Hating the Ahmadiyya: The Place of "Heretics" in Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Society

Contemporary Islam, 8 (2): 133-152. 
DOI: 10.1007/s11562-014-0295-x

Ahmad Najib Burhani

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract

Religious diversity and pluralism is commonly understood within the context of the relation between various religious traditions, not within a single religious tradition. This limitation of the boundary of religious pluralism could overlook the fact that conflict within a single tradition can be bitterer and more disastrous than conflict with other religions. In the last decade, for instance, the Ahmadis in Indonesia have become victims of constant attacks. This article, therefore, intends to study the place of the Ahmadiyya in the context of religious pluralism in Indonesia by answering the following questions: Why was the treatment of the Ahmadis in recent years by Muslims more vitriolic than their treatment of non-Muslims? What is the nature and quality of life for people who have been excluded from a ‘normal’ religious identity in a time when religious attachment is a necessary fact for that society? Why did the attacks on the Ahmadiyya occur in the present regime, not during the past authoritarian one? This article argues that the charge of heresy issued by Muslim institutions put the Ahmadiyya in liminal status; they are in the zone of indistinction between Muslims and non-Muslims. This makes them vulnerable to persecution since their rights as Muslims have been deprived, while their rights as non-Muslims still suspended. Non-Muslims, particularly ahl al-kitāb (People of the Book), theologically have been accepted in Muslim society, but there is no place of tolerance for heretics. The rise of intolerance in Indonesia is parallel to the rise of religious conservatism after the fall of Suharto in 1998.

Keywords: homo sacer, liminality, heresy, persecution, religious identity, Ahmadiyya.

Within this Article
    Introduction
    The position of the Ahmadiyya in Muslim society
    Heresy hunt in the democratic state of Indonesia
    The Ahmadiyya minority as Homo sacer
    Conclusion
    References 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11562-014-0295-x