Religion in Indonesia: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism

Islam in Indonesia

Islam was largely the dominant faith in Indonesia, with the largest number of adherents constituting approximately 87% of the total population in 1985 (Kipp, 2002, p. 78). This high proportion of Muslims made Indonesia the greatest Islamic nation in the world in the early 1990s. Most islands and provinces in the country had a large Muslim population. According to orthodox practice, Islam is a strictly monotheistic faith in which Allah is omnipresent. Muslims do not classify Prophet Muhammad as God, but regard the Prophet as a servant of Allah who spread the word of the Quran to the people. Islam is a faith grounded in elevated moral principles, and commitment to those principles is a fundamental aspect of being a faithful Muslim. The Quran governs the Islamic religion. Islam is universalist, and there is no national, racial, or ethnic criterion for conversion. Sunni and Shia Muslims comprise the two principal Islamic divisions (Ananta, 2003, p. 106).

To a considerable degree, the notable variations in the interpretation of Islam across different parts of Indonesia reflect its complex history. Islam gained a foothold from the 12th to the 15th centuries in Kalimantan, Java, and Sumatra. It likely arrived in these areas through a spiritual Sufi tradition. Sufism quickly gained acceptance and became fused with local customs (Kahin, 2004, p. 63).

As Muslim port communities destabilized the Buddhist Empire in the 16th century, Javanese leaders moved to Bali, where many people maintained their own Buddhist traditions. An exception was coastal Sumatra, where Javanese leaders and masses embraced Islam partly to counter the economic and political power of the Buddhist kingdoms. Elites in the interior of Java only gradually adopted Islam as an official legal and religious faith.

These historical developments gave rise to enduring tensions between orthodox Muslims and local religious traditions that were still evident in the early 1990s (Vroom, 2002, p. 86). On Java, this tension manifested in the contrast between the abangan and santri communities. Abangan represented a native blend of Buddhist beliefs and Islamic faith commonly known as Javanism. On Java, santri referred to an individual who was exclusively Muslim and described those who had attended Islamic schools for devotional purposes.

Unlike the Mecca-oriented values of most santri, there was the current of kebatian, which involved a blending of Hindu-Buddhist, animist, and Sufi values. The 1945 constitution gave legitimacy to this fragile tradition of practice and thought, following its recognition by President Suharto (Kahin, 2004, p. 398). People consider kebatian a mystical practice, and some varieties encompassed matters of spiritual power. Though numerous varieties circulated widely around 1992, kebatian generally implies pantheistic worship, as it encourages devotion to ancestral spirits and ritual sacrifice.

Many people believe that these spirits dwell in ordinary objects, relics, cemeteries, and human beings. Adversity and illness are traced to such ancestral spirits, and when pilgrimages fail to pacify angry divinities, people seek guidance from healers. Kebatian moves toward an internalized universalism. It also signifies a turn away from the assertive universalism of orthodox Islam, working toward the elimination of the divide between the individual, the universal, the communal, and the local.

Another significant tension within Indonesian Islam was the dispute between innovation and orthodoxy (Esposito, 2000, p. 173). The nature of these divisions was complex and contested throughout the 1990s, but orthodox supporters rejected modernists' interest in adopting organizational and educational advances from the West. Traditionalists were wary of how modernists endorsed the urban madrasa, a reformist institution that introduced secular subjects. Traditionalists also rejected the modernists' goal of dissolving the pesantren system, viewing it as a threat to the authority of religious leaders. Orthodox supporters also sought, though unsuccessfully, to add a clause to the founding principles of the Pancasila state philosophy requiring all Muslims to adhere immediately to Islamic law (sharia) (Esposito, 2000, p. 156). In turn, some modernists accused the orthodox of escapist fantasy in the face of change, and some hinted that santri held greater loyalty to the international community of Islamic believers than to the Indonesian state.

Despite these divisions, orthodox Muslim scholars, Masyumi, and two additional organizations merged into a single political party (Esposito, 2000, p. 160). These internal tensions may have weakened Islam as an independent political force, as demonstrated by the removal of the ulama from active political competition. This occurred even as Islam, as a major religious tradition, showed signs of vitality and a continuing capacity to shape national debates in the 1990s.

Bibliography

Esposito, J. (2000). Islam in Asia: Religion, Politics and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand.

Vroom, H. (2002). Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation: Multifaith Ideals and Realities. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Intan, B. (2006). Public Religion and the Pancasila-based State of Indonesia: An Ethical and Sociological Analysis. Alexandria: Peter Lang.

Heinrich, S. (2005). Key into Indonesia. Melbourne: Curriculum Press.

Kipp, R. (2002). Indonesian Religions in Transition. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Kahin, A. (2004). Historical Dictionary of Indonesia. Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

Ananta, A. (2003). Indonesia's Population: Ethnicity and Religion in a Changing Political Landscape. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.