(2012). Local and Global Islams in Southeast Asia: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives. In Z. Ibrahim (Ed.), Social Science and Knowledge in a Globalising World (pp. 219-242). Kajang/Petaling Jaya: PSSM/SIRDC (original) (raw)
Globalization and Islamic Indigenization in Southeast Asian Muslim Communities
ISLAM NUSANTARA:Journal for the Study of Islamic History and Culture
For centuries, what is now commonly referred to in the Cold War-inflected English parlance as “Southeast Asia” has been connected to various regions of the world -- from the transmission of Islam from diverse places in the Middle East, South Asia, and China, to engagements with European colonialism and, more recently, post-independence foreign relations in various regional, multilateral, and global contexts. From the eighth century Muslim traders were traversing the ports of what is now called Southeast Asia, and by the turn of the fourteenth century there is evidence for indigenous Muslim communities.[1] Such economic, cultural, and religious exchange over the centuries has not, despite the warnings of some globalization theorists, led to a homogenization of Southeast Asia, much less a homogenization of Islamic ideas and practices. Rather than coming as a single homogenous and authoritative source, the spread of Islam – and Muslim leaders -- across mainland and island Southeast Asi...
Afkaruna: Indonesian Interdisciplinary Journal of Islamic Studies, 2020
After pursuing a long academic career as an anthropologist, this article provides my (Mitsuo Nakamura's) personal academic reflection of how my anthropological approach differs from the Geertzian paradigm, why anthropology and Islamic studies should be bridged, and what implications of the conversation between Islamic studies, anthropology, and other social sciences are. By answering the above questions, this reflective article sheds new light on the relationship between anthropology and Islam and Muslim studies in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia. The anthropological studies of Muslims in Southeast Asia that have been heavily influenced by Clifford Geertz through his work, The Religion of Java (1960), are engaged critically in this article. If Geertz and his students pay more attention to Little Tradition (local culture and practices) and avoid Great Tradition (e.g., religious concepts and teachings), my anthropological approach argues for the importance of incorporating Great Tradition, which is Islamic Studies in the case of Muslim studies in Southeast Asia, in the study of anthropology and vice versa.
Reflections on Islam in the Asian continent
In the following paper I will attempt to look at how Islam arrived in three differ regions of the Asian continent: South Asia in the case of Pakistan, Central Asia represented by Uzbekistan and South East Asia symbolized by Malaysia and Indonesia, and settled down with time and how it is perceived and lived by the local population. A common denominator of these countries is the purity of their belief, meaning the strong identification they have towards the pure Islam. Unfortunately this concept is expressed in Pakistan by a certain amount of violence towards the other. The other here, meaning anyone not Sunni. Thus, the Shiite and the Christians have been unduly victimized by the majority of people of Taliban obedience. In Uzbekistan, Islam has been muzzled and subdued over decades during the Soviet years and mosques were turned in youth centers like the famous Mir al-Arab one, and religion was made to become a mere folklore. Today, there is in Uzbekistan a religious renewal, in spite of the fact that the regime in place is secular and atheist and is a mere mirror image of the Soviet era, trying to keep religion at bay. In Malaysia and Indonesia, there is an interesting version of Islam: open, tolerant and progressive, worth studying and imitating. Indeed, the constitutions of these countries have inscribed in gold freedom of belief and religion and equality before law to all citizens. As a result of that, these two countries are emerging and flourishing economies that have achieved a notable success in their area, and they are the home of millions of devout Muslims that practice pure and tolerant religion away from any extremism that has marred many other Muslim countries around the world.
Graffiti, Converts and Vigilantes: Islam Outside the Mainstream in Southeast Asia, 2015
This text is an introduction to a volume I edited entitled "Graffiti, Converts and Vigilantes: Islam outside the Mainstream in Maritime Southeast Asia", published in 2015 by Caesarpress, Vienna. The socio-religio-political situation in Indonesia and other Muslim-majority countries of Southeast Asia is very complex. Official and societal pressures have pushed the mainstream Islamic discourse from moderation towards unprecedented orthodoxy. This edited volume seeks to cast some light on the general overall process of Islamization that actually started more than half a millennium ago, and aims in eight individual chapters to explore some forms of Islam that currently exist in Southeast Asia, putting a special focus on those that are mainly positioned on the fringe – outside the mainstream. “Built from serious, long-term engagement with the religious communities on the ground in Southeast Asia, these studies bring to light Islamic communities that have not been fully understood. The authors use a wide variety of methods to approach groups that need more attention. This volume pushes the boundaries of our knowledge of the diversity – in outlook, experience, and aspiration – of the region’s Muslims.” — Dr. Kevin W. Fogg, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
2007 Islam(s) in context: Orientalism and the anthropology of Muslim societies and cultures
This article begins to fill a gap in recent discussions of the future of Islamic studies with an account of the nature and significance of Anthropological and Ethnographic contributions to the study of Islam and Muslims. Drawing attention to both the problem of essence in Orientalism and the dissolution of Islam’s significance for Muslims in Said’s (1978) anti-Orientalism, the article examines how shifts between essence and silence have been played out in the short history of Anthropology, from colonial ethnography through functionalism to the relationship between so-called Great and Little Traditions, the fresh impetus of Geertz’s (1968) Islam Observed and subsequent debates about Islam and plural islams. My account culminates with discussion of an increasingly specialised and interdisciplinary body of work on the reproduction and transmission of Islamic discursive traditions published mainly in American Anthropology since the 1970s and 1980s. I contend that such literature suggests a theoretical starting point for ‘Muslim studies’ which allows for the configuring power of social structure and the efficacy of history/tradition as Muslim habitus, as well as the contextual improvisations of human agents with diverse social positions and cultural capitals. Ultimately, my argument is that although this concern for structure, tradition and agency can be combined and emphasized in different ways, attentiveness to both similarity and difference, continuity and change, suggests one way forward beyond the essence/silence impasse in Orientalist/anti-Orientalist thinking about Muslim cultures and societies.
Islam and society in Southeast Asia
1986
Books by Muslim scholars which raise theoretical issues in society and politics also raise hopes of a welcome trend because they are so rare. In the books under review we hear authentic Muslim voices. The authors make an interesting counter-poise, Muslims in the West and Muslims in Southeast The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences b l. 6, No. 2, 1989
Aspects of Islam in Asia Part 2: Islam in Action
An in-depth analysis on how Islam arrived in three different regions of the Asian continent and is now perceived and lived by the local populations, with a common denominator being the purity of their belief and the strong identification they have towards Islam.