SUFISM MEMES: Gus Mus’s Representation in Countering the Narrative of Religious Fundamentalism on Social Media

In Indonesia, Muslim clerics preach the sermon orally. It is considered an effective method to disseminate Islamic teaching. Today, Muslims adopt the development of information technology to propagate the teaching of Islam. One of them is using memes. Commonly, memes are made by quoting wise words from influential figures. This study focused on Gus Mus’s wise words. Gus Mus (Musthafa Bishri) is a famous figure in Indonesia. His socio-religious idea is related to the moderate and traditional Muslim. This research aims to find out why some people use the quote of Gus Mus as an object for a meme. Second, it investigates how the memes represent the idea of Gus Mus. It employed qualitative research. The data was gathered through netnography, which focused on specific social media platforms. The data then were analyzed using a sociological approach. It was found that the massive appearance of disturbing memes causes the emergence of Gus Mus’s quote meme, particularly comes from fundamentalist communities. These memes represented the spiritual and humanistic ideas of Gus Mus. It is then called Sufism Memes.الملخص: قام العلماء بنقل أفكارهم لعامة الناس في سياق الإسلام الإندونيسي عادةً من خلال المحاضرات الشفهية. هذه الطريقة تعتبر وسيلة مؤثرة لنشر التعاليم الإسلامية. ولما تطور تكنولوجيا المعلومات أثر المسلمون فى نشر تعاليم الإسلام، أحدها عن طريق استخدام ميمي. الميميات تتركب من اقتباس كلمات حكيمة من شخصيات مؤثرة. فى هذا البحث، صارت كلمات الحكيمة لدي Gus Mus التي اقتبسها بعض الناس دراسة أساسية. Gus Mus (مصطفى بشري) هو عالم مشهور في إندونيسيا. فكرته الاجتماعية والدينية أكثر رسوخًا بين المسلمين المتوسطين والتقليديين. فالأسئلة الرئيسية لهذا البحث هي لماذا اقتبس بعض الناس كلمات Gus Mus لميمي، وكيف تمثل الميمي فكرة Gus Mus؟ تم جمع البيانات من خلال شبكة الإنترنت مع التركيز على وسائل التواصل الإجتماعي محددة وتحليلها بنهج اجتماعي. ومن ثم، أدعي أن ظهور ميمي Gus Mus كسرد مضاد بالظهور الميمات الهائلة والمزعجة، ولا سيما من المجتمعات المتطرفة. تمثل هذه الميميات من أصل الأفكار الروحية والإنسانية لدي Gus Mus. فأسميها ميمي صوفي.Abstrak: Dalam konteks Islam Indonesia, pandangan tokoh agama biasanya disampaikan kepada khalayak melalui ceramah secara verbal. Metode tersebut dinilai efektif untuk mengajarkan Islam. Pada perkembangan terkini, kemajuan teknologi informasi mempengaruhi sebagian besar muslim dalam penggunaan media baru untuk mengajarkan Islam. Salah satunya melalui meme. Biasanya meme dibuat dengan mengutip kata-kata bijak dari tokoh yang berpengaruh. Pada penelitian ini, kata-kata bijak Gus Mus (Musthafa Bishri) menjadi fokus kajiannya. Gus Mus adalah tokoh populer di Indonesia. Gagasan sosial keagamaannya lebih dekat dengan corak Islam moderat dan Islam tradisional. Pertanyaan utama artikel ini adalah mengapa sebagian orang mengutip kata bijak Gus Mus untuk dijadikan meme dan bagaimana kutipan tersebut merepresentasikan gagasan Gus Mus. Data penelitian dikumpulkan menggunakan metode netnografi dengan terfokus pada beberapa platform sosial media tertentu, dan dianalisis menggunkan pendekatan sosiologi. Penulis berpendapat bahwa kemunculan meme tersebut merupakan kepanikan moral atas maraknya meme yang meresahkan, khususnya dari kelompok fundamentalis. Meme tersebut merepresentasikan gagasan humanis dan spiritual Gus Mus. Penulis menandainya dengan istilah Meme Sufistik.

Russian World. Philosophic Viewpoint

The article considers some modern approaches to understanding social-philo­sophic basis for Russian World theory. The author gives a conclusion that modern approaches to understanding this concept and this phenomenon accu­mulating mostly social-philosophic and sociological theories take their roots in western European tradition. The article presents an approach to understand metaphysical view of the Russian World as a religious idea basing on Russian philosophic tradition. It also deals with the position that the basis for the concept of the Russian World finds itself in the Orthodox ethics of interactions forming a specific reality for the bearers of such an idea in their everyday practices and determining their way of thinking notwithstanding their religious and philosophic positions. The author assumes that having accepted the Ortho­dox religious basis for the supporters of the concept of the Russian World does not necessarily mean following this religious dogmatics by all participants of such an interaction.

Bosnian Muslims and Serbs: Reasons for dispute from 1918 to the present day

The paper provides an analysis of political relations of Bosnian Muslims (officially Bosniaks since 1993) and Serbs, lasting for almost a century. Firstly, the author deals with their relations in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1941, all the way through World War II from 1941 to 1945, then in the Communist Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1990, followed bythe period after the break-up of Socialist Federal Republic Yugoslavia, when Bosnia and Herzegovina became sovereign state, and, finally,with their current relations We believe that the main cause of the dispute is that Bosnian Muslims historically always abandoned Serbs at critical times and sought the support of other states and nations for their state-building goals. In wars, they supported their enemies, often forming alliances with other states or nations. As religious idea among the Bosnian Muslims grew from 1918, so did their numbers as well as their aspirations for Serbian territories. Similarly, as the number of Bosnian Muslims grew, so did the interest of great powers and political parties as well as their military support. Most importantly, with the rise of numbers of Bosnian Muslims, their policies and their stance towards the state changed. Hence, when they became majority in Bosnia and Herzegovina, they wanted to turn the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina into their national state.

The Philosophical and Religious Idea of Fear and Flutter in Russian Language Consciousness

This article was dedicated to the study of concepts of “fear” and “flutter” in ethical-philosophy and ethnic-linguistic exposure. Here, traced stages of “fear” development and important shifts in semantic content of this concept related to the impact of Christian worldview are noted. The highest manifestation of fear - “fear of God” - emerges namely due to expansion of orthodox Christianity; this, in its term, leads to its special form - flutter. These concepts have different semantics in routine and philosophic discourses. Use of cognitive interpretation method, accounting of language semantics and national concept-sphere interaction also allowed the transition from contents of meaning to contents of concepts in the course of study. Studying methods for representation of “fear” and “flutter” concepts in contexts of works of known Russian Philosophers - Berdyayev, Solovyov, and Shestov - gives an opportunity to most complete characterization of their conceptual essence. In this article, different forms of fear manifestation were detected and described via complying to standard (pathological fear, anxiety), duration (scare, phobia, cowardice), and degree of intensity (panic, horror). The fact that in Russian consciousness, fear is clearly delineated in routine and religious senses was related to main conclusions. Fear was also associated with the present and it performed adaptive and social functions. Within philosophic understanding, Flutter was a derivative of fear, but it was more related to the future, since it was directed at achievement of piety and inspiration. The result so f this work could make contribution to the elaboration of the issues of ethnic-linguistic, linguoculturological, and cognitive science.

The Issues of Reislamization in Post-Soviet Dagestan in 1990–1995

The process of the Islam revival in Dagestan was associated with the politicization of religion in society during perestroika and post-perestroika periods. The process had its own peculiarities associated with the general transformation of Russian society, active work of international organizations, and the decline of traditional Islam in the republic. As a result, there appeared alternative and unconventional directions in the process of revival of the Islamic component, e. g. the so-called "new Islam" (Wahhabism), foreign to local religious communities.The activity of the adherents of the new movement showed itself not so much in the confessional sphere as in the socio-political sphere. This was clearly manifested in Dagestan society in the early 1990s against the backdrop of the socio-economic and socio-political collapse and contradictions between the state and society.The research investigates the place and role of the social conflict that arose on the basis of ideological differences. The actors of the conflict were individuals with their religious non-traditional views and socio-political orientations, who opposed official structures in the struggle for domination in the society, desperately searching for a new religious idea. The authors proceed from the thesis that the escalation of this kind of conflict has a significant impact on the nature of social (political, socioeconomic, national) relations in any society, the way it happened when the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Dagestan split according to ethnicity.

Islam and Islamism: a Case Study of the Religion Transforming into the Politics

The article deals with the principal peculiar differences between Islam as a religious system versus Islamism as a political ideology. Despite of some religious roots connecting Islamism with the theological system of Islam at the early stage each subsequent step of Islamist progress was in its way to the political transformation as an ideology but not a religious phenomenon. So it means the differentiation of Islam as a religious idea and Islamism as a political concept. This work analyses the origins and transformations of Islamism in its different types including the Sunni and Shi’i branches. The links between Islamism and Salafiya are revealed. The Muslim Brotherhood is presented as an example of a modern transnational Sunni Islamist organization. The article reveals some social reasons and basement of Islamist radicalization which intensified political character of this movement. The main contradiction between Islamist movement and state is focused on the religious sense of the society contra secular character of the State. As a result a lot of Islamist groups legalize violence against their state authorities and leaders in Jihadism form. The article describes some historical samples and ideological theses used by Islamists. As a result the Islamist terrorism is classified as an extreme antihuman political form of Islamism that is ultimately far from the Religion.

شروط فعّالية الأفكار في ظلّ التحديات الراهنة من منظور مالك بن نبي

يُركِّز البحث على العناصر الأساسية التي يتحقَّق بموجبها الانتقال من العقل النظري إلى العقل العملي، أو من منطق الصحة الذي مداره العلم والفلسفة إلى منطق الصلاحية الذي مداره السياق التاريخي والسياق الاجتماعي، وذلك من منظور المنهجية التي بسطها مالك بن نبي، ولكنْ في سياق التحديات والمشكلات الراهنة. وقد أظهر البحث أنَّ شروط تحقُّق هذا الانتقال من النظر إلى العمل تتمثل في ثلاث ركائز صحيحة ينبغي توافرها؛ الأُولى: الفكرة الدينية بوصفها نقطة الانطلاق، والثانية: الوعي الروحي بماهية السند الشعوري والمحسوس للفكرة الدينية، والثالثة: روح القيام بالواجب لا المطالبة بالحقوق. وتُعَدُّ هذه المنظومة الدرب الذي يأخذ بيد الإنسان إلى الحضارة من جديد؛ قصْد الارتفاع إلى قداسة الوجود الإنساني بعد بلوغ مرحلة الحضارة. This paper focuses on the Malik Bennabi’s ideas about the transition from the theoretical mind to the practical one, or from the logic of correctness, guided by science and philosophy to the logic of the validity in the historical and social contexts. The relsults identify three conditions for achieving this transition. The first one is to start from a religious idea. The second one is the awareness of the psychological and practical foundation of the religious idea. The third is the spirit of doing duties before claiming rights. This system of three conditions would guide the human endeavor to civilization again; in order to rise to the sacredness of human existence in the stage of civilization.

A Wahhabi Ethic in Saudi Arabia

This paper incorporates Weberian insights about religion, power, and bureaucratic authority to discuss a Wahhabi ethic in Saudi Arabia. The discussion considers similarities and differences between Saudi Wahhabism and this-worldly Protestantism, focusing on how religious idea systems contributed to the transformation of social, political, and economic institutions in their respective societies. A parallel is drawn between Calvinist Protestantism in the West and Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. Just as Calvinist Protestantism encouraged its adherents to structure their lives in accord with their religious beliefs, Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia aimed to bring society back to God and God back to society through the enforcement of Divine law (Sharia). The paper presents a discussion of the rise of the Saud family and the propagation of religious teachings, which served to legitimate the power and authority of the Saud monarchy.