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What Is Religious Authority?

Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia

Ismail Fajrie Alatas

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Paperback

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English
Princeton University Press
22 June 2021
An anthropologist's groundbreaking account of how Islamic religious authority is assembled through the unceasing labor of community building on the island of Java.

This compelling book draws on Ismail Fajrie Alatas's unique insights as an anthropologist to provide a new understanding of Islamic religious authority, showing how religious leaders unite diverse aspects of life and contest differing Muslim perspectives to create distinctly Muslim communities.

Taking readers from the eighteenth century to today, Alatas traces the movements of Muslim saints and scholars from Yemen to Indonesia and looks at how they traversed complex cultural settings while opening new channels for the transmission of Islamic teachings. He describes the rise to prominence of Indonesia's leading Sufi master, Habib Luthfi, and his rivalries with competing religious leaders, revealing why some Muslim voices become authoritative while others don't. Alatas examines how Habib Luthfi has used the infrastructures of the Sufi order and the Indonesian state to build a durable religious community, while deploying genealogy and hagiography to present himself as a successor of the Prophet Muhammad.

Challenging prevailing conceptions of what it means to be Muslim, What Is Religious Authority? demonstrates how the concrete and sustained labours of translation, mobilisation, collaboration, and competition are the very dynamics that give Islam its power and diversity.

By:  
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 235mm,  Width: 156mm, 
ISBN:   9780691204314
ISBN 10:   0691204314
Series:   Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics
Pages:   256
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Ismail Fajrie Alatas is assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University. Twitter and Instagram @ifalatas

Reviews for What Is Religious Authority?: Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia

Through this highly original study of such articulatory labours in Java, Alatas has written one of the most important books on Islam in Indonesia in years, and crafted a work that deserves to become a central reference for all scholars of Islam and Islamic authority. ---Robert W. Hefner, Journal of Islamic Studies Successfully argues that what is known as Islam the universal religion does not reside in the consistency of its teachings. However, one aspect of Islam that is universal is the work of congregational building. ---Hasan Mustapa, International Journal of Asian Studies Provides rich insights for readers who wish to gain a better understanding of comparative Islamic authority. The author's success in blending historical, anthropological and political analyses together makes this book a worthwhile read and a useful source of reference for scholars interested in Islam in Indonesia. * Contemporary Southeast Asia * A groundbreaking contribution. . . . The book will certainly find its ways to become an important reference in the historical and anthropological study of Islam and religious authority in Indonesia from the premodern to the present times. ---Wahyuddin Halim, Religion and Social Communication


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