Becoming Indonesians: The Bā 'Alawī in the Interstices of the Nation

Abstract

is paper examines the Bāʿ Alawī-a group of Ḥaḍramī diaspora acknowledged as the descendants of Prophet Muḥammad-in post-colonial Indonesia. In particular, it observes the Bā ʿAlawī scholars' creative adaptation and manipulation of their Sufi path, ṭarīqa ʿalawiyya, in their attempt to secure their place within the wider imagination of Indonesian nationhood while protecting their distinctive genealogical eminence. In the twentieth century the ṭarīqa, which had long functioned to secure their identity, differentiate them from others and nurture their diasporic consciousness, proved incompatible with the assimilationist discourse of the nation. Further challenges came from Islamic reformism, preaching egalitarianism increasingly defined public articulation of Islam, confronting the Bā ʿAlawī's notion of Islamic authority. e Bā ʿAlawī scholars adapted by reshaping of the ṭarīqa rituals, shifting emphasis on Prophetic piety, expanding the Bā ʿAlawī textual community to include local scholars, and the projecting of a new form of Prophetic authority in a framework of ḥadīth studies. Such shifts were sustained by the construction of a new Bā ʿAlawī center in Kwitang, Jakarta, and the cultivation of scholarly networks connecting the Bā ʿAlawī and local kyais (Indonesian Islamic scholars). More specifically, this paper observes the career of three Bā ʿAlawī scholars and their efforts to reconfigure the discursive practice of the ṭarīqa in the early decades of the Indonesian republic. By presenting practices * is article is based on the first chapter of my Masters thesis which I submitted to the

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