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

1 9 6Islam i n World Cult u r e sIn the early twentieth century, especially as conditions under Dutch colonialismbecame harsher, many Muslims in the Indonesian archipelago wereimagining how to organize for eventual autonomy from foreign Europeandomination. They questioned what role Islam would play in a future nationalsystem. The organizations formed in this period would come to make up thebasis for the Islamic political landscape of present-day Indonesia. DevelopingMuslim ideologies ranged across a wide spectrum, from the work of “secular”thinkers who considered religion to be a personal and private matter, to thatof Islamists who felt that the ideals of Islamic law ( s h a r i ’ a ) , however understood,should be realized concretely and applied within actual constitutionalor statutory systems.In this period, direct Muslim opposition to foreign rule also assumed theform of voluntary associations, such as the Persatuan Ulama–Ulama SeluruhAceh (PUSA), which was founded in 1939 by Mohammad Daud Beureu’eh.This organization eventually evolved into a full-blown separatist movement,developing alongside other Islamic separatist movements that were at thattime underway elsewhere in the archipelago: in West Java, South Kalimantan,and South Sulawesi (Dijk 1981). These particular movements were known asDarul Islam, and each declared itself to be an Islamic state autonomous fromany kind of secular, external authority or governance. Under pressure fromvarious Muslim groups, the Dutch made a number of significant concessionsto Islamic groups in 1940. These measures appear, however, not to have affectedthe widespread frustration and resentment of Muslims living underDutch colonial rule or the emerging Indonesian nationalist resolve of Indonesiaoverall.In the World War II period, a new imperialist power, Japan, transplanted theDutch and took control of Indonesia as part of Japanese military expansion inAsia. The Muslim experience of the politics of Islam under Dutch rule seemsto have facilitated the relatively open reception the Japanese received fromsome Muslim leaders when they arrived in the archipelago in the name of theGreat East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Under the Japanese occupation, IndonesianIslam underwent significant changes in structure and organization,mobilizing the Muslim population as never before (Benda 1958). As historianM . C. Ricklefs has pointed out, although both the Dutch and the Japanesewanted to control Indonesia for their own interests, they pursued this objectivein very different ways, especially with respect to their policies on Islam.The Dutch were accustomed to imposing an “orderly quiet” on Muslim activitiesin their colonies, whereas the Japanese, strapped by wartime demands forenergy and resources, chose to govern through mass mobilization (Ricklefs1993, 201). Islamic groups that were strengthened by Japanese institutionalsupport emerged from the war more powerful than they had ever been underthe Dutch.