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individuals recruited into Salafi or Muslim
Brotherhood groups decide at some point
that their mentors are not Islamic enough
and move on to even more extreme and
violent groups. This progression from
religious radicalism to violent extremism is
made possible by the absence of firewalls
between mainstream Islam and radicals and
violent extremists. Violent extremists can
derive scriptural justifications for their
actions. This is because the elements of the
Islamic tradition that could be used to lend
support to radical interpretations have not
yet been anachronized. Therefore, if the goal
is to turn the ideological tide, modernizing
Islamic teachings on jihad is an area where
progressive theological work is needed.
1 Donald K. Emmerson, “Islam, Muslims,
and Violence: The Useful Diversity of
‘Islamism,’” Paper prepared for Special
Session on “Islam and Political Violence,”
Annual Convention of the Middle East
Studies Association, November 20-23, 2004
(draft).
2 International Crisis Group (ICG), “Jemaah
Islamiyah in Southeast Asia: Damaged but
Still Dangerous,” ICG Asia Report No. 63,
Jakarta/Brussels: August 26, 2003, p. 6.
3 “Saudis Quietly Promote Strict Islam in
Indonesia,” New York Times, July 5, 2003.
4 Zachary Abuza, “Muslims, Politics, and
Violence in Indonesia: An Emerging Jihadist-
Islamist Nexus?” NBR Analysis, Vol. 15, No.
3, September 2004, p. 31.
Sources of the Radicalization of
Muslim Communities
in Southeast Asia
Having defined radicalization and the
issues associated with this process in general
terms, we can turn to the Southeast Asian
experience. One of the assumptions stated
in the concept paper for this conference is
that violent extremism and the radicalization
of the Muslim communities are recent
phenomena. This is true, for the reasons
that I suggested at the beginning of this
presentation, but there have been some
historical deviations from the norm. As the
Indonesian participants here know, the Padri
movement in Sumatra in the 1820s and 1830s
involved an effort to introduce Wahhabism,
sometimes using forceful methods, by
preachers who had returned from Mecca and
had been influenced by Wahhabi teachings
during the al-Sauds’ first occupation of the
city at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
With this exception, and of the uprisings
against the colonial powers that combined
ethnic and religious factors, the only major
Islamist revolt in the modern history of
Southeast Asia was the Darul Islam rebellion
from 1949 to 1962. The Darul Islam experience
is important because it is one of the
fountainheads of the regional terrorist
movement that goes by the name of Jemaah
Islamiyah, which seems to me a
misappropriation of a perfectly respectable
name, but this precisely one of the tactics of
the extremists, which is to cloak themselves
in the language of religion.
As Sidney Jones has pointed out in her
analyses of the origins of Islamist terrorist
in Indonesia, Abdullah Sungkar, the cofounder
of Jemaah Islamiyah, served as an
officer in Darul Islam leader Kartosuwirjo’s
Islamic Army of Indonesia and Abu Bakar
Ba’asyir, although he did not participate in
the rebellion, accepted the Darul Islam’s
ideological agenda.2 Individuals from
families with a Darul Islam backgrounds
continue to play an important role in
terrorism in Indonesia. The point here is that
while external factors provided the catalyst
for radicalization and violent extremism in
Southeast Asia, these phenomena have
internal sources as well.
Nevertheless, while the seeds of
radicalization in Southeast Asia were already
there, this process was catalyzed by the
worldwide Islamic revival in its Salafi and
Wahhabi manifestations there is nothing
wrong with religious piety per se and by the
influx of money and ideologies from the
Middle East, which has allowed extremist
groups to expand their activities and to make
inroads Southeast Asian educational and
social welfare networks.
First, the effects of the worldwide Islamic
resurgence. This is a complex phenomenon
that reflects the stresses of traditional
societies and of individuals within these
societies as they seek to adjust to or cope
66 Masjid Khadijah