communities spread from Sumatra to Papua and comprise at least one million followers, mostly concentrated in Jakarta, Bandung and Makassar. Although a small drop when compared to the ocean of 200 million Sunnis, they constitute an important component of Indonesia’s diverse religious landscape.
صور حسينية
It is commonly assumed that Shi’ism spread to Indonesia as a consequence of the Iranian revolution, which in 1979 brought the fall of the French-educated Pahlevi Shah, the rise of Khomeini as the new national leader and the resurrection of Shi’ism as the state ideology. But as important as it has been, the revolution was not the only source of Shi’ism in Indonesia, where an alternative trajectory exists in the recasting of ancient genealogical and spiritual lineages.
صور عاشوراء الامام الحسين
Elements of Shi’ism – also referred to as ‘Alid piety, in reference to devotion to Imam ‘Ali, his sons Hasan and Husayn and their relatives – have been part of the archipelago’s cultural and religious landscape for centuries. Over time its characteristic features were largely absorbed into mainstream Sunni traditions. Yet in the last decade Shi’is have started carving a space for themselves as a well-defined religious group, establishing schools, mosques and civil society organisations, and thus strengthening their presence in relation to other members of the ummat.
A long history
Soon after the birth of Islam, with the institutionalisation of religio-political leadership after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad, the Muslim community split between those who supported the rule of Abu Bakr and those for ‘Ali ibn Abu Thalib, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. The latter eventually became fourth Caliph, but also first Imam of the Shi’a. The political conflict quickly turned into armed battle and until today the Shi’a hold the Caliph’s army responsible for the death of Hasan and Husayn.
Support for the rule of these descendants of the Prophet was voiced by various groups of believers. Devotion connected to the memory of ‘Ali and his family began to develop well before the formalisation of Shi’ism as a school of Islamic jurisprudence (known as fiqh), possibly as early as the seventh or eighth century. Shi’is often prefer to be referred to as ‘lovers of the Ahl al-Bayt’, based on a Prophetic tradition according to which Muhammad is said to have gathered his daughter Fatimah, her husband ‘Ali ibn Abi Thalib, and their sons Hasan and Husayn under his cloak, and defined them as the Ahl al-Bayt (literally, People of the House).
Arab traders spread early forms of Shi’ism – involving the commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn – to Southeast Asia. This religious variation came to be defined by scholars as ‘proto-Shi’ism’ or ‘Alid piety’. Given the historical ties between the Middle East, Persia, South Asia and the islands of Sumatra and Java, some Indonesian Arabs suggest that their history as Shi’is goes back to ninth century Iraq, when Ahmad ibn ‘Isa al-Muhajir, the great-grandson of the sixth Imam, Ja’far as-Sadiq, fled from Basra to Hadramaut in South Yemen. Ahmad ibn ‘Isa’s descendants later travelled eastwards and reached Java, where many settled.
Family ties remained strong between the motherland in Hadramaut and Java, as pilgrimages to the shrines of the ancestors and the desire to be buried close to them ensured constant travels and exchanges. At the same time, these migrants took Javanese wives and conformed to local religious practices, facilitating their integration. According to some Arabs, this was how they began to lose their clear Shi’i identity.
This version of Java’s Hadrami past is far from unanimously accepted, as today the strongest opposition to Shi’ism comes from other, staunchly Sunni, members of the large community of Muhammad’s descendants, the Sayyids. Yet the idea that Muslims in Java were connected to members of the prophet’s family also emerges in oral and manuscript traditions from the Sultans’ palaces across the island and beyond. The royal families of Cirebon, Yogyakarta and Sumenep (on Madura) are often mentioned as descending from the second and third Imams – Hasan and Husayn – through long lists of semi-historical figures, mostly religious preachers. A genealogical connection to the ‘Alids, then, feeds into the suggestion of an ancestral devotion towards them. Traces of ‘Alid piety are easily identifiable in contemporary Southeast Asia, but differ greatly from a Shi’i sectarian identity that is characterised by well delineated theology and jurisprudence, and a prescribed body of ritual.