Islamic Studies Contemporary Islamic Popular Culture in Southeast Asia
by
Wahyudi Akmaliah, Ibnu Nadzir
  • LAST MODIFIED: 07 January 2025
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0312

Introduction

Islamic contemporary popular culture in Southeast Asia is supported by the dominance of knowledge production and cultural expression. Specifically, pop culture products are mediated by both old and new media, consisting of diverse material cultures such as film, television, and popular print media (newspapers, magazines, comic books, and novels), in addition to products that emerge within social media and websites that provide content and generate other creations consisting of texts and videos. These Islamic popular cultures are mainly practiced by most Muslims in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam and by Muslim minority populations, such as those in Singapore. Not only does this represent a form of Islamization in the public sphere that has been strongly linked with Islamic politics and the expansion of capitalist industry, but it is also connected to the changing Muslim population, namely the emergence of an educated urban Muslim middle class that embraces democratic values and human rights. These intersecting developments intervene in the market and Muslim consumption patterns to represent their voices, lifestyles, and identities, demonstrating the interplay between modernity and Islamic piety in the Southeast Asian Muslim’s everyday life. In the context of Muslim minorities in Singapore, specifically, pop culture produced by Muslim groups as a part of DIY culture (Do It Yourself) is a function of asserting Muslim identity in the context of challenges ranging from Islamophobia to the stigma associated with September 11. Globally, the Islamic resurgence in Southeast Asia was inspired by both the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and Islamized thinkers as well as its movement in the Middle East and Pakistan. In the Iran Revolution, for instance, there was an inspiration to establish trend thought and movement. In trend thought, as an Islamic publisher located in Bandung, West Java, Mizan promoted some of the Islamic thinker’s works such as Mula Sadra, Ali Shariati, and Ayatullah Khumaeni. In movement, Jalaluddin Rahmat was an Indonesian Islamic intellectual obtaining inspiration from the Iran Revolution by establishing an Islamic organization, well-known as Ikatan Jamaa’h Ahlul Bait (IJABI). Concerning the influence of Islamized thinkers such as Hasan Al-Bana and Abdul A’la Al-Maududi, as well as Ikhwanul Muslim (Islamic brotherhood), there are the Tarbiyah movement which has been transforming into KAMMI (Indonesian Muslim Actions Unions), and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (Indonesian Islamic Propagation Council) as the continuity movement from Masyumi as Islamic political party during the Sukarno presidency. Even though these Islamic resurgence movements are significant, they have had varying impacts on particular countries due to differing power structures of administration in Southeast Asian Muslim societies dealing with the governments’ policies. In Malaysia and Indonesia as a part of the government’s negotiation with the huge niche of this Islamic market created by Islamic resurgence, for instance, Islamic popular culture had begun to develop significantly in the 1990s in forms including Islamic public sermons on television, the presence of Islamic publishers, and the new style of headscarf initiated by young Muslim designers. Islamic pop culture is seen today in the influence of Muslim figures as a part of their Islamic preaching, capitalist industries that commodify Islamic symbols and practices, and political parties seeking to win local and national elections.

General Overviews

A comprehensive review of Islamic contemporary pop culture is early found in Fealy and White 2008, focusing on the emergence of a new market for Indonesian Muslims in the 1990s and again after Suharto stepped down in 1998. Products include Islamic books, Muslim clothing, Islamic movies, halal products, and Islamic finances that consist of products and its services. This market is articulated through varied forms of piety, contemporary politics, and changing patterns of Islamic inspiration within Islamic organizations. This market is vigorously examined through the lens of ethnographic research in Rudnyckyj 2010, which covers the presence of the human resources product ESQ for self-management and self-improvement initiated by Ary Ginanjar to support Indonesian Muslims following the end of the authoritarian Suharto regime and the emergence of a faith dilemma as Muslims found themselves caught between the neo-liberal spirit of the market and the Islamic ethos of working hard, whether in public or in private companies. This analysis has grown to include Islamic popular culture in the entertainment fields of theater, film, music, and television; the Islamic movement on the Internet initiated by Salafi communities through Laskar Jihad; and the growth of controversial Islamic topics (specifically polygamy) in a comparative perspective in Malaysia and Indonesia and in Indonesia and Singapore, as seen in Weintraub 2011, Seneviratne 2012, Heryanto 2014, and Mohamed Nasir 2016.

  • Daniels, Timothy P.. Performance, Popular Culture, and Piety in Muslim Southeast Asia. Edited by Timothy P. Daniels. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

    This edited volume explains both the combination and contestation between Islamic pious discourse and secularization of the arts amidst the Islamic revival movements in most areas in Malaysia and Indonesia. Diverse authors provide extensive work on dance in local traditions, music, television series, Islamic movies, and their consumption among urban and rural people as they redefine and rearticulate how to be “a good Muslim.”

  • Fealy, Greg, and Sally White, eds. Expressing Islam. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008.

    Although it does not focus intensely on Islamic pop culture, this edited volume examines the diverse issues confronted by Indonesian Muslims after the downfall of the Suharto presidency by looking at three fundamental points—new forms of expressing Islamic piety, such as through fatwas online, Shariah regulations, and Islamic finance; Islamic teaching via new religious authorities, such as Aa Gym and Arifin Ilham; and changing Islamic aspirations in the new, more conservative Islamic organizations.

  • Heryanto, Ariel. Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture. Singapore: NUS Press, 2014.

    DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1qv1rz

    This book examines contemporary media and screen culture among middle-class urban youth in Indonesia through three fundamental factors of contentious political identity: the ethnic Chinese issue that consists of stigma and discrimination, the events of 1965–1966 that led to the deaths of 500,000 people who were affiliated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and its affiliated organizations, and the rise of pop-Islamism. Pop-Islamism is used as a new term to distinguish it from the previous religious orientation, which was more reticent with respect to liberal views such as human rights, democracy, and identity. Heryanto scrutinizes Islamic movies, especially Ayat-Ayat Cinta (2008), and Muslim youths’ consumption of K-Pop’s products as a dynamic contestation between Islamizing and commodifying the Indonesian Muslim identity in the public sphere.

  • Mohamed Nasir, Kamaludeen. Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific: Popular Culture in Singapore and Sydney. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

    By comparing the global cities in the Asia Pacific (Singapore and Sydney), the author examines Muslim minorities facing secular life and stigma perception after September 11 through ethnographic research. The author finds pop culture productions consisting of hip-hop music, tattooing as a medium for the body to embrace modernity, and cultural consumption to be Muslim youth strategies for embracing cosmopolitan views while reconciling them, at least in part, with their Islamic piety.

  • Müller, Dominik M. Islam, Politics and Youth in Malaysia: The Pop-Islamist Reinvention of PAS. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014.

    DOI: 10.4324/94781315850535

    Relying on ethnographic research on the Islamic political party in Malaysia, PAS (Malaysian Islamic Party), this book investigates the tension between Islamic ideology and pop culture products. The author’s finding reexamines Asef Bayat’s concept of post-Islamism, proposing the new concept of pop-Islamism as a medium to represent Islamic ideology within pop culture products in order to gain the largest Muslim audience in Malaysia.

  • Rudnyckyj, Daromir. Spiritual Economies: Islam, Globalization, and the Afterlife of Development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.

    By employing a popular human resources program known as Emotional and Spiritual Quotient (ESQ), the author examines how Islamic values related to faith and the spirit of neo-liberalism as engaged with global capitalism could be combined as a strong point of reference among Indonesian Muslim workers in dealing with the uncertainty of life in the post-Suharto era. The study focuses on the company of Krakatau Steel in Banten, West Java.

  • Seneviratne, Kalinga. Countering MTV Influence in Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012.

    DOI: 10.1355/9789814345248

    This book examines the impact of globalization through the emergence of MTV in Indonesia and Malaysia in the fields of youth culture and musical identities. The author proposes that both Irama Malaysia and Nasyid in Malaysia, and Dangdut musicians in Indonesia are practicing hybrid culture, placing MTV Asia as the inspirational reference for developing their musical taste and attracting young audiences.

  • Weintraub, Andrew N., ed. Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia. London: Routledge, 2011.

    This edited volume examines the diversity of pop culture products in Indonesia and Malaysia in defining Islam in everyday life through both consumption and practices amidst the changing political landscape and the rise of liberation media. As a consequence, those conditions create public debate. Examples include polygamy as portrayed in the movie Ayat-Ayat Cinta (“Verses of love,” 2008), the Islamic Liberation Network (JIL) for online activity, representation and contestation of the headscarf (tudung), and sexuality and gender.

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