Asian Studies

However, when talking about the Muslim countries, Indonesia is rarely contemplated in the same breath as such countries as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and other Middle Eastern centers of Islam. What is it that makes Indonesian Islam so markedly different In this essay, I will examine first the introduction of Islam to the archipelago, concentrating on its gradual manifestation in society and who effected and was affected by its expansion. Secondly, I will examine how the ethnic and religious diversity of the area have worked to influence how Islam is viewed in Indonesian society. Last, I will look at the unique idea of Pancasila and its relationship to Indonesian Islam. Through this examination, I will argue that each of these individual components, the history of Islam in the area, the diversity of the population, and the rule of Pancasila compliment a political and social situation, act together to create a wholly different Islamic society in Indonesias combination of secularism, religion, and culture.

The Roots of Indonesian Islam Introduction and Influences
In the next two paragraphs, I will examine how the conversion of Indonesias people unfolded, propelled by trade and largely independent of war or imperial expansion but by centuries of commerce with Muslim traders. There is evidence that Islam had made inroads into Indonesian society centuries before it began to spread throughout the country in the 14th century (Ricklefs, 2001, p. 3). Islam emerged through two types of conversion, the first being indigenous Indonesians came into contact with Islam and made an act of conversion, (Ricklefs, 2001, p. 3). The second form of conversion was through foreigners who were Muslims and settled into the area  (2001, p. 3). The location of the archipelago made it particularly susceptible to the influx of Muslim traders, both from China and the Arab Peninsula, as the shipping routes ran directly through the waters adjacent to Indonesia  (Ricklefs, 2001, p. 3).

Sufism is seen as the most influential form of Islam during this conversion period (Frederick  Worden, 1993). Early Muslim teachers attempted to appeal to the mystical, superstitions of the native population, perhaps claiming supernatural powers  which had long been familiar with the mystical speculations of Hinduism and Buddhism (Ricklefs, 2001, p. 6). By the 16th century, Islams full-fledged immersion into Indonesian culture was coming to fruition with the introduction of texts written in Malay that normalized circumcision, the Confession of Faith, and Arabic names (Ricklefs, 2001, p. 14). Similar texts in Javanese reveal an Islamic orthodoxy as well as an underlying mysticism (2001, p. 14). That these texts represent an orthodoxy similar to that found in Arabic texts shows that Indonesias version of Islam started from the same ideological basis as its Arabic manifestation. While the manuscripts reveal some adaptations to Javanese surroundings   the teachings of these texts could have been found in any orthodox mystical community in the Islamic world (Ricklefs, 2001, p. 14). The broad variations in the practice and interpretations of Islam  in a much less austere form than that practiced in the Middle East (Frederick  Worden, 1993) helped to allow for a more custom fitting of the religion to the region.

Ethnic and Religious Diversity
In the next two paragraphs, I will examine how the religious and ethnic diversity of Indonesia has helped to shape the form of Islam peculiar to the country. Though the majority of Indonesias over 230 million citizens are Muslim, Islam in Indonesia has been unusual in the combination of the new religion with the tribal philosophy of the area. While the majority of Muslims in Indonesia are Sunnis of the Shafii school of thought (Emmerson, 1999, p. 205), there are still hundreds of thousands of locals, spread throughout the islands, whose beliefs resemble local or tribal patterns of belief and ritual (1999, p. 206). The gradual pace with which Islam emerged in Indonesia is not indicative of a rejection of Islam but rather the diversity of the different groups within Indonesia. Tibi explains that there are 300 different ethnic cultures. That is why the great cultural variety is a main characteristic of Indonesian Islam (Tibi, 1995). Added to this is the Christian and Hindu-Buddhist minorities who remain on the islands, despite the prevalence of Islam.

Within the Muslim community itself, tensions have emerged between the santri and abangan. Santri are Muslims who are consciously and exclusively Muslim and have removed themselves from the world to concentrate on devotional activities in Islamic schools called pesantren  literally place of santri (Frederick  Worden, 1993). The abangan hold beliefs that are an indigenous blend of native and Hindu-Buddhist beliefs with Islamic practices sometimes also called Javanism, kejawen, agama Jawa, or kebatinam (Frederick  Worden, 1993). Such practices, evident from the earliest days of Islamic conversion in Indonesia, have been explained on the grounds that these apparent divinities were really just a species of jinn, a type of spirit acknowledged by the Quran as having been created, by God,  For legal-minded Muslims, however, such rituals smacked of polytheism, a grievous sin in Islam  (Emmerson,1999, p.  216). Overall, in the modern era, Indonesias form of Islam owes its difference to its leaders ability to find a balance between the secular and the religious in public life. Far removed from the Arabic root of Islam, Indonesian Muslims as a whole became less Mecca-centered (Geertz, 1976, p.205). It is this separation from the core of orthodox belief that Geertz believes makes it very hard, given his tradition and his social structure, for a Javanese to be a real Moslem  to accept fully at the deepest emotional levels a religion (1976, p. 160).  In particular, the exclusivity of Islam does not merge well with the Javanese beliefs of community and nationalism   (Geertz, 1976, p. 160) and the nations acceptance of Islam has much to do with their ability to apply traditional concepts to this new religious ideology.

Pancasila Tribal Meets Religion
This particular political and social structure that has remained in Indonesian culture owes much to the merging of the religious and traditionalist views of the area. In these final two paragraphs, I will examine how these ideals emerged in the application of Pancasila to modern Indonesian society and Islam. After independence, secular and religious groups battled for control of the government. In order to find a balance between the needs of the two, Sukarno called for a government based on the tradition of the five principles of Pancasila, which include a belief in a single supreme God, equality, unity, democracy, and social justice (Schwarz, 2000, p. 10). Tibi describes the importance of the Pancasila belief in monotheism as distinct in allowing for the modern application of Islam in Indonesia, deviation from the traditional Islamic Dhimmi principle. Pancasila puts Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists on an equal level (Tibi, 1995).  By addressing early the instances of extremism in their political framework, Indonesian lawmakers both endorsed moderate Islam while officially condemning hard-line fundamentalism. Combined with the countrys ethnic and religious harmony, where various groups live together in peace and mutual respect. In Indonesia, too, there exists fundamentalism which can, however, be treated  in contrast to the Arab Mediterranean region  as quantity negligible (Tibi, 1995). The low occurrences of fundamentalism represent one of the aspects which have kept Indonesia out of the mainstream talks of Islamist extremism and this owes primarily to the uniqueness of the Indonesian political and social foundations.

In the 1980s, lawmakers continued in this trend of embracing moderation in religion by attempting to deepen Islamic traditions of pluralism and tolerance. However, at the same time, the rising interest in Islam seriously challenged nominal Muslims  and followers of other faiths, and posed difficult questions about the role of religion in state and society (Emmerson, 1999, p. 206-207). Pancasila has affected both the legal and religious boundaries of Indonesian society, reaching into the very infrastructure of Indonesian Islam. For example, Muhamah Ali from the State Islamic University in Jakarta describes one major difference being the role of imams and other Muslim holy men in Indonesia, In Indonesia, generally speaking, the role of many Imams seems to be more ritualistic, formalistic and often artificial. Problems such as corruption, violence and terrorism, social diseases caused by communal disintegration are often ignored or only figure marginally in their sermons (qtd. in Kuppuswamy, 2005). In this we can see that the true success of Indonesias Islamic community is not in the ability to recognize a more moderate form of faith than practiced elsewhere but in the political equality of all religions under the Pancasila system.

In conclusion, this essay has argued that the uniqueness of Indonesian Islam is owed to the gradual emergence of Islam in the area, the continued ethnic and religious diversity of the archipelago, and finally the application of the five principles of Pancasila in modern society and religion. Slowly emerging over centuries, Islams roots in Indonesia run deeply and have merely flourished since independence. In addition, the diversity of its people and the continuance of non-Muslim religions in the area prompted a need for the application of the Pancasila principles to alleviate the tensions that have plagued other majority Muslim countries. While Indonesia is far from immune to Islamic fundamentalist tensions, the combination of history, tolerance and tradition have provided a middle-ground between new and old belief, where Indonesian Islam forms a synthesis with nationalism (Tibi, 1995). In this environment, Indonesian Islam emerges as a partner to secularism rather than opposition, distinguishing and empowering the religion within not only the basic tenets of Islam but also the political and social traditions of Indonesia itself.