Aligning the sunna and the jamā`a : Religious authority and Islamic social formation in contemporary Central Java, Indonesia
[Thesis]
Ismail Fajrie Alatas
Keane, Webb
University of Michigan
2016
473
Committee members: Fancy, Hussein; Florida, Nancy K; Ho, Engseng; Keane, Webb; Knysh, Alexander D
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-08257-9
Ph.D.
Anthropology and History
University of Michigan
2016
This dissertation examines the relationship between post-Prophetic Islamic religious authority and social formation in historical and contemporary Indonesia and Yemen by observing several Muslim scholars and saints, and their overlapping and often conflicting congregations. It is based on archival work in Yemen and two years of fieldwork in Pekalongan, Central Java, among contemporary Indonesian Ba 'Alawi scholars - namely, the acknowledged descendants of the Prophet Muhammad who originated from the Hadramawt valley of Southern Yemen. The dissertation focuses on an Indonesian Ba 'Alawi scholar, Habib Luthfi bin Yahya (b. 1947) and several other historical and contemporary Ba 'Alawi scholars who have succeeded in forming Islamic congregations (jama'as) that revolve around their authority as the articulators of the norms/way (sunna) of the Prophet Muhammad.
Cultural anthropology; Asian Studies; Political science; Social structure
Social sciences;Hadramaut;Hadrami diaspora;Indonesia;Islam;Islamic religious authority and social formation;Sainthood;Yemen