Women, Education and the Pious Feminine in Nahdlatul Wathan, East Lombok

Abstract

Nahdlatul Wathan is the largest and most influential local Islamic organisation on the Indonesian island of Lombok. This organisation has more than 800 schools across the island, together with a growing network of schools in Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Java, Sumbawa and Bali. Its founding father, Tuan Guru Kiai Zainuddin Abdul Madjid (1898–1997), was recently given National Hero status. Popularly known as Maulana Syeikh, he is considered a local saint by Nahdlatul Wathan Muslims. The Nadhlatul Wathan organisation has played a profound role in the Islamisation of the indigenous Sasak people on Lombok since the 1930s, when the first school was established for boys, followed shortly thereafter by another for girls. This chapter explores how Maulana Syeikh's ideas about gender have manifested in women's education in Nahdlatul Wathan schools. In particular, it examines gender-based teachings for female students in Mahad, the university-level section of the main pesantren (traditional Islamic boarding school) in Anjani, East Lombok. The chapter further considers how Maulana Syeikh's daughter's controversial rise to lead Nahdlatul Wathan has affected ideas about gender and women's education in Lombok.