Page 50 - AEI Insights 2019 - Vol. 5, Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 5, Issue 1, 2019

the emergence of a new Islamic intellectualism led by a new generation of Islamic thinkers and
activists who, since the early 1970s, have sought to develop a new format for political Islam in
10
which substance, rather than form, serves as the primary orientation. Domestically, after
political Islam was oppressed during the early phase of the New Order government, Muslims
cadres turn to greater introspection (Watson, 1994, p. 186). As a result, many Muslims
involved with the religious discourse saw it as a period of moral rearmament. This activity rose
as a response to a strong feeling of malaise throughout the country, which can be construed as
a reaction both to blatant corruption in official circles and to grosser forms of materialism
(Watson, 1994).
Intellectually, there has been cooperation between the Ministry of Religion and other Western
universities to send Indonesian Muslim students to study Islam. As such, liberal Islam also
spread throughout the country. Fazlur Rahman’s thought, as noted by Bruinessen (2002),
became very influential in Indonesia due to the facts that several Indonesian scholars had
studied with him in Chicago and became the propagators and defenders of his ideas.
11
Undoubtedly due to them, many Indonesian young scholars developed his ideas further.
Both formalistic and substantive Muslims are in agreement with the democratic system. In fact,
senior supporters of Masyumi were the proponents of the western democratic system during
the Sukarno era. With the demise of Suharto’s government that marked “reform” and
democratisation, Muslims have again been given wider space in Indonesian politics. The
formalistic legalistic Muslim groups gradually formed Islamic movements whose basic
ideology have been based on Islam, Qur’an and Sunnah. This group was sometimes called
‘radical’ and ‘fundamentalist’. Radicalism, thus, does not refer to one particular religion in a
particular place but is a universal occurrence that can happen in all religious traditions.
According to the social sciences, radical social movements, regardless of whether there is a
religious impute or not, can be seen as movements of defiance (McAdam, 1999). This is
because their attitudes, views, and social behaviours are markedly different from those of
mainstream society.

According to the modern political approach, radical movements, as noted by Jamhari, are
rebellious, but should be rather seen as a natural movement consisting of individual political
goals (Jamhari, 2003, p. 19). Radical Muslims movement as one form of the Islamic revivalism
is best explained by anthropologists. For them, it is a movement which is inspired by cultural
and religious factors and is a response to an external power – such as colonialism or the
introduction of a foreign culture. It uses cultural and religious symbols in opposition to the
symbols used in mainstream society. As such this movement is a form of struggle against and
rejection of foreign cultural and power (Jamhari, 2003).
In the modern era, the majority of people are pre-occupied by the materialist and hedonistic
lifestyle, and their lives, thus, have been wrongly-directed. The religious groups who perform
their religious practices and enjoin people to do good and forbid them from doing evil have
been labelled as ‘radical’ or ‘fundamental’. But since these religious practices are carried out
only by a small number of people, and the Islamic revivalism is always precipitated by a small

10 This was basically advocated by the proponent of Cultural Islam led by Nurcholish Madjid. In this model,
Madjid introduced the notion of religious renewal, political reform and social transformation (Effendy, 2003).
11 These are graduates from the Western universities and propagated the Islamic liberal which was characterised
as rationalist, secular, pluralist. Harun Nasution, Nurcholish Madjid and others introduced the reformation of the
Islamic ideas, especially on socio-political issues in Indonesia. Their writings are used as guidance on how the
Muslims should endeavour in order to realise the socio-political objectives of Islam in this modern world (Effendy,
2003).

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