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Improvisational Islam: Indonesian Youth in a Time of Possibility

Online ISBN:
9781501727870
Print ISBN:
9781501727856
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
Book

Improvisational Islam: Indonesian Youth in a Time of Possibility

Nur Amali Ibrahim
Nur Amali Ibrahim
Indiana University
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Published online:
23 May 2019
Published in print:
15 October 2018
Online ISBN:
9781501727870
Print ISBN:
9781501727856
Publisher:
Cornell University Press

Abstract

This book examines novel ways of being Muslim, where religious dispositions are achieved through techniques that have little or no precedent in classical Islamic texts or concepts. At the center of the book are rival groups of Indonesian student activists in Indonesia who are behaving in similarly experimental ways. Progressive Muslim activists are reading humanistic and social scientific books and engaging in satire to formulate an inclusive understanding of the religion, while conservative Islamists are using Western techniques of accounting and self-help to develop religious puritanism. These religious practices have been made possible by deposal of President Suharto's authoritarian New Order regime in 1998 and the subsequent adoption of democratic systems. At the same time, the Indonesian case study, which occurs in a heightened political context, brings into sharper relief processes happening in Muslim life everywhere. To be a practitioner of their religion, Muslims draw on not only their scriptures, but also the non-traditional ideas and practices that circulate in their society, which importantly include those that originate in the West. In the contemporary political discourse where Muslims are often portrayed as adversarial to the West, this story about flexible and creative Muslims is an important one to tell.

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