Islam, Politics, and Identity in Minangkabau
Islam, Politics, and Identity in Minangkabau
Islam, Politics, and Identity in Minangkabau
In the seventh century, Sumatra was very much part of the Malay
world (Alam Melayu). That world was based around the powerful and
prosperous Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of Srivijaya, based in Bukit
Seguntang in Palembang, and Melayu, which was associated with the
Batang Hari River in Jambi.2 In the eleventh century, after the collapse
of Srivijaya, and in a period when international trade between India
and China through the Straits of Malacca came to be dominated by the
Cholas of India, the term Melayu referred to interior areas in Jambi.3 In
the fourteenth century, Melayu appeared in Javanese literature, where it
referred to an area that extended to other territories such as Lampung,
Pattani in modern Thailand, Kelantan in Malaysia and the
Minangkabau region of West Sumatra.4 In that same century, Malacca,
a region made prosperous by its position at the centre of key trading
routes, emerged as the new centre of the Malay world. Because of the
establishment of the kingdom of Malacca, the name Melayu and its
defining characteristics such as dress, language and religion became
associated with Malacca Malays.5 When Malacca became a powerful
Muslim state in the same century, Islam came to be identified with
Malay culture. This connection then began the association of Islam
with the Malay people.6 While a Hindu-Buddhist Minangkabau
kingdom was established in 1347 by Adityawarman, a prince from the
post-Srivijaya kingdom of Dharmasyraya who was raised in the
Javanese kingdom of Majapahit,7 those living in the coastal areas of
West Sumatra identified themselves as Malays rather than Minang-
kabau, as a result of the influence of the Malaccan Malays.8
20 Ibid., p. 15.
21Utrecht, “The Muslim Merchant Class,”; M. Woodward, Islam in Java: Normative Piety
and Mysticism in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989).
22 Utrecht, “The Muslim Merchant Class,” p. 30.
23 Kahane, “Religious Diffusion and Modernisation,” p. 130.
24 Woodward, Islam in Java: Normative Piety.
25 Johns, “Sufism as A Category”.
26C. Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra, 1784-184
(London: Curzon Press, 1983), p. 119.
27 J. Hadler, Muslims and Matriarchs (London: Cornell University Press, 2008b), p. 977.
50Taufik Abdullah, Schools and Politics: the Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (1927-
1933) (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1971), p.
12.
51 Taufik Abdullah, “Islam, History, and Social Change in Minangkabau’, in L.L.
Thomas and F.V. Benda-Beckmann, Change and Continuity in Minangkabau: Local, regional
and Historical Perspectives on West Sumatra (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Centre for
International Studies, 1985), p. 141.
52 M. Laffan, Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds
(London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003); See also, Azra, The Origins of Islamic
Reformism in Southeast Asia.
53 Abdullah, Schools and Politics, p. 16.
explanations for the relationship between adat and religion, in which adat was
positioned as being in line with Sufi Islam, and tasauf (a personal approach to God).
His rejection of the idea that adat should be directly based on Islamic laws, as was
claimed by Kaum Muda movement, led him to cooperate with the Kaum Tua. See
Abdullah, “Modernisation in the Minangkabau World,” p. 230 and p. 232.
58 Abdullah, Schools and Politics,p. 78.
59Ibid., p. 71, and pp. 84-90. Kahin argues that West Sumatran society at this time was
plural and the categorisation of society into adat, Islamic and communist blocs is
unhelpful. See Kahin, Rebellion to Integration, p. 84.
Deliar Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia 1900-1942 (Kuala Lumpur:
60
64Divisions between Islamic organisations also emerged. For example, Permi accused
Muhammadiyah of being too close to the Dutch while Muhammadiyah accused Permi
activists of not being motivated by Islam. Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement, p. 264.
65 Kahin, Rebellion to Integration, p. 56.
66 Ibid., p. 90.
67A. Vickers, A History of Modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005), pp. 86-7.
68 Kahin, Rebellion to Integration, p. 95.
69 Vickers, A History of Modern Indonesia, p. 88.
70 Kahin, Rebellion to Integration, p. 95.
71 Ibid., pp. 79-80.
72 Oki, A. Social Change in the West Sumatran Village: 1908-1945. 1978. Available at:
http://hdl.handle.net/10086/16895, accessed on 12 February 2010.
73 Kahin, Rebellion to Integration, p. 106.
74 Ibid., pp. 110-1.
75 Ibid., p. 152.
76A. Kahin, “Some Preliminary Observation on West Sumatra during the Revolution,”
Indonesia, 18 (1974): pp. 76-117.
77 Kahin, Rebellion to Integration, p. 123.
78 The tension between Islam and the Republican government in West Sumatra also
affected the relationship with communists in the region. During the March 1947 coup
the Army commander was Colonel Ismael Lengah, who had a secular education and
was considered by Islamic groups to be a socialist and a follower of Tan Malaka.
Lengah refused to return weapons of the Islamic militia even though Muhammad
Natsir and the Vice President Mohammad Hatta at that time asked him to do so. See,
Ibid., pp. 125-7
the rebellion were also detained in jails or kept under house arrest.84
The political repression that followed the PRRI prompted many
Minangkabau to migrate to other regions, including Jakarta, and also to
Malaysia.
The involvement of Masyumi leaders in the PRRI and Darul Islam
rebellions led Sukarno to ban the party and imprison a number of its
leaders, including Syafruddin and Natsir. The same fate befell the
Indonesian Socialist Party (Partai Sosialis Indonesia, PSI) and its
leaders, including Sukarno’s long-time nemesis, the West Sumatran
Sutan Sjahrir.85 In West Sumatra, the banning of Masyumi meant that
Muslims voters were forced to support the traditionalist Perti, which
had rejected support for the Banteng Council and the PRRI movement
and agreed with Sukarno’s Guided Democracy.86 It was in this political
context that Haji Abdul Malik bin Abdul Karim Amrullah, better
known as Hamka, the son of the founder of Muhammadiyah’s West
Sumatra branch, Haji Rasul, began criticising Sukarno from Jakarta.
Hamka had worked in the Ministry of Religion in Jakarta from 1951 to
1960, also serving as a Masyumi member of the Indonesian
Constituent Assembly representing Central Java from 1955 to 1960.
Hamka challenged Sukarno’s personal and political behaviour,
including his polygamous tendencies and his close association with
communism, a view widely shared in West Sumatra. Sukarno
responded by having Hamka arrested in 1964 under the Subversion
Law.
After the failure of the alleged communist coup in Jakarta in 1965,
the national government held trials for regional communist leaders in
Padang, including Major Djohan Rivai, Leitenant Colonel Bainal and
Sukirno as well as PKI members such Djajusman.87 Tens of thousands
of communists were jailed without trial, and although no exact figures
are available on the number of those killed,88 it is clear that the
numbers were significant. In addition, communist officials who had
been dominant in the administrative structure of West Sumatra after
84 Ibid., p. 228.
85 Ibid., p. 236.
86 Ibid., p. 246.
87 Ibid., p. 240.
88 Ibid., p. 248.
89 Ibid., p. 235.
90 Ibid., pp. 245-6.
91 Interview with Saafroedin Bahar, 3 November 2010.
a pivotal factor after many years in the wilderness under the New
Order.
Conclusion
The paper has demonstrated the relationship between Islam and
Minangkabau culture was simultaneously accommodating and
contested, and that the strong association between Islam and regional
identity only solidified in the post-Suharto era. The
Minangkabaus’connection with the Malay world increased the
acceptance of orthodox Islam, first introduced by reformist Muslims
coming back from Mecca in the 17th century. Gradually, orthodoxy,
and later Wahabism, largely replaced the Sufi form first adopted, which
was more accommodating of local beliefs. However, as also shown
here, Islam as an ideology was subordinated after Independence days,
and again under the New Order, this time to a largely secular
formulation of national identity.
Indeed, it has only been in the post-Suharto period that Islam has
assumed a hegemonic position in Minangkabau identity discourse. In
contemporary West Sumatra, regional governments has been utilising
claims that local customs are based on Islam and Islam is based on the
Qur’a>n (Adat Basandi Syarak, Syarak Basandi Kitabullah, ABS-SBK). This
assertion is ubiquitous, appearing as justification for almost every
political decision made at the provincial level and below. Moreover,
every disaster, from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis to natural disasters
such as floods, landslides and earthquakes, has been attributed to the
community’s failure to meet its religious obligations. For example, after
the 2004 tsunami, large billboards were displayed throughout the city
of Padang proclaiming ‘religiosity must be practised in order to prevent
a tsunami’. []
References