The Majelis youth : charisma and routinisation within an Islamic movement

Abstract

The phenomenon of Majelis youth among Indonesian urban Muslims has emerged in the last three decades, starting in the late 1990s. They become followers of local charismatic leaders called Habibs, the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. By conducting semi-structured interviews with 33 participants, this thesis focuses on the contribution of followers in the construction and routinisation of the charisma of Habib Munzir Al Musawa (1973-2013), the founding leader of the Majelis Rasulullah movement, Jakarta. By synthesising current perspectives on charisma, pioneered by Max Weber and later discussed mainly by New Religious Movements scholars, this study argues that the contribution of followers to constructing and maintaining charisma is based on obedience to both the original charisma and the successors. The findings suggest that the followers consider the charisma of Habib Munzir to be connected to the Prophet Muhammad by his blood, by his authority in Islamic knowledge (isnad) and by his mystical insight, but also by a connection to his charismatic guru (teacher) Habib Umar bin Hafidz. This leads followers to believe that Habib Munzir gains baraka (blessing) from Habib Umar by practising khidmah (devotion) to his guru. Emulating the practice of khidmah to gain the baraka of Habibs, followers have played significant roles in the construction and routinisation of the charisma of Habib Munzir. By fulfilling the necessary responsibilities of the charismatic community during the life of the origin charisma and as the office staff during the period of routinisation, close followers become the engine of charisma for this movement. This indicates that their crucial roles have changed from supporting a charismatic individual to institutionalising charisma and maintaining the movement. Meanwhile, aiming to maintain the movement, some ordinary followers took an agentic role in the communities during the routinisation period by reorganising the dispersed followers and recruiting new members. This role is possible because there is some free space: the changing situation of the relationship between followers and the next leaders during the period of routinisation allows community leaders to be creative by developing new agendas to pursue the needs of the group. Beyond the two groups, close followers in the centre and ordinary followers in the communities are individual lay followers. During the process of institutionalising charisma, these spread lay followers show their commitment to the Majelis movement by attending the large events of the Majelis.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English