Unlike in the previous decade, from the end of the 1980s, the New Order government (1986-1997) started to accommodate Islamic movements (see Chapter 2). In this period, the government supported Islamic organisations in establishing mosques (Effendy, 2003). Around one hundred new mosques were established by the government, which also allowed civil servants to express their religious (Islamic) identity in state offices through conducting Friday prayers, giving lectures on Islamic subjects, and wearing Islamic dress – a factor that was important for Muslim women in particular (Latif, 2008). Such religious allowances were not made during the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. Furthermore, in 1992, the government
supported and even subsidised Islamist leaders and neo-revivalist figures in establishing an Islamic organisation named ICMI (the Association of Indonesian Muslim Scholars) (Hefner, 2000).123 Regardless, the shift of the government’s attitude was also a political strategy for domesticating and gaining political support and legitimacy from Muslims through providing more freedom and privilege for Islamic organisations.
I argue that the shift in the government's political attitude, which was welcomed by Islamic movements, encouraged the Tarbiyah movement to take advantage of opportunities to expand the scope of their dakwah and its audience. Whilst the Tarbiyah movement had previously focused on campuses and disseminated its ideas covertly, the movement now began to target wider social groups from various backgrounds, as well as institutions, and spread its ideas overtly. Noura gave me a brief account of the Tarbiyah’s shift from an ‘underground’ movement conducting its dakwah activities in small and marginal places to a more open movement promoting its ideas in public areas. She said: “then, after [the] political conditions [became] more conducive, the scope of our dakwah broadened into wider society”.
Noura thus states that the shift in political opportunities (Wiktorowicz 2004; Fox 2012) was the factor that led the movement to preach their messages overtly, and to target wider society.
123 There was a debate among Muslim leaders about whether this organisation (ICMI) was initiated to give Muslim leaders a 'space' for aggregating and articulating Muslim political interests due to their position as a majority of the population, or whether it was only used by the government to domesticate Islamic organisations and gain more legitimacy from them (Latif, 2008). For me, however, both purposes could have been pursued at the same time. The shift in the Government’s attitude to Islamic movements might have been based on taking and giving or on mutual benefit. The organisation itself was chaired by Habibie, one of the influential ministers in the cabinet, and well known for having close relationships with Islamic figures.
The dakwah activities were performed by senior Tarbiyah activists.124 As Noura explained further:
The Tarbiyah activists entered the mosques and religious institutions, and most of the activists were known as ustadz [religious teacher] or muballigh [preachers]. Ustadz or muballigh, trained not only the younger activists in [the] groups, but also gave lectures at various public places overtly, such as campuses, offices, and mosques (Noura, 50s, leader, female, Jakarta).125 From interviews I held with the early activists of the Tarbiyah movement, I concluded that the senior cadres of the Tarbiyah movement played a significant role in spreading their dakwah ideologies from private to public places, such as offices, large mosques, schools or other educational institutions, and other public places.
These senior cadres also established social and educational services, such as Islamic schools and religious institutions. These educational and social activities supported the Tarbiyah movement in enlarging their dakwah audiences beyond university mosques.
The senior members of the Tarbiyah movement referred to this period as mihwar sha’bi (the popular phase). From the interviews I held with the leaders of Tarbiyah movement and by examining their official texts, I found that this term meant that the Tarbiyah members who were trained in the previous period were now required to interact with the wider society and to take part in educating it (irsyad al-mujtama’) (MPP PKS, 2008a: 57). A statement from a key leader of the Tarbiyah movement, for instance, makes it clear that:
124 During the early development of the Liqo in the 1980s and the early and middle part of the 1990s, this movement had numerous Liqo figures, with different sorts of expertise in Islamic studies. They were well known among the Liqo community, and widely referred to using the title ‘ustadz’, which means teachers of religious or Islamic subjects. The title ‘ustadz’ was not a formal or official appointment, but established through an informal process of recognition. This recognition developed over years of interactions between the Liqo and the Tarbiyah community through various opportunities provided by both formal and informal activities.
125 Interviewed on 08/10/2012.
After having a mihwar tanzimi, we then have a mihwar sha’bi. Sha’bi means society. We have indeed many instruments and activities in reaching our society [in this phase] (Fatih, 50s, leader, male, Jakarta).126
In this period, Tarbiyah members who already had distinctive Tarbiyah characteristics (tamayuz) were expected by the leaders to spread and conduct non-verbal dakwah among Indonesian society. Verbal dakwah here involves a call to religious piety which, according to the movement, is achieved by members providing themselves as role models for society, as indicated by a statement from a leader of the Tarbiyah movement:
There is guidance (kaidah) that [members] should always be reminded [of]:
all of us [Tarbiyah members] must interact with anybody with our Islamic
‘uniqueness’ (fa-l yakhtalithuun wa-laakin yatamayyazuun). This guidance does not require the members to be exclusive, but [to be] blended within the society without losing their ‘uniqueness’. However, we are aware that, as a consequence of our social interaction (mu’amalah), people might say that we are very exclusive, strange or something else (Ahmad, 60s, leader, male, Jakarta).127
In my observations of their behaviour and attitudes, however, this guidance not only created the ‘uniqueness’ of its members, but also their distinctive characters – in the sense of their ideologies and practices. Three interviewees from non-Tarbiyah/PKS backgrounds, for instance, strongly opined that “the Liqo members’ ways of thinking and behaviours are ‘strange’ or ‘odd’ as compared to the wider Indonesian Muslims” (Fachruddin, Muiz and Masdar, age group 40s-50s, Jakarta, university lecturers).128 Fachruddin, for instance, gives an example:
My neighbour who is a cadre of the Tarbiyah movement –whenever he has a chance to talk with me-- is continuously condemning the activists of
Rather, they are bad influences in terms of the adoption of Western ideas or cultures among Muslim youth (40s, male, Jakarta, university lecturer).129
The Liqo members were required by the leaders of the Tarbiyah movement to participate in a variety of public outreach events, such as community events. The public events aimed to disseminate the movement's ideology and also to draw in new members. Like other Islamist movements, any social interaction is seen by the Liqo-Tarbiyah movement as an opportunity for dakwah (see Chapter 5.3).130
In addition, Tarbiyah activists started to mobilise their public dakwah activities through training and education centres, charity centres, cultural activities, free medical services, and so on. Fatih, a key leader of the Tarbiyah movement, explained various activities in this period (1990-1998) as follows:
We started to develop publishing institutions such as Rabbani Press, asy-Shamil, Intermedia, and many more. We have many social, educational, and cultural institutions, such as the council for giving alms [zakat], the Integrated Islamic Primary School [Sekolah Dasar Islam Terpadu/SDIT], the School Dakwah Union [Lembaga Dakwah Sekolah/LDS], the Campus Dakwah Union [Lembaga Dakwah Kampus/LDK], and other smaller dakwah movements, as managed by Tarbiyah female activists for women in the society (Fatih, 50s, leader, male, Jakarta).131
These institutions were established by the Tarbiyah cadres to promote their dakwah messages to wider audiences and to help people understand these messages. These centres are the main medium of interaction between the Tarbiyah community and wider communities. Through my observations and interviews with the majority of the Tarbiyah movement leaders, I found that through these centres, the Tarbiyah
129 Interviewed on 08/11/2012.
130 This can be seen in other studies of Islamist movements, such as Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan (Wiktorowicz, 2001), the Muslim Brotherhood and the female mosque movement in Egypt (Gilsenan, 1973; Mahmood, 2005), and Al-Muhajirun in the UK (Wiktorowicz, 2005).
131 Interviewed on 21/11/2012.
movement not only provides basic goods and free services to the wider community, but also promotes their ideological values. In many cases, through providing services and programmes, the Tarbiyah movement aimed to spread their public dakwah messages and foster a more religious Indonesian society.132 This range of centres, from charities to educational institutions, is part of the Tarbiyah movement’s main dakwah ideology and strategy (see Chapter 5.3.2).