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ABSTRACT
Felix Siauw, a popular if controversial Chinese Muslim preacher, is well known for his affiliation with the transnational Islamist movement, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), as well as for his extensive use of social media and visual aesthetics. As of September 2017, he had more than four million followers on Facebook, two million followers on Twitter, one million followers on Instagram and 20,000 subscribers on YouTube, making him one of the leading social media preachers in Indonesia today. Based on online research, offline participation and face-to-face interviews with Felix Siauw and his dakwah (proselytisation) team members in 2016 and 2017, this article highlights (a) the intersection between online activities and offline events in contemporary Islamic preaching; (b) multiple forms of oral, textual and visual expressions of on-offline dakwah; and (c) the politics and poetics of dakwah. In brief, it illustrates how online and visual dakwah are complementing rather than replacing offline and textual dakwah. I examine how and under what conditions Felix Siauw creatively uses social media and visual images to propagate HTI ideology among young Indonesian Muslims. His dakwah approach is entertaining yet conservative, casual but dogmatic, and personal if political. His preaching attempts to reconcile these contradictions, which represents a strategy to normalise religious radicalism and to attract a broader audience.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Martin Slama for his invitation to contribute to this special issue and his valuable comments on an earlier draft. I thank the anonymous reviewers of Indonesia and the Malay World for their insightful suggestions. I record my gratitude to Felix Siauw and his dakwah team members for allowing me to interview them and to observe their activities.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Note on contributor
Hew Wai Weng is a Fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). He is the author of Chinese ways of being Muslim: negotiating ethnicity and religiosity in Indonesia (NIAS Press, 2018). Email: [email protected]
Notes
1 Dakwah, from the Arabic term da’wah (lit. ‘call’ or ‘invitation’) can be aimed at both Muslims and non-Muslims as it can involve consolidating the faith of Muslims, as well as inviting non-Muslims to Islam.
2 Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) is the Indonesian branch of Hizbut Tahrir (HT, lit. Party of Liberation) – a transnational, anti-democratic yet non-violent Islamist political organisation and its goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law. Compared to NU (Nahdlatul Ulama) and Muhammadiyah, two of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisations with tens of millions of members, HTI is much smaller, but it has been gaining ground in Indonesia since a decade ago. In July 2017, HTI was banned by the Indonesian government. For discussion of HT in Indonesia, see Burhanuddin (Citation2009); Mohamed Osman (Citation2010); Njoto-Feillard (Citation2015); Rijal (Citation2011).
3 Facebook, Ustadz Felix Siauw, 5 August 2017.
4 Ustadz, a male preacher and ustadzah, female preacher.
5 Interview, Felix Siauw, 8 September 2016.
6 While it is important to analyse how Siauw’s followers interpret his messages, it is beyond the main scope of this article. I briefly discuss the reception of his preaching towards the end of this article and aim to to further examine this aspect of his dakwah activities in a forthcoming article.
7 Facebook, Ustadz Felix Siauw, 11 April 2015.
8 It has been difficult to find out the name of his wife apart from the nickname of Lin as she is usually known as Ummu Alila (mother of Alila).
9 Al-Fatih (lit. ‘the conqueror’), is Felix Siauw’s favourite name which he gave to his sons, his publishing house and visual studio. This name commemorates the role of Sultan Fatih in the conquest of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in 1453, a historical event to which HTI frequently refers.
10 Interview, Felix Siauw, 10 January 2008.
11 Tan Mei Hwa, born and based in Surabaya, is a popular Muslim female preacher. Her preaching trademark is her performative style (often accompanied by singing, strewn with jokes and sometimes even dancing) and the usage of her full Chinese name. Koko Liem (Brother Lim), born in Dumai, Sumatra and currently based in Jakarta, is another media-savvy and entrepreneurial-minded Muslim preacher. He always wears traditional Chinese clothing with a Chinese skullcap in public appearance to manifest his ‘Chineseness’ (for more details, see Hew Citation2012).
12 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
13 Abdullah Gymnastiar or Aa Gym is a popular television preacher, with his trademark self-help message of ‘Manajemen qolbu’ (Managing the heart) – see Watson (Citation2005) and Hoesterey (Citation2016a). Arifin Ilham is famous for his Az-Zikra Islamic chanting events, while Yusuf Mansur is well known for his programmes on religious entrepreneurialism.
14 It is quite common now in Indonesia to sprinkle English words in books and advertisements to promote products.
15 Field notes, 8 September 2016.
16 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
17 I am aware that ‘radical’ is a highly loaded term, especially in the current Indonesian political climate. It used here in a broader sense, referring to ideas that challenge the status quo but do not necessarily lead to violent actions. It is important to futher examine what constitutes radicalism and how it is being understood differently in Indonesia today.
18 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
19 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
20 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
21 Facebook, Ustadz Felix Siauw, 3 March 2017.
22 KEY is an acronym for Kelas Eskekutif YukNagji (YukNgaji Executive Class); and FAST is an acronym for Fastabiqul Khairat (lit.‘compete in doing good things’).
23 Field notes, 8 September 2016 and 5 November 2016.
24 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
25 Facebook, Ustadz Felix Siauw, 23 May 2017.
26 Interview, Emeralda Noor Achni, 5 November 2016.
27 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
28 Facebook, Ustadz Felix Siauw, 12 May 2017.
29 Facebook, Ustadz Felix Siauw, 22 May 2017.
30 Interview, Emeralda Noor Achni, 5 November 2016.
31 Interview, Emeralda Noor Achni, 5 November 2016.
32 Instagram, Benefiko, 13 May 2016.
33 Instagram, Benefiko, 14 May 2016.
34 Instagram, Benefiko, 10 February 2017.
35 Field notes, 9 September 2016.
36 Interview, Felix Siauw, 9 September 2016.
37 Facebook, Ustadz Felix Siauw, 15 March 2017.
38 YouTube, YukNgajiID, 10 March 2017.
39 Interview, Felix Siauw, 19 September 2017.
40 I have followed Felix Siauw’s preaching after the controversial ban of HTI and I plan to write another article to explore how Felix Siauw and his dakwah teams manage to continue their activities despite various legal challenges.
41 The Al-Maidah incident was Ahok’s interpretation of a verse of the fifth chapter of the Qur’an (Surat Al-Maidah) that is concerned with the possibility of Muslims being governed by non-Muslims. He was video-taped and a manipulated version of the video then went viral on social media. This incident had led to a series of rallies against Ahok in Jakarta.
42 Twitter, Felix Siauw, 7 October 2016.
43 Field notes, 5 November 2016.
44 Field notes, 19 July 2017.