RECONFIGURING MUSLIM PIETY: From Urban Sufism to the Hijrah Movement in Contemporary Indonesia
Abstract
This article explores the shifting landscape of Muslim piety among Indonesia’s urban middle class through an analysis of three major waves: Urban Sufism, the hijaber community, and the hijrah movement. Drawing on theories of popular religion, ritual bricolage, and pious consumption, the study argues that contemporary piety is not a rupture from tradition but a reconfiguration shaped by digital media, moral capitalism, and symbolic authority. Employing a qualitative methodology that combines literature review, digital ethnography, and visual-narrative analysis, the article demonstrates how spiritual values are sustained through new forms of expression—ranging from motivational Islamic seminars and modest fashion to Instagram-based da‘wah and halâl branding. These developments reveal a dynamic process of religious subjectivation, where Islamic devotion becomes both a personal ethic and a social performance, closely tied to class aspirations, visual aesthetics, and market logic. The article contributes to current debates on digital religion by highlighting how Indonesian Muslims construct religiosity not only through textual interpretation, but also through visual symbols, emotionally connected communities, and commercial practices. In doing so, it challenges binary narratives of secularization versus religiosity and offers a nuanced framework for understanding continuity and change in contemporary Islamic expressions.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Abaza, Mona. “Shifting Landscapes of Fashion in Contemporary Egypt.” In Islamic Fashion and Anti-Fashion: New Perspectives from Europe and North America, edited by Emma Tarlo and Annelies Moors, 75–92. London-New York: Bloomsbury, 2007.
Abdullah, Najwa. “The Hijrah Phenomenon: Shifting Urban Muslim Identities in Indonesia.” ISEAS Perspective. Singapore, 2025.
Arifianto, Alexander R. “Rising Islamism and the Struggle for Islamic Authority in Post- Reformasi Indonesia.” TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 8, no. 1 (2020): 37–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/trn.2019.10
Astor, Avi, Ghufran Khir-Allah, and Rosa Martيnez-Cuadros. “Anonymity and Digital Islamic Authority.” Religions 15, no. 12 (2024): 1507. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15121507
Baulch, Emma, and Alila Pramiyanti. “Hijabers on Instagram: Using Visual Social Media to Construct the Ideal Muslim Woman.” Social Media + Society 4, no. 4 (2018): 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118800308
Bayat, Asef. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Beta, Annisa R. “Hijabers: How Young Urban Muslim Women Redefine Themselves in Indonesia.” International Communication Gazette 76, no. 4–5 (2014): 377–389. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048514524103
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Budak, Kemal. “Rebranding Islam: Piety, Prosperity, and a Self-Help Guru.” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 29, no. 3 (2018): 394–396. https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2018.1440739
Campbell, Heidi A., and Ruth Tsuria. Digital Religion. London: Routledge, 2021.
Chairiawaty, Chairiawaty, and Kiki Zakiah. “Branding Identity as Da’wah Strategy: Islamic Business Ethics.” Ilmu Dakwah: Academic Journal for Homiletic Studies 14, no. 2 (2020): 259–574. https://doi.org/10.15575/idajhs.v14i2.10595
DinarStandard. “State of the Global Islamic Economy Report,” 2023. https://www.dinarstandard.com/insights/state-of-the-global-islamic-economy-report-2023el-Nawawy, Mohammed, and Sahar Khamis. Islam Dot Com. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2009.
Fathurrosyid, Moh. Asy’ari Muthhar, Abd. Kahar, and Wan Khairul Aiman Wan Mokhtar. “Dissemination of Hijrah Doctrine on Social Media.” ESENSIA: Jurnal Ilmu-Ilmu Ushuluddin 25, no. 2 (2024): 28–43. https://doi.org/10.14421/esensia.v25i2.5809
Fealy, Greg. “Consuming Islam: Commodified Religion and Aspirational Pietism in Contemporary Indonesia.” In Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, edited by Greg Fealy and Sally White, 15–39. Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2008.
Gِkarksel, Banu, and Ellen McLarney. “Introduction.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6, no. 3 (2010): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.2979/MEW.2010.6.3.1
Hamka. Tasawuf Modern . Jakarta: Pustaka Panjimas, 1983.
Hefner, Robert. “Chapter 3. Islamization and Democratization in Indonesia.” In Islam in an Era of Nation-States, 75–128. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017.
Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. Religion as a Chain of Memory. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
Hirschkind, Charles. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Howell, Julia Day. “Sufism and the Indonesian Islamic Revival.” The Journal of Asian Studies 60, no. 3 (2001): 701–729. https://doi.org/10.2307/2700107
———. Sufism and the Modern. London: I.B Tauris, 2013.
Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, and Tariq Ramadan. The Middle Path of Moderation in Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Knoblauch, Hubert. Populنre Religion: Auf Dem Weg in Eine Spirituelle Gesellschaft . New York: Campus Verlag, 2009.
Lewis, Rena. Modest Fashion: Styling Bodies, MediaFaith. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
Lim, Marlyna. “Archipelago Online: The Internet and Political Activism in Indonesia.” Thesis, Carleton University 2005.
Lِvheim, Mia. “Gender and Agency in Digital Religion.” In The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion, 237–253. Oxford University Press, 2022.
Machin, David, and Andrea Mayr. How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. Thousand Oaks California 91320 : SAGE Publications, Inc., 2023.
Mahmood, S. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. United States: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Medina, J. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination. Studies in Feminist Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Millie, Julian, and Emma Baulch. “Beyond the Middle Classes, Beyond New Media: The Politics of Islamic Consumerism in Indonesia.” Asian Studies Review 48, no. 1 (2024): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2023.2291103
Mujani, Saiful, and R. William Liddle. “Indonesia’s Approaching Elections: Politics, Islam, and Public Opinion.” Journal of Democracy 15, no. 1 (2004): 109–23. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2004.0006
Muthohirin, Nafik. “Faith in the Digital Age: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism and the Plurality of Young Muslims’ Piety on Social Media.” Islamica: Jurnal Studi Keislaman 19, no. 2 (2025): 199–233. https://doi.org/10.15642/islamica.2025.19.2.199-233
Nisa, Eva F. “Muslims Enacting Identity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion, 289–305. Oxford University Press, 2022.
———. “Social Media and the Birth of an Islamic Social Movement: ODOJ (One Day One Juz) in Contemporary Indonesia.” Indonesia and the Malay World 46, no. 134 (2018): 24–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2017.1416758
Patton, Michael Quinn. Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods: Integrating Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2015.
Pelangi, Dian. “Instagram Post.” Instagram, 2017. https://www.instagram.com/dianpelangi/?hl=en
Pink, Sarah. Doing Visual Ethnography. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2021.
———. Heather Horst, John Postill, Larissa Hjorth, Tania Lewis, and Jo Tacchi. Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice. London: Sage Publications, 2016.
Portmann, John. Celebrity Morals and the Loss of Religious Authority. London: Routledge, 2019.
Rakhmani, Inaya. Mainstreaming Islam in Indonesia: Television, Identity, and the Middle Class. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Rinaldo, Rachel. Mobilizing Piety: Islam and Feminism in Indonesia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Slama, Martin. “Practising Islam through Social Media in Indonesia.” Indonesia and the Malay World 46, no. 134 (2018): 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2018.1416798
———. “Social Media and the Question of Change in Indonesia’s Field of Islam.” Indonesia 119, no. 1 (2025): 173–192. https://doi.org/10.1353/ind.2025.a961932
Whyte, Shaheen Amid. “Exercising Religious Authority.” In Islamic Religious Authority in a Modern Age, 167–206. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, 2024.
Willis, Jerry. Foundations of Qualitative Research: Interpretive and Critical Approaches. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks California 91320 United States: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2007.
Witte, Marleen de, Martijn de Koning, and Thijl Sunier. “Aesthetics of Religious Authority: Introduction.” Culture and Religion, 16, no. 2 (2015): 117–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2015.1058524
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30821/miqot.v50i1.1528
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
MIQOT: Jurnal Ilmu-ilmu Keislaman (P-ISSN: 0852-0720; E-ISSN: 2502-3616) by http://jurnalmiqotojs.uinsu.ac.id/index.php/jurnalmiqot/index is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright ©2023 Universitas Islam Negeri Sumatera Utara Medan. Powered by Public Knowledge Project OJS.












