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Ramadan fast observance, and attendance at Friday prayer, roughly half of these
are observant believers, known in Indonesia as santri Muslims. Santri Muslims
are, in turn, largely divided between urban Islamic modernists and rural
traditionalists. The vast majority of modernists are affiliated with an organization
called Muhammadiyah, which was founded in 1912 as a reformist movement
that advocated individual interpretations of the Qur’an over acceptance of
traditional interpretations laid down by the ulama. The other main modernist
organizations include al-Irsyad, founded in 1913, and Persis, founded in the
1923. 4 While these groups have much smaller memberships, they do enjoy a
disproportionate influence upon Islamist politics and activism. The majority of
the rural Islamic traditionalists, by contrast, are directly linked to an organization
called Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which was established in 1926 in reaction to the
establishment of Muhammadiyah. 5
Muhammadiyah is generally recognized as a moderate organization that has
consistently played a constructive role in Indonesia, particularly in the areas of
education and health. While it is true that Muhammadiyah is, sociologically, a
moderate organization, it has also long been an intellectually conservative
organization with strong reactionary elements. In fact, although theoretically
based on the ideas of Muhammad Abduh, the Egyptian jurist and religious
scholar regarded as the father of Islamic modernism, Muhammadiyah is shaped
more directly by the ideas of Abduh’s disciple, Rashid Rida. Rida, who inherited
the mantle of Muhammad Abduh after the latter’s death in 1905, propagated and
built upon the ideas of Abduh via his journal, al-Manar. After moving from his
native Syria to Cairo in 1897, Rida worked closely with Muhammad Abduh.
4
On Persis see: Howard M. Federspiel, Islam and Ideology in the Emerging Indonesian State: the
Persatuan Islam (Persis) 1923-1957 (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
5
On Islamic Modernism in Indonesia see Islamic modernism in Indonesia and Muhammadiyah
see: B.J. Boland, The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971);
Charles Kurzman (ed.), Modernistl Islam: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002);
Mitsuo Nakamura, The Crescent Arises over the Banyan Tree: A Study of the Muhammadiyah
Movement in a Central Javanese Town (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1983); and
Deliar Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University
Press, 1973). On Islamic tradionalism in Indonesia see: Greg Barton and Greg Fealy, eds.,
Nahdlatul Ulama, Traditional Islam and Modernity in Indonesia (Clayton, Australia: Monash Asia
Institute, 1996); Greg Barton, Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesian President, Muslim Democrat: A View
from the Inside (Sydney and Honolulu: UNSW Press and University of Hawaii Press, 2002); Greg
Fealy, “Rowing in a Typhoon: Nahdlatul Ulama and the Decline of Constitutional Democracy”,
in Indonesian Democracy: 1950s and 1990s, ed. David Bourchier and John Legge (Clayton, Australia:
Monash University, 1994), 88–98.
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