Papers

• The Intertwinement of Piety, Identity, and Agency in Indonesia: The Practices of Prophetic Medicine in Urban Areas Yanwar Pribadi Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia

  This study aims to investigate the practices of prophetic medicine in urban Indonesia. It seeks to identify the primary reasons for the growing popularity of this form of faith healing amongst Muslims in Indonesian urban settings. I examine the practices of prophetic medicine in two Javanese cities through ethnographic fieldwork and the socio-religious landscape within which it is enmeshed through gathering data from the field. Employing notions of piety, identity, and agency, this article suggests that prophetic medicine is not only the product of an interest among Indonesian urban Muslims to live according to the Sunna (the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions and practices that constitute a model for Muslims to follow) and perform piety, but the increasing use of prophetic medicine is also influenced by the strong drive to accentuate certain Muslim identity and the persistent desire to enact religious agency.

• Urban youth, Islam and circulatory practices in an inner-city kampung of Jakarta Moh Zaki Arrobi Utrecht University

  In this article, I seek to understand how the urban youth of Jakarta employ various strategies and tactics to deal with various forms of precarity. More specifically, I discuss how the Betawi youth have practiced various forms of circulation to navigate the increasingly precarious urban landscape. I argue that the Betawi youth’s circulatory practices could be read not just as a navigational capacity to secure immediate and material gains such as access to employment and social networks to survive in the uncertain city but also as an articulation of broader religious aspirations concerning how to live a good life.

  In advancing such an argument, I draw from my ethnographic study of the everyday life of lower-class residents in an inner city kampung of Jakarta. I spent eight months of ethnographic fieldwork by living in the area between 2021 and 2022, and then I returned to the district for about three months in the middle of 2023.

  I take two examples of how the urban Betawi lower-class youth have practiced different kinds of transversal mobility to navigate the everyday forms of precarity: (1) how local youth circulate through various forms of territorial, religious, and ethnic associations —local youth organization, neighbourhood association, society organization known as ormas (organisasi masyarakat), mosque association, dhikr majelis, to name a few—, as a way to open up new spaces and opportunities; (2) how local youth circumnavigate the neighbourhood and the city through organizing Islamic torch parade (pawai obor) to articulate their religious and moral aspirations and remain visible in the context of a fragmented and segregated city.

• The Performance of Ziyarah as Female Urban Ba ‘Alawi’s Expression of Piety in Indonesia Fatimah Husein State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta Indonesia

  Within academic discussions of Indonesia’s Hadhrami, women’s voices have often unheard. While many important studies focus on the Hadhrami diaspora in Southeast Asia, and particularly on the role of male religious authorities, there is an academic void on Ba ‘Alawi female, especially within the Indonesian context. Building on my earlier paper titled “Preserving and Transmitting the Teachings of the Thariqah ‘Alawiyyah: Diasporic Ba ‘Alawi Female Preachers in Contemporary Indonesia” (JIOWS, 2021), this present article focuses on contemporary expression of piety in the form of non-hajj pilgrimage (ziyarah) led by Indonesian urban Ba ‘Alawi women to the tombs of male and female Muslim saints, as well as to visit living pious Hadhramis within Indonesia and Hadhramaut, South Yemen. While in the past, Indonesian-born Hadhramis (muwalladin) had the tradition of sending their male children to Hadhramaut to immerse them into the knowledge, cultures and customs of their ancestors, the contemporary practice of Indonesian urban Ba ‘Alawi female to study in Hadhramaut empowers them to assume new roles as holders of religious authority, albeit with their socio-religious struggles. This authority labored by Indonesian urban Ba ‘Alawi female, partly manifested through leading the ziyarah, is a proof of their strong presence within Indonesian Muslims’ everyday lives.

• Islamism Manifest or Simply a Flash in the Pan? Making Sense of the Green Wave among Urban and Semi-urban Muslims in Malaysia Azmil Tayeb School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia

  The recent GE15 has not only seen a deep faultline separating the Malays and non-Malays, or rather, Muslims and non-Muslims, but also within the Malay electorate. This presentation specifically looks at the green wave phenomenon in Malay-majority urban and semi-urban areas and areas where non-Malays constitute a sizeable minority. These areas have historically been favourable to multi-ethnic and multi-religious political parties but have now shifted their support to ethno-religious parties. Is this an electoral manifestation of the success of Islamism, a socio-political project undertaken by numerous actors since the late 1970s? Or are there other factors that drive PN’s stellar electoral performance among Malay-Muslims in urban and semi-urban areas? I argue that the green wave is a form of political expression of Malay-Muslims in the time of uncertainty and fragmentation that transcends geographic and class differences. It marks the changing of guard in the protection of Malay and Islamic rights in Malaysia from BN-UMNO to PN. In other words, the Malay-Muslim insecurities that have been evident since the aftermath of the 2018 general election, symbolized by BN-UMNO’s ignominious downfall and the ascendancy of the Chinese-dominated DAP, provide PN with the opportunity to capture the narrative as the bona fide defender of Malay and Islamic rights against threats within and without.

Abstract