Transforming Faith: Mualaf and Hijrah in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Abstract

This research delves into two conversion forms in post-Suharto Indonesia: mualaf (conversion to Islam) and hijrah (“migration”, meaning Muslims who reaffirm their faith). Both are integral to contemporary Indonesian Islam, with the hijrah movement’s influence significantly contributing to the increase in the number of mualaf. This study examines the key motives behind urban Indonesians’ conversions, their community involvement, and the formation of spiritual kinship, which is a type fictive kinship. Ethnographic field research and discourse analysis of media reports are employed alongside theoretical debates on community, kinship, and identity. The paper argues that the phenomena of mualaf and hijrah have mutually influenced the growth of new Muslim communities that campaign for a piety movement aimed at a strengthened practice of Islam. Additionally, the involvement of *mualaf* and hijrah followers in recitation groups implies the formation of spiritual kinship and a unique Islamic identity through the imagination of the ummah and the negotiation of urban lifestyles. This results in the alignment of religiosity and modernity. However, as these groups develop, their emergence, which adds variety to the face of Indonesian Islam, must engage in contestation with other Islamic groups and with the state in terms of religious freedom.