Analysis On The Modernist Muslim Movement In Indonesia In The First Half Of Twentieth Century

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. Although it is located in the periphery of Middle East Islam world, it had been influenced directly by the Modernist Muslim Movement which happened in the late years of 19 century in Middle East. Together with the pressure from the Netherlands'Western modern education in Indonesia, Indonesia Muslim intellectual elites carried out the education reform of combining the traditional religion instruction with the secular modern education, which had paved the way for the enlightenment of Nationalism. Under the long-time Netherlands colonial rule, Islam had always been the core and flag of anticolonialism. There was no exception in the new era of early 20 century, religion nationalism under the flag of Islam once again guided the movement of ousting the Netherlands from Indonesia and aiming to establish an independent Islam state.But the devotion of individual to Islam is different in syncretic Indonesia environment. In fact, the reality of Indonesia's acceptance of Islam has clearly been a matter of degree varying widely both from person to person and from area to area. So that the genuinely devout muslim, the Santri, stands clearly apart from the nominal Muslim, the Abangan, whose religious belief is compounded of elements of animism and magic and mysticism as well as the teaching of the Prophet, and whose behavior is guided by the custom of the village rather than by the precise, rigid prescription of Islamic law. There are devout as well as merely nominal Muslim in the ranks of the Priyayi, the traditional noble. The classification in Indonesia Muslim community did draw attention to competing views of the understanding of the Islam teaching and the role of Islam in the Modernist Movement that were not easily to be reconciled with each other. Moreover it gave rise to the danger of uniting the distinct categories.The rising of secular nationalism eclipsed the influence of Islam in the nationalism movement. The leader, Sukarno, advocated the reform principle that"religion should be separated from the state". Then Sukarno put forward the five principles, Pancasila. The first principle is a belief in one supreme being. However, for the purpose of uniting various religion people, the belief in a supreme being was broad enough to encompass a wide variety of religious including Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Islam was not the national religion, Indonesia was not a Islam state. Finally, the role of Islam in Indonesia politics was confined to the elaboration of"Pancasila"...