Islamic studies have taken the marginalized position regarding social science in Indonesian with Eurocentric and American traditions dominated by the public university. It is not only excluding from the social science discourse in Indonesia but also a part of silencing. Meanwhile, many Islamic scholars and Islamic thinkers contribute significantly to shaping the Indonesian public sphere, which is currently well-known as moderate Islam. Due to adopting social science theories into Muslim society, some of them then “provincialize” social science tradition by proposing the alternative social discourse. One of those scholars is Muslim Abdoerrahman, who offers Islam Transformatif as the liberation theology for Indonesian Muslim societies. This paper presents the three questions; what is the primary problem that encourages him to submit intensively? How does he theorize the concept of Islam Transformatif that contextualise with the Indonesian Muslim society? To what extent his theory is to be relevant to the current condition? This paper argues that the inequality economy that causes the Indonesian to become more poor people is in line with understanding the primary sources of Islamic interpretation to guide ummah as the piety person to practice the Islamic rites. In contrast, Islam could be an inspiration to establish social justice. Therefore, to re-interpret Islamic theory from both Al-Quran and Sunnah by employing the social approach is significant as the form of empowerment and support for poor people. Within the oligarchy power dominant to the Indonesian economy and Indonesian Muslim elites and their Islamic organizations that could not articulate critical voices on the inequality economy as the structure problem, his theory becomes an essential point for religious moral appealing.
Wahyudi Akmaliah is Researcher at Research Center for Society and Culture, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PMB-LIPI). His study focuses on the New Media, Pop Culture, and Sociology of Knowledge in Indonesia. Some of his works are published in Journal of Indonesian Social Sciences and Humanities, Indonesian Journal of Islam and Muslim Societies, Al-Jāmi‘ah, Studia Islamika, ISEAS (book chapters). Currently, he is PhD student of Malay Studies Department, National University of Singapore (NUS).
Day 2 (May 28, Fri HK/SG time / British Summer Time (BST) / Central European Summer Time (CEST))
Panel 6: Beliefs in Theory
9-10:30pm HK/SG / 2-3:30pm BST / 3-4:30pm CEST / 9-10:30am EDT / 6-7:30am PDT