clerics who forget that in Islam there is no such thing as a priesthood which has structural control over a congregation; an end to religious claims that women cannot become leaders; an end to politicians who can claim probity because they show themselves to be pious by using Islamic (Arabic) symbolism.

"Without doubt there can be no faith, for it only leads to blind faith."