From Non-Violent to Violent Radicalization and Vice Versa: Three Case Studies from Indonesia

Abstract

The intricate connection between violent and nonviolent extremism has been a source of debate among radicalization scholars. Some suggest that despite their non-military tactics, Islamists share ideological commonalities with jihadists. Others emphasize the unbridgeable rifts between non-violent and violent Islamists. Rather than simply viewing Islamism and Salafism either as a gateway to or a bulwark against terrorism, we analyze the contingent and variegated movements between violent and non-violent extremism in the context of religio-political polarization in Indonesia. Behavioral and ideological change, we argue, is best seen as a continuum with possible gradations along the spectrum, across which movement is determined by external shocks, reflection, and the role of social networks. Three case studies are discussed which represent three types of crossover: the ideological and tactical shift from Salafism to jihadism; the tactical radicalization of a splinter faction of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI); and the hybrid (partial ideological and tactical) deradicalization of Jemaah Islamiyah.

One puzzling question that has inspired research is the inconsistent connection between radical belief and action. Bartlett and Miller ask why, out of the numerous individuals with radical opinions, only a handful of them commit violent action.¹ Likewise, it has been the norm in deradicalization studies to critically assess whether certain extremist groups that quit terrorism did so out of genuine conviction or are merely showing pragmatic disengagement.² Hwang argues that behavioral disengagement can be attributed to cost-benefit calculation while Matesan observes that “comprehensive de-escalation” requires complete disillusionment.³ This article seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate, first, by offering a more systemic explanation for the shifts to and away from terrorist violence, and second, by bringing in diverse case studies from Indonesia to expand scholarly enquiry. We believe that while the basic framework of ideological vs tactical shift between non-violent and violent extremism is useful, it is not always clear-cut.

To better understand the nature of the shift both from non-violent to violent radicalism and vice versa, we should treat behavioral and ideological change not as a binary, but rather as a spectrum with gradations. More specifically, we are interested in the to-and-fro movement between Islamism and jihadist terrorism.⁴ Islamists’ demands range from enforcing Islamic values in public life to gradually implementing an Islamic system of government either through electoral politics or other nonviolent extra-parliamentary strategies.⁵ Salafism is a variant of Islamic puritanism that idealizes the Islam espoused by the first three Muslim generations and adheres to a strict version of monotheism (tawhid). Salafis are commonly divided into three types: the deeply conservative yet politically inactive “purists”; “politicos” who involve themselves in political action; and jihadis who justify armed struggle to create an Islamic polity.⁶

The passage to violent extremism is in no way inevitable since most Islamists and Salafis reject terrorism. Nevertheless, we need an explanation as to why such passage does occasionally happen and how it happens. At least three types of shifts can be identified based on the Indonesian case studies. First, the case of pro-Islamic State cells will be analyzed to illustrate the complete ideological and tactical shift from purist Salafism to jihadism. This is important because, at least in Indonesia, the migration from quietist Salafism to jihadism has increased in the Islamic State (IS) group era compared to Al-Qaeda’s heyday (pre-2013). Second, we look at the tactical shift of a splinter cell of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), an Islamist group of traditionalist (Sufi-leaning) background, which adopted violent tactics without ever subscribing to Salafi-jihadi ideology.⁷ This is not to say that non-Salafi Islamists cannot turn violent – the Taliban being a case in point– but rather that this particular FPI cell, even though rogue, has maintained the ideological belief of its mother organization that seeks to implement Islamic shari’a within the existing republican system. Thus, it does not fulfil the traditional definition of ideological radicalization – a progression toward extreme rejection of the status quo.⁸ Third, we examine the example of Jemaah Islamiyah’s (JI) disengagement from violence as a hybrid case, where JI has sought to modify its political ideology and strategy to accommodate political strategies while maintaining its ability to use violence, if needed.

The case studies were selected not only because of their conceptual significance, but also their political relevance. Scholars have noted the impact of religious polarisation in Indonesia, particularly since the 2014 election, on democratic decline.⁹ Among other things, the polarization prompted the Joko Widodo government to ban Islamist opposition groups, including FPI, on the grounds that Islamists and jihadi terrorists ‘share the same Wahhabi takfiri ideology’ – regardless of their different methods.¹⁰ Observers criticized the arbitrary proscription of FPI and other nonviolent Islamists as politically motivated and draconian.¹¹ Amidst the state-produced discourse that blurs the line between legitimate Islamist opposition and terrorism, a critical analysis has never been more important.

Drawing upon the literature on social movement and terrorism literature, we zero in on three factors to explain the variety of movements between violent and non-violent extremism. These are: external shocks, reflection, and the role of social networks. Social movement theorists have extensively discussed how changing “political opportunity structures” can facilitate,¹² radicalize,¹³ or deescalate movements.¹⁴ Critics argue that the concept of political opportunity structure is prone to overstretching and needs refinement with regards to the relationship between structure and agency.¹⁵ Therefore, we specifically analyze three kinds of external shocks: state repression, polarization, and the emergence of a rival group.¹⁶ Those external shocks, in turn, could trigger soul-searching and reflection. So, what matters is not merely the sudden narrowing or widening of political space, but also how social movement actors interpret it. Relatedly, the mechanisms of rethinking or interpretation should be specified: why it sometimes alters one’s fundamental worldviews or affects superficial change only. For example, the prosecution of group leaders might reinforce the followers’ belief in the group ideology yet trigger a tactical change motivated by revenge.

We argue that substantive changes tend to occur when the external shocks are compounded by certain social dynamics such as internal disagreement or factionalization; in other words, external structure and internal dynamics are closely related. In JI’s case, the devastating impact of police operations has been said to have caused its tactical withdrawal from terrorism.¹⁷ Whilst acknowledging these earlier findings, we discuss how the term “behavioral disengagement” does not fully capture the extent of JI’s ideological modification and internal disagreement over political issues. Lastly, social networks are important in facilitating each step of the processes, even in hierarchical organizations (instead of ‘leaderless jihad’).¹⁸ Some people stumble upon like-minded online friends or a charismatic religious figure in the course of their self-searching which draws them into an echo-chamber. Alternatively, interaction with non-violent Islamists could make jihadis more amenable to less extreme political ideas.

The empirical data was gathered from open source materials such as court depositions, blogs, and Telegram channels; a terrorism database maintained by one of the authors’ institute; and interviews with Islamist activists, counterterrorism officials and correction centre staff.¹⁹ The social media data was limited to Telegram public channels, which anyone can search and join; since channels are one-way broadcasting, we as researchers passively read and documented the messages without conversing with anyone.²⁰ All interviews have been anonymized on the respondents’ request and approval. Names of terrorist convicts (non-interviewees) are only provided if they have been named in public documents such as court dossiers and media reports. Some high profile preachers (ustadz) are also attributed by names when the information cited was obtained from their public statements.

This article begins with a critical review of the existing scholarship. The next three sections examine the case studies. The concluding section discusses the broader implications for studies on the linkages between violent and non-violent extremism.

Untangling the Connection between Non-Violent and Violent Extremism: Radical Crossover, Salafi Breeding Ground, and Disengagement

A niche has emerged in radicalization studies that specifically looks into the relationship between non-violent (NVE) and violent extremism (VE). Some scholars examine the crossover from radical opinion to action, extrapolating the diverging psychological, social and political indicators of violent and non-violent extremists. Bartlett and Miller’s study shows that violent extremists, non-violent extremists, and even groups of ordinary Muslims have a lot in common, such as anger at western countries’ foreign policy and exposure to Islamist books and jihadi videos. The difference is in the way they engage with Islamist literature and jihadi videos; violent extremists are obsessed with jihadi tracts while non-violent extremists consume them in conjunction with more diverse literature. Moreover, jihadis are more likely to watch violent videos in a group.²¹ Knight and co-authors similarly conclude that political grievances are a less useful predictor for violent extremists than personal crises or shocks that catalyze a cognitive opening or opportunities to act such as membership in a terrorist group.²² What these studies have in common is the significance of social networks and emotional factors rather than religion or political grievances per se.

The next debate pertains to the role of ideology in radicalization. Horgan and Taylor have long emphasized that “not every terrorist is necessary ‘radical’”.²³ In their twelve mechanisms of radicalization, McCauley and Moskalenko identify three which do not require ideology: when someone is motivated by revenge; when someone is lured into joining a terrorist group by loved ones; or when thrill, money and status constitute the primary motives.²⁴ However, the empirical evidence for non-ideological (or non-Salafi) radicalization is relatively scarce, and this article will address this particular gap through the FPI case study.

When it comes to the relationship between Salafi ideology and radicalization, three schools of thought have emerged: the “conveyor belt” thesis,²⁵ the “firewall” argument,²⁶ and the qualified affinity argument.²⁷ Many observers and government officials have pointed to Salafi-Wahhabism – often with little proof – as “the root of Islamic terrorism” or as a “breeding ground” for jihadis.²⁸ Much criticism has been directed at the conveyor belt thesis, mostly at the lack of empirical evidence.²⁹ The firewall argument has also been criticized due to its policy implication which encourages governments to endorse non-violent yet ultraconservative Salafis in counter-narrative efforts.³⁰ Yet another scholarly camp questions the extent of ideological affinity between Salafism and jihadism, noting that the latter had not been closely associated with Salafi theology until the 1980s with the emergence of the Afghan jihad.³¹ Importantly, Blanc and Roy as well as Wagemakers note that while Salafism can be one of the many pathways to terrorism, it is the “ideological rupture” and socio-political disputes with Salafism and Salafi actors that push one to make that final jump.³²

Having discussed the debates around radicalization, we now turn to the topic of deradicalization. Omar Ashour in his seminal work defines radicalism as ideological and behavioral disavowal of democratic principles.³³ Deradicalization according to Ashour denotes the abandonment of armed struggle, whilst attitudinal shifts pertaining to democratic principles is called moderation. Since violence is defined in terms of justification, capacity, and actual tactics, a group is said to have undergone a “comprehensive deradicalization” if its cognitive de-legitimization of violence is accompanied by behavioral change and organizational demobilization of its military wing.³⁴ Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiyah only partially fulfills these criteria: it demonstrates behavioral change and partial ideological revision but has not demobilized militarily.

Building on Ashour’s conceptual framework, Matesan elaborates eight types of extremist tactical outlooks, challenging the binary of violent-non-violent categories.³⁵ This novel conceptualization suggests a whole variety of shades within ideological and tactical (de)radicalization respectively, and we would like to expand on this by introducing a hybrid category. For Matesan, “comprehensive de-escalation” requires complete decimation and disenchantment as well as unanimous commitment by leaders to rethink the ideology.³⁶ Without leaders’ unity, splintering would occur, and violent offshoots emerge. While we concur that total disillusionment is necessary for ideological reassessment, we will revisit the issue of internal friction – and its different effects – in the discussion of FPI and JI.

In sum, scholars have explained radicalization processes by examining the relationship (or lack thereof) between radical belief and action. This article unpacks the nuances of radical belief through recounting the radicalization of a purist Salafi group and a traditionalist Sunni group; the latter is especially interesting given that traditionalists and Sufis are often considered the peaceful antithesis to Salafi extremism.³⁷ On the topic of disengagement, researchers have broadly distinguished principled deradicalization from behavioral disengagement, although some like Matesan have revealed several tactical outlooks that sit uneasily in between the violent and non-violent categories. To further elucidate this kind of ambiguity, we use the term hybrid deradicalization as a heuristic device to think about JI. Of the various causal mechanisms that have been mentioned in prior research, we identify three – external shock, rethinking, and social networks – which we believe are most useful in explaining both violent radicalization and disengagement.

Salafism to is: The Comprehensive Radicalization of Sigit Pramono aka Jon Tukijo

One interesting phenomenon in Indonesia is that more Salafis appeared to be crossing over to jihadism after the emergence of IS than during Al-Qaeda’s peak of influence. According to the ICG’s 2004 report, “very, very few, if any, students from the most rigid Salafi schools, those termed purists, have found their way into JI or like-minded organizations”.³⁸ And the tiny minority who joined JI, which had links to Al-Qaeda, usually came from a politico Salafi background. However, a 2022 database by the Indonesia Strategic Policy Institute (ISPI) reveals that out of 1,000 terror suspects arrested between 2014 and 2022, at least 100 were former Salafis and most had attended purist boarding schools or study circles.³⁹ Al-Qaeda was less appealing to purists because its ideology is a hybrid of Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Qutbism, whereas most purists have been trained to not only consider the Muslim Brotherhood as deviant but also to engage in diatribes against it and politico Salafis whenever they can.⁴⁰

Unlike Al-Qaeda, IS from the outset claimed to be “the true guardian of the particular version of Islam native to Saudi Arabia—that is, Wahhabism” which originated in Najd.⁴¹ IS promoted itself as the successor to the first Saudi-Wahhabi state, “engaging in expansionary jihad” which the Saud dynasty had abandoned when it opted to become a nation-state rather than a global caliphate.⁴² IS explicitly sought to revive the hardline Najdi Wahhabism. For instance, its theology textbook Muqarrar fi Tauhid (Course in Monotheism) extensively cites Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the great Salafi compendium al-Durar Al-saniyya fi al-ajwiba al-Najdiyya (The Glistening Pearls of Najdi Responses). Muqarrar dedicates a whole section on Wahhab’s interpretation of “the ten nullifiers of Islam” which “provides a very fertile basis for the [Islamic State] takfir tendencies”.⁴³

The case of Sigit Pramono aka Jon Tukijo, a Salafi teacher who founded the IS cell in Merauke (West Papua province) illustrates how the declaration of the IS caliphate, coupled with disillusionment with purist Salafis due to their sudden participation in elections, prompted him to reconsider his Salafi beliefs. What is more, he did not embark on such rethinking on his own, but rather with the help of some Indonesian foreign fighters in Syria whom he met through Facebook. Born in East Java, Sigit studied at Ma’had Imam Syafi’i, a prominent purist boarding school in Cilacap, Central Java.⁴⁴ Upon graduation the school assigned him to work as an Islamic teacher at one of its partner mosques in the Christian-majority district of Merauke for three years, from 2010 to 2013. He subsequently got a translating job at a Salafi publishing house in Surabaya, East Java but quit after only a year, apparently because his heart was no longer with the Salafis. According to his own account, he was amazed by the bold declaration of the IS caliphate in 2014, which made him question his Salafi beliefs. Sigit remarks in his court testimony:

Salafis merely conducted religious propagation with nothing to show for, unlike Daulah Islamiyah in Iraq and Syria that waged jihad with the clear goal to defend Islam and Muslims and implement Islamic shari’a in full.⁴⁵

Upon closer examination, the switchover was not as straightforward as his statement suggests. At first, he went online to look for more information about IS; unsatisfied with the mainstream media information, he looked for IS supporters on Facebook and eventually got introduced via Telegram to Abu Jaisyi, an Indonesian fighter in Syria. Given his existing interests in doctrinaire literature, Sigit downloaded the Muqarrar e-book that was widely shared on pro-IS Telegram channels. Muqarrar had been translated into Indonesian with additional commentary by Aman Abdurrahman, a now famous jihadi ideologue and also a former purist Salafi. In 2014, Sigit was living a double life; physically he was in a Salafi environment in Surabaya but online, he was beginning to interact with the pro-IS community, devouring IS theological literature whilst translating Salafi texts for his day job. In late 2014 and early 2015, he suddenly found himself in a rough spot when purist Salafis partnered up with the government to launch a systemic campaign against IS through mosques, TV, and radio. It was only then that Sigit was forced to pick a side.

Changing political contexts also contributed to his growing disappointment with what he saw as the purists’ tainted doctrinal commitment. In Indonesia, 2013–2014 saw a polarizing presidential election between pluralist candidate Joko Widodo and the conservative favorite Prabowo Subianto. Subianto launched a smear campaign against Widodo by framing him as a covert communist and China’s puppet, and many pious Muslims bought into this propaganda, including most Salafis. Ahead of the April 2014 election, influential purist clerics such as Firanda Adirja and Syafiq Riza Basalamah encouraged Salafis to cast their vote for Subianto; both stated that while democracy was un-Islamic this was an “emergency situation” because Islam would be destroyed if a “communist” candidate won.⁴⁶ Salafis further pointed to the Islamic jurisprudential principles of “choosing the lesser of two evils” (irtikab akhaff al-dhararain) and “public interest” (maslaha al-mursala). This was a turning point for Sigit, as he later wrote in his Telegram channel under the pen name “Jon Tukijo”:

Allah says to ‘stay away from taghut [tyrants]’…don’t sit with taghut…don’t take money from taghut… We can see [what this results in], the phenomenon of Salafis, these public interest-worshippers who veered away from what they used to preach. In terms of elections, for example, many of their ulama…said that casting a vote is the soul of democracy and democracy is a clear form of kufr [unbelief]. Just read the religious rulings of Sheikh Bin Baz, Uthaimin, and Albani on democracy. But now they proudly took part in voting for the sake of public interest, what public interest? Does it constitute “public interest” if the salafiyyun can win seats in the parliament…? They committed the very transgressions of the ikhwaniyyun [Muslim Brotherhood] whom they previously condemned… How could Salafis have gone astray? One answer is certain: because Salafis did not avoid taghut! Just look at their scholars and teachers, every day they got cozier with taghut! Firanda was giving a talk with a taghut [police officer] beside him, Badrussalam said the Detachment 88 [Indonesian counterterrorism police] is the party of God!⁴⁷

IS propaganda about the Saudi betrayal of the original Wahhabi doctrines struck a chord with Sigit’s personal experience.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry and America signed an agreement to revise all textbooks…seen as the seeds of radicalism. So Salafi books, especially the works of tawhid scholars such as Ibn Taimiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his descendants, whom we know as the scholars of Najd dakwah, must be destroyed…⁴⁸

As his disillusionment with the Salafis deepened, Sigit’s new IS friends sent him videos and other proof which convinced him that IS “is the only one that implements the [Salafi] creed of al-wala’ wa al’bara… the only one that combines tawhid and jihad.⁴⁹ The IS community gave him not only a sense of belonging but also a new status as the official Indonesian translator for the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency.

In 2015, when his Salafi colleagues in Merauke asked him to come back to teach, he happily took that opportunity to recruit some Salafis living in West Papua province into IS. Unlike in Java, the Salafi community in Papua was still in its infancy so he knew there would be less supervision over what he taught. He ran two kinds of classes at the Salafi mosques there: the official Salafi class in the daytime and the secret IS indoctrination classes at night. He invited five to ten people to watch IS videos in his room and taught them IS theological doctrines; he also organized shooting training and a bomb-making course to prepare his group for terrorist attacks in Indonesia or emigration to Syria.⁵⁰ In 2017, as his status within the IS community rose, he was approached by a wealthy couple from an IS cell in Balikpapan (East Kalimantan province), who had followed him on Facebook. They met up in Makassar (South Sulawesi province) and the couple asked Sigit to head the Balikpapan 30-member cell, with housing and a brand new Quran school provided for him. Such an offer was all the more appealing when the Salafi mosque in Merauke caught hold of Sigit’s extremist activities and expelled him.⁵¹ Sigit moved to Balikpapan and soon after, some of his Merauke followers left for Makassar to join the pro-IS group there. In the end, they were all arrested following the Cathedral bombing in Makassar in March 2021, which was perpetrated by a husband and wife team who had been in the same study group as Sigit’s former students in Makassar.⁵²

As this case study has shown, the appeal of the perceived theological purity of IS to Salafis was mediated by two other factors: local political context – that is, the perceived betrayal and opportunism of purist Salafis; and the role of social media that enabled individuals to switch group-belonging more easily than before. When it comes to Salafi radicalization, Wagemakers was right on the mark in saying that “ideas and context are intimately entangled and cannot be seen in isolation of each other”.⁵³

The Tactical Radicalization of Traditionalist Muslims: The Splintering of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI)

In Indonesia, traditionalist or Sufi-leaning Islam is often viewed as the epitome of religious moderation. The largest traditionalist Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), took upon itself to combat Wahhabism and “transnational Islam” as exemplified by the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). However, there also emerged a stream within traditionalist Islam that promotes intolerance in the name of Quranic teaching, al-amr bi al-ma’ruf wa al-nahy an al-munkar (enjoining good and forbidding evil). Founded in 1998 by Habib Rizieq Shihab, a charismatic firebrand of Hadhrami descent, FPI shares many similarities with NU: they follow the Ash’ari-Maturidi school of theology and the Shafi’i school of jurisprudence.⁵⁴ FPI also engages in many practices considered shirk and unlawful innovations (bid’a) by Salafis, such as the celebration of Mawlid and the veneration of the Prophet Muhammad’s descendants – indeed the Habib title in front of Shihab’s name denotes his lineage to the Prophet. FPI, along with NU, have engaged in endless debates and diatribes against Salafi-Wahhabism.⁵⁵ Yet in contrast to NU’s moderate image, FPI’ has used “symbolic violence” (e.g. smashing night club windows) to combat vice and immorality.⁵⁶

Before going into the tactical radicalization of the FPI splinter, it is useful to examine FPI’s ideology in order to show how its terrorist spin-off has not replaced the original ideology with Salafi jihadism. Despite its shari’a advocacy and thuggish methods, FPI differs from jihadi groups in some fundamental ways. FPI believes that the Indonesian constitution already provides a legal basis for the implementation of shari’a; it particularly refers to the five pillars of Pancasila, the state ideology, the first of which says: “belief in the one and only God”. FPI does not see the government as a taghut that must be overthrown through violent means, but rather as a potential ally that needs to be convinced –or bullied if necessary– to apply shari’a as inherent in Pancasila’s first pillar.⁵⁷ Like the Salafis, FPI holds that armed jihad is only justified when Muslims are under attack. Unlike purist Salafis, though, FPI is not averse to organizing demonstrations as part of its mission of enjoining good and forbidding evil.⁵⁸

In 2016, FPI led an alliance of several Islamist groups, including Salafis and Hizbut Tahrir. Together they mobilized the largest demonstration in Indonesia’s modern history known as the “Defend Islam Action” or “212 Movement”.⁵⁹ The biggest of the rallies took place on 2 December 2016 (hence the name 212) and was joined by several hundred thousand people. They demanded the arrest of the then Jakarta governor, a Christian-Chinese politician known by his nickname Ahok, whom they accused of blaspheming the Quran. FPI thus set the sectarian tone for the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial race, resulting in Ahok’s defeat by a Muslim candidate.

President Widodo and his pluralist supporters perceived the Islamist resurgence as a massive political threat and responded with repressive measures hitherto unheard of in post-authoritarian Indonesia.⁶⁰ Several Islamist leaders were arrested while Hizbut Tahrir was banned without the judicial process required by Indonesia’s law on mass organizations. Rizieq Shihab, the FPI supreme Imam, fled the country after being implicated in a pornography scandal, which many believe was fabricated.⁶¹ In November 2020, after a three-year exile in Saudi Arabia, Shihab returned to Indonesia, with tens of thousands of followers flooding the streets to greet him. Just weeks after his much-celebrated homecoming, the police summoned Shihab for the alleged breaching of COVID-19 health protocols. When he refused to heed the summons for the third time, a police intelligence team tailed him and his family as they quietly left the capital city in the wee hours of 6 December 2020.⁶² After a dramatic car chase, Shihab got away but six of his bodyguards were shot dead, with police claiming that the FPI men opened fire first, though FPI insisted that they never owned any guns. An investigation by the National Human Rights Commission found that at least four of the killings were extrajudicial.⁶³ By the end of December, the government announced FPI’s disbandment.

Enraged by the extrajudicial killings and the subsequent arrest of Shihab, one FPI cell in Condet, East Jakarta went rogue and planned bombing attacks against the police and Chinese businesses.⁶⁴ While this was not the first radicalization within FPI, it is the first one that was not preceded by ideological and theological shifts. Previously when ex-FPI individuals got involved in terrorism, they would first “convert” to Salafi jihadism and disavow FPI’s theology and political ideology which they came to view as un-Islamic for its democratic engagement.⁶⁵ In contrast, the FPI-Condet splinter was unique in that they did what they did to defend Shihab’s honor and avenge the perceived injustice against FPI. Even in jail, the members of FPI-Condet refused to join deradicalization programs with jihadi inmates because, as they told the prison staff, “We don’t need deradicalization because we are already pro-Pancasila and the Unitary Republic of Indonesia, we are not jihadis!”⁶⁶

There was no evidence that their ideology had changed, nor did they justify violence as an end in itself. External shock in the form of harsh repression was definitely a triggering factor that made them rethink FPI’s stance against taking up arms. However, the expansive literature on the repression-dissent nexus tells us repression sometimes generates intensified resistance but at other times withdrawal.⁶⁷ In the case of FPI-Condet, we believe it was their expulsion from the main FPI structure and their regrouping with likeminded FPI sympathizers under the leadership of Habib Husein Hasni, a local Hadhrami cleric, that caused them to resort to violent tactics. It was as though the exclusion set them free from the organization’s anti-terrorist stance and at the same time motivated them to work harder to prove their loyalty to FPI’s Supreme Leader.

The Condet cell leader, Habib Husein Hasni, was an executive of FPI’s East Jakarta branch until he was fired in 2018 due to some land dispute with Habib Muchsin Alatas, the chief for the Jakarta region. Alatas apparently told FPI top brass that Hasni was a liability for the organization because of his extreme temperament.⁶⁸ Indeed, as its political ambition grew, FPI had tried to cleanse its ranks from the more unruly personnel and ex-thugs in a bid to improve its reputation. Hasni held a grudge against Alatas personally but never abandoned his veneration of Shihab whom he perceived as too “holy” to interfere in menial quarrels among members.⁶⁹ Hasni kept in touch with other FPI members and remained committed to moral policing in his own way. So when Islamists organized massive protests against Shihab’s arrest in December 2020, Hasni immediately wanted to join. However, the police put up barricades and checkpoints to stop him and many others from attending the protest. He became extremely angry when watching the footage of police hitting and firing teargas at his compatriots for simply demanding justice for their beloved cleric and the six FPI victims.

With Shihab in jail, Hasni felt that the remaining FPI leaders were not doing enough to fight the injustice.⁷⁰ But he was unable to express his aspirations as he had been excluded from FPI’s decision making structure. So, he contacted some of his FPI friends whom he thought might share his feelings. They met at a mosque in the vicinity of FPI headquarters in Central Jakarta. Hasni used his lineage to the Prophet to exert authority and circumvent the formal leadership, now headed by a non-Hadhrami secretary general. After recruiting a core team that included a former FPI militiaman with a penchant for guns and explosives, the Condet group went to neighboring Bandung city to meet with another splinter group led by Habib Nabil al-Jufri, also a Hadhrami ustadz. Hasni told his colleagues that “Our Supreme Imam, Habib Rizieq Shihab, has been criminalized. Why aren’t we doing anything? Whose command are we waiting for to act?”⁷¹ Around the same time, propaganda messages were circulated by FPI’s Telegram channels about how the extrajudicial execution has “opened the door” for qisas – the Islamic concept of retaliation in kind.⁷² Some online sympathizers got excited and started debating about who should carry out the qisas since Indonesia is not an Islamic state. However, the FPI media later clarified that they merely suggested qisas by God, through prayer.⁷³

It is unclear whether FPI’s rhetorical u-turn affected the Condet and Bandung splinters. Nevertheless, they believed they could and should do more than just praying.⁷⁴ They debated concrete methods and discussed targets for attack. The police were considered the most deserving target; they believed that harming frontline security officers would “send a warning to the government to stop their unjust treatment and criminalization of Islamic scholars”.⁷⁵ Chinese businesses were added to the hitlist because the “Chinese are responsible for economic inequality” and attacking the wealthy class is guaranteed to inspire wider dissent.⁷⁶ They agreed to set fire to some strategic Chinese-owned factories at nighttime to “create instability without causing too many casualties”.⁷⁷ Here the expressed concern for collateral damage is vastly different than IS’ indiscriminate takfir against the government and everyone who participates in democracy. If jihadis glorify violence as an end in itself, FPI splinters intended to use their terror operations as a means “to provoke a wider resistance from the society to [awaken them to] take part in the struggle, so that the government would come to realize that it has inflicted cruelty upon the people especially Muslims”.⁷⁸ In other words, the attack was primarily to change government policy.

For the FPI splinters, therefore, the unprecedented repression called for a rethinking of the organization’s aversion to violence. The prior expulsion of Hasni, the cell leader, from the main structure did not disaffect him from the entire organization because he attributed it to his personal rival. If anything, the subsequent state repression only strengthened his unwavering love for FPI’s imam and ideology. His prior exclusion appears to also have given him an additional motivation to outdo the formal leadership who he believed was not doing enough to challenge government brutality. The last determining factor is the availability of likeminded individuals among the broader FPI sympathizers and Hasni’s ability to provide them with new leadership.

Hybrid Deradicalization: Jemaah Islamiyah

JI has undergone two important transformations between 2007 and 2021: a major defeat that made them reassess violent tactics and a political turn since 2016. Many existing studies focus on JI’s initial disengagement from violence, but the recent arrest of JI’s politically-oriented figures reveals that at least one faction within JI may have experienced a more meaningful ideological revision than initially thought.⁷⁹ The incremental and uneven change in JI’s attitude towards democracy is our primary interest. JI’s political faction was led by Farid Ahmad Okbah, a member of JI’s advisory council who had longed practiced taqiyya (concealment) and become a prominent Muslim cleric in his own right, occupying senior positions in a modernist mass organization and the state-sponsored Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI). Okbah’s arrest in 2021 was controversial because he –and two other JI members– had just established a new political party.⁸⁰ As it turned out, Okbah’s preference for deeper political engagement had gained an upper hand within JI following the arrest of its amir Para Wijayanto and other military figures.⁸¹

Here we define JI’s deradicalization as partial ideological and tactical change without foregoing military buildup to prepare for an eventual battle with the enemy. It is more than just disengaging from violence but also falls short of what Ashour terms moderation – the process of accepting democratic principles. The rise of the Islamist anti-Ahok movement and post-Arab Spring developments were the external shock factors that inspired JI to consider a more active role in politics, especially after it had emerged out of its critical stage stronger. The unprecedented success of the 2016 mobilization and closer interaction with non-violent Islamists during the rallies made JI figures warm up to the idea of political participation. However, JI members disagreed over what kind of – and how much – democratic engagement was permitted by their version of Islamic ideology. Unlike in FPI, both the militant and politically-oriented factions were accommodated by JI, hence preventing splintering and generating a hybrid outcome.

An external shock in the form of a major counterterrorism operation in 2007 diminished JI’s capacity and from then on, the group decided that violent tactics were too costly because the enemy was too strong and the community support for jihad was too low.⁸² In 2008, JI under its new amir Para Wijayanto shifted its strategy from “elitist jihad” to “community wide jihad” and from “violence at all costs” to “dakwah first”. To this end, Wijayanto wrote a new handbook entitled Strategi Tamkin [Victory Strategy] inspired by Abu Bakar al-Naji’s book The Management of Savagery. JI’s Tamkin Strategy consisted of seven steps: 1) comprehensive preparation of forces and resources; 2) eroding the enemy’s legitimacy through information operations or “victory of concepts” (tamkin risalah); 3) sapping the enemy’s military and economic power to the point of regime collapse; 4) managing chaos or establishing the group as the de facto government; 5) merging with jihadi groups from other countries and polarizing the global Muslim community into choosing sides; 6) declaring an Islamic state; and 7) expansion of the Islamic state.⁸³

JI’s dakwah efforts consist of above ground religious propagation, establishing social foundations that collect public donations for humanitarian assistance, and forging tactical alliances with influential Islamist groups including FPI. The military wing, reactivated in 2010, was kept completely separate from the dakwah faction through a sophisticated security system that would give the latter a plausible deniability given its public role.⁸⁴ In terms of education, JI maintained a network of 40 Islamic boarding schools and a preachers’ association called Majelis Dakwah Indonesia (MADINA) with 26 branches across the archipelago. JI-affiliated social foundations also saw rapid progress, for instance the Syam Organizer and Abdurrahman Bin Auf Foundation altogether collected US$ 1.8 million in donations annually.⁸⁵ These front organizations would secretly channel fresh recruits and funds into JI, including the money to send 96 cadres to Syria for military training with Jabhat al-Nusra between 2013 and 2018.⁸⁶ The Syria trainees were selected from among the participants of JI’s combat training (Sasana Gym Program) which had been set up in 2012.⁸⁷

The tactical alliance with Islamists, which aimed to increase JI’s social capital, inadvertently facilitated JI’s evolving attitude towards electoral politics. The coalition-building began in earnest when Farid Okbah and Zain An-Najah, also a JI member, joined the Council for Indonesian Young Intellectuals and Ulama (MIUMI).⁸⁸ Established in 2012 and led by Saudi-educated modernist preacher Bachtiar Nasir, MIUMI was a cross-organizational alliance for conservative Islamic scholars from the existing modernist, traditionalist and Salafi groups. Nasir invited Okbah and An-Najah with the hope of moderating jihadis into the Islamist fold whilst JI meant for Okbah to influence the Islamists.⁸⁹ In 2015, MIUMI got involved in a broader Islamist campaign to undermine Ahok, the Chinese-Christian Jakarta governor. By 2016, MIUMI had joined forces with FPI, Hizbut Tahrir, and other Islamist groups to mobilize the 212 Movement.

At first, JI agreed to take part in the 212 Movement for strategic reasons: to exploit the escalating Muslim grievances as a way to deepen sectarian polarization and erode government legitimacy by launching “anti-communist information operations” (step two of Tamkin). While Islamists primarily aimed to punish Ahok for his alleged blasphemy and secure an electoral victory for Muslim candidates, JI had a more sinister intent, namely to accelerate political decay and the creation of chaos which it could then manage (step four of Tamkin).⁹⁰ Seeing the massive support for the anti-Ahok movement and the government’s initial reluctance to prosecute him, JI for the first time considered the possibility that an Arab Spring styled people power crisis could implode the government without violent jihad. In other words, JI might be able to skip step three – sapping the enemy’s energy by attacking its military and economic facilities. JI created its own fake news factory to amplify the fear-mongering against Ahok and the supposed threat of communism by Ahok’s and President Widodo’s political rivals.⁹¹

In an internal circular, JI reminded its executives that their job is to “motivate the people to join the protests” (i.e. not “our people”), implying JI’s ambiguous stance toward actual participation in demonstrations.⁹² Yet the political faction had a different interpretation; for instance a JI leader in Surabaya evidently sent busloads of people into Jakarta for the December 2 rally.⁹³ The problem arose when JI leaders disagreed over whether they should allow their members to vote in the 2017 gubernatorial election. Okbah’s political faction argued that if they did not vote, the Christian incumbent might win, and all their hard work would go to waste. The militant anti-democratic faction argued that abstaining from taghut systems is a non-negotiable doctrinal principle.⁹⁴ Whilst the disagreement over voting was not resolved in 2017, JI executives concurred that mass mobilization was the way to go if they wanted to bring about a community-wide jihad rather than an elitist one. So JI launched a new program called naqib (community leaders), in which JI appointed some of its most prominent clerics to be freed from its formal structures so that they could concentrate on becoming public figures and amassing followers in various fields.⁹⁵ The clerics chosen for the naqib role included Okbah and An-Najah because both possessed wide networks and recognition from the mainstream community and even the government, as evidenced by their MUI membership.

As can be seen there was a discrepancy between JI’s view and that of Okbah’s faction. For JI, the naqib program was merely a tactic to infiltrate mainstream organizations and government circles.⁹⁶ In contrast, Okbah and his faction came to genuinely believe that dakwah and political participation had more chance of success than militant tactics. The written testimonies from Okbah’s and An-Najah’s loyalists that surfaced on social media after their arrest support this argument. Ahmad Taqiyyudin, a teacher at Okbah’s Islamic boarding school, wrote that when he got attracted to takfiri ideas, Okbah actually stopped him from joining jihadi groups and convinced him that dakwah is more worthwhile for Islamic victory.⁹⁷ Another student of Okbah’s wrote that his teacher cited an excerpt from Ibn Taimiyya’s Majmu Fatawa to argue that participating in parliamentary politics can be equated to Prophet Yusuf’s experience of assuming a ministerial post in the oppressive Egyptian kingdom in order to help Muslims’ cause.⁹⁸ The fact that Okbah and An-Najah refrained from extremist views in internal deliberations suggests that their flexible attitude towards democracy was more than rhetoric.

In 2018, during yet another sectarian-laden presidential race, JI called a meeting to resolve the disagreement over electoral politics once and for all. In the meeting that took place in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, Okbah reportedly told his colleagues that voting does not nullify someone’s faith since it is not a matter of religious doctrine but rather a question of ijtihad (legal opinion), in which disagreements among Islamic jurists abound.⁹⁹ Okbah quoted a jurisprudential principle, “avoiding harm is prioritized over bringing good”; that preventing non-Muslim and alleged communist candidates from getting elected is important pending the full establishment of shari’a-based political system.¹⁰⁰ Recall that similar arguments had been made by politico Salafis and Islamists alike, indicating the potentially salient effects of cross-ideological coalitions on ideational change. After much deliberation, JI’s deputy amir came up with a negotiated solution: Okbah and his faction could proceed with their plan to join electoral competition, but JI as an organization would only aid them indirectly through extra-parliamentary methods – overt dakwah and covert info ops as well as military preparation.¹⁰¹ As such, JI skillfully turned the factionalism into a productive division of labor. Moreover, the Bekasi meeting succeeded in shifting the voting question from a non-negotiable doctrinal issue to a relatively minor difference in legal opinions.

The arrest of Para Wijayanto and many other JI executives in 2019 proved to be a game changer. As JI once again found itself under existential threat, it organized an emergency meeting in Sentul, south of Jakarta.¹⁰² This time, Okbah and his faction more forcefully promoted the idea of parliamentary politics through establishing a political party and giving up the military wing altogether because it caused too much trouble (fitna), thus indicating their disillusionment with the militant tactics which in their view produced nothing but self-destruction.¹⁰³ A political party, on the other hand, was believed to provide a much safer space for former JI activists to continue their struggle for Islamic victory.¹⁰⁴ They proposed that JI should abandon its secretive structure for an open dakwah-party model akin to the PKS. According to Okbah and his supporters, armed jihad is still necessary but the concept needs to be modified from offensive to defensive jihad.¹⁰⁵ In May 2021, Okbah, his naqib partners, and some non-JI Islamists declared the Partai Dakwah Rakyat Indonesia (PDRI).¹⁰⁶ But before their plan to compete in the 2024 election could be realized, the police arrested Okbah and two other naqib clerics. While it is difficult to tell whether such a political overhaul would have led to further moderation, the political pathway remains a possibility because many Okbah loyalists in JI’s dakwah wing have been spared and they may yet become a dominant faction.

Conclusion

Ideological and behavioral change should not be viewed in absolute terms but rather as a spectrum, with the potential for organizations and individuals to be located at different points and having the ability to move in both directions along this spectrum. Rather than treating movements to and away from violence separately, we offered a framework that can explain the variegated phenomena more systematically. The framework rests on three variables, namely external shocks, reconsideration, and social networks. It contributes to the social movement literature by discerning specific changes in political opportunity structure that trigger crossovers, namely state repression and leader’s persecution. The IS pull factor constitutes the second external shock, but we added to the existing literature on Islamist extremism by highlighting how IS doctrinal uniqueness vis-a-vis Al-Qaeda contributed to increased occurrences of crossover from purist Salafism to jihadism. More importantly, we found that domestic politics can be as crucial as the global context, if not more so. The anti-Ahok sectarian mobilization and the polarizing elections that came with it have had a profound impact upon all groups studied here, whether violent or non-violent.

The way individuals interpret the extraordinary political context and reconcile it with their existing beliefs also matters. Alteration in ideology is more likely to occur when the external shock actually causes complete disillusionment. If not, the triggering event may lead to mere tactical change as exemplified by the FPI splinters. However, it is worth keeping in mind that either change may proceed gradually and unevenly such that it could produce a hybridized outcome, such as JI's simultaneous shift towards greater (ostensibly genuine) participation in democracy while still maintaining the ability and intent to deploy violent tactics, if needed.

Our case studies support prior research findings about the importance of group interactions and leadership, but also raise an intriguing point about the differing effects of factionalism. In FPI’s case, some individuals with extremist tendencies were expelled because the organization feared that any association with violence could jeopardize the group’s political ambitions. Ironically, these outcasts later attempted a terrorist attack anyway, seeking vengeance against the police on behalf of the organization that had expelled them, all in the name of love for their supreme leader. Thus, the persecution of a revered imam may well be a key factor for traditionalist or Sufi radicalization; and this is something that could be explored in future research. When it comes to JI, the political faction was accommodated in a proverbial making lemonade out of lemons – or in this case, making a productive division of labor out of infighting. To put it differently, disagreement over political engagement could have moderating effects if accommodated; in contrast, differences over violent tactics could result in dangerous offshoots if unresolved. Therefore, it is not factionalism itself but rather the nature of issue being disputed and how the dispute is managed that matters. Further research is needed to examine the management of infighting and its influence on radicalization and deradicalization respectively.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller, “The Edge of Violence: Towards Telling the Difference Between Violent and Nonviolent Radicalization,” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 24, no. 1 (2012): 1–21.

2 John Horgan and Max Taylor, “Disengagement, De-Radicalization and the Arc of Terrorism: Future Directions for Research,” in Jihadi Terrorism and the Radicalisation Challenge (London: Routledge, 2012), 187–200; Omar Ashour, The de-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements. (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2009); Ian Chalmers, “Countering Violent Extremism in Indonesia: Bringing Back the Jihadists,” Asian Studies Review, vol. 41 no. 3 (2017), 331–51.

3 Julie Chernov Hwang, Why Terrorists Quit: The Disengagement of Indonesian Jihadists, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018); Ioana Emy Matesan, The Violence Pendulum: Tactical Change in Islamist Groups in Egypt and Indonesia, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 35.

4 If we follow Midlarsky’s definition of political extremism as ‘the will to power by a social movement in the service of a political program typically at variance with that supported by existing state authorities’, then Islamism can be viewed as a form of political extremism that seeks create a political order defined in Islamic terms. Defined as such, Islamist extremism can be divided into groups that pursue nonviolent methods (e.g. by forming a political party or social movement) and violent ones (e.g. insurgency, terrorism, etc). However, our focus is on terrorist forms of violence. Manus I. Midlarsky, Origins of Political Extremism: Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 7.

5 M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 28.

6 Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 29, no. 3 (2006): 207–39.

7 Most Islamists in Indonesia come from a modernist background whereas FPI belongs to the traditionalist Islam category, characterized by its accommodation of traditional cultural practices. FPI itself is not a Sufi group but some of its religious leaders and members follow certain Sufi orders such as the Qadiriyya wa Naqshabandiyya and Alawiyya.

8 Bartlett and Miller, “The Edge of Violence”.

9 Marcus Mietzner, and Edward Aspinall. “Southeast Asia’s Troubling Elections: Nondemocratic Pluralism in Indonesia”. Journal of Democracy, vol. 30, no. 4 (2019): 104–18. Nava Nuraniyah, “Divided Muslims: Militant pluralism, polarisation and democratic backsliding,” in Democracy in Indonesia: From Stagnation to Regression?, ed. T. Power & E. Warburton (ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2020), 81–100.

10 “BNPT Ungkap Banyak Teroris Bermazhab Wahabi dan Salafi”, CNN Indonesia, April 28 2021, https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20210428073407-12-635708/bnpt-ungkap-banyak-teroris-bermazhab-wahabi-dan-salafi.

11 To enable the banning of nonviolent Islamist group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, in July 2017 President Joko Widodo issued an emergency decree amending the 2013 Law on Mass Organization. The decree, which was passed by the parliament in October 2017, abolishes trial process and other legal checks on executive power to ban any organizations deemed dangerous to the state. Greg Fealy, “Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era: Repressive Pluralism, Dynasticism and the Overbearing State”, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, vol. 56, no. 3 (2020): 301–23, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2020.1846482.

12 David S. Meyer, “Protest and Political Opportunities.” Annual Review of Sociology 30 (2004): 125–45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29737688.

13 Donatella della Porta, “Radicalization: A Relational Perspective”, Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 21 (2018): 461–74.

14 Christian Davenport. How Social Movements Die: Repression and Demobilization of the Republic of New Africa. Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). doi:10.1017/CBO9781139649728.

15 Joost De Moor and Mattias Wahlström. “Narrating political opportunities: explaining strategic adaptation in the climate movement.” Theory and Society, vol. 48, no. 3 (2019): 419–51.

16 Some scholars call this “cognitive opening” or liberation. Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

17 Julie Chernov Hwang, “Dakwah before Jihad: Understanding the Behaviour of Jemaah Islamiyah.” Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 41, no. 1 (2019): 14–34; Matesan, The Violence Pendulum.

18 Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).

19 https://putusan3.mahkamahagung.go.id/

20 See https://telegram.org/faq_channels

21 Bartlett and Miller, “The Edge of Violence”, 15.

22 Sarah Knight, Katie Woodward, and Gary L. J Lancaster, “Violent Versus Nonviolent Actors: An Empirical Study of Different Types of Extremism”, Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, vol. 4, no. 4 (2017): 230–48.

23 Horgan and Taylor, “Disengagement, De-Radicalization”, 174.

24 Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 106.

25 Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The homegrown threat (New York: New York City Police Department, 2007); Gilles Kepel and Antoine Jardin, Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 66.

26 Peter Mandaville, “Engaging Islamists in the West,” CTC Sentinel, vol. 1, no. 7 (2008); Graeme Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants”, The Atlantic, March 15 Issue (2015) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

27 Nava Nuraniyah, “Not Just Brainwashed: Understanding the Radicalization of Indonesian Female Supporters of the Islamic State.” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 30, no. 6 (2018), 890–910.

28 Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa‘ud from Tradition to Terror, 1st ed. (New York, USA: Doubleday 2002).

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20210428073407-12-635708/bnpt-ungkap-banyak-teroris-bermazhab-wahabi-dan-salafi.

29 Ineke Roex, “Should we be Scared of all Salafists in Europe? A Dutch Case Study”, Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 8 no. 3 (2014); Alexander Heerlein cited in Théo Blanc and Olivier Roy, eds., Salafism: Challenged by Radicalization?: Violence, Politics, and the Advent of Post-Salafism (San Domenico di Fiesole: European University Institute, 2021); Middle East Directions (MED), 3. https://hdl.handle.net/1814/72725

30 Joas Wagemakers, “‘Seceders’ and ‘Postponers’? An Analysis of the ‘Khawarij’ and ‘Murji’a’ Labels in Polemical Debates between Quietist and Jihadi-Salafis,” in Contextualising Jihadi Thought, ed. Jeevan Deol and Zaheer Kazmi (London: Hurst, 2012), 145–64.

31 Laurent Bonnefoy and Stéphane Lacroix, cited in Blanc and Roy, Salafism: Challenged, 6.

32 Blanc and Roy, Salafism: Challenged, 5; Wagemakers, “The Role of Salafi Ideology among Radicalised Muslims: Two Case Studies,” in Blanc and Roy, Salafism: Challenged, 32–4.

33 Ashour, The de-Radicalization of Jihadist.

34 Ibid, 6.

35 Matesan, The Violence Pendulum, 7.

36 Ibid, 29.

37 Shadi Hamid, “Misunderstanding the Victims of the Sinai Massacre”, Brookings Institution, November 27, (2017), https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/11/27/misunderstanding-the-victims-of-the-sinai-massacre/.

38 International Crisis Group (ICG), “Why Salafism and Terrorism Mostly Don’t Mix”, ICG Asia Report 83, (Jakarta/Brussels, 2004), 3.

39 “Terrorist Convicts Database 2014-2022”, Indonesia Strategic Policy Institute, December 2022.

40 Brynjar Lia, “‘Destructive Doctrinarians’. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s Critique of the Salafis in the Jihadi Current,” in Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, ed. Roel Meijer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

41 Cole Bunzel, The Kingdom and The Caliphate: Duel of The Islamic State (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2016), 3.

42 Ibid, 1–5.

43 Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, “Islamic State Training Camp Textbook: “Course in Monotheism”: Complete Text, Translation and Analysis”, July 26 2015, https://www.aymennjawad.org/17633/islamic-state-training-camp-textbook-course-in

44 The following profile of Sigit Pramono was synthesized from his court deposition and social media posts. Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Sigit Pramono aka Jon Tukijo, Decision Number 134/PID.SUS/2021/PN.JKT.TIM.

45 Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Sigit Pramono.

46 Firanda Adirja, “Renungan Bagi Saudaraku Golput”, July 9 2014, https://firanda.com/1169-renungan-bagi-saudaraku-golput.html and https://www.alamiry.net/2014/03/sedikit-dialog-bersama-ustadz-dr-syafiq.html.

47 Telegram post of Jon Tukijo Channel, 2 June 2017.

48 Telegram post of Jon Tukijo Channel, 9 September2017.

49 Telegram post of Jon Tukijo Channel, 28 August2017.

50 Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Sigit Pramono.

51 IPAC, “How A Pro-ISIS Cell Emerged in Papua”, Report No. 75, February 2022, https://understandingconflict.org/en/publications/how-a-pro-isis-cell-emerged-in-papua 7.

52 Ibid.

53 Wagemakers, “The Role of Salafi Ideology”, 32.

54 Hadhrami-Arabs historically played an essential role in the Islamization of Malay-Indonesian archipelago and their influence has remained salient among both traditionalist and Salafi communities in Indonesia. See Ismail Fajrie Alatas, “Securing Their Place: The Ba’alawi, Prophetic Piety and the Islamic resurgence in Indonesia” (PhD Thesis, National University of Singapore, 2009), https://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/16742.

55 For an example of Rizieq’s diatribes against Salafism, see his speech about “The Deviance of Wahhabi’s Tawhid-Three Theology”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggkgkk4AkME.

56 Ian Douglas Wilson, “‘As Long as It’s Halal’: Islamic Preman in Jakarta,” in Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, ed. Greg Fealy and Sally White (Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2008), 192–10.

57 FPI and some other Islamist groups wanted to restore the Jakarta Charter, a sentence inserted into the preamble of the draft constitution on 22 June 1945, which stipulates the “belief in the one and only God, with the obligation to abide by Islamic Shari’a for its adherents”. This sentence was removed before the constitution was promulgated. For earlier study on FPI’s political agenda and traditionalist orientation, see Chaider S Bamualim, “Islamic Militancy and Resentment against Hadhramis in Post-Suharto Indonesia: A Case Study of Habib Rizieq Syihab and His Islamic Defenders Front.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 31, no. 2 (2011): 267–81.

58 Wilson, “‘As Long as It’s Halal’”.

59 See IPAC, “After Ahok: The Islamist Agenda in Indonesia,” IPAC Report No. 43, February 28 2018, https://understandingconflict.org/id/publications/After-Ahok-The-Islamist-Agenda-in-Indonesia-id.

60 Greg Fealy, “Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era: Repressive Pluralism, Dynasticism and the Overbearing State,” Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 56, no. 3 (2020): 301–23.

61 Interview with FPI member, Jakarta, 23 December 2022.

62 For a detailed and objective account of the incident that killed 6 FPI members, see Tempodotco, “Dokumenter Soal Penembakan Laskar FPI di KM 50”, 15 September 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzLIIDyAX9U

63 Muh Ibnu Aqil, “Police Killing of FPI Members Unlawful: Komnas HAM,” The Jakarta Post, January 8 2001.

64 Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Husein Hasni, Decision Number 1016/Pid.Sus/2021/PN Jkt.Tim.

65 There had been several instances of FPI radicalization into Salafi jihadi groups such as the FPI’s branch in Lamongan, East Java that collectively converted into IS in 2015.

66 Interview with Polda Metro Jaya prison staff, Jakarta, October 2022.

67 Mohammed M Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World (Boulder, USA: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003); Khalil al-Anani, “Rethinking the Repression-Dissent Nexus: Assessing Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood’s Response to Repression Since the Coup of 2013,” Democratization 26, no. 8 (2019): 1329–1341.

68 Yusuf Manurung, “Eks Anggota FPI Jadi Terduga Teroris Condet, Aziz Yanuar: Itu Antek Intelijen”, Tempo.co, 5 April 2021. https://metro.tempo.co/read/1449437/eks-anggota-fpi-jadi-terduga-teroris-condet-aziz-yanuar-itu-antek-intelijen.

69 Interviews with FPI members, 17 and 23 December 2022.

70 Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Husein Hasni.

71 Ibid.

72 Telegram posts of Angin Gunung Channel, 29 January 2022 and 18 March 2022. The messages were originally posted in early 2021 and reposted because the channel had been banned.

73 Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Husein Hasni.

74 Interview with FPI member, Jakarta, 24 December 2022.

75 Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Husein Hasni.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Hwang, “Dakwah before Jihad”; IPAC, “The Re-emergence of Jemaah Islamiyah”, Report No. 36, 27 April 2017, https://understandingconflict.org/en/publications/The-Re-emergence-of-Jemaah-Islamiyah; Sidney Jones and Solahudin, “Terrorism in Indonesia: A Fading Threat?” Southeast Asian Affairs, (2014): 139–47; Ken Ward, “Indonesian terrorism: From jihad to dakwah?” in Expressing Islam, ed. Fealy & White, 211–25.

80 Farid Okbah joined JI when it was first founded; he took part in JI’s short military training program in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borders around 1992 or 1993 while serving as a mosque Imam in Sydney, Australia.

81 A number of JI’s experienced militants were rounded up in 2019-2020 including: Budi Karyanto aka Haidar, a key member of JI’s international relations department who arranged travels to Syria; Joko Priyono aka Karso who went to Syria in 2012; and Muthohar aka Tanjung who had stayed at JI’s militant camp in Mindanao between 1999 and 2005 and then trained in Syria in 2013. Other important military figures such as Choirul Amin aka Bravo, who rebuilt JI’s military strength after near collapse in 2007 was arrested earlier.

82 Elhakimi, “Refleksi Jihad Aceh 2010,” 22 March 2010, https://elhakimi.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/refleksi-jihad-aceh-2010/.

83 IPAC, “The Impact of The Taliban Victory on Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiyah,” IPAC Report No. 73, (Jakarta: 7 September 2021), https://understandingconflict.org/id/publications/The-Impact-of-the-Taliban-Victory-on-Indonesias-Jemaah-Islamiyah-id

84 Ibid.

85 “Densus 88 Ungkap Syam Organizer Bisa Hasilkan Hampir Rp 15 Milyar Per Tahun untuk Pendanaan JI,” Kompas.com, 25 November 2021. https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2021/11/25/18465211/densus-88-ungkap-syam-organizer-bisa-hasilkan-hampir-rp-15-milyar-per-tahun

86 “Polisi: 7 Anggota Jemaah Islamiyah Pernah ke Suriah,” Bisnis.com, 5 January 2021,

https://kabar24.bisnis.com/read/20210105/16/1338633/polisi-7-anggota-jemaah-islamiyah-pernah-ke-suriah.

87 IPAC, “The Impact of The Taliban Victory”, 14.

88 IPAC, “After Ahok”, 7.

89 Ibid.

90 Verdict of The East Jakarta District Court in case of Para Wijayanto, Decision Number 308/Pid.Sus/2020/PN Jkt.Tim.

91 IPAC, “The Influence of the Taliban”, p.4. JI set up a number of propaganda websites to spread anti-Jokowi sectarian campaign, including Sketsanews.com, Lasdipo.com, and Kiblat.net.

92 Interview with Detachment 88 investigators, July 2022.

93 Ibid.

94 Interview with Detachment 88 investigators, July 2022; Elhakimi, “Jaga Iman Di Bilik Suara”, 15 February 2017, https://elhakimi.wordpress.com/.

95 Verdict of The East Jakarta District Court in case of Para Wijayanto.

96 IPAC, “The Re-emergence of Jemaah Islamiyah”.

97 Facebook post of Ahmad Taqiyuddin, Lc, 19 November 2021, reposted on https://retizen.republika.co.id/posts/16718/kh-farid-okbah-memerangi-terorisme-di-indonesia

98 Thalibul Ilmi, “Silahkan Nyoblos,” 11 January2018, https://www.annasindonesia.com/read/1285-silahkan-nyoblos.

99 Interview with Detachment 88 investigator, Jakarta, 22 October 2022.

100 Ibid.

101 Interview with Detachment 88 investigator, Jakarta, 22 October 2022.

102 Interview with Detachment 88 investigator, Jakarta, 14 September2022.

103 Ibid.

104 Verdict of the East Jakarta District Court in case of Thoriquddin aka Abu Rusydan, Decision Number 402/Pid.Sus/2022/PN Jkt.Tim.

105 Interview with Detachment 88 investigator, Jakarta, 14 September2022.

106 “Partai Da’wah Indonesia Lahir Saat Indonesia Kondisi Darurat”, Arusnews, 1 June2021, https://www.arusnews.com/artikel/ArusPeristiwa/partai-da-wah-rakyat-indonesia-saat-indonesia-darurat-9795f2