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Chapter 9 Islamization and the Reshaping of Identities in Rural South Sulawesi Martin Rössler Ever since the pioneering studies of Snouck Hurgronje (1893– 1895), Indonesian Islam and the processes of social change with which it is connected have been recognized as topics of extraordinary complexity. Recent studies have only served to confirm this impression, revealing enormous diversity within, for example, Javanese Islam, let alone that of the various Muslim peoples throughout the whole of the archipelago (Ellen 1983; Roff 1985; Lombard 1985). In today’s Indonesia, however, this socioreligious diversity has to a certain degree been counteracted by an official ideology locating Muslim identity within the framework of national development and progress (see Boland 1982, 185–196; Hefner, Chapter 3, this volume). For much of the New Order (post-1966) era, influential segments of the government and military elite have sought to separate the state’s national and developmentalist ideals from Muslim identity. This political strategy has largely been based on government efforts to require all social and religious organizations to accept the state ideology known as the Pancasila , with its emphasis on the equality of the five government-recognized religions.1 In rural areas where Islam is the dominant religion, however, the population often perceives modern development and Muslim identity as intimately related; to be “modern” is to be Muslim. There are other local communities, however, where this identification of Muslim identity and developmentalist ideology is still in a very early or unfinished state. In these regions, Islam and ethnic or regional identity vie for the allegiance of the local population in an often unstable way. The study of religious change within these Muslim communities provides an opportunity to investigate the individual motivations and strategies of action that influence actors’ commitments to one or another of these divergent, unfinished identities. 276 | Martin Rössler The Rise of Islam in Gowa: A Historical Sketch Bontolowe, the village in which I conducted my research, is a community of Makassar wet-rice cultivators located about fifty miles east of Ujung Pandang in the highlands of the regency (Ind. kabupaten) of Gowa,2 within the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. Bontolowe is a new village established in the 1960s after the original settlement, known as Bulo, was moved from the river valley up to a road on the top of a steep hill overlooking its previous site. South Sulawesi—and in particular the kingdom of Gowa formerly located in this region—has long been regarded as one of the main centers of Islam in the Malay archipelago (see Gervaise 1701, 133; Pelras 1985, 107). The region has played a significant role in the history of Islam in Indonesia, both in earlier times and in the modern republican era (see Noorduyn 1956; 1987; Kumar 1979, 24–29). The arrival of Islam on the peninsula is commonly dated as September 22, 1605, when the king of the empire of Tallo‘ converted to Islam. Since that time the Makassar people have been renowned for their strict adherence to Islamic faith. Only a few years after their king’s conversion, in 1611, the Makassar are said to have spread Islam to other parts of South Sulawesi. The arrival of Islam coincided with a period of intense political turmoil on Sulawesi’s southern peninsula. In addition to the long-standing conflicts between Makassar and Bugis kingdoms, in 1627 the local population came into conflict with the Dutch East Indies Company (voc). It is commonly assumed that Islam at first provided Makassar and Bugis with a sense of common (Muslim) identity in the face of the European enemy (Mattulada 1976, 52, 106; Noorduyn 1956, 250; LaSide‘ 1975, 167). Forty years later, however, when the war against the Dutch reached its final stage, Arung Palakka, leader of the Bugis, chose not to side with his Makassar fellow-believers but with the commander of the Dutch forces. He thereby took revenge for the compulsory Islamization his kingdom had experienced some decades earlier. In 1669, Gowa surrendered (see Pelras 1985; Andaya 1981). From 1630 until the early twentieth century, Gowa’s political leaders and Islamic functionaries were both recruited from the ranks of the nobility . The ruling nobles were explicitly concerned about preserving their power by filling Islamic offices with their own kinsfolk (Abu Hamid 1978, 27). Much later, in 1926, the Muhammadiyah, an influential Indonesian Islamic reform movement (Peacock 1978; Feillard, this volume), was brought from Java to South Sulawesi. Its activities eventually led to the development of a marked...

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