Introduction

This chapter attempts to delineate the politicization of religious and cultural authority in Ternate and Yogyakarta. It narrates the contestation and co-existence of two religious and cultural authorities in these cities, namely the Islamic Sultanate on the one hand, and Islamic movements on the other. The sultanate institution in both Ternate and Yogyakarta dated back to the pre-colonial era. Meanwhile, the rise of Islamism has been a key feature in both cities after the fall of the New Order in 1998. The two royal institutions have played a crucial role during the democratic transition in 1998 and beyond. The Keraton of Yogyakarta played a pivotal role in promoting the reformasi movement while at the same time preventing violence and riots during the critical power transition period. On the other hand, the Keraton of Ternate had been one of the warring parties during the communal conflict in North Moluccas in 1999–2001.

Within the existing scholarly debates, the re-emergence of the Sultanate and Islamism is widely portrayed as a representation of identity politics that emerged from the democratization process in post-authoritarian Indonesia (Assyaukanie 2009; Hilmy 2010; Klinken 2007b; Machmudi 2008; Mujani 2007; Platzdasch 2009; Salim 2008). This is reflected in the studies of the Sultanate both in Ternate and Yogyakarta. In Ternate, major studies explain how the decentralization process brought the resurgence of “tradition” in the political arena of Ternate and North Moluccas (Bubandt 2004; Klinken 2007a; Duncan 2009; Smith 2009).

In this wave of “politics of tradition”, the Sultanate and Islamism are located as conflicting forces. This conclusion was drawn based on the rivalry between the Sultanate of Ternate and Islamist forces during the communal conflict, as well as during the power struggle for resources in the early years after the country underwent decentralization (Duncan 2005, p. 68; Klinken 2007a, pp. 109–23). Meanwhile, the Keraton of Yogyakarta is associated with cultural authority that represents Javanese high culture—“Javanese Islam”—and the symbol of pluralism (Woodward 2010). Gerry van Klinken (2007b) rightly pointed out that the re-emergence of Sultanate across the country after the collapse of Suharto's New Order regime in 1998 has become a model of neotraditionalist leadership and a symbol of cultural pluralism.

Introduction

Mesjid Kebon Jeruk, an old mosque situated in West Jakarta, Indonesia, is always alive with religious activities. Every Thursday, about 2,000 men will gather at the mosque built by a Chinese woman in 1817, following lectures by an ustadz (religious teacher). Dressed in kurtas— long-sleeved and hip length shirt traditionally worn by men in India, for which they are easily identifiable—and putting on white hajj caps, they are also dressed in robes, a long and loose shirt commonly worn by the Arabs. Most will have their beards lengthened and moustache shaved. They are followers of Tablighi Jamaat, or Tablighis, literally “a group for preachers”, who come from Jakarta, West Java, East Java and the other regions in Indonesia. The Tablighis usually carry large bags of clothing and other supplies with them.

The aforementioned is the most popular poem of the Tablighis that best describes the calling for the Muslims to go back to mosque. In practice, they go out on small group tours to invite Muslims whom they had visited to conduct the canonical prayer in mosque and to bring the message of the Tablighi Jamaat to the Muslims. This activity is called khuruj (or jaula in Urdu), which according to several scholars (Sikand 2002; Sila 2010 and 2016; and Noor 2012) is both unique and critical to the Tablighi Jamaat. It is unique because khuruj (which is called tashkil in Indonesia and Malaysia) may take days, weeks or even months (Noor 2012). At the end of the tour, participants will report back orally their experiences to the mosque-based group from which they set out. The act of presenting these reports is called karguzari. Sikand (2002) and Noor (2012) have discussed that Tablighi Jamaat became the most widely followed movement and sparked controversy among Muslim scholars. But the two agreed that there is nothing to worry about the Tablighis and their khuruj activities. Similarly, Dekmejian (1985) excluded Tablighi Jamaat from the list of Islamic fundamentalist groups since the books they refer to and the religious activities they perform do not contradict with mainstream Islam.

Introduction

In Indonesia, Islamic religious authority is split into a number of fields. As Burhanudin (2007) notes, the ulama (singular alim) is no longer the only authoritative body in the transformation of Islamic knowledge and discourse. Azra and others also noted this and maintained that there is a variety of religious authority in contemporary Indonesia (Azra et al. 2010). Women have taken part quite significantly in leadership and authority of religion. Judging and preaching are two activisms in which women's involvement in both the leadership and religious authority is very evident. The involvement of women is very clearly shown in Islamic judiciary where familial issues are heard. Meanwhile, in terms of preaching, their involvement began to be very significant when a programme which amalgamates Islamic propagation and entertainment known as “dakwahtaintment” on media has flourished. These women preach various Islamic teaching including Islamic law of family.

In Indonesia, family law has received significant attention from the government. Since Muslims are the majority of the population in Indonesia, applied family law has been adopted mostly from Islamic (family) law. Accommodating a number of local practices, state interest, and Islamic legal doctrines, the Indonesian government tackles familial issues by issuing a number of laws (Nurlaelawati 2010). To understand family law in Indonesia, we should refer to what is so-called Kompilasi Hukum Islam, henceforth called kompilasi, and the Law of Marriage No. 1/1974. The kompilasi is a legal reference provided for judges of Islamic courts and Muslims in general, while the Law of Marriage applies to all citizens of Indonesia and is therefore to be referred to by judges of both Islamic court and civil court.

A number of developments on the administration of the judicial institutions have been made. The development in substantial laws on familial issues has also occurred and a number of legal reforms on family law have been made (Nurlaelawati 2010). This is completed by a number of governmental policies on legal procedural issues (Sumner and Lindsey 2010). A number of programmes that provide better justice for litigants, women litigants in particular, such as circuit court, legal aid and prodeo are launched (Sumner and Lindsey 2010; Nurlaelawati 2016).

The rise of Indonesian religious intellectuals in the post-war period is an interesting sociological phenomenon. For the first time in history, religious intellectuals, be those trained abroad or locally, or those from mainstream education or Islamic ones, are providing leadership in the Muslim religious, cultural and intellectual discourse. Earlier, with the rise of reformist circles at the turn of the twentieth century, the traditional ulama (religious elites) could no longer claim to be the sole guardian and interpreter of Islam. Their authority was challenged by reformist groups, which saw religious traditionalism as a hindrance to the progress of the Muslims. In any intellectual history, inevitably the authority of one group is continuously challenged by another, be it subtle or overt. Indonesian intellectual history, especially in the domain of religious leadership, demonstrates a similar trait. The expansion of the middle class and the increase religiosity of Indonesian society lead to the expansion of Islamic education, including those at the higher level. It is within this socio cultural milieu that religious intellectuals emerged, which is separate from the traditional ulama hierarchy who are still the dominant elite grouping in Indonesian society.

The Indonesian intellectual discourse, like in other Third World countries, is still developing in breadth and depth. The challenge from the religious rightists—including neo-liberal market hegemony—is becoming more intensified and complex. Today there is an ongoing struggle between the various strands of Islamic orientation in Indonesia. This chapter attempts to discuss and evaluate the presence and contributions of Indonesian Muslim religious intellectuals whose position can be made distinct from the ulama/kyai, ustaz, tuan guru and da’i. To what extent can these critical voices make further inroads in challenging, or at least mitigating, and responding to, the rightist's assertions? Would intellectual responses suffice? Why is the presence of such ideas important? Underestimating them would be allowing the absence of critical ideas in the public sphere. Hence the task becomes imperative to nurture and encourage active engagement of ideas, at least in projecting itself as equally authoritative, in the midst of competing ideas.

Introduction

Born from the processes of neoliberal globalization and the strengthening opposition to the New Order regime in the late 1990s, the underground rock music movement (gerakan musik rock bawah tanah) in Indonesia emerged as a bastion of progressive politics (Wallach 2005) and the radical Left (Pickles 2001 and 2007; Saefullah 2017a). The movement participants, called “underground youths” (pemuda underground), protested against social and cultural orthodoxies, capitalist economic system, and state authoritarianism. After taking part in toppling General Suharto through democratic mobilizations in the late 1990s, their activism went through a period of decline. This was followed by the emergence of a new subcultural movement that, unlike their predecessors who tended to regard religiosity as a private matter, displays religious piety as necessity and uses right-wing Islamism as a political ideology. The founders called their movement the “Islamic underground” (Underground Islam), the name was chosen to distinguish themselves from the existing underground movement which they considered “too secular” and “too liberal”. Overlooked by scholars of Indonesian Islam, this stream of underground movement played an important role in disseminating conservative and even “radical” narratives of Islam to marginalized youths through ways that were never carried out by mainstream Islamic organizations.

This chapter discusses the Islamic underground movement by examining its key actors and mobilization strategies. It firstly discusses a brief history of the Indonesian underground movement, followed by an examination of the social, political, and economic conditions that have advanced the emergence of the Islamic underground movement. Subsequently, the key actors and mobilization strategies that have supported the growth of the movement will be discussed.

The Leftist Beginnings of the Underground Movement in Indonesia

Underground music only began to be popular amongst Indonesian youths in the mid-1990s. This was due to the rapid globalization that allowed the influx of western popular culture to the country (Sen and Hill 2007; Pickles 2007; Baulch 2007). The word “underground” was used by local youths as an umbrella term for a “variety of imported rock music genres on the loud side of the spectrum” (Wallach 2003), such as punk rock, rap, hardcore, heavy metal, oi, and grindcore. The word itself refers to an alternative space for social and cultural practices, as Dunn asserts, which are beyond the “formal domain of commercial life” (Dunn 2016, p. 90).

Introduction

The proliferation of new Islamic preachers in Indonesia has seriously undermined conventional religious authorities. The media savvy of Abdullah Gymnastiar (popularly known as Aa Gym) serves as an example. Marketing himself to be an Islamic self-help psychology and celebrity guru through his TV channel and publishing company, he has significantly shifted traditional and hierarchical forms of religious authority towards a more familiar and relational kind of authority (Hoesterey 2008, p. 98). He masterfully commanded the media and learnt from secular sources of self-help manuals for Sufi wisdom (Watson 2005, p. 773). Another example is Felix Siauw. Despite coming from a Catholic background with limited understanding of Islamic tradition, he has successfully drawn a large audience of Muslim youth in many occasions both online and offline. Hew (2018, pp. 64–65) found that Felix has more than four million followers on Facebook, two million followers on Twitter, one million followers on Instagram, and 20,000 subscribers on YouTube in 2017. He is one of the leading social media preachers in Indonesia today (Hew 2018, pp. 64–65).

The new media allows the Muslim public to choose which religious authority fits their intellectual capacity and preference. Like various TV channels which are offered by a service provider, customers can choose which programme suits their taste and individual leanings. As a result, they have the freedom to determine which religious agents are qualified and fulfill their social and spiritual needs. Turner (2007, p. 118) argues that in terms of access, the new media is basically democratic. In a democratic atmosphere, Muslims can find suitable religious opinions in accordance with their own preference in which Hosen (2008, p. 164) called “Fatwa Shopping”. When people feel that a religious edict (fatwa) does not fit their wish, they attempt to seek a second opinion. This fact reveals an opening trend of religious authority whose reception shows a surprising diversity in religious life. The democratizing potency of mass media technologies, according to Eickelman and Anderson (1999, p. 2), will have a good effect on strengthening civic pluralism, civil society and a challenge to authoritarian domination in Muslim-majority countries.

Introduction

This chapter examines the contestation among Muslim organizations and scholars in Indonesia towards Islamic interpretation. For the longest time, the interpretation of Islam has been dominated by two poles: on the one hand are the traditionalist Muslim scholars as represented by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), al-Washliyah and Perti (Persatuan Tarbiyah Islamiyah); and on the other hand are the modernist Muslim scholars represented by Muhammadiyah and Persis. Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI, Council of Indonesian Ulama)—a quasi-state institution formed in 1975—is a relatively newcomer in the field of Islamic interpretation, and became more visible in the public domain during the post-Suharto era (after 1998). The coming of the reform era stimulates the emergence of a new type of interpretation of Islamic texts, offered by Muslim scholars from organizations considered to be non-mainstream: those with Salafi-Wahhabi leanings, transnational Islamic organizations, and the Jama’ah Tabligh.

This chapter traces the contestation among several Islamic groups and actors in the field of Islamic interpretation. In analysing these differences of opinions, it considers the importance of historical, political and theological variables. The local Indonesian context too is important here to reflect the distinct characteristics of interpretation of Islamic texts compared to other contexts.

The Making of Islamic (Re)interpretation in Indonesia

Interpretation of Islamic texts and traditions is integral to the religion (Waardenburg 1999, p. 2). In truth, Muslim scholars are not just interpreting the foundation texts in Islam, but also interpreting the numerous secondary “interpretations of Islam”. Muslim scholars already exposed to the discipline of hermeneutics (taʿwīl) such as Mohammed Arkoun (1928–2010), Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943–2010) and Mohammed Abed al-Jabri (1935–2010) would be familiar with this notion of reinterpreting interpretations of Islam. These Muslim scholars produce inclusive Islamic interpretations because they consider different aspects and viewpoints. The act of interpreting the various interpretations of Islam also means that the interpreter will never get through to the true meaning of Islam, which is in the hands of the ultimate owner, God (El Fadl 2010).

The history of contesting the reinterpretation of Islamic texts in Indonesia is very dynamic and encouraging. In the Suharto era (1966–98), modernist and traditionalist Muslims intensely argued and debated on their interpretations of Islam. Muhammadiyah was free to offer their version of Islam as long as it was not related to political Islam.

Introduction

Islamic law (shariah) has now become part of Aceh's development planning agenda. Based on the special autonomy policy, the province has the full authority to enforce shariah in a comprehensive manner. Numerous discussions arose regarding this notion, especially with the dominance of jinayah law enforcement, whether it can bring about any social change (Feener 2013). Many studies have explored the roots and effectiveness of its implementation (Salim 2008, 2015). However, little is known about the bureaucracy that sustained this shariah implementation agenda since its initiation, particularly the development of organizations within the bureaucracy. How organizations have been functioning to convey this vision of shariah implementation in Aceh remains unexplored.

The growth of regional organizational structures indicates a new phase of Indonesia's reform after the fall of Suharto in 1998, where politics have become decentralized. In Aceh, Dinas Syariat Islam (The Department of Islamic Shariah [DSI]) is one of the government offices established aimed at shariah implementation. There are also other offices bestowed with bigger authority, higher status, and independence. Divisions within the DSI cover domains such as Islamic law development, which extends to Aceh's Islamic development vision. In this sense, sharia enforcement should go beyond the scale of law enforcement as what have been studied in several countries (Rehman and Askari 2010). The Aceh government does not revisit shariah implementation goals, though it believes its implementation must be kaffah (comprehensive). Shariah enforcement is not limited to the legal renewal; its spectrum is as wide as the definition of Islam itself (Abubakar 2008, p. 19). It is a shared desire that Acehnese people expect, as a “shariah province”, where shariah should be reflected not only on the legal reforms, but also on the social and political developments. By investigating the DSI's bureaucratic authority, one notes the powers the Aceh government has assigned to the DSI in assuring and controlling the shariah implementation agenda.

From the beginning, shariah implementation in Aceh relies on a technocratic approach, such as establishing offices, recruiting apparatus, and arranging regulations. The DSI is one of the offices established to strengthen the socio-religious development, as well as to be a distinctive indicator of shariah implementation. The DSI shares some common tasks with the other offices in Aceh, namely the local branches of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Introduction

The common stereotype that depicts Islam as “an authoritarian religion” is a mistake, for it resulted from a partial understanding about the nature of religious authority in Islamic societies (Berkey 2010, p. 105). While the construction of religious authority in Islam consists of varying degrees of textuality, discursive methods and personified knowledge (Mandaville 2007), the stronghold of Islamic religious authority since the formative period of Islam has never been singular (Crone and Hinds 1986). It is in fact always contingent, plural and relational (Kramer and Schmidtke 2006, p. 2). This is because the normative texts of Islam are mute until they are interpreted (textuality), and thus dealing with them requires expert knowledge that is premised on a certain level of literacy and requisite training (discursive methods). This requirement has in turn pluralized Islamic authority into diverse categories of classified producers and transmitters of that knowledge, such as the religious scholars, the Sufi leaders, and the political figures (personified knowledge). Moreover, since Islam has no church-like institution and ordained clergy, what counts as authoritative knowledge of Islam has always been contested among diverse epistemological, social, cultural, and political orders.

In the modern times, the traditional construction of Islamic religious authority has seen a vigorous process of fragmentation, triggered by the advent of new media technologies and the rise of mass education in the Muslim societies, among other causes. This fragmentation in Islamic authority is marked by the emergence of new types of Muslim actors who do not necessarily have “formal” religious qualifications, but have vigorously created alternative sites of learning to speak of and for Islam (Eickelman and Anderson 1999), that subvert, break with, and even attack the traditional structures of scholarship, ideologies and authorities in the Muslim world (Devji 2005). For example, in the case of Indonesia today we might see the rise of popular Islam, which I define here as the daily understanding, articulation, and practice of what counts as Islam by a large number of ordinary Muslims in everyday lived circumstances, largely mediated through practices of popular culture, the global market economy, and modern lifestyles.

Since the fall of the Suharto government (New Order) in 1998, Indonesia has transitioned towards a democratic and decentralized government. This has given Indonesians greater freedom to express their religious identity. This has also given rise to a variety of Islamic orientation embedded into political parties, civil society organizations, cultural movements, lifestyles, and entertainment (Rakhmani 2016). For the last twenty years, Indonesian Islam is not exclusively represented by the two largest Islamic organizations, Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Since the 2000s, the Internet and other forms of information and communication technology (ICT) have created new forms of “public sphere” through the cyberspace (Lim 2003). With the Internet, global religious fundamentalist ideology reaches out to Indonesians too. It played a significant role facilitating communications among Muslim fundamentalists, allowing them to disseminate information through their mailing lists and websites, which eventually led to a resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in the country (Lim 2004).

Indonesian Islam transformed significantly with the end of authoritarian regime and the expansion of the use of digital technology. With the rapid growth of Internet access and extensive usage of social media platforms among Indonesians, these enable the Muslim community to express their religiosity openly, offering Quranic exegesis (tafsir), and starting conversations on Islamic matters. Social media platforms and private chat groups, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, also inevitably provide supporters of extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) the space to propagate their messages (Nuraniyah 2017). Are the conservatives, the “jihadists”, or the oppositional Islam (to be discussed shortly) threatening the authority of established state religious institutions, particularly Muhammadiyah and NU?

This chapter examines the current dynamics among Islamic-based groups in shaping the Indonesian Muslim identity. The first section defines “official” Islam and “oppositional” Islam and shows their distinctive characteristics. The next section addresses the problematic moves of recent oppositional Islam, using the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election as an example. The last section discusses existing challenges and internal reform that official Islam followers need to take so that they could lead the identity formation of Indonesian Islam that identifies with the universal values of inclusiveness, peace, and humanity.

Introduction

In the name of defending traditionalist Islam, preaching (dakwah) has become a widespread activity in contemporary Indonesia. The aim of dakwah is to promote the traditionalist Sunni version of Islam and to challenge puritanical and other “deviant” groups. The emergence of dakwah is a response to the expansion of global Islamic movements such as Salafi-Wahhabi and Hizbut Tahrir. While many scholars have studied these movements to understand what they perceive as a threat to Indonesian democracy and pluralism, only a few have studied the traditionalist dakwah and its various forms in the post-New Order Indonesia (see for instance Alatas 2008; Zamhari and Howell 2012; Woodward et al. 2012). One gap in the existing studies is an analysis of Sunni traditions and doctrines. This chapter finds that some traditionalist preachers and activists have worked together in reasserting traditional Sunni Islam or what they call “aswaja” (the abbreviation of ahl sunna wa al-jama’a). This movement seeks to reassert traditionalist Sunni orthodoxy while promoting anti-Wahhabism through various media.

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the religious factor that paved a way for the emergence of this new form of dakwah. It argues that its emergence is a response to internal and external threats seen as challenging established religious doctrines and traditional practices. While the Salafi-Wahhabi movement is regarded as the primary “threat”, these dakwah groups also regarded the Shias, liberal Islam, Hizbut Tahrir, and Ahmadiyah as deviant. The first part of this chapter discusses the general concept of Sunni Islam and its particular meaning for traditionalist Muslims in the Indonesian context. The second part examines the social and political context of the post-Suharto era that gave rise to aswaja dakwah and the campaign of anti-Wahhabism among traditionalist Muslims. The third part analyses the variants of aswaja dakwah and its characteristics in contemporary Indonesia.

Sunni and Traditional Islam in Indonesia

The term Sunni refers to ahl sunna wa al-jama’a, meaning the people of the Prophetic tradition (sunna) and community (jama’a). In Indonesia, there are numerous Muslim organizations who claimed to represent the Sunni branch regardless of whether they are traditionalist or reformist in their religious orientation. Each group promotes Sunni Islam based on their own interpretation.

Introduction

Studies on Indonesian Islamic organizations and scholars in their connection with their authority is well recorded (Azra, Dijk, and Kaptein 2010; Din 2012; Hefner 2016; Hoesterey 2011; Jabali 2006; Kaptein 2004; Kingsley 2014; Zulkifli 2013). This chapter offers a distinct perspective based on the experience of Islamic transnational organizations. It considers how transnational organizations from Turkey build religious education institutions, change their names to get support from the local government, and utilize Sufi teachings to maintain their authority. This chapter adopts the concept of “opportunity spaces” by M. Hakan Yavuz (2003 and 2004), who applies it when analysing the Muslim social movements in Turkey. The concept is useful to understand the reasons for the popularity of Turkish Muslim movements in Indonesia. An explanation of the concept will begin the chapter.

A discussion on the establishment and transformation of the Islamic education institution of the Sulaimaniyah, formerly known as asrama, and then later changed to pesantren, follows. The name change not only illustrates its focus on tahfidz (the person who memorizes the Quran) with the unique Ottoman Turkish methodology—that promises a faster way to memorize the whole Quran compared to other methods—as a flagship programme, but also its way of gaining authorization from the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Kemenag). Later in the article, the Sufi elements of the Sulaimaniyah will be described. The Sufi brotherhood of the Naqshbandi Sulaimaniyah is where the religious authority in the form of charismatic authority, established since the very beginning by Sheikh Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan as the 33rd Sufi master in the Naqshbandi line. This is a Sufi ritual which connects all followers across the globe. This chapter demonstrates that religious authority in Indonesia is not only contested among local Muslim organizations, but also by the transnational religious movement and among them, the lesser known Turkish Sufi movement, the Sulaimaniyah.

Opportunity Spaces and the Establishment of the Sulaimaniyah in Indonesia

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world. With a population of over 250 million, approximately 80 per cent of whom are Muslim, Indonesia just like any other Muslim majority country, has experienced an Islamic revival with influence from overseas.

Introduction

After the fall of the New Order administration in 1998, a complex entanglement between communal piety, religious commodification, Islamic populism, and Islamism has occurred in many Indonesia's Islamic institutions. This happens mostly due to the shift among urban middle-class Muslims, from conformed religious expressions to transnational ideas of Islam resulting from the global market economy. These rapidly growing yet fluid groups have continuously attempted to pursue “true” Islamic identity. They have claimed for recognition of their identity to be the most appropriate one and promoted it to be the ideal socio-cultural identity for the whole nation.

The 1998 political transformation has fuelled Muslims’ public expression of identities—that includes ethnic, religious, and social class, as indicated in a rapid consumption and commodification of religious practices and observances—and the creation of religious identities, piety, Muslim pride, and brotherhood through the commerce of Western and local brands. Although these kinds of religious practices were excluded during the New Order era, it is increasingly politicized in the newly democratized and decentralized regional political sphere (Millie et al. 2014, p. 195; Fealy 2008, pp. 15–39; Lukens-Bull 2008, pp. 220–34).

Due to the desire of modern Muslims who find scripturalist Islam as a “dry” subject (Howell 2010, p. 1042), many religious activities nowadays are expressed and practised openly in the public sphere, including at the state-owned mosques and on television, in order to be more inclusive (Millie et al. 2014). However, several contemporary trending religious activities, such as urban pengajian (religious congregations in urban spaces), are frequently exclusive—attended by tens of participants and mostly located in houses of the participants alternately—and appear to challenge the traditional, moderate face of Indonesian Islam. Despite its exclusiveness, the materials and issues discussed in such pengajian touch upon global and local religious affairs.

Global Islamic revival in the last several decades has fragmented the traditional forms of religious authority, generated new figures of public piety, and created new public spaces in which Islamic teachings are constituted and contested (Hoesterey 2012, p. 38). This has become an underlying reason why Muslims across the globe are attracted to worldwide religious issues.

Mills (1956, pp. 2–3) defines the power elite as “men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences.” This definition applies to religious authority as well, but with divine and legal dimensions added, as Marc Gaborieau (2010, p. 1) defines, is “the right to impose rules which are deemed to be in consonance with the will of God”. Authority here is certainly different from sheer power, or the use of force or violence, but the art of persuasion. A person with the said authority will be listened to, followed, and obeyed, not because of intimidation, money, or servitude, but because of shared values. People submit to a certain religious authority willingly and voluntarily because they believe he is the guardian of God's law, if not the voice of God on earth.

In Christianity, the institutions of authority that determine religious matters are councils or synods. Sunni Islam does not recognize such authoritative body because the gatekeepers of religion vary from one group or sect to another. Religious authority can refer to an individual ulama (ustadz) or Islamic organizations. Some of these ustadz serve as bureaucrats and received their appointments from the state, thus they can be referred to as “official ulama” (Norshahril 2018). In the case of Indonesia, the personalities can be learned individuals such as the late Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah (Quranic exegete and novelist), Professor Quraish Shihab (an exegete of the Quran), the late Nurcholish Madjid (professor of Islamic studies) or Abdurrahman Wahid (former Indonesian President); or organizations such as Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and the Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI). Religious authority, in different Muslim communities, can also refer to the habaib (descendants of the Prophet), imam or marja’ (in Shia Muslim), and caliph (in Ahmadiyya). Traditionally, religious authority can be acquired and exercised by knowledgeable and devout Muslims. The construction of religious authority, as explained by Peter Mandaville (2007, p. 101), is conventionally based on “the interaction between text, discursive method and personified knowledge, with constructions of the authoritative in Islam seen as combining these ingredients to varying degrees and in diverse configurations”.