The Transnational and the Local in the Politics of Islam ― The Case of West Sumatra, Indonesia

This book explores the relationship between transnational and local Islam as expressed in public discourse and policy-making, as represented in the local press. It does so against the background of local governments in majority Muslim regions across Indonesia promoting and passing regulations that mandate forms of social or economic behaviour seen to be compatible with Islam. The book situates the political construction of Islamic behaviour in West Sumatra, and in Indonesia more generally, within an historical context in which rulers have in some way engaged with aspects of Islamic practice since the Islamic kingdom era. The book shows that while formal local Islamic regulations of this kind constitute a new development, their introduction has been a product of the same kinds of interactions between international, national and local elements that have characterised the relationship between Islam and politics through the course of Indonesian history. The book challenges the scholarly tendency to over-emphasise local political concerns when explaining this phenomenon, arguing that it is necessary to forefront the complex relationship between local politics and developments in the wider Islamic world. To illustrate the relationship between transnational and local Islam, the book uses detailed case studies of four domains of regulation: Islamic finance, zakat, education and behaviour and dress, in a number of local government areas within the province.

Delmus P. Salim has studied sociology at Flinders University and anthropology at the University of Aberdeen to improve his understanding of Islamic scripture and the traditions of the Prophet, which he lectures in at Manado. His study of sociology taught him that Muslims’ interpretations of their religious duties are influenced by their cultures, whereas his studies in anthropology reminded him that all Muslims necessarily differ from one another, since each perceives Islam in different ways. These educational experiences encouraged him to look at Islam from another perspective, namely politics for this manuscript at the university of Sydney to which this book is derived.