The special status of Islamic Aceh

By the end of 2012, Indonesia had 34 provinces. Earlier, during the New Order period (1966- 1998), Indonesia had 27 provinces, including East Timor. After East Timor became an independent state in 1999, Indonesia acquired several new provinces upon splitting up those provinces that had large land areas or big populations. Of these 34 provinces of Indonesia, five have special status in that they are allowed to make special arrangements in particular aspects of government. These provinces include Aceh, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Papua, and West Papua. However, Aceh is the only province granted special autonomy for the implementation of Islamic law or shariah. In 1999, following the collapse of the authoritarian Soeharto regime in 1998, Aceh was awarded autonomous status, with special privileges in the social, legal, and cultural domains. This autonomy includes the formal implementation of shariah in Aceh by way of three administrative instruments: recognizing a distinctive court (Mahkamah Syar'iyah) to have wider jurisdictions, legislating locally certain Islamic criminal laws, and founding relevant state institutions to sup- port the implementation of shariah in the region. This chapter seeks to explain how and why the current special status of Islamic law in Aceh was achieved and has been implemented. The current special status of Islamic Aceh is a result of a (re)assertion of Islamic identity that led to the official enforcement of shariah in the province. Before delving into the discussion of the basis of Islamic identity in Aceh, the next section provides a theoretical overview of how Islamic identity has been constructed. The sections that then follow deal with Aceh's Islamic identity from the historical perspective. The discussion seeks to answer the question of what has made Aceh a distinctive region and why it deserves a special status. Before the conclusion, I review current developments with regard to the special status of Islamic Aceh (see also Afrianty chapter, this volume).