Finally, the twentieth century witnessed a continuation of patterns begun in the nineteenth century, with the IHijaz based network of reform minded teachers influencing the nature of Sufi activity in the archipelago. Relying on the new print culture, credentialled Islamic scholars from Indonesia who either resided in the IHaramayn or returned home after long stays there, attacked the authority of institutional shaykhs. The Naqshband'is, whose influence had expanded in the last half of the nineteenth century, were challenged for their authenticity, and they in turn critiqued the bona fides of their challengers.
At the same time as these debates and exchanges were taking place between traditional scholars, a new wing of Islamic reform organisation emerged in Yogyakarta. The Muhammadiyah was founded as a benevolent organisation in 1912, but it gained adherents throughout Java and also Sumatra in succeed ing decades to become one of the major Muslim movements in contemporary Indonesia. Though Muhammadiyah members criticised certain Sufi practices, their leaders refrained from a wholesale condemnation of institutional Sufism and in West Sumatra, there was at least one major Naqshbandl master who also promoted Muhammadiyah principles and belonged to its local chapter.26
Indeed, the sharp ideological edges that may be detected elsewhere become softened, even invisible, in Indonesia. Most of the twentieth century conflicts
See ibid., pp. 49 67, for the proportionate estimate of atheists to believers but also for an expanded analysis on the notorious difficulty of calculating how many practising Sufis there are in the Chechen Ingush region.
Martin van Bruineseen, 'Controversies and polemics involving the Sufi orders in twentieth century Indonesia', in de Jong and Radtke (eds.), Islamic mysticism contested, pp. 717 n. 23.
Involving Sufi orders were within rival tariqas, not between Sufi masters and their reformist opponents. The popular Muhammadiyah leader, I-lamka, subscribed to 'modern tasawwuf, that is, a Sufi ethos and world view divorced from the tomb cult and ritual practices of the orders. Many upscale urban Indonesians, whether students or mobile and highly literate young professionals, find in the traditional orders a resource for their own religious formation as modern day Muslims.
World History
