Contemporary Developments in Indonesian Islam: Explaining the "Conservative Turn"

3. Towards a Puritanical Moderate Islam: The Majelis Ulama Indonesia and the Politics of Religious Orthodoxy

60 3 towards a PurItanIcal Moderate IslaM: the MaJelIs ulaMa IndonesIa and the PolItIcs of relIgIous orthodoxy Moch Nur Ichwan IntroductIon The collapse of the Soeharto regime in 1998 led to the opening up of previously unimaginable political opportunities and transformations in Indonesian society. The Reformasi (reformation) movement demanded democratization, good governance, and the empowerment of civil society. Most existing Muslim organizations redefined their orientation and political platforms, as did most other associations; and many new Muslim organizations, movements, and political parties emerged, armed with new nationalist, liberal or Islamist paradigms. They have endeavoured to present their own concepts of Reformasi, and to avoid the stigma of being antiReformasi . The Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Indonesian Council of Ulama, or MUI),1 a semi-official institution of Indonesian ulama established by Soeharto in 1975, is no exception.2 At the beginning of the Reformasi era, the MUI seemed disoriented and struggled to come to terms with the changes. During the Habibie era, it focused not on issuing fatwas, but on producing tausiyahs to legitimize a number of Habibie’s policies, and, in the period The Majelis Ulama Indonesia and Politics of Religious Orthodoxy 61 in which Habibie was confronted with political moves to discredit him, by visiting the president at the palace.3 It was only at the 2000 National Congress, during the Abdurrahman Wahid era, that the MUI proclaimed its ambition to change its role from being the “khadim al-hukumah” (servant of the government) to serving as the “khadim al-ummah” (servant of the ummah). This resonated with the central Reformasi concept of empowering society vis-à-vis the state, besides expressing the MUI’s vision of its own agenda-setting role in the Reformasi process. Since that time, the MUI has endeavoured to reposition itself in Indonesia’s transitional politics by defending more conservative Muslim interests and aspirations. This can be seen from various fatwas, tausiyahs, and other statements produced by the MUI, and in the way in which it has dealt with social, political, economic and cultural issues. In the present study, I shall focus on the MUI’s endeavours to redefine its role in the post-Soeharto era, analyse its transformation from a governmentoriented to an ummah-oriented body, and explore the implications of this transformation.4 Particular emphasis will be given to the way in which the MUI has exercised its power as the “semi-official religious authority” in the country and the way it has defined “moderate Islam”, which is in fact “puritanical moderate Islam” based on Sunni orthodoxy, in the context of ideologically and organizationally pluralistic Indonesian Islam. Below we will examine a number of issues that best reflect the MUI’s changing role in post-New Order Indonesia, as well as its newly developed position in national politics. These issues range from the certification of halal foods and Islamic banking services to the “purification” of public morality (action against pornography and “porno-action”), education (the polemic on the Draft Law on the National Education System), the image of Islam (jihad and terrorism), Islamic thought (religious pluralism, liberalism and secularism), and Islamic faith (deviant belief and the Ahmadiyah movement). “softenIng the hardlIners, hardenIng the soft-MInded”: the MuI’s PurItanIcal ModeratIon The post-New Order MUI has introduced a new approach to the ummah, that is, in KH. Ma’ruf Amin’s words, “softening the hardliners, hardening the soft-minded”. However, the current state of the MUI’s world-view is no longer characterized by moderate Islam per se, but rather by “puritanical moderate Islam”.5 The Council has always represented a moderate interpretation of 62 Moch Nur Ichwan Islamic orthodoxy, and its orientation continues to be a moderate one, but it has undergone a shift towards more puritanical and strictly literalist interpretations of the faith during the last decade. This is part of what Van Bruinessen has called the “conservative turn” (Bruinessen 2011). The MUI puts forward puritanical moderate Islam, not puritanical radical Islam, as the ideal version for Indonesia, although it would not be impossible for the organization to turn to the latter type in the future. The MUI has retained its original concerns in the field of Islamic law, faith, morality and interest, but in these fields it has increasingly tended towards more puritan and conservative positions. In the past, the ideological struggle within the MUI was between Islamic traditionalism of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Islamic modernism of Muhammadiyah, with...