THE QUR’AN AND THE SAMINIST RELIGIOUS TRADITION IN INDONESIA’S POST-REFORMASI: NEGOTIATION AND APPROPRIATION

Ali Ja’far, NIM.: 22300015010 (2026) THE QUR’AN AND THE SAMINIST RELIGIOUS TRADITION IN INDONESIA’S POST-REFORMASI: NEGOTIATION AND APPROPRIATION. Doctoral thesis, UIN SUNAN KALIJAGA YOGYAKARTA.

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Abstract

This thesis is an ethnographic account of the Saminist Muslims in Southern Rembang and Blora. The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the role and significance of the Qur’an in the contemporary religious tradition of Saminist, especially in the postreformasi period in Indonesia. I investigate how and under what conditions Saminists reconstruct and negotiate their religious tradition, both individually and collectively, in their public and everyday lives. By focusing on the negotiation and appropriation of the Qur'an in their everyday lives, this thesis examines its role in reconstructing their religiosity and identity. This is significant because Saminists have been categorized as a kebathinan group or an adat community bound to their religious group. Since the beginning, the Adat community had established the “religion” known as “Agama Adam”. The term is rooted in the Qur’anic narrative of the first human on earth. Historically, the followers of Saminism opposed the formal form of Islam while accepting its mystical dimension, creating a syncretic religious tradition that incorporated some verses of the Qur’an and Javanese prayer (du’a). This religious tradition was unrecognized due to the politics of religion in Indonesia. To the present day, it has been objectified and treated as a locus for the state to exercise its power. It has become an object of the developmentalism project and of modernization through industrialization, religious education, and Qur’anisation. The promoted tradition is transmitted through popular culture, the media, religious agents, and the political elite who support it. Furthermore, contemporary Saminists also experience the ambiguity of Islamic cosmopolitanism, which promotes new Islamic practices based on the Qur’anic tradition while neglecting the religious diversity of Islam itself. Employing Reinhart’s idea of Colloquial Islam to describe lived Islam in everyday life and Asad's concepts of discursive tradition, this research highlights several points: first, the reception of the Qur’an in the religious practices of Saminism is typically mystical, mixing the Qur’an with their Javanese du’a. The condition had changed slightly, especially in the post-reformasi period, when local political decisions and religious agents influenced Saminist religious customs. Second, as Saminists began to accept Islam in the formal sense, they also cultivated religious values and ties, a closer relationship with the distinct Qur’anic tradition. The relationship is expressed in their behavior and linguistic expressions that signify the worldview and religious orthopraxy among the lay Muslims. The cultivation mediated by a religious agent is not only accepted but also negotiated and appropriated. For the contemporary tradition was influenced by social relations, this research called it “Qur’anicstelsel,” which mirrors the history of their uprising during the period of Dutch culture-stelsel. Third, as historically rooted, the presence of the Qur’an in the Saminist religious tradition was conceived as integral to their religious and cultural identity. Only, the relation was limited through their oral accent and dialect. A process that is linguistically called a derivative, for it derives the standard version into the local version. Hence, this research introduced “derivative religiosity,” which mirrored the linguistic process of accepting and producing a new word. This narrative then challenges the essentialist idea of seeing religious identity as fixed, historically rooted, and territorially bounded. The distinction between santri-abangan and orthodoxheterodox was blurred and complex in post-reformasi Indonesia. This thesis then argues that religious identity and pious expression are products of historical narrative; they are derivative, customized, fluid, and evolving over time. Further, despite Saminists being a minority and in small numbers, studying their religious tradition is significant to comprehend the “Qur’anic tradition” in the religious life of the adat community in present-day Indonesia. Meaning, despite their acceptance of Islam and incursion of modernity, the Saminist community persists, transforms, and changes their religious and cultural practices. It is also contributing to understanding the nature of multivocal religious practices, creole, and the colloquial aspect of religiosity in the Islamic community that are constantly appropriated as Muslim (“muallafāt al ummah”).

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