Popular Piety in Indonesia: “Aestheticization” and Reproduction of Islam

Öz

Globalization and democratization have greatly contributed to the rise of Islamic popular culture especially popular piety in Indonesia. Popular piety can be defined as Muslims’ religious expressions that are driven mostly by their culture or atmosphere rather than their ideology. This article will observe several phenomena of popular piety such as the flourish of the hijâb among middle-class urbanite Muslims, dahwahtainment, the hijrah movement, the burgeoning of ʿumrah pilgrimage with celebrities etc. It is interesting to see these phenomena as part of the process of re-Islamization, secularization, or even post-Islamism. In my view, popular piety is part of the process of public Islam which in turn will generate civil Islam. The phenomena of popular piety will not only be viewed from the perspective of commodification of Islam and consumerism of Muslims, but also as an “aestheticization” of Islam which would foster a much broader interpretation of Islam in Indonesia.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Popular piety
• ḥijāb
• ʿumrah
• public Islam
• civil Islam
• post-Islamism

Kaynakça

1. Abdullah, Irwan. Konstruksi dan Reproduksi Kebudayaan. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2010.
2. Asad, Talal. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” In Occasional Papers. Washington DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1986.
3. Azra, Azyumardi. “Political Islam in post-Soeharto Indonesia.” In Islamic Perspectives on the New Millennium, edited by Virginia Hooker and Amin Saikal, 133-149. Singapore: ISEAS, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1355/9789812305367-010.
4. Berger, Peter L. “Further Thoughts on Religion and Modernity.” Society 49 (2012): 313-316. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-012-9551-y.
5. Berger, Peter L.. “The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview.” In The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, edited by Peter L. Berger, 1-18. Washington: Ethic and Public Policy Center, 1999.
6. Berger, Peter L.. The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age. Boston & Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014.
7. Bowen, John R. A New Anthropology of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
8. Brenner, Suzanne. “Reconstructing Self and Society: Javanese Muslim Women and ‘the Veil’.” American Ethnologist 23, no. 4 (1996), 673-697. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1996.23.4.02a00010

9. Campbell, Heidi. A. “Introduction: The Rise of the Study in Digital Religion.” In Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, edited by Heidi A. Campbell, 1-22. London: Routledge, 2013. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203084861.
10. Eickelman, Dale F. and Jon W. Anderson. “Redefining Muslim Publics.” In New Media in the Muslim World: the Emerging Public Sphere, edited byDale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson, 1-18. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
11. Eisenstadt, S. N. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus 129, no. 1, (2000): 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298000290031201.
12. Farchan, Yusa’ and Zulfa Rosharlianti. “The Trend of Hijrah: New Construction of Urban Millennial Muslim Identity in Indonesia.” The Sociology of Islam 1/2 (2021): 1-24.
13. Fealy, Greg. “Consuming Islam: Commodified Religion and Aspirational Pietism in Contemporary Indonesia.” in Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia edited by Greg Fealy and Sally White, 15-39. Singapore: ISEAS, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1355/9789812308528-006.
14. Hasan, Noorhaidi. “The Making of Public Islam: Piety, Agency, and Commodification on the Landscape of the Indonesian Public Sphere.” Contemporary Islam 3, no. 3 (2009): 229-250. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-009-0096-9.
15. Hefner, Robert W. “Public Islam and the Problem of Democratization.” Sociology of Religion 62, no. 4 (2001): 491-514. https://doi.org/10.2307/3712438.
16. Sofjan, Dicky. Civil Islam, Muslims and democratization in Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
17. Heryanto, Ariel. Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture. Singapore: NUS Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1qv1rz.
18. Hoesterey, James B. and Marshall Clark. “Film Islami: Gender, Piety and Pop Culture in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia.” Asian Studies Review 36 (2012): 207-226. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2012.685925.
19. Howell, Julia Day. “Sufism and the Indonesian Islamic Revival.” The Journal of Asian Studies 60, no. 3 (2001): 701-729. https://doi.org/10.2307/2700107.
20. Husein, Fatimah and Martin Slama. “Online Piety and its Discontent: Revisiting Islamic Anxieties on Indonesian Social Media.” Indonesia and the Malay World 46, no. 134 (2018): 80-93. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2018.1415056.
21. IDN Research Institute. (2020). Indonesia Millennial Report 2020. https://cdn.idntimes.com/content-documents/Indonesia-millennial-report-2020-byIDN-Research-Institute.pdf
22. Kitiarsa, Pattana. “Introduction: Asia’s Commodified Sacred Canopies.” In Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Goods, edited by Pattana Kitiarsa, 1-12. London: Routledge, 2008. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203937877
23. Lapidus, Ira. M. “Islamic Revival and Modernity: The Contemporary Movements and the Historical Paradigms.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40, no. 4 (1997): 444-460. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568520972601486.
24. Lukens-Bull, R. A Peaceful Jihad: Negotiating Identity and Modernity in Muslim Java. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980298.
25. Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
26. Sofjan, Dicky. “Rehearsed Spontaneity and the Conventionality of Ritual: Disciplines of “Ṣalāt,” American Ethnologist 28, no. 4 (2001), 827-853. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2001.28.4.827.
27. Moors, Annelies. “‘Discover the Beauty of Modesty’: Islamic Fashion Online.” In Modest Fashion: Styling Bodies, Mediating Faith and Modernity, edited by Reina Lewis, 17-40. London & New York: I. B. Tauris, 2013. 10.5040/9780755694181.ch-001.
28. Muzakki, Akh. “Islam as a Symbolic Commodity: Transmitting and Consuming Islam through Public Sermons in Indonesia.” In Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Goods, edited by Pattana Kitiarsa, 219-233. London: Routledge, 2008.
29. Noor, Farish A. “Popular Religiosity in Indonesia Today: The Next Step after ‘Islam Kultural’?” Al-Jāmi‘ah: Journal of Islamic Studies 53, no. 2 (2015): 284-286. doi: 10.14421/ajis.2015.532.283-302.
30. Ornella, Alexander Darius. “Commodification of Religion.” In Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions, edited by Runehov A.L.C., Oviedo L. Springer, Dordrecht, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_201034.
31. Salim, Arskal. “Muslim Politics in Indonesia’s Democratisation: The Religious Majority and the Rights of Minorities in the Post-New Order.” In Indonesia: Democracy and the Promise of Good Governance, edited by R. H. McLeod & A. MacIntyre, 115-137. Singapore: ISEAS, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1355/9789812304674-011.
32. Salvatore, Armando and Dale Eickelman. “Preface: Public Islam and the Common Good.” In Public Islam and the Common Good, edited by A. Salvatore and D. F. Eickleman, xi-xxv. Leiden: Brill, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047402824.
33. Salvatore, Armando. “Tradition and Modernity within Islamic Civilisation and the West.” In Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates, edited by Muhammad Khalid Masud, Armando Salvatore and Martin van Bruinessen, 3-35. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
34. Sofjan, Dicky, ed. Religion and Television: Ethics Surrounding Dakwahtainment. Geneve: Globethics, 2013.
35. Sofjan, Dicky. “Gender Construction in Dakwahtainment: A Case Study of Hati ke Hati Bersama Mamah Dedeh.” Al-Jāmiʿah: Journal of Islamic Studies 50/1 (2012): 57-74. https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2012.501.57-74.
36. Sunesti, Yuyun, Noorhaidi Hasan, and Muhammad Najib Azca. “Young Salafi-Niqabi and Hijrah: Agency and Identity Negotiation.” Indonesian Journal of Islam and Muslim Society 8, no. 2 (2018): 173-198. https://doi.org/10.18326/ijims.v8i2.173-198.
37. Turner, Bryan S., ed. Religious Diversity and Civil Society: A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: The Bardwell Press, 2008.
38. Weintraub, Andrew N., “Introduction: The Study of Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia.” In Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia, edited by Andrew N. Weintraub, 1-17. London: Routledge, 2011. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203829004.