Sisters, militias and Islam in conflict: questioning ‘reconciliation’ in Nahdlatul Wathan, Lombok, Indonesia

Abstract

‘My children will separate for a fifth of a century’. So reads a line from one of Maulana Syeikh’s prophecies that he wrote as testimonial poetry in 1981. And it happened. In the aftermath of the local saint’s death in 1997, just as he had predicted, his only two children, the sisters Raehanun and Rauhun, separated in conflict because Raehanun was democratically elected to lead Lombok’s largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Wathan (NW), a decision vehemently opposed by Rauhun and her supporters, who reasoned that women cannot be leaders of men according to the Syafi’i school of law. This gendered event occurred at an historical moment in Indonesian history when President Suharto fell from power, initiating waves of change throughout the Archipelago, and island of Lombok was on the fault-line. Regional autonomy in East Lombok has enabled ruling elites to re-surface and engage in political power struggles of their own making to ensure the survival of the NW family dynasty, now divided into two separate organizations as a result of ongoing conflict. The emergence of Raehanun’s and Rauhun’s respective private Cont Islam (2012) 6:29–43 DOI 10.1007/s11562-011-0168-5