Page 287 - INDONESIA ISLAMIC CULTURE

a congregated invocation group like walhamdulillah wa la ilaha illa Allah and is both a form of social control legacies. The religious purification
the ones mentioned above. In 2004, wallahu akbar (Glory be to Allah, all as well as a place where those who movement through Wahhabism that
when he stated his intention to run praise be to Allah, there is no god but perform mystical vocations can bring emerged in the Arabian Peninsula
for the presidency for the first direct Allah, and He is the Almighty), as well about a peaceful mind and have many was oriented to political power and
presidential election in Indonesia, he as other good utterances. These fine other positive benefits. Sufism offers a managed to give birth to a new country
founded an invocation group with a utterances are recited uncountable times wide range of forms of and methods for called Saudi Arabia, but this kind of
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number of clerics among his supporters as a way to subjugate the soul and the spiritual enlightenment amidst urban life movement in other Islamic regions runs
and it was named the Majelis Dhikr SBY innermost heart only to the meanings of that is overloaded with a large variety of in accordance with local conditions and
“Nurussalam” (Nurussalam Invocation these utterances, as well as by intimate psychic pathology. understanding expanded by Western
Assembly of SBY). conversations with God (munajat), rationalist traditions.
exposing the soul to Allah, the One and Conclusion
The above mentioned invocation Almighty, the Possessor of Power over Indonesia is obviously different from
groups are just some examples. Many everything, including the power to cure From the above we may conclude Saudi Arabia. The reform movement
other invocation groups are located in diseases, etc. The participants believe that the modernization of Islam rests in Egypt was also different from that of
Jakarta or in other major cities. Some that the practice of these invocation on two pillars, namely puritanism and in Saudi Arabia. If in Saudi Arabia the
can be mentioned here such as the rituals is a means of bringing about a rationalism. Reformists think that the purification process was accompanied by
Majelis Dzikir “Nurul Musthofa” and peaceful mind, controlling the self from cause of the stagnation of Muslims’moral the rejection of rational Western culture
various other invocation assemblies disobedience, refraining from falling into and spiritual life during medieval times and the old innovative Islamic intellectual
under the guidance of descendants of the falsehood and the “illusion” of worldly was their deviation from the norms set by heritage, in Egypt, Muhammad Abduh
the Prophet (habib) in Jakarta, like the splendor, which always tempt the people the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The solution accepted various views of modern
“Majelis Rasulullah” (the Assembly of the in urban societies. was to return to the purity of Islam by Western civilization and he rejuvenated
Messenger of Allah) led by the late Habib way of returning to the Qur’an and the the old intellectual heritage of Islamic
Mundzir al-Musawa that had more than Religious training and practices with Sunnah. They rejected everything that civilization. In Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi
10,000 members. particular emphases on this kind of was not guided by the two main sources movement was known as fundamentalist
spirituality seem to have become and regarded it as heretical; while while in Egypt and Indonesia, supporters
The most fundamental activity of the increasingly popular among urban anything that accords with these main of pro-Western reform movements were
invocation assemblies is spiritual communities, at least over the last sources is called sunnah. In accordance called modernists. In Indonesia, reform
training by means of invocations and the fifteen years. Observers of religious life with a sound hadith, innovation is took the form of religious purification
remembrance of Allah as the Creator commonly call this phenomenon “urban misguided, and the perverted are to be while Western civilization was selectively
(al-Khaliq), the Omnipotent, the One, Sufism”. It is a form of spiritual discourse put in hell. They were very rigid with their accepted. In the field of Indonesia
and all the other attributes of Allah by among several classes of followers but slogan back to the Qur’an and Sunnah, education, modernization was conducted
way of reciting a good utterance (kalimah dominated by the upper middle class so they considered innovations not only by imitating the European schools
tayyiba) such as la ilaha illa Allah as it costs quite a lot of money. Sufism as distorted, and therefore hostile, but system, such as HIS met de Kor’an,
meaning “no god but Allah”, Subhanallah in urban society has its own functions also ignored old innovative intellectual and by modernizing pesantrens by

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