Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali

In Indonesia, ziarah or pilgrimage to sacred sites is a booming industry: every day, thousands of Muslims make a pilgrimage to the graves of Muslim saints on Java, but increasingly also to graves on Bali, a Hindu island. Syaifudin Zuhri saw ziarah on Bali become a phenomenon among Javanese Muslims.

Syaifudin Zuhri • June 16, 2022

COVID-19’s Narratives of (In)Vulnerability: Islam, Water, and Success in Small Indonesian Islands

While small Eastern Indonesian islands are often categorised for mediatic and administrative purposes as “vulnerable,” COVID-19 has hardly touched island spaces in North Sulawesi (Indonesia).

Elena Burgos Martinez • May 27, 2020

Chopping Off Hands and Other Colonial Stereotypes

Sanne Ravensbergen looks at 'penghulus,' Islamic advisors to Dutch judges in colonial Java. The Dutch fostered an image of the penghulu as an old, passive official whose only advice was to chop off a hand, but actual case files paint a subtler picture.

Sanne Ravensbergen • May 16, 2019

AIDS and Islam in Aceh, Indonesia: Toward a Positive Turn?

In Aceh, Indonesia, the stigma confronting people living with HIV/AIDS is exacerbated by the stances of conservative Islamic scholars. However, some recent initiatives suggest possibilities for change.

Annemarie Samuels • February 14, 2019

Thinking with Clifford Geertz in Rabat

In October 2018, fifty years after the publication of Clifford Geertz’s “Islam Observed”, a group of scholars gathered in Rabat to explore the relevance of the Geertzian approach for contemporary research on Moroccan and Indonesian society.

Silvia Wolf • January 31, 2019

Images of Authority

Despite rich Islamic artistic traditions, people tend to portray Islam as hostile to visual culture. Yet images often inform the ways in which Muslims negotiate religious authority. Practices of image-making in Indonesia and Malaysia illustrate this.

David Kloos and Leonie Schmidt • December 05, 2017

In search of Ahmad Khatib

Ahmad Khatib played a vital role in the development of Islam in the Netherlands East Indies. Last July, Yasrul Huda and Nico Kaptein visited the village in Sumatra where he was born in 1860, in an effort to find traces of his legacy. This is their report.

Nico Kaptein and Yasrul Huda • October 31, 2017 • 1 comment

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