Page 205 - Transformasi Masyarakat Indonesia dan Historiografi Indonesia Modern

Djoko Suryo

the Islamic reform movement in Indonesia in the early of twen-
tieth century. The enlightened thinking of these leading Islamic
thinkers of the Modern Islamic Reformist movement spread
over the other part of the Muslim world, included Indonesia.
In the context of the spreading of the Modernist movement to
Indonesia, Singapore played a major role. Singapore became a
transit for the Indonesian hajis (pilgrims) who travel to Mecca,
where for Indonesian often lived in this city for extended peri-
ods in connection with their pilgrimage. While, Minangkabaus
played a leading role in early reform movement. Two impor-
tant Modernist pioneers from Minangkabau should be men-
tioned here are Shaikh Muhammad Djamil Djambek (1860 1947)
and Haji Rasul (Haji Abdul Karim Amrullah, 1879 1945). Both
had been students of Ahmad Khatib. Religious reform move-
ment also spread to Java. The first initiatives, were taken by
the Arab community of Batavia (Jakarta) who in 1901 estab-
lished Jami’yyat Khair (Benevolent Society). Afterwards, there
arose another reform movement, the Persyarikatan Ulama (Union
of Religious Scholars), in West Java in 1911, and then the most
significant Modernist organization of Indonesia, Muhamma-
diyah, was established in Yogyakarta in 1912. The founder was
Kyai Haji Ahmad Dahlan (1868-1923), and he was the religious
establishment of the Yogyakarta Sultanate. The history of Is-
lamic modernism in Indonesia to a large extent is the history of
Muhammadiyah, especially after 1925.
It should be remarked, that the birth of the Islamic reform
movement in Indonesia was coincidentally with the rise of the
nationalism in Indonesia. The birth of the both can be sepa-
rated for its closely related, and the both became a profound
sign that a new age was dawning in Indonesia. In connection
with the transformation of the Indonesia society in the politi-
cal, social, cultural and religious affairs, the development of
the religious reformist movement provided a new stream of
thought in the development of the nationalist movement in In-

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