Abstract This article examines patterns of religious mobilizations, particularly those involving Islamic organizations, elites’ conflicts, and their influence in shaping state control over religion in Indonesia. It explores key events from the early 1900s, following the implementation of ethical policies, and the brief period of Japan’s occupation to the end of the Sukarno era in 1965, to contextualize the conditions that allowed the institutionalization of Islam. The first period was marked by early mobilization, during which Islamic organizations took part in anti-colonial movements. During the Japanese occupation, Islam was seen as a significant ally and was accommodated largely by the colonial state. This resulted in the institutionalization of religion in the bureaucracy, which remains in place today. Meanwhile, the period from early independence until 1965 was characterized by intensified contestation, during which nationalists, communists, and the Islamic groups vied for political and economic resources.

Abstract Twentieth-century Southeast Asia saw the emergence of ustazah —female Islamic teachers—as certified professionals with a distinctly public presence and considerable social status. Their authority was contingent on Muslim women’s social mobility and political emancipation as much as their newly acquired access to formal Islamic education. Analysing the remarkable life and memoir of Ustazah Khaironnisah binti Mohd Ali (1933–2017), the first headmistress of the women’s section of the prestigious al-Mashoor Islamic school in Penang, Malay(si)a, this article demonstrates that women’s Islamic authority simultaneously built on and clashed with contemporary notions of success and urban professionalism. Debunking the stereotypical image of the ustazah as a figure whose role was limited to religious guidance and pastoral care in local communities and private spaces and showing how women’s religious authority straddled institutionalized Islam and political activism, it reveals the salience in the twentieth century of newly emerging and competing Muslim femininities in Malaysia and beyond.