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Antropologi Indonesia

Abstract

This paper examines the Bāʿ Alawī—a group of Ḥaḍramī diaspora acknowledged as the descendants of Prophet Muḥammad—in post-colonial Indonesia. In particular, it observes the Bā ʿAlawī scholars' creative adaptation and manipulation of their Sufi path, ṭartqa 'alawiyya y in their attempt to secure their place within the wider imagination of Indonesian nationhood while protecting their distinctive genealogical eminence. In the twentieth century the t̠arīqa, which had long functioned to secure their identity, differentiate them from others and nurture their diasporic consciousness, proved incompatible with the assimilationist discourse of the nation. Further challenges came from Islamic reformism, preaching egalitarianism increasingly defined public articulation of Islam, confronting the Bā ʿAlawī's notion of Islamic authority. The Bā ʿAlawī scholars adapted by reshaping of the ṭarīqa rituals, shifting emphasis on Prophetic piety, expanding the BāʿAlawī textual community to include local scholars, and the projecting of a new form of Prophetic authority in a framework of ḥadīth studies. Such shifts were sustained by the construction of a new Bāʿ Alawī center in Kwitang, Jakarta, and the cultivation of scholarly networks connecting the Bāʿ Alawī and local kyais (Indonesian Islamic scholars). More specifically, this paper observes the career of three Bāʿ Alawī scholars and their efforts to reconfigure the discursive practice of the t̠arīqa in the early decades of the Indonesian republic. By presenting practices recognizable to the dominant modes of Islamic reformism in the country, the Bā ʿAlawī succeeded in maintaining their visibility in Sukarno's Indonesia.

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