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Introduction
and its social efficacy in shaky old empires and kingdoms that appeared
little altered from the past.
Nonetheless, the term Neo-Sufism has escaped from the
keyboards of historians of the pre-modern world and is now employed
by students of contemporary changes in the religious field. Scholars in
the humanities and social sciences use the term to designate social
arenas in which Sufism is being enacted in unprecedented ways. For
example, historian Mark Sedgwick (2004) has extended the term to
apply to twentieth century self-described Sufi groups formed in the
West and open to non-Muslims without any requirement for
conversion. These include Inayat Khans International Sufi Movement
and the Sufi circles that formed around the European converts Rene
Guenon and Frithjof Schuon. In the eyes of many Muslims who
consider Sufism to be part of Islam, such groups are jarringly novel,
and even heretical.3
Turning from studies of twentieth century Western
appropriations of Sufism to studies of Sufism in contemporary
Muslim-majority societies, we find a range of modest to substantial
changes in the ways the Sufi heritage is now manifest in Islamic
practice. For example, some Sufi orders that have attracted bettereducated followers familiar with modern forms of social organisation
have added a kind of bureaucratic exo-skeleton to the informal bonds
linking the syekh to his initiates and the followers to one another (for
example Gilsenan 1973; Hoffman 1995). Other orders have expanded
and formalised their community involvement by providing dormitory
facilities for urban migrants associated with the order (see, for example,
Chih 2007; Villalon 2007). Yet other orders have eased ritual
requirements for initiation and softened expectations that followers
will involve themselves exclusively with the one master (Howell and
Bruinessen 2007).
In studies of contemporary Sufism in the Muslim world,
however, the term Neo-Sufism is generally reserved for Sufism
cultivated outside a Sufi order. Such Sufi practice without the guidance
of a syekh authorised by his predecessor to initiate seekers has a
problematic status in Muslim communities. Many Muslims disapprove
of it as dangerous. Nonetheless, others approve and even promote it as
Introduction
curriculum state schools and graduated with his first two tertiary
degrees from a State Islamic Institute (IAIN), he accepted the
designation of his ideas as Neo-Modernist and even promoted that
approach to exegesis.8 Neo-Modernist scholarship, which applies
contextual modes of exegesis for the derivation of Islamic law (fiqh),
mostly concerns what in the Sufi tradition is called the outer
dimension of Islam, that is, the regulation of everyday social life in
accord with the Quran and Hadiths. Even in the 1970s, however, when
Madjids main work was developing a contextual approach to religious
law and working out its implications for religion-state relationships (an
approach which observers have characterised as liberal), he already
sought to balance the narrowly legalistic Islamic renewal gaining
strength in those days with an appreciation for the value of cultivating
an inner sense of Gods presence (Barton 1995: 126ff.; Howell
2001:71112; Kull 2005:14961). In the 1990s his writings and talks
brought this more to the fore. He then began more energetically
popularising the understanding that Neo-Modernisme needs to be
balanced with Neo-Sufisme (see, for example, Madjid 1993; Madjid in
Munawar-Rachman 2012a:2092; 2092b:21889), that is, with new ways
for cultivating Islamic spirituality in accord both with religious law
(sharia and fiqh) and with the challenges of modern living.
Madjid explicitly drew the term Neo-Sufisme from the work of
Fazlur Rahman (Madjid 1993:956; Madjid in Munawar-Rachman
2012b:21889; see also Kuswanto 2007:1768), who directed his
doctoral dissertation on Ibn Taymiyyah at the University of Chicago.
Thus when explaining his own appropriation of the term Neo-Sufisme,
Madjid reminded his readers that Rahman had sought to demonstrate
both the value of Sufi spirituality and the necessity for it to be
corrected and brought back into conformity with sharia. Even though
the Sufi reform that Rahman described occurred mostly before
modern social change impacted on the Muslim world, Madjid
considered that in our changed times just such a balanced program of
renewal, with a few additional features, is what Muslims need now.
Like Rahman, Madjid also harked back to the writings of Ibn
Taymiyyah and his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Kull 2005:113, 154;
Kuswanto 2007:1725; Madjid 1993; Madjid in Munawar-Rachman
Introduction
Introduction
10
Introduction
11
12
Introduction
13
14
fasting month, but for physically attacking and inflicting serious injury
on members of minority religious groups and supporters of minority
rights. This militant Sufism is hardly anomalous. Many of the
nineteenth-century Neo-Sufi orders mobilised armed resistance against
colonial powers. But here violence is turned against the enemy within:
lax and wrong-headed fellow Muslims soft on deviants and religious
minorities.
In Ahmad Zainal Arifins article we again encounter habib-led
Sufi renewal, but this habib has risen from within the very
organisational heart of traditionalist Indonesian Islam, the Nahdlatul
Ulama. Arifin provides us with a portrait of Habib Muhammad Luthfi
bin Yahya (Habib Luthfi) and examines his model of Sufi renewal
based in the Sufi orders and aimed at preserving them.
Habib Luthfis is a tolerant Sufism, expressing themes
dominant in the Sufi tradition of Gods nearness, mercy, benevolence
and love. And importantly for our task of extending the scope of
studies of Sufi renewal in Indonesia, Habib Luthfi has taken on the
task of revitalising t arqa-based Sufism. He especially devotes himself
to winning back young people, within and outside the pesantren, to
sharia-based Sufi spirituality as taught and practised within pesantren and
their Sufi orders. Indeed his work can be seen as the pre-eminent
example of that, insofar as he is not only vastly popular with the public,
but also heads the association of recognised tarekat (tarekat
muktabarah), the Jamiyyah Ahlith Thoriqoh Al-Mutabarah AnNahdliyyah (JATMAN)20 within the Nahdlatul Ulama. Not coincidentally he also holds authorisations to give initiations in all of
Indonesias major Sufi orders, in addition to being the syekh of a branch
of the Syadziliyah order. Habib Luthfi vigorously affirms the necessity
for the spiritual seeker to have the guidance of a properly authorised
syekh (Sufi master), to take initiation (baiat) from him, and to practise
within a recognised t arqa. Habib Luthfi has also noticed, however, that
Sufism is being delivered outside the t arqa in ways that seem to be
easier and more culturally hip. Accordingly, Arifin shows us, Habib
Luthfi has made a point of simplifying the language he uses in teaching
about Sufism. He also addresses social issues like the tensions between
Islam and nationalism, and plays musical instruments such as the organ
Introduction
15
16
Introduction
Notes
17
1. Note that the novel cast of certain Sufi orders of this period had already
been remarked upon by J Spencer Trimingham in his work on Africa (1959,
1962) and by HAR Gibb (1953) commenting on movements in Central
Asia, India and lands to the east at that time, but Rahman was the first to
use the term Neo-Sufism to characterise those movements (Voll 2008:317).
Trimingham also surveyed the distinctive features of nineteenth century
Sufi movements across the world in his widely-read Sufi Orders in Islam
(1998 [1971]).
2. Exactly how the Prophet Muhammad was to be approached by aspiring
mystics of these Neo-Sufi orders became a subject of considerable debate,
sparked by OFahey and Radtke in their 1993 article. See Voll (2008) for a
recent summary of those debates and overall reassessment of the value of
Neo-Sufism as a category in the study of reform movements of the late
pre-modern period.
3. For a broad-ranging examination of contemporary Sufism in the Western
world see Raudvere and Stenberg (2008).
4. So, for example, the cover story in 6 October 2008 of Tempo (one of
Indonesias leading news magazines) was entitled Sufi Kota Mencari Tuhan
(City Sufis Seek God). The cover graphic humorously portrayed a cluster of
clean-shaven young men and jilbab-covered women consulting a turbanned
associate while doing searches on their Blackberries and portable computers.
5. For example, on 21 and 22 January 2009 Paramadina University held a two
day conference entitled Urban Sufism Days. The first day was given over
to scholarly papers. The second, programmed for community engagement,
had a more popular tone. It featured a series of informal talks by spiritual
groups, a reading of Sufi poems by the esteemed historian and writer Abdul
Hadi, sentimental religious songs and a Sufi whirling dance.
6. Note, however, Abdul Munir Mulkhans analytical use of the term NeoSufisme in his book Neo-Sufisme dan Pudarnya Fundamentalisme di Pedesaan
(2000).
7. See biographies and analyses of Nurcholish Madjids thought by, for
example, Barton 1995; Fatimah 1999; and Kull 2005. A major compendium
of his writings has also been compiled by Budhy Munawar-Rahman (2006).
8. The designation Neo-Modernist might suggest that his family background
and early education connected him to Islamic modernist organisations such
as the Muhammadiyah, which was not the case. His early religious education
was in pesantren (traditionalist Islamic boarding schools), which he attended
while he also went to general curriculum state schools. For his senior
18
Introduction
19
20
Shahab, MA, Dr. Alwi Shihab, Prof. KH. Ali Yafie, and KH. Didin
Hafiduddin, MSc. (Note that Haidar Bagir now holds a PhD from the
University of Indonesia.)
20. Jamiyyah Ahli Thoriqoh Mutabarah Nahdiyyin is the new name adopted
in 1979, by the organisation originally founded in 1957 as the Pucuk
Pemimpin Jamiyyah Ahli Thoriqoh Mutabarah. See Dhofier 1980:70;
Howell 2001:709 and Arifin, in this issue, for further clarification.
21. The collection is called Islamic propagation and practices in contemporary
Indonesia in Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 46(1), 2012.
References
Introduction
21
22
Introduction
23
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