Anatomy of the Islam Nusantara Program and the Necessity for a “Critical†Islam Nusantara Study

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Islam Nusantara program of the Islamic Studies Institute of Nahdlatul Ulama (STAINU) and then of the Nahdlatul Ulama University of Indonesia (UNUSIA) that started in 2013. The largest Islamic social organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has emphasized the moderateness and tolerance of Islam in Indonesia and conceptualized its Islam as Islam Nusantara and started to disseminate this concept to stem the deepening conservative turn of Islam especially after the democratization in 1998. In order to disseminate Islam Nusantara more effectively, the NU-affiliated college (STAINU), later its university (UNUSIA) started the graduate program for Islam Nusantara. After elucidating the Islamic conservative turn and the propagation of Islam Nusantara both by NU and the state, this paper analyzes the theses and their abstracts and the biodata of authors of theses and sees how Islam Nusantara has been producing the proponents of Islam Nusantara. The paper finds that the authors of the theses are young and many of the theses analyze the harmonious Islamic adaptation to local cultures. The authors are male dominant and Java-born-dominant with the focus on their own birthplace. The paper concludes with the importance of more comparative and critical analysis on local variations of Islam Nusantara in the future theses and dissertations so that the program can critically and objectively analyze the Islam Nusantara concept itself.