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ABSTRACTS
The rise of the internet and social media has sharpened the fragmentation of religious authority. In the Indonesian context, the mainstream religious authority held by Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has been challenged and threatened by micro-celebrity ustaz. This article examines the emergence of the Syarah Himpunan Putusan Tarjih Muhammadiyah fanpage on Facebook, created and managed by Zulkarnain El Madury, who claims to be a preacher of the Muhammadiyah Central Board as it has threatened Muhammadiyah’s religious authority. It analyses Muhammadiyah’s efforts in maintaining its religious authority in cyberspace, by taking a closer look at what has been done by Muhammadiyah Tarjih Council, an assembly that has the exclusive authority to issue fatwas and official religious ijtihad within Muhammadiyah. This article also discusses lessons that can be learned from the case of Zulkarnain El Madury and the response of the Muhammadiyah Tarjih Council.
ABSTRAK
Kemunculan internet dan media sosial telah mempertajam fragmentasi otoritas keagamaan. Dalam konteks Indonesia, otoritas keagamaan arus utama yang dipegang oleh Muhammadiyah dan Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) disaingi dan diancam oleh para ustaz mikro-selebritas. Artikel ini mengkaji kemunculan fanpage Syarah Himpunan Putusan Tarjih Muhammadiyah di Facebook yang dibuat dan dikelola oleh Zulkarnain El Madury, seseorang yang mengklaim sebagai ustaz Pimpinan Pusat Muhammadiyah, karena dianggap mengancam otoritas keagamaan Muhammadiyah. Penelitian ini menganalisis upaya Muhammadiyah dalam mempertahankan otoritas keagamaannya di dunia maya dengan melihat lebih dekat pada apa yang telah dilakukan oleh Majelis Tarjih Muhammadiyah, sebuah majelis yang memiliki otoritas eksklusif untuk mengeluarkan fatwa dan ijtihad keagamaan resmi di Muhammadiyah. Artikel ini juga membahas pelajaran yang dapat dipetik dari kasus Zulkarnain El Madury dan respons Majelis Tarjih Muhammadiyah.
Acknowledgements
Permission for this research PJB-002/SP3/LPPM-UAD/VI/2020 and funding were provided by the ethical board of Ahmad Dahlan University Research and Development Institute (Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian Universitas Ahmad Dahlan).
I am grateful to ustaz Zulkarnain El Madury for his exceptional help and support during my fieldwork. I also thank Amiruddin, Arif Nur Kholis, Muhammad Muflih, Wahyudi Abdurrahim, Robby Karman, Ahmad Muttaqin Alim, Farida Fardhani az-Zukhruf, Ilham Ibrahim, Ariful Hazam, and the members of the Muhammadiyah Tarjih Council for providing information regarding my research. I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article and to the editors of Indonesia and the Malay World. Errors, if any, are solely mine.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 One of the 15 most popular clerics mentioned in the report, Ustaz Ali Hidayat, has since been included on the Muhammadiyah Central Board’s Tabligh Council (2022–2027; Muhammdiyah Central Board 2023). Prior to that, he did not convey official Muhammdiayah ideas in his lectures.
2 For more comprehensive information on the activism of Salafi groups, see Chris Chaplin (Citation2021).
3 This author’s online and offline interviews with Amiruddin, Robby Karman, Muhammad Muflih, Ahmad Muttaqin Alim, and Arif Nur Kholis, 2019–2020.
4 Data collection in this study was carried out between 2018 and 2020. As personal interviews were not possible during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, some interviews were conducted online.
5 So-called because the books were printed on yellow paper. These were the Islamic texts used in the education of Islamic schools.
6 Online interview with Zulkarnain El Madury, 18–20 October 2020.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Muhammadiyah’s use of the word tarjih has changed throughout its development. In its early period, and following its usage in the principles of law (usul al-fiqh), tarjih conveyed the meaning of examining the various opinions of Muslim jurists on a particular question and evaluating them to determine which is most faithful to the original Shari’a sources. Over time this usage gradually included any intellectual endeavour used to study new cases that earlier jurists had not addressed. In short, in Muhammadiyah’s perspective, tarjih is identical, or almost identical, to ijtihad (Anwar Citation2016).
10 Online interview with Zulkarnain El Madury, 18–20 October 2020.
11 Online interview with Zulkarnain El Madury, 18–20 October 2020.
12 Interviews with Farida Fardhani az-Zukhruf and Ariful Hazam, November 2020 who are grassroots of Muhammadiyah, and social media administrators of Pusat Tarjih Muhammadiyah.
13 This author’s informants include Muhammad Muflih (grassroots of Muhammadiyah and initiator of the website tanyajawabagama.com), Robby Karman (secretary-general of the Central Board of Muhammadiyah Student Association [DPP IMM] 2018–2021), and several participants invited by the Muhammadiyah Tarjih Council with the agenda ‘Responding to Emergence of Syarah HPT on Social Media’ on 25 September, 2020; interview with Zulkarnain El Madury, 3 November 2019.
14 Interview with Zulkarnain El Madury, 3 November 2019.
15 Online interview with Wahyudi Abdurrahim through WhatsApp, September 2020.
16 Online interview with Muhammad Muflih through WhatsApp and Facebook, 20 October 2019.
17 Muhammadiyah has many assemblies such as Majelis Tabligh and Majelis Tarjih, each with its own functions and responsibilities. Majelis Tarjih is responsible for producing religious thoughts through fatwas and decisions, while Majelis Tabligh is responsible for disseminating them. Historically, Majelis Tabligh is known in Muhammadiyah as the anti-liberal wing and thus there are at times poor collaboration between Majelis Tarjih and Majelis Tabligh. For example, some fatwas issued by Majelis Tarjih, in Majelis Tabligh’s perspective, are the result of liberal thinking. See Burhani (Citation2013) and Palahuddin (Citation2020).
18 Ikatan Mahasiswa Muhammadiyah (IMM) or Muhammadiyah Student Association is a proponent of Muhammadiyah in student affairs with the basic mission of realising the real Islamic society as formulated by Persyarikatan Muhammadiyah (Widodo Citation2017).
19 On 3 November 2019, the manager of Pusat Tarjih Muhammadiyah reprimanded Zulkarnain El Madury for his post on SHPTM on the veil which contradicts Muhammadiyah’s official stance.
20 Endang Mintarja voiced this at a Muhammadiyah Central Board Tarjih Council meeting of on the emergence ‘Syarah HPT’, 25 September 2020.
21 Tim Majelis Tarjih dan Tajdid Pimpinan Pusat Muhammadiyah (Citation2009, Citation2019a, Citation2019b).
22 The tradition of visiting the grave with its associated practices.
23 PUTM is an educational institution under the Tarjih Council and Tajdid of Muhammadiyah Central Board designed to produce a cadre of Muhammadiyah scholars. PUTM organises a special programme that educates and prepares Muhammadiyah tarjih scholars who are competent in the religious field. The birth of PUTM was based on the concern of some Muhammadiyah leaders about the increasing scarcity of ulama in and from Muhammadiyah (Fauzi Citation2020a).
24 Translation of Figure 1: Are you often confused about finding sources of reference about Islam from the perspective of Muhammadiyah? There is no need to be confused anymore because various social media are straighforward for us to access. Tarjih (Council) has come with a more trendy look: Easy to read anywhere; Provide updated fatwas; Discuss current issues. As members of Muhammadiyah, let's get used to reading the decisions and fatwas of Muhammadiyah. Here are some media that can be accessed very easily. So don't be confused anymore. Web: fatwatarjih.or.id; Facebook: fb.me/fatwamu; Instagram: pusattarjih_muhammadiyah; Telegram: t.me/fatwatarjihmu; Youtube: tarjih channel. Let's spread it to all Muhammadiyah people!
25 Translation of Figure 2: Do you know? The Tarjih and Tajdid Council of Muhammadiyah now have an official YouTube channel, (namely) the Tarjih Channel. Have you subscribed yet?
26 Translation of Figure 3: Fatwatarjih.or.id is the official website for the Tarjih and the Tajdid Council of Muhammadiyah Central Board (MTT). The Media Team of Fatwa Tarjih, through this website, has been, is and will continue to strive consistently to publish various ijtihad products from the Tarjih Council. Until now, tarjih fatwa collections from 1997 to 2018 have entered the editing stage, and some are just waiting to be published.
27 Translation of Figure 4: Do you want to know the full history (of the Tarjih Council)? Or do you want to look for ijtihad products from the Tarjih Council? Come on; you can find out on this website: tarjih.or.id
28 Interview with Ariful Hazamn, Ilham Ibrahim, and Farida Fardhani az-Zukhruf, September 2020. They are Pusat Tarjih Muhammadiyah social media administrators.
29 For example, Ahmad Dahlan and the early generation of Muhammadiyah explained to Muslims the unacceptability of popular beliefs and practices that had their roots in superstitions, heresies, and myths. Rather than resorting to anarchist practices, they have built hospitals, orphanages and schools, one of the purposes of which is to counter such practices (Shihab Citation1995; Peacock Citation1978).
30 For Anwar (Citation2013), the iftitāḥ prayer comprises two short rak’ah prayers that are performed before qiyām al-lail, with the condition that it must be preceded by sleep, otherwise there is no need to perform the iftitāḥ prayer. However, the Tarjih Council holds that the iftitāḥ prayer consists of two short rak’ah prayers performed before qiyām al-lail, whether preceded by sleep or not (Pimpinan Pusat Muhammadiyah Citation2011; Tim Majelis Tarjih and Tajdid Pimpinan Pusat Muhammadiyah Citation2019a).
31 On several occasions, this author has heard Syamsul Anwar’s direct appeal to Muhammadiyah members to follow the opinion of the Tarjih Council on this aspect of the iftitāḥ prayer.
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Niki Alma Febriana Fauzi
Niki Alma Febriana Fauzi is a lecturer in the Department of Hadith Studies, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He has published widely on a variety of issues relating to Islamic Studies, including al-Quran, hadith, Islamic law, social media and da’wah, and Muhammadiyah studies. Email: [email protected]