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 faith of the new converts.
Later, the crowd applauded the conversion to Islam of a 15-year-old girl.
Signs designating seats for men and women at an annual festival for the Hijrah movement in Padang, Indonesia, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Nyimas Laula/The New York Times)
Many posted selfies on social media, reveling in their
shared faith.
The scene was an annual festival in
Padang,
part of a new conservative Islamic movement in Indonesia known as Hijrah that is drawing millions of believers, many of them young and drawn to
Instagram-famous
preachers .
Islamic conservatism
has
been growing in Indonesia for years, despite the government's long-standing attempt to maintain a secular and religiously diverse society.
Women shop for halal cosmetics and skin care products at an annual festival of the Hijrah movement in Padang, Indonesia, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Nyimas Laula/The New York Times)
The current iteration of the Hijrah movement is distinguished by its use of social media to spread it and its appeal to young people.
And its popularity is raising concerns among government and religious authorities, who fear it could
erode
a more moderate brand of Islam.
Kamaruddin Amin, director of Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs, says his department has put in place 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 point of view, 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 Jakarta's Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University.
He branded Hijrah followers
"reborn Muslims".
But Derry Sulaiman, a Muslim preacher who spoke at the festival, said in an interview that supporters were misunderstood.
"We are 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 followers of the Hijrah - many of them self-identify with the movement - but it is estimated to be at least in the tens of millions, based on the social media following of popular Hijrah preachers.
Attendees sing at an annual festival for the Hijrah movement in Padang, Indonesia, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Nyimas Laula/The New York Times)
The movement is emerging at the same time that opposition Islamic parties have become more outspoken, for example mobilizing hundreds of people in protests against the construction of Christian churches.
Last year, they helped pass a law banning sex outside of marriage in Indonesia.
A 2019 survey of millennials and
Gen Z
youth, conducted by the Jakarta-based research firm Alvara, showed that 60% of the roughly 1,500 respondents across 34 provinces identified as "puritanical and ultra-conservative."
A tally of the Instagram accounts of 12 of Indonesia's most prominent Hijrah preachers showed that they have at least 45.8 million followers.
Being Hijrah is essentially leading a more Islamic life, encompassing everything from clothing 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 attire.
The movement's preachers reject anything that could be potentially Haram, or prohibited by Islamic law, such as dating or sometimes secular music.
Actors and musicians self-identifying 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 promotes
arranged marriages.
The movement is part of the rich religious culture of Indonesia.
Although the country is the world's most populous Muslim nation, it has five other official religions and more than 200 unofficial ones.
Most of Indonesia's 230 million Muslims practice a form of Islam that combines the religion with
local rituals,
such as visiting the graves of 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 put on the hijab, her parents objected because no one else in her family wears a headscarf.
She recalled how a relative criticized her, asking: "'
Are you from ISIS?"
Nesa said that, influenced by Hijrah preachers who discourage contact between men and women outside of marriage, she will no longer hitchhike on the back of motorcycles ridden by men.
She has also stopped watching Korean dramas because they were making her lose sleep and affecting her quality of life, which is also against her faith.
Later this year, she plans to send her resume to a friend so that she can help her with "
taaruf
," a word used to designate the practice of arranged marriages.
However, the government is concerned about some of these practices, fearful that they could destabilize the country's multi-religious society.
Kamaruddin, from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, said his office has encouraged young Muslim preachers to insist that Islam must "appreciate diversity."
He noted that some Hijrahists have built housing for Muslims only, or have criticized women for not wearing the hijab.
The rise of Islamic radicalism in Indonesia has compounded the government's concerns.
In recent years, the government of President
Joko Widodo
has banned groups such as Hizbut Tahrir and the Islamic Defenders Front, which have called for a
Muslim caliphate
in Indonesia.
Ulil Abshar Abdalla, a senior official at Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, said Hijrah 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
HijrahFest.
Last year, he complained that event organizers had used his logos without permission, leading to the sudden 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 was frequently criticized by other Muslims for not being puritanical enough.
"I think we actually have the same destination, but we're in different cars," said Arie, a former MTV VJ.
He described the HijrahFest as
primarily a commercial event, not a religious one.
In this year's edition, vendors promoted halal cosmetics and Quran memorization services.
All attendees, regardless of religion, were required to dress conservatively.
The room, packed with Muslim men and women, was separated by gender.
One preacher said he would teach people a prayer to
curb any LGBTQ elements
in his family.
Natta Reza, a prominent Islamic boy-band singer, was one of the headliners.
He proposed to his wife in 2017, within hours of discovering her Instagram account.
They got married soon after and are now
social media
influencers promoting arranged marriages.
Natta said their dating years "were not good".
"I hope this can be a lesson for singles," he said from the stage.
"Don't be stupid like me, who took care of someone else's soul mate," he said, referring to his love life before becoming a Hiyra influencer.
The audience hooted as his wife laughed behind her veil.
The preacher who took the floor, Derry, 44, was a guitarist for Betrayer, a popular heavy metal band.
He said that during that time he went out to parties every night and had "a lot of girlfriends".
In 1998, like other Indonesian musicians who discovered Hijrah, he left his band and began creating Islamic music after being told by a colleague to return to his faith.
Now he creates content for TikTok, saying that it "should bring positive vibes" to young believers.
On the last night of HijrahFest, Derry closed the evening 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 Company
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