PADANG (Indonesia) – A group of boys sang songs about their love for the Prophet Muhammad.
A young woman in a full veil was moved to tears by the new converts’ faith.
Afterwards, the crowd cheered a 15-year-old girl’s conversion to Islam.
Many have posted selfies on social media, enjoying theirs shared faith.
The scene was an annual festival in Padang, part of a new conservative Islamic movement in Indonesia known as the Hijrah that is attracting millions of believers, many of them young and attracted to preachers celebrities on Instagram.
He Islamic conservatism In Indonesia it has been growing for years, despite the fact that the government has long been trying to maintain a secular and religiously diverse society.
The current iteration of the Hijrah movement is notable for its use of social media to spread it and its appeal to the youth.
And his popularity is raising concerns among the government and religious authorities, who fear he might do so erode a more moderate type of Islam.
Kamaruddin Amin, director of Indonesia’s religious affairs ministry, says his department has implemented a counter-narrative to challenge the momentum of the Hijrah movement.
The conservatism it promotes, he said, “is not good for Islam in the Indonesian context.”
From the government’s perspective, behind the Hijrah movement “is a very threatening ideology called Wahhabism,” a fundamentalist current of Islam originating in Saudi Arabia, said Dadi Darmadi, a professor at Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University in Jakarta .
He branded the Hegira followers as “born again Muslims”.
But Derry Sulaiman, a Muslim preacher who spoke at the festival, said in an interview that supporters were misunderstood.
“We’re not talking about radicalism,” he said.
“We don’t fight the government. We just come to hear each other’s experiences of how they feel after Islam.”
There are no clear figures on the number of Hijrah followers – many of them identify with the movement – but they are estimated to be at least in the tens of millions, based on the social media followings of popular Hijrah preachers.
The movement is emerging at the same time that opposition Islamic parties have become more vocal, for example by mobilizing hundreds of people in protests against the construction of Christian churches.
Last year, they helped pass a law banning sex outside marriage in Indonesia.
A 2019 survey of millennials and young people in the Generation Zconducted by Jakarta-based research firm Alvara, it showed that 60 percent of some 1,500 respondents across 34 provinces identified themselves as “puritanical and ultra-conservative.”
A count of the Instagram accounts of 12 of Indonesia’s top Hegira preachers showed that they have at least 45.8 million followers.
Being Hijrah is essentially about leading a more Islamic life, encompassing everything from dress to dating, which means that more and more women are wearing the hijab, or niqab, the veil that covers the entire face.
More men sport beards and religious clothing.
The movement’s preachers reject anything that could potentially be Haram, or prohibited by Islamic law, such as dating or sometimes secular music.
Actors and musicians who self-identify as Hijrah have used their social media accounts to publicly celebrate the rediscovery of their faith.
Young people have become supporters of the “No Dating Indonesia” movement, which he promotes arranged marriages.
The movement is part of Indonesia’s rich religious culture.
Although the country is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, it has five other official and more than 200 unofficial religions.
Most of Indonesia’s 230 million Muslims practice a form of Islam that combines religion with local rites, how to visit the graves of the ancestors.
Nesa Okta Mirza, 27, who is preparing to go to graduate school, said she identified as part of the Hijrah movement in 2014.
However, when she wore the hijab, her parents objected because no one else in her family wears the headscarf.
She recalled how a relative criticized her, asking, “‘Are you from ISIS?”
Nesa said that, influenced by Hegira preachers who discourage touching between men and women outside of marriage, she will no longer hitchhike on the back of motorcycles driven by men.
She also stopped watching Korean dramas because it made her lose sleep and affected her quality of life, which is also against her faith.
Later this year, she plans to send her resume to a friend to help her”taaruf”term which designates the practice of arranged marriages.
However, the government is concerned about some of these practices, fearing they could destabilize the country’s multi-religious society.
Kamaruddin, of the religious affairs ministry, said his office had encouraged young Muslim preachers to insist that Islam must “appreciate diversity”.
He noted that some hijrahists have built housing only for Muslims or criticized women for not wearing the hijab.
The rise of Islamic radicalism in Indonesia has compounded government concerns.
In recent years, the government of the president Joko Widodo has banned groups such as Hizbut Tahrir and the Islamic Defender Front, who have asked Muslim Caliphate In Indonesia.
Ulil Abshar Abdalla, a senior official at Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, said Hijra followers “want Islam to be a closed identity, a cultural marker that separates them from the rest of society “.
“We don’t give them the green light to speak in the name of Islam, to be the sole representatives of Islam,” he said.
The group has called on the government to ban the annual Padang festival, known as Feast of the Hegira.
Last year he complained that event organizers had used his logos without permission, leading to the abrupt cancellation of the festival.
“Hijrah” means journey in Arabic, and the term is most closely associated with Muhammad’s migration to Medina to escape persecution in Mecca.
Most of the people who make up the movement are Muslims by birth and are reaffirming their faith.
Arie Untung, founder of HijrahFest, said the group has often been criticized by other Muslims for not being puritanical enough.
“I think we actually have the same destination, but we’re on different machines,” said Arie, a former MTV VJ.
He described the HijrahFest as an act Mainly commercial, not religious.
In this year’s edition, vendors promoted halal cosmetics and Quran memorization services.
All participants, regardless of religion, were required to dress conservatively.
The room, packed with Muslim men and women, was divided by gender.
A preacher said he was going to teach the people a prayer curb any LGBTQ elements in your family.
Natta Reza, a prominent Islamic boy band singer, was one of the headliners.
He proposed to his wife in 2017, just hours after he discovered her Instagram account.
They got married shortly after and are now influencers on social networks promoting arranged marriages.
Natta said their dating years “have not been good.”
“I hope this can be a lesson for singles,” she said from the stage.
“Don’t be stupid like me, who took care of someone else’s soul mate,” she said, referring to her love life before becoming a Hiyra influencer.
The audience booed as his wife laughed behind her veil.
The preacher who spoke, Derry, 44, was a guitarist for Betrayer, a popular heavy metal band.
She said that during that time she went out to parties every night and had “a lot of girlfriends”.
In 1998, like other Indonesian musicians who discovered Hijrah, he quit his band and started creating Islamic music after being told by a colleague to go back to his faith.
Now he creates content for TikTok, saying it “should bring good vibes” to young believers.
On the final night of HijrahFest, Derry closed the night by leading other Muslim preachers in a prayer of repentance.
He, and many others in the audience, wept as they remembered their sins.
c.2023 The New York Times Society
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.