Indonesia's “Civil Islam” Can Be a Model for the Islamic World
A Movement
For Promoting Pluralist Islam Has Been Running In Indonesia Since 1990s.
Main
Points:
1. Indonesia
shows that Islam is compatible with democracy.
2. Indonesian
Muslims practice tolerance and equality.
3. Indonesian
Muslims believe that Islam is for all.
4. Organisations
like Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulema played an important role in the
transformation of Indonesia's Muslim society.
5. Indonesian
Muslims believe that democracy is a Trans civilisational instrument.
-----
By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
19 July
2022
At a time
when the idea that Islam cannot co-exist in pluralist societies and that Islam
is not compatible with democracy, Indonesia, a country with 87 per cent Muslim
population have demonstrated in practical terms that Islam is for all and that
democracy is a trans civilisational instrument through which equality and
pluralism can be made possible. Unlike the Taliban or the Islamists of the
Middle East, the Indonesian thinkers and Islamic scholars do not believe that
democracy is inherently western or liberal.
The fact is
that democracy as a form of government originated in Greece and not in America
as the Taliban would have Muslims believe. Since the 1990s, Indonesia's Muslim
thinkers and intellectuals have propounded a new concept of 'Civil Islam' which
envisages a society based on equality, non-violence, undifferentiated
citizenship and discouraging hostilities against other communities and sects.
Two Islamic
organisations ---Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulema -- played an important role
in the promotion of the idea of civil Islam. Apart from that Wahid Institute
and Baytar Rahman lil Dawa al Islamiyyah Rahmatal lil Alamin were also
established to promote civil Islam. This ideology attempts to shun extremist
and violent interpretations of Islam that are a hindrance to the establishment
of stability, peace and harmony in thr society.
Another
organisation that promoted the idea is Centre for Shared Civilisational Values.
The civil Islam opposes the idea of a global caliphate, blasphemy laws and the
use of the term Kafir for non-Muslims, and advocates the inclusion of science,
history and secular disciplines in Islamic schools.
Though
extremist and Salafi outfits also are active in Indonesia and the country has a
blasphemy law, but their influence has receded in recent decades and there have
been demands for the repeal of the blasphemy law 156a. The Islamic political
parties that got 40 per cent votes in 1955, got only 20 per cent votes in 1999.
This shows
that the Indonesian Muslims have accepted the pluralist form of Islam known as
civil Islam. Farah Adeed's article gives a detailed account of the transition
of Indonesian polity from a supremacist society to a pluralist society.
Indonesia's civil Islam, therefore, can be a model for the Islamic countries.
----
Is
Indonesia’s “Civil Islam” A Model for the Muslim World?
By
Farah Adeed
16 July
2022
The rise of
“Islamic
extremism” in
France, the re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the recent drift
toward Islamist politics—political efforts to enforce an orthodox
interpretation of Islam on society—in Turkey have revived the debate about
Islam’s relationship with democracy and liberty. French President Emmanuel
Macron wants to build “an Islam in France that can be compatible with the
Enlightenment.” The Taliban, on the other hand, have made
it clear that there
is no basis for a democratic system in Islam, with sharia law being absolute;
in Afghanistan, there will be only “Sharia law and that is it.”
Neither
Macron’s insistence on creating an “enlightened Islam” nor the Taliban’s
high-handedness in implementing sharia offers a workable solution. Contrary to
these singular approaches, Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country and
the “unlikeliest” democracy in the world, provides us with an example of how Islam is,
indeed, compatible with representative government and liberty and able to
reconcile with native cultures.
Indonesia’s
total population is 255 million, 87.2% of whom are officially Muslim
The country
came into the limelight after its successful transition to democracy in the
face of Islamist politics across the Muslim world. According to Freedom
House, Indonesia is
enjoying “significant pluralism in politics and the media and undergoing
multiple, peaceful transfers of power between parties” after the fall of an
authoritarian regime in 1998. The successful transition of Indonesia leads to
the question, How did Indonesia reconcile with Islam?
The role of
two Muslim social welfare organizations, the Muhammadiyah (est. 1912), with
over 25 million members, and the Nahdlatul Ulama (est. 1926), with over 90
million members, is considered to be extraordinarily important in reconciling
Islam with democracy. These two organizations are known as
“democracy-and-pluralism-enhancing” civic associations. The leadership and
members of these organizations remain committed to constitutional democracy and
civic pluralism, which has led to what Robert Hefner calls Civil
Islam..
Hefner argues that Civil Islam is based upon three broad
principles: first, that democracy does not require complete separation between
religious institutions and state authority; second, that Civil Islam affords
state-societal collaborations, and simultaneously discourages both Islamists
and secularists; and third, that the core value of Civil Islam is the notion
that democracy is neither inherently Western nor liberal but rather “a modern
and trans-civilizational instrument” to negotiate “social difference in a world
of diverse communities and interests.” Such an approach to understanding Islam
positions the religion as a path to spiritual perfection, not as a supremacist
ideology or a vehicle for the conquest of the world.
Another
question raised by the idea of pluralistic Islam is how was the notion of Civil
Islam created and fostered in Indonesian society? The available literature
suggests that the leaders of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) started producing “core
scholarship” that focused on both Islamic ethics and pluralist democracy.
Reforms rooted in this scholarship expanded and increased in the 1990s during
Indonesia’s massive socio-political transformations. The majority of Indonesian
Muslim thinkers and politicians from the 1990s onward promoted an
interpretation of Islam that intended to imbricate its core values and
practices with modern and democratic norms such as religiously undifferentiated
citizenship.
In 2004,
Abdurrahman Wahid, a former president and chairman of the NU, founded The
Wahid Institute,
for the promotion of Civil Islam. Similarly, Yahya Cholil Staquf, chairman of
the Executive Council of Nahdlatul Ulama, cofounded Bayt ar-Rahmah li
ad-Da‘wa al-Islamiyah Rahmatan li al-‘Alamin (Home of Divine Grace
for Revealing and Nurturing Islam as a Blessing for All Creation) in 2014 and
the Institute for Humanitarian Islam and Center for Shared Civilizational
Values in 2021 to spread the idea that Islam is for everyone. In short,
Indonesian Civil Islam opposes the orthodox Islamic interpretations of a global
caliphate, blasphemy laws, and the use of the term Kafir (infidel) for
non-Muslims in the context of state life, because both Muslims and non-Muslims
have equal rights under the Indonesian constitution. It further advocated ideas
such as more education for women and the incorporation of science, history, and
other secular disciplines into Islamic schools.
The lasting
implications of such reforms can be gauged by the fact that in 1955 religious parties
with an aim to establish an Islamic state won more than 40% of the total vote
in Indonesia. However, in elections held since 1999, religious parties with an
agenda to impose sharia could capture only 20% or less of the vote. The
national elections of 2019 showed the continuity of this trend.
Despite the
progressiveness of Indonesian Civil Islam, the country has a controversial
blasphemy provision—Article 156a of the Dutch-inspired Criminal Code, which criminalizes the expression of “hostility, hatred
or contempt against” a religious group and “deviant interpretations” of
religious teachings. Indonesia has also recently witnessed the rise of Islamist
politics. In 2016, “Defending Islam” rallies against former Jakarta governor
Basuki Tjahaja Purnama were attended by more than one million people. These
rallies were jointly organized by several groups, including the Islamic
Defenders Front (FPI) and the Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI). However, in 2009,
Abdurrahman Wahid urged his country to repeal Article 156a, saying “God
needs no defense.”
In other words, despite the challenges posed by both local and transnational Islamist
organizations, Indonesia’s Civil Islam continues to adhere to its principles of
inclusivity, freedom, and tolerance.
Questioning
Indonesia’s Civil Islam In Foreign Cultures
Some Muslim
scholars have been making a case for a “democratic
theory for Muslim societies,” and the successful democratization
of Indonesia further strengthens their project. However, there are still some
questions about the viability and long-term implications of Indonesia’s Civil
Islam in foreign cultures.
First, from
a democratic theory standpoint, Indonesia’s inclusive interpretation of Islam
emerged organically from society. There was never one strongman with a singular
understanding of Islam who affected change. Rather, Indonesia’s Civil Islam has
always been about public intellectuals, communities, and people’s participation
in government. In other words, the largest Muslim civic organization in
Indonesia was not an institutional weapon like so many other Islamist groups
across the Muslim world, in that it did not try to impose an orthodox religious
interpretation on the people.
Second, the
mere presence or participation of civic organizations in any society does not
necessarily lead to democratization. Such organizations—and the people who run
them—have to be grounded in the principles of equality and liberty. For
instance, the fundamental Quranic principle of liberty that “there is no
compulsion in religion” (2:256) has been at the heart of Indonesia’s democratic
evolution.
Civil Islam
can be a model for the Muslim world not as a political doctrine but as an
alternative framework for an inclusive interpretation of Islam. As a moral and
spiritual force, it does not denounce the cultural capital of societies;
rather, it affords the reconciliation of local cultures with global realities.
This reconciliation is important; as the cases of Afghanistan and Turkey
demonstrate, any attempt by Islamists to strip away local culture leads to a
serious identity crisis and democracy suffers in the long run.
Finally, as
in Indonesia, the project of introducing Civil Islam to the greater Muslim
world has to be carried out by local civil society and public intellectuals for
the evolution and development of a discourse on pluralistic religious
understandings. For this, there has to be a sustained and extensive interaction
between Indonesians and those who wish to import the Civil Islam paradigm.
There must be conferences, internships and workshops, seminars, and student
study-abroad programs to promote the free exchange of ideas. Young Muslims are leaving
Islam because of
the prevailing religious orthodoxy in countries such as Turkey. As a Muslim, I
believe Indonesia’s Civil Islam can help reassure young Muslims about the
compatibility of liberty and their religion, which will only strengthen Islam
worldwide.
------
Farah
Adeed is a Presidential Graduate Research Fellow at San Diego State University
and a member of the Acton Institute’s 2022 Emerging Leaders class. The article
has been republished with the author’s permission. The views expressed in the
article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial
policy of Global Village Space.
Source:
Is Indonesia’s “Civil Islam” A Model
for the Muslim World?
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-society/indonesia-civil-islamic-world/d/127513
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