The Contraction and Expansion of the "Umat" and the Role of the Nahdatul Ulama in Indonesia

Jones, Sidney. 1984. "The Contraction and Expansion of the "Umat" and the Role of the Nahdatul Ulama in Indonesia". Indonesia. (38): 1-20.

One of the most powerful concepts in Islam is that of the umat (Arabic umma), the universal community of the faithful to which every Muslim belongs. The haj is probably the single most important means of making that concept a concrete reality, but except for the haj few Muslims experience the universality of the umat directly. For most, there is a narrower, more relevant community that helps define an individual's identity as a Muslim. This point was brought home forcefully in a recent article by Abdurrahman Wahid on the changes in meaning that Arabic loan words have undergone in Indonesian.' Thus tarbiah, which in Arabic means training or education in the broadest sense, has come to have the very specific meaning of Islamic education as taught in an institu- tion. Likewise, Wahid asserts, umat has come for all practical purposes to mean the membership of the particular Muslim social, educational, or political organization to which an Indonesian Muslim belongs. In fact, it is not the definition of the word which has changed, but the nature of the community through which an Indonesian experiences his or her own membership in the umat. Looking at how the community, the relevant umat if you will, has changed over time for the Javanese, suggests that what has come to be called an Islamic resurgence may be simply the widening of the community most directly relevant to Muslim self-identity. It also suggests that beyond signifying the stifling of political participation the decline of Islamic political parties in Indonesia has implications for fundamental questions of Islamic identity.

Two factors affect the scope of the relevant Muslim community (hereafter referred to as "umat," the use of quotation marks indicating that this is a contrived use of the term and is to be distinguished from the universal community). One factor is the local political and economic environment in which the "umat" exists, the second, the international Islamic environment to which it relates. To some extent, the more the global umat approaches political reality, the more outward looking the local "umat" will be.