Minoritization & Criminalization of Shia Islam in Indonesia

Abstract

29 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXIX, No.2, WINTER 2016 Minoritization & Criminalization of Shia Islam in Indonesia1 Dicky Sofjan2 Background Historically, Shia Islam has been around in the Nusantara3 —an archaic name for most of the territory under the colonial control of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia)—for many centuries. Evidence suggests that vestiges of Shia influence extend to Muslim pockets throughout Southeast Asia, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Southern Philippines. Unfortunately, historiography of the Shia Muslims in the country has been buried by grand, if not hegemonic, narratives about the arrival of Islam and its vast spread across the archipelago by the Wali Songo (Nine Saints) of Java, some of whom were more accepting and tolerant than others in their practice of infusing local Hindu-influenced customs, traditions and culture into Islamic dakwah (propagation). An example of such fusion is the familiar utilization of wayang (traditional Javanese shadow puppet) performances to spread the core messages of Islam. 1 The article is a product of a previous draft paper that was presented in the 32th American Council on the Study of Islamic Societies Conference at Villanova University, which was held on April 17-18, 2015. The initial thoughts and ideas for this work were presented in a workshop at the State Islamic University of Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on “Religious Diversity and Cultural Identity”. The workshop, held on November 22, 2013, was in collaboration with Georg-August-Universität Göttingen based in Germany. 2 The author is a Core Doctoral Faculty of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), located in the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In ICRS, Dr. Sofjan regularly teaches Religion and the Politics of Multiculturalism at the Ph.D. level. He can be contacted at: dickysofjan@ugm.ac.id or dickysofjan@yahoo.com. 3 The reference to “Shia Islam” (from Shi’atu Ali) may seem redundant to some and unfitting for others. The same argument could be made to the phrase “Sunni Islam” (from Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah). Both Shia and Sunni Islam are two official main schools of thought in Islam, according to the “Amman Message” drafted in November 2004, which attempted to unify Muslims from different creeds and madzhabs (schools of thought). For more, see its official website at: http://www.ammanmessage.com. Throughout this article, I will treat the words “Shia” and “Sunni” as both adjectives and pronouns. 30 It is therefore almost a truism to state that Shia Islam only came to the Indonesian shores in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran, which brought to center stage a medieval-looking, yet charismatic and idiosyncratic, long-bearded religious figure cloaked in black garb and turban. The clerical figure was the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini or otherwise known by the Iranian masses as “Imam Khomeini”, who was known to have valiantly confronted Western powers for their penchant to gain hegemonic control over oil-rich Iran and the Middle East. Immediately after successfully dethroning the autocratic monarch, Shahanshah Muhammad Reza Pahlevi, Khomeini ardently called for the exportation of the Revolution to all corners of the world, while inciting the mustadh’afin (oppressed people) to rise up against the mustakbirin (oppressors).4 Unsurprisingly, Khomeini became an instant idol at the last quarter of the 20th century, who represented Muslim audacity against the ‘morally bankrupted West’. In his quarrel with the United States of America, Khomeini persistently labeled the most powerful state as Syaiton-e Bozorg (Great Satan). The revolutionary fervor was invariably followed by a rising expectation among the disheartened Muslim intellectuals and political activists, who perceived the victory of the Islamic Revolution not only as a cause celêbre, but also as a possible turning point for the stagnant and dormant ummah (Islamic world community) and the beginning of the end for Western secular civilization. In Indonesia, the Islamic Revolution of Iran immediately spawned discussions and debates in many circles, which brought Indonesian Muslim intellectuals and students in contact with Iranian Shia religious scholars and writers such as Murtadha Motahhari, Ali Syariati, Muhammad Hussein Thabathaba’i and obviously Khomeini himself. Many of their books...