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This introduction considers two developments that have hitherto occupied separate realms of scholarship: the increasing visibility of pious consumption, and the proliferation in Indonesia of Muslim authorities and the associated fragmentation of Muslim publics. We identify three significant themes that connect these developments. First, the borders that separate religion and consumerism have become increasingly porous. Indonesian Muslims' uptake of new technologies and non-religious cultural forms has broadened the range of possibilities for practice and faith, which in turn has facilitated the emergence of new figures of Islamic authority. Second, online platforms for Islamic experience and participation have intensified religious identity politics. Visibility is needed for success in the world of social media, and claimants to authority in online spaces frequently exploit differences in religious and intra-religious segments to achieve this. Third, the concept of the 'middle class' has been useful for understanding the adoption of new technologies and media forms by Muslims, yet we suggest that Islamic consumerism should be decoupled from the concept of the Muslim middle class. We conclude by suggesting that the debate about consumerism would be enhanced by a renewed focus on materiality and its social meanings in Islamic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pious practices of contemporary Indonesian Muslims frequently take form as consumer commodification and material display. The article adds to knowledge of the role of materiality in religion and spirituality by describing and analysing the critique of consumerist piety cultivated by reformist Muslims in Indonesia. We trace the evolution of the 'emancipation-based' critique in the ideas of two significant reformist intellectuals of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Kuntowijoyo (1943–2005) and Moeslim Abdurrahman (1948–2012), both of whom are associated with the civil society organisation known as Muhammadiyah. Their objections to material religion are not concerned with the individual morality of consumers but are based on their rejection of Islamic particularity. Noting that Islamic particularity frequently manifests in material practices, they argue that such practices are signs of fragmenting processes that prevent social and political progress. Consumptive displays of piety are also objectionable because they succeed through a material-based sign system that asserts economic differences between people, when the authentic Islamic mission, according to these thinkers, is to work against the social exclusion brought about by those differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of state institutions for the management and administration of Islam has enriched the range of Islamic authorities in Indonesia, with distinctive effects for public Islam. The article examines the effects of an Indonesian policy decision of 1975 that was intended to develop specific graduate attributes – 'modernity, openness and critical thought' – in graduates of Islamic post-graduate study. It was decreed that Islamic graduates would be sent to post-graduate programmes at universities in the West, altering a policy setting that had previously favoured venerable sites of Islamic learning in the Middle East. The Ministry of Religion associated sites of post-graduate learning in the West with graduate attributes of openness and critical thought, and perceived that these attributes were necessary for the development of a cohort of technical experts with competency to observe and analyse Islam in Indonesian populations. Article problematizes this notion of graduate attributes in the religious sphere, noting their novelty in comparison with competencies required of Islamic leaders in Indonesian communities (connectedness, affirmation of tradition, ritual expertise, etc). Attributes of 'openness and critical thought' position technical experts as critical observers of other segments in Indonesian Islamic society, such as Indonesia's popular preachers, many of whom are trained in sites of Islamic learning in the Middle East. In Indonesia's contemporary Islamic public sphere, such technical experts, many of whom were trained in Western social science departments, maintain a critical distance from Indonesia's popular preachers, the majority of whom (ironically) received religious training in sites of learning in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When national governments support homogenising religious programs within plural populations, scholars are called to pay close attention to the subsequent interactions between state power and religious projects/actors. This article responds to this need by providing a sub-national perspective on Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI), a national body seen by some as a state-supported homogenising project. Based on fieldwork in the Indonesian cities of Tasikmalaya and Malang, the article describes the ideological diversity that exists between the central MUI and its regional branches. In the regions, the MUI is supported financially by regional governments, and in this way, its branches are shaped by local political conditions rather than by allegiance to ideological programs promoted from the centre. The authors observe the openness of the Tasikmalaya MUI to a wide range of Islamic movements, and contrast this with the ideological homogeneity of Malang's MUI, where the regional government is intent on restricting Islamic programs that threaten religious and social diversity. The contrasting religio-political positionings of the regional MUI signal the ideological heterogeneity to be found within the Indonesian Islamic Scholars’ Council and shed light on the importance of sub-national factors in shaping Indonesia's institutional responses to religious diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]