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Hefner: Islam in an Era Paper

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This study edited by anthropologists Robert Hefner and Patricia Horvatich is an important contribution to the understanding of Islam's role in shaping the twentieth-century nation-states of Southeast Asia and its Muslim population's perceptions of their own identity.

In spite of the wide range of topics there is a remarkable consistency in the authors' approaches. One indication for this is the frequency with which the same source material is referenced. This is not a sign of prejudice, but rather of an understanding of certain important "megatrends." For example, the authors of six of the book's ten chapters have consulted Eickelman's "Mass Higher Education and the Religious Imagination in Contemporary Arab Societies"; signaling their shared awareness of the impact of educational changes on the innovative engagement with religiosity.

According to Hefner's introduction, the dominant discourse in Southeast Asia is "a remarkable combination of pluralism, intellectual dynamism, and openness to dialogue." Southeast Asian Islam's specific social and historical horizon enables us to deepen our understanding of the Muslim world's diversity. In a brief digression Hefner then takes scholars to task for their distorted views of Southeast Asian Islam. Following the authority of Clifford Geertz, most Asianists have dismissed local Islam as just a thin layer of veneer, while many Islamologists consider Southeast Asia as the geographical and intellectual periphery of the Muslim world.

Hefner points also to country-specific patterns, like Indonesian Islam's "long history of pluralism and extra-governmental independence"; Malaysia's limitations on civil autonomy; and the Philippines' search for a balance between Muslim dominance in the south and the danger of its marginalization within the nation-state.

The first essay -- Thomas McKenna's study of Muslim or "Moro" identity in the Cotabato area -- forms a welcome correction of the often ill-understood position of Filipino Muslims. Hefner's second contribution "Islamization and Democratization in Indonesia" is one of the volume's most impressive essays. This grand scheme is explained on the basis of a genealogy of the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI). Not only is this fascinating phenomenon an astonishing departure from Suharto's earlier New Order policies, but its importance is further enhanced by the fact that virtually all key Muslim leaders played a part in its development, whether they effectively joined the organization or not. Although French journalist Andrée Feillard's examination of the tensions between nation-state and traditionalist Islam provides an illustrative account of the role of the world's largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), in Indonesian politics, some of her conclusions depend too much on inferences that are difficult to substantiate.

John Bowen opens the book's second section with a study of the challenges posed by modernity to local perceptions of self. His approach is reminiscent of James Siegel's seminal study "The Rope of God." Where Siegel surveyed both traditional Acehnese Muslim literature and twentieth-century periodicals, Bowen has studied Muslim rhetoric in neighboring Gayo on the basis of an entirely new genre of poetry called "saèr." Anthropologists like Siegel and Bowen must be congratulated for their willingness to depart from their discipline's established methodologies.

With her study of the Ahmadiyya Movement on the Philippine Island of Simunul, co-editor Patricia Horvatich has inarguably made the most extraordinary contribution. By choosing such an arcane topic the author has also been able to underscore the "drawing-in" effect of modernization. No place is immune to its impact. At the same time it is important to realize that such intrusions are not necessarily all negative: in spite of the potential menaceto the inhabitants of such remote places, being considered "worthy" of outside attention also can give rise to a new sense of self.

The last essay examining reform and reformism is dedicated to the problematic relation between the student-dominated Dakwah or Revivalist movement(s) and the government in Malaysia. This is placed against the background of the centrality of "Muslimness" to the notion of "Malayness." To illustrate the development of these tensions, author Shamsul A.B. has opted for a historical treatment: identifying an "awakening period" in which humanities students dominated the movement; a "forward movement period" during which the science students took over; a "mainstreaming period" characterized by growing state influence; and the current "Dakwah and Industrialized Malaysia period", in which - according to the author's prediction -- the movement will continue to penetrate still highly traditionalist rural Malaysia, while its ideological outlook will become increasingly pluralist.

The two essays on "Ordinary Muslims" serve to illustrate the resilience of traditionalist Islam, or better ordinary Muslims' perceptions of what it means to be Muslim. Michael Peletz warns against the assumption that all Malay(sian) Muslims are squarely behind the Dakwah movement, on the contrary: "many, perhaps most, are clearly hostile both to various elements of the movement and state agents and others who endorse it." On the other hand resistance is curtailed by four variables: the state policy against any "counterhegemonic" discourse; a more hidden form of censorship; the moral and existential constraints posed by the centrality of "being Muslim" to Malay cultural identity; and the "Panopticon" of social control. Martin Rössler's study of Muslim identities in a rural community of South Sulawesi tries to make a case for finding some middle ground between local particularity and an "Islam of all times and all places."

In her Afterword South Asia historian Barbara Metcalf shares some final thoughts, in which she endeavors to draw some parallels with the study of history, religion and nationhood in her own area of specialization.

Islam in an Era of Nation-States is a balanced account based on both micro- and macro-level studies. The reader comes away with the impression that the modernization project in Southeast Asia has produced - like probably everywhere else - the good, the bad, and the ugly. On the one hand, it has provided Southeast Asians with a toolbox for critical engagement with their own heritage. At the same time many may have failed to realize the immanent danger of throwing out the child with the bathwater. On the other hand, it has led some reformists to develop a tunnel-vision worldview that sometimes borders on self-hate.