Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

Muslim Thought and Practice in Contemporary Indonesia 1 9 5base was not the rural p e s a n t re n or Sufi t a re k a t but, rather, modern voluntary associations.These associations were of many types, covering a broad spectrumof social and ideological interests, ranging from literary and scientific clubs tolabor and trade organizations, educational collectives, and religious movements.They created a new social space for personal action in the Muslim publicsphere, providing an alternative to existing t a re k a t and p e s a n t re n c i r c l e s .One early example of such an organization was the Jami’yyat Khayr, whichheavily emphasized education and print publication in order to promote itsgoals. This organization was founded at Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1911, and it recruitedits teachers from Tunisia, Morocco, and Sudan. After the Jami’yyatK h a y r, the most influential Indonesian voluntary association of the early twentiethcentury was the Sarekat Dagang Islamiyah (Islamic Commercial Union), alsofounded in Batavia, in 1909. Within a year, the organization’s first branchopened at Bogor, near present-day Jakarta, and it subsequently expanded rapid l y. In 1911, the group’s central leadership encouraged the establishment of abranch for batik traders in Surakarta (Solo, a city in Central Java). The organizationexpanded and evolved into what was to become a nationwide political party,which shortened its name to Sarekat Islam (SI) in 1915 (Kahin 1952, 65–70).The rise of organizations like SI, which were active in both the economicand political spheres, was paralleled in this period by the establishment of organizationswith specifically religious concerns, such as the Islamic modernistorganization Muhammadiyya, founded in 1912 by K. H. Ahmad Dahlan in Yogyakarta,Central Java. The Muhammadiyya movement spread rapidly to theMinangkabau region of West Sumatra and elsewhere. West Sumatra by thattime was already home to a wide array of Muslim reformist institutions. Suchinstitutions were “modernist,” a term that in this period meant they had a newimpetus for progressive reform that in many cases usually set itself against theidea of “tradition.” For example, in West Sumatra, the Diniyah Putri Schoolwas a Muslim women’s school and a “modernist” institution. Founded in 1915,it was first in the area to introduce a formal class system on a European modeland a standard curriculum including nonreligious subjects. Its structure seemsto have been influenced by its founder’s experience of study in Egypt. It is anexample of how many Muslim reformers in Asia and elsewhere in the colonialperiod turned to building educational institutions as a means to enact “modernizing”social change.Over the years that followed, more local organizations began appearing inother areas of the archipelago. In response to the proliferation of modernist,reformist, and other types of organizations, more traditionally oriented u l a m aorganized themselves into the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). This important group,founded in 1926 by Kyai Haji Hasjim Asjari of Pesantren Jombang, located inEast Java, also promoted the practical benefits of modern organizational modelsand attempted to adapt them to suit their goals (Barton and Fealy, 1996).