Being Muslim in Eastern Indonesia : contemporary patterns of Islamic practice

Studies of Muslim faith and worship across eastern Indonesia high- light the continuing dynamic relationships between local traditions reproduced over generations of practice. These patterns include ongoing processes of Islamisation; challenges to orthodoxy brought about by influences associated with new forms of dakwah; and the “reformist” influences flowing from global Islam. One of the objectives of the “Being Muslim in Eastern Indonesia” project has been to develop a deeper understanding of the comparative dynamics of this interactive field of contemporary Islamic practice, principally through nuanced ethnographic case studies of different Muslim communities across the region. This chapter directs its ethnographic focus to the vibrant, Muslim community of Kupang city in West Timor, the capital of Nusa Tenggara Timur Province. I situate Kupang Muslim identities and practice within four influential themes or shared comparative elements of Islamisation across eastern Indonesia, each of which have contributed significantly to its living forms and expression (see also Hutagalung 2016). These four themes are those of trade and economic migration (merantau); conflict and co-residence with Christian communities; processes of Muslim conversion and expansion; and finally, what I describe as “tensions of tradition”. As a broadly comparative frame- work, these thematic elements contribute to the enduring shape and character of Islamic faith expression across the region and to the specific ethnographic forms that Islam takes among Kupang Muslims.