INDONESIAN ISLAM AND SOCIAL CHALLENGES BETWEEN MORAL CULTIVATION AND INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT

Abstract

This paper deals with what is commonly known as an Indonesian Islam, its characters and challenges. It defines Indonesian Islam as that which is understood and practiced in Indonesia. The paper argues that, a particular context would determine the way Islam is being interpreted and then expressed. In this way, Indonesian Islam is different from its Arabic, Persian or Turkish counterparts. The paper also tries to show that Indonesian Islam transcends the social and cultural constructs of the Arab society in which it first emerged. To understand the way Islam is expressed here is therefore to get rid of those Arab socio-cultural limitations. Being unique however, Indonesian Islam is still related to what happens at the global scale. Hence, the challenges it faces are the same challenges faced by its counterparts. This paper tries to analyze those challenges and how Indonesian Islam deals with them. Basically, it argues that in dealing with those challenges posed particularly by the forces of modernity, Indonesian Islam undertakes two forms of strategy; 1) it tries to cultivate religious and moral values through education, and 2) it tries to develop its own religious discourses in line with its local culture. The first may be termed axiological while the second epistemological. The Nahdhadul Ulama (NU) movement may be treated as representing the first, while the so-called liberal thinkers represent the second.