Perfection Makes Practice: Learning, Emotion, and the Recited Qur'an in Indonesia by Anna

M. Gade
Review by: Thomas Gibson
Indonesia, No. 79 (Apr., 2005), pp. 183-185
Published by: Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University
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Anna M. Gade. Perfection
Makes Practice:Learning,
Emotion,and theRecited
Qur'an in Indonesia. Honolulu: Universityof Hawaii Press, 2004.
348 pages.

Thomas Gibson

This book is a sustained attemptto understand the "moods and motivations"that

impel growingnumbersof Indonesians to devote long hours to learninghow to recite
and memorize the Qur'an. Fluent in Arabic and Bahasa Indonesia, ProfessorGade
spent ten monthsin 1996 observingQur'anic recitationinstructionand performanceat
the main mosque in Makassar, South Sulawesi, and in 1997 she interviewedexperts
with national and internationalreputations.She combines these firsthandmaterials
with extensive discussions of classical Islamic texts on recitationand memorization.
She puts her aim in doing so this way: "Rather than emphasizing the political
conditionsof the 'New Order' as an overarchinginterpretiveframe,this work applies
instead a method and approach that could explain Arabic-language practices in
Indonesia by locating them within the larger continuities of the Islamic religious
tradition." The decision to stress trans-historicaland global religious continuities
rather than the local social or political ramifications of the recent upsurge in
Indonesian Islamic piety constitutes both the strengthand the weakness of this
volume.
Gade is quite good at conveyingto a non-initiatehow and why what mightseem to
be the tedious process of memorizinga long prose work,writtenin an archaic formof
a difficultforeignlanguage, actuallycomes to be quite absorbingforthe pious student.
She shows how modern pedagogical techniques have been used to attractand retain
the interestof learners,young and old. The firstchaptercontains a long historicaland
theoreticalintroductionto the topic of recitation.This is followed by four substantive
chapterson theskillsofmemorization,literacy,performance, and competition.
Chapter 2 begins with a theoreticaldiscussion of the place of emotion in religious
ritual. This is followed by a review of classical Islamic thought about the way the
acquisitionof religiousknowledge is meant to transformthemoral comportment(adab)
of the student.The finalthirdofthe chapterbringsus at last to her fieldmaterials.
Chapter 3 compares the "traditional"Baghdadi with the "modern" Iqra method for
teachingArabic lettersand the rules forvocalizing the Qur'anic text(tajwid).Here the
ethnographic material is richer than in chapter 2 since Gade provides a detailed
account of the emotionalassociations each of the two methodsproduces. Althoughthe
Baghdadi method is treated as "traditional,"it too has undergone modificationin
recent years. It was once taught in a one-on-one fashion by a shaikhusing the local
vernacularof Bugis or Makassar. It is now taughtin Bahasa Indonesia to large groups
of childrenwho oftensit behind rows of wooden bookstands in the mosque. The Iqra
method was invented near Yogyakartain the 1970s, and the firstinstructionmanuals
were produced in 1988. Teaching materials were distributednationally only in 1992,
just fiveyearsbeforeGade began her fieldworkin Makassar. By 1997,the Iqra method
was sweeping all othersystemsaway. Teams of devout college studentsdescended on
Indonesia79 (April2005)
184 ThomasGibson

villages all over South Sulawesi to complete their applied community service
requirement(Kulia KerjaNyata,KKN). They used the Iqra method to teach recitationto
village students in a way that clearly undermined the authorityof local religious
experts. In line with her decision to avoid the political context of the Qur'anic
movement,Gade does notpursue theimplicationsof thisfact.
Chapter 4 begins with anotherlong theoreticaldiscussion of the nature of expertise
in ritual performance.She rejectsthe metaphorof a "frame"forritual experiencesand
settles on the phenomenological concept of the "horizon" to describe the way those
who have achieved even an advanced degree of masteryare drawn onward toward an
ever-recedinggoal of perfection.The horizon of perfectionprovides Qur'anic reciters
with a lifelongmotivationto sustain a particularreligiousmood. Qur'anic recitationin
Indonesia is increasingly governed by the explicit norms established for judging
national and internationalcompetitions. In accordance with Qur'anic injunctions,the
Qur'anic textmust be enunciated accordingto precise rules,but always in such a way
that a measure of individual creativityis involved. In practice, this means that the
recitercan choose from a certain number of musical modes that he or she feels is
appropriateto the textat hand. In Indonesia, theyselect one of the seven modes used
by master recitersin Egypt. They master these modes by listening to cassette-tape
recordingsof the masters,and it would be close to impossible to compete successfully
without access to these recordings. Deference to Egyptian expertise has allowed
Muslims fromthe "outer islands" of Indonesia to bypass the Javanese domination of
national,political,and religious institutions.Somewhat paradoxically,this attachment
to Egyptianmodels appears to have fosteredthe creationof a national religiousculture
as Indonesian interpretationsof these models have become standardized in all-
Indonesia competitions.
Chapter 5 begins with an example of the way ancient traditions of Qur'anic
recitationin South Sulawesi have become an object of ridicule foruniversity-educated
Muslims. She gives, as an example, the village of Cikoang in South Sulawesi, a place
famous forboth its Sufi learningand an elaborate annual feastin honor of the Prophet
Muhammad. The musical mode used forrecitationin this village is now viewed with
derision. Here Gade touches on a matter I know something about from my own
fieldworkin South Sulawesi during the 1980s. Many of my older informantsin the
boat-building villages of the Bira peninsula had studied Islam and mysticismin
Cikoang duringtheiryouth.They had incorporatedthe Neo-Platonicinterpretations of
Sufi doctrine they had learned there into their own interpretationsof local history.
Gade's reportthatthis whole traditionhad become an object of contemptin the 1990s
conformsto my own findings,made during a returnvisit to Bira in 2000. Textbook-
based, officialIslam, as taughtin both state and privateschools, had spawned a whole
generationthat regarded the Islamic knowledge of theirelders with doubt and even
derision. And indeed, by the end of this chapter, we learn that mothers and
grandmothersall over South Sulawesi have been persuaded thatwhat theylearned in
childhood is worthlessand thattheymust go back to the beginningand learn Qur'anic
recitationall over again. Once more,Gade does not pause to reflecton the upheaval in
traditionalkinship and political relationsthis portends.She also takes the role played
by the competitiveformof learning in Islamic revitalizationfor granted. But it is a
natural formonly to a generation that has spent years undergoing the competitive
testing mandated by modern schooling and that has become accustomed to the
 Perfection
Makes Practice 185

standardization of language and music by mass media like cassette recordings and
radio and televisionbroadcasts.
In her conclusion, Gade returnsto the theoryof the emotional transformationof
those individuals who devote themselves to long-termritual projects like Qur'anic
memorization.She sees socially constructedemotions as playing an equal role with
both cognitiveand social systemsin creatingand sustaining the Islamic revival. Her
argumenthere is persuasive. Afterreading throughthe book, I feltI understood more
deeply how and why champion reciterscan come to serve as internationallyemulated
models forpious Muslims and how the hafiz(one who has committedthe Qur'an to
memory and is thus considered the living embodiment of the Qur'an) continues to
play a centralrole in themodernworld.
What I would like to know more about, given my own interestin the interaction
between political and religious models, are the political and social implicationsof this
Islamic revitalization,along the lines of GregoryStarrett'sdiscussion of the feedback
between Egyptian religious education in the schools and Egyptian Islamic
fundamentalism.!Egypt is, after all, clearly a model for Indonesia. Gade seems
surprisedthatthe economic and politicalcrisisthatfollowed her fieldworkin 1997 and
1998 expressed itselfin communal religiousviolence, particularlyin eastern Indonesia,
an area once noted forits "tolerance and pluralism but thatwas tragicallyscarred by
conflictsoon afterthe end of my stay." It would be interestingto know whethershe
views the creationof the homogenized, national Islamic cultureshe describes so well
as contributingto, or workingagainst, the maintenanceof toleranceand pluralism in
thelong run.

1 PuttingIslamto Work:Education,Politics,and ReligiousTransformation

GregoryStarrett, in Egypt(Berkeley,
CA: Universityof CaliforniaPress,1998).