Gender and Power in Indonesian Islam: Leaders, feminists, Sufis and pesantren selves (ASAA Women in Asia Series)

The traditional Islamic boarding schools known as pesantren are crucial centres of Muslim learning and culture within Indonesia, but their cultural significance has been underexplored. This book is the first to explore understandings of gender and Islam in pesantren and Sufi orders in Indonesia. By considering these distinct but related Muslim gender cultures in Java, Lombok and Aceh, the book examines the broader function of pesantren as a force for both redefining existing modes of Muslim subjectivity and cultivating new ones. It demonstrates how, as Muslim women rise to positions of power and authority in this patriarchal domain, they challenge and negotiate "normative" Muslim patriarchy while establishing their own Muslim "authenticity." The book goes on to question the comparison of Indonesian Islam with the Arab Middle East, challenging the adoption of expatriate and diasporic Middle Eastern Muslim feminist discourses and secular western feminist analyses in Indonesian contexts. Based on extensive fieldwork, the book explores configurations of female leadership, power, feminisms and sexuality to reveal multiple Muslim selves in pesantren and Sufi orders, not only as centres of learning, but also as social spaces in which the interplay of gender, politics, status, power and piety shape the course of life. Cover 1 Title Page 6 Copyright Page 7 Table of Contents 8 Series editor’s foreword 10 Acknowledgements 11 Notes on contributors 12 Introduction: de-colonizing Islam and Muslim feminism 14 PART I Female leadership and Muslim agency 36 1 Between Sufi and Salafi subjects: female leadership, spiritual power and gender matters in Lombok 38 2 Leadership and authority: women leading dayah in Aceh 62 3 Gender in contemporary Acehnese dayah: moving beyond docile agency? 79 PART II Female spiritual authority in Sufi orders and mystical groups 94 4 When wahyu comes through women: female spiritual authority and divine revelation in mystical groups and pesantren-Sufi orders 96 5 Reframing the gendered dimension of Islamic spirituality: silsilah and the ‘problem’ of female leadership in tarekat 116 PART III Muslim feminisms: Islamic and Islamist orientations 130 6 Interpreting and enacting Islamic feminism in Pesantren Al-Muayyad Windan 132 7 Women’s negotiation of status and space in a Muslim fundamentalist movement 148 PART IV Sexuality, shari’ah and power 168 8 The tawdry tale of ‘Syech’ Puji and Luftiana: child marriage and polygamy on the boundary of the pesantren world 170 9 Constructing sexuality in a panopticon pesantren 188 Glossary 200 Index 203 "This book discusses the understandings of gender and Islam in pesantren and Sufi orders in Indonesia. It contributes to the decolonization of the anthropology of Islam in Indonesia, confronting ideological and intellectual tropes of (neo)-colonialism in two ways. Firstly, it deconstructs categories denying the "authenticity" of Indonesian Islams on the basis of comparison with the Arab Middle East, and secondly, it critically examines the salience of expatriate and diasporic Middle Eastern Muslim feminist discourses and secular western feminist analyses in Indonesian contexts"-- Provided by publisher