Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia

2. Consuming Islam : Commodified Religion and Aspirational Pietism in Contemporary Indonesia

15 2 Consuming Islam: Commodified Religion and Aspirational Pietism in Contemporary Indonesia Greg Fealy When you look around you, you see Islam everywhere. People greet each other all the time with ‘Peace be upon you’ (assalamu alaikum). Almost anywhere you go, you’ll hear the call to prayer (azan) and see mosques crowded at prayer time. Go into McDonalds and they have halal certificates on the wall and women serving in headscarves. Bookstores are full of books on how to be a good Muslim. On TV, Islam is referred to all the time. … This has now become normal; people expect it to be this way. It wasn’t like this when we were kids. Islam is now in the centre of everyday life. The role of religion in the contemporary globalised world is changing rapidly. New technology and accelerated information flows combined with urbanisation and growing prosperity have led to new forms of religious expression, in Indonesia as elsewhere. Patterns of Islamic behaviour have changed dramatically in the past 40 years, and Islam has a much greater presence in social, cultural and political life than it had in the 1960s. The number of mosques and the size of their congregations have increased sharply, as have the popularity of Islamic dress and the use of Islamic symbols and language in the media and in public spaces. Islamic publishing, education and tourism are thriving, and Muslim entrepreneurs have found innovative ways of using new technology to  Discussion with two Muhammadiyah activists, Muhammadiyah head office, Jakarta, June 2006. 16   Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia popularise their religious messages. Indeed, Islam is penetrating far more deeply into people’s lives than ever before and Muslims are expressing their faith in a multitude of ways that are seldom examined by scholars. Much of this religious expression is taking a commodified form, in which Muslims selectively consume ‘Islamic’ products from an expanding spiritual marketplace rather than following the settled patterns of behaviour of their parents and grandparents. There is considerable debate among scholars and practitioners about the impact of these new commodified forms of Islam. Some find much to commend in ‘Islamic consumption’, arguing that it brings new religious meaning into the lives of the faithful and helps to create a society in which Islamic principles are more strictly upheld. Others bemoan what they see as the shallow commercialisation of Islam and emphasis on outward behaviour rather than building an intellectual and spiritual appreciation of the deeper significance and beauty of the faith. Yet other commentators worry that it is changing the essential nature of Indonesian Islam, which they see as pluralist, tolerant and distinctively indigenised , to be replaced by a more Arabised, puritanical and radical form of Islam. This chapter will examine the process of Islamic commodification and analyse the ways in which it is changing religious, cultural and economic life in Indonesia. In the first half of the chapter, I will describe some of the manifestations of Islamic consumption, for both the financial and non-financial sectors. In the second, I will consider the characteristics of commodified Islam and identify some trends. Of particular interest is the way in which Islamic identity is expressed through the purchase of particular goods and products and how this may be changing as a result of globalisation and modernisation. I will argue that the increasing commodification of Islam is due in large measure to the socio-economic, technological and cultural changes that have taken place in recent decades , driving the pursuit of moral certainty, spiritual enrichment and pietistic identity. Moreover, while having diverse consequences, Islamic commodification is notable for strengthening an individualised form of Islam in which established institutions or figures are less influential than they once were. Finally, I argue that the nature of the mainstream Islamic market is rational and pluralistic rather than emotional and exclusivist, although the latter tendencies can be detected in minority sectors of the Islamic community. Before surveying Islamic consumption, some explanation of ‘commodification ’ is required. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a ‘commodity’ is something which: (1) has the quality of being desirable or useful; and (2) is ‘an article of commerce’ or ‘object of trade’. So, ‘commodified Islam’ is, in effect, the commercialisation of Islam, or the turning Consuming Islam: Commodified Religion and Aspirational Pietism   17 of faith and its symbols into a commodity capable of being bought and sold for profit. The very expression...