Part 1

• Post-Salafi Dynamics in Cambodia: Transitioning from Counterreligion to Accommodation Zoltan Pall Austrian Academy of Sciences

  Over the last decade, Salafism in Mainland Southeast Asia has undergone rapid and profound transformation. In the first decades of their trajectory Salafi groups in the region functioned as a counterreligion. Participants believed they held the absolute truth and saw their primary mission as purifying Muslim practices, which they perceived as corrupted, such as celebrating the Prophet’s birthday, following the region-wide dominant Shafi’i legal school, and engaging in rituals influenced by Cham, Malay, and Khmer traditions.

  However, in recent years, the attitudes and practices of Salafis have shifted. Young Salafis have revised their discourses and attitudes towards non-Salafi Muslims, seeking cooperation and understanding with the Shafi’is and the Jama’at al-Tabligh, their main competitor on the field of da?wa.

  This paper aims to explore the factors that triggered these developments and examine how they are unfolding in the sociopolitical context of Cambodia’s Muslim minority. The presentation will delve into the establishment of Salafism in Cambodia and analyze the contributing factors to its remarkable success among the country’s Muslim minority. Furthermore, it will explore how the movement was co-opted by the regime, the aspirations of younger generations, and the influence of reformist trends from South Thailand and Malaysia, which played significant roles in shaping Salafism in the region.

  This analysis will scrutinize the process by which Salafis reinterpreted their sense of belonging within Cambodia and internalized the nation’s symbols. Moreover, it will examine how their discourse evolved in terms of reconciling the purity of Islam with a middle-class lifestyle, as well as their interactions with non-Muslims and non-Salafi Muslims.

• Touching Hearts, Improving Faith: Tablighi Jama’at and Preaching Islam in Contemporary Indonesia Wahyu Kuncoro University of Zürich

  The 1980s marked a new era for Islamic reform in Indonesia along with the development of Islamic movements that engage with the idea of purification of belief and practice. These movements included Salafism, introduced by graduates from universities in the Arabian Gulf, and Tablighi Jama’at, which is rooted in a reformist group in India. Both movements criticize traditional religious practices embedded in local culture as well as Islamic modernism. Consequently, they have often faced rejection from fellow Muslims for allegedly promoting intolerant Islam, resulting in constant government surveillance. This presentation focuses on the Indonesian Tablighi Jama’at, a transnational Islamic revivalist movement that invites Muslim fellows to return to the Islamic traditions of the first three generations of Muslims. Although Tablighi Jama’at and Salafism both share the same spirit of purification, “purist” Salafis accuse Tablighi Jama’at followers of being part of a heretical group for engaging in bi’dah practices. This accusation comes from Tablighi Jama’at’s affiliation with Indian Sufism traditions, the choice of hadiths used as references, and the da’wah method they employ. Despite criticism from the Salafi group, Tablighi Jama’at in Indonesia has developed as an Islamic alternative for Muslims who are opposed to Salafism or have been neglected by the Salafis, such as Muslims with disabilities, prisoners, and Muslims with tattoos.

  This presentation is based on ethnographic research conducted in 2018, 2019, and 2021 (about one year in total) by following Indonesian Tablighis (Tablighi Jama’at followers) as they organized their preaching of Islam (khuruj) in different places in Indonesia and Cambodia. This ethnographic research provides a fine-grained picture of how Indonesian Tablighi Jama’at conduct their preaching of Islam to Muslim fellows, how they situate their Islamic practices in relation to global Salafism including Arabian Gulf Islamic hegemony, and how Tablighi Jama’at ideology and practices are perceived by Muslims in Indonesia, including those who associate with the Salafi movement.

• Contextualising the Manhaj: New Approaches to Islamic Jurisprudence within Indonesian Salafism Chris Chaplin London School of Economics

  Few Islamic movements have arguably received as much academic and media attention as contemporary global Salafism (E.g., Wiktorowicz 2006, Meijer 2009). While ostensibly known for its rigid aspiration to emulate the first three generations of Muslims, recent scholasticism – often ethnographically driven – has shown the evolutionary nature of Salafism and dynamism involved within the creation of Salafi subjectivities (E.g., Inge 2016, Pall 2018, Bonnefoy 2011, Chaplin 2021). This paper builds upon this scholastic turn, exploring one specific transformation that has emerged amongst a prominent strand of Salafi scholars in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Beginning at the end of the last decade, a new generation of young (and predominantly locally trained) intellectuals have adopted the Shafi’i madhhaab (school of Islamic jurisprudence). More akin to traditional Indonesian scholasticism than Salafism’s established ‘post-madhhab’ approach to Islam, the use of Shafi’i jurisprudence has proved relatively successful in expanding Salafi influence in the city. To explore the significance of this transformation, I take an ethnographic lens explore the local and global political pressures behind this shift, investigate the key scholars and institutions involved, and ultimately reflect on the implications Shafi’i jurisprudence has to broader appeals to Salafi cohesion and Islamic authority. As I conclude, the adoption of the Shafi’i madhaab attests to a broader intention to represent a particular local religious genealogical claim amongst young Salafis. Yet it also illuminates the articulative variation and temporal flexibility within contemporary Salafi scholasticism, and the problem of speaking about any universal religious disposition.

Part 2

• Cherry-Picking Jihad? The Drivers of Salafi-Jihadism in the Southern Philippines Georgi Engelbrecht International Crisis Group

  The pinnacle of the Bangsamoro peace process has been the formation of an interim regional entity governing the Muslim-majority Bangsamoro region on Mindanao island in the Philippines. Years into the political transition, some gains of the peace process have been undoubtedly visible in parts of the region whilst violence and armed conflicts did continue in others. The Bangsamoro struggle has also moved away from one direction and the mainstream rebel groups – the Moro National Liberation and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) - towards several branches: Splinter groups emerged in recent history post-2012 which did not support the various peace processes in the country. Some of them had nominally a salafi-jihadist agenda, others were more focused on battling the state without much doctrinal fervour. The debate whether Mindanao-based groups are ideological players or opportunist actors has been a constant following the 2017 Battle of Marawi and was not fully resolved in academic discourse since. At present, there are voices who warn of a revival of salafi and salafi-jihadist attitudes in the region, especially fuelled by the Gaza War and even the mere fact that the MILF is leading the interim government. Yet at the same time, mainstream Islam in Mindanao has been also considered a bulwark against so-called “extremist” approaches and the ex-rebels are criticised more for bad governance rather than failing to implement a vision of the so-called “Islamic State”. Bangsamoro militants outside the MILF and MNLF - a possible but unlikely alternative to the mainstream actors - remain severely weakened but not entirely defeated. What explains the relative isolation of these outfits yet their ability to survive? This paper aims to analyse aspects the salafi-jihadist ideology of the Moro armed groups outside the peace process, as indicated by written and oral sources, and put them into context of the wider Bangsamoro conflict and the political transition in the region. The paper is timely in as far the peace process is currently facing challenges which traditionally has been a cause of uptick in militant violence.

• Pursuing Hijra to Salafi Path: Urban Muslim Youth and The Quest for Self-Transformation in Indonesia Syamsul Rijal Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia

  This paper explores the growing trend of self-transformation, commonly called as hijra, among young Muslims in Indonesia. It focuses on participants of an Islamic learning group organised at the Nurul Iman Mosque in Blok M Square, Jakarta. These young Muslims actively engage in regular Islamic learning and view their participation as a form of hijra (migration) to the Salafi path. By investigating their motivations, initial encounters with Salafism, and their understanding and implementation of hijra in both personal and social spheres, this study scrutinizes the conceptualization and practical enactment of hijra within their individual and communal lives. This study argues that these Salafi youths view hijra as an intricate transformative journey geared towards the augmentation of their Islamic devotion. They strive to integrate Salafi principles into their daily routines, manifesting in their adherence to Islamic dress codes, comportment in accordance with shari’a, abstention from visual imagery, avoidance of bid’a (unlawful innovation) and usurious transactions, adherence to the sunna in their social interactions, and the active pursuit of shari’a-compliant activities during their leisure time. The narratives recounted by the Salafi youth underscore the intricate dynamics they navigate, often involving compromises and accommodations to harmonize their steadfast commitment to the Salafi path with the imperatives of social cohesion within their familial and broader social milieu.

• Preparing for the future: navigating life pathways among young Salafi women in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia Rani Putri Australian National University

  While many studies on Salafism in Indonesia have tried to understand the movement by focusing on its young followers in urban setting, there is less emphasis on how the group is articulated by young women living within relatively underdeveloped and peripheral area. My research will fill this space by understanding Salafi movement in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara. Bima is located in the easternmost of Sumbawa Island, in the province of West Nusa Tenggara. The city is still categorised as underdeveloped area and ‘peripheral’ in relation to other cities in Indonesia, characterised by limited access to jobs, education facilities, and attractive gathering places for young people. Within these given localities, my research specifically asks how do education shape young Salafi women’s future aspirations and their dispositions as young individual. During my over four-months ethnographic fieldwork, I found that formal education such as participating in university does not automatically lead to secure jobs and other lucrative opportunities, however. Rather, informal education is seen as a more compelling channel that provides many opportunities in unexpected ways. Informal educations I mean here are to study in Islamic boarding schools (that focus on studying Quran and Arabic without providing formal degree), joining tahsinul Quran program, and attending majelis-majelis ilmu or kajian (assemblies for getting religious knowledge). Most of my interlocutors obtained jobs as a teacher and musrifah (a supervisor of the santri/students) through informal education they engaged in, regardless of their educational degree obtained from university or formal schooling. Furthermore, their engagement in these types of educations evokes a ‘connected feeling’ that increases interdependencies and mutualities among them as they strive for future progress.

Abstract