Javano Islamicus

Musyawarah as Architecture: Indigenous Norms, Great Power Coexistence, and Indonesia's Naval Diplomacy in MNEK 2025

2026-05-12T18:17:55+00:00

The 5th Multilateral Naval Exercise Komodo (MNEK) 2025 presents a constitutive puzzle: how does a non-aligned middle power induce rival great powers — the United States, China, and Russia to conduct cooperative military activities amid acute Indo-Pacific rivalry? This study argues that Indonesia's institutional design of MNEK 2025, grounded in the indigenous deliberative norm of Musyawarah (consensus-seeking deliberation) and legitimized by the Islamic cooperative principle of Al-Ta'awwun (mutual assistance in righteousness), constitutes the primary causal mechanism enabling simultaneous great power participation by systematically reducing the political costs of engagement. Drawing on a qualitative, explanatory single-case study with embedded process-tracing, the analysis applies constructivist International Relations theory to primary sources including official TNI-AL communiqués, opening ceremony speeches, planning conference outputs, and quality press coverage. Four empirical clusters are examined: Musyawarah as institutional design logic, Al-Ta'awwun as humanitarian framing mechanism, political cost reduction through restriction to Operations Military Other Than War (OMOTW), and confidence-building through iterative engagement across five exercise iterations (2014–2025). The findings demonstrate that Indonesia's exercise design universal invitation irrespective of alignment, exclusion of combat domains, and civic action programming operationalizes these indigenous norms into concrete diplomatic outcomes. The study contributes to constructivist IR theory by showing how non-Western deliberative traditions generate security architectures with measurable outcomes, and extends the defense diplomacy literature by identifying a distinct exercise category: norm-driven inclusive engagement convened by a non-aligned middle power.

Legal Pluralism in Jeopardy

2026-08-27T12:48:57+00:00

This research examines the epistemological clash between Indonesia's Marriage Law Number 16 of 2019, Islamic theology, and Javanese weton tradition in interior Java through a socio-legal approach combining legal anthropology, sociology of law, and critical legal studies. The study addresses a critical gap in contemporary legal pluralism scholarship, which predominantly views post-2019 marriage dispensation phenomena through reductive lenses of legal positivism or political economy, neglecting the dimension where state law, Islamic jurisprudence, and customary cosmology mutually negate each other's ontological legitimacy. Employing a three-tier theoretical framework integrating Sally Falk Moore's Legal Pluralism, Jasser Auda's Maqashid Systems Approach, and Ewick and Silbey's Legal Consciousness Typology, alongside legal ethnographic methods through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and intertextual analysis of Law Number 16 of 2019, Religious Court decisions, Javanese Primbon manuscripts, and Islamic jurisprudence texts, this research reveals that state legal intervention paradoxically triggers resistance through a surge in mass marriage dispensation applications and the expansion of unregistered marriage practices. The findings generate a new theoretical postulate Subversive Syncretic Legalism describing how grassroots legal subjects creatively synthesize theological and cosmological authorities to create counter-legitimation systems that passively-subversively paralyze the effectiveness of positive state law. This research demonstrates that legal simplification without epistemological negotiation with local cosmological structures only produces legal black holes that nurture underground law.

Taksonomi Teori Sosial dalam Penelitian Tafsir Indonesia dan Relevansinya bagi Tafsir Kontekstual

2026-08-14T02:04:22+00:00

This study constructs a taxonomy of social theories used in Indonesian tafsir research and examines its relevance for developing contextual exegesis. Using a qualitative library-research design oriented toward taxonomy-building, data were drawn from 96 tafsir studies (26 journal articles, 36 dissertations, 34 theses) produced by three Islamic higher-education institutions, analyzed through seven stages: inventorying, identification, mapping, classification, taxonomy construction, relevance analysis, and conceptual modelling. As a validity safeguard, thirteen ambiguous cases were read in full text, confirming that title/abstract-only identification tends to overestimate borrowed terminology. Findings show that 26 studies (27%) apply social theory explicitly, dominated by Foucault, Bourdieu, and critical discourse analysis. The resulting taxonomy comprises five epistemological paradigms, eleven theoretical families, and nineteen specific theories. The Critical-Poststructuralist paradigm is most prevalent, whereas the Normative-Transformative paradigm particularly Islamic/Indigenous-based social theory rooted in prophetic social science proves most original and holds the highest relevance for Indonesian contextual exegesis. The study offers a systematic, evidence-based framework for selecting and integrating social theory in tafsir research and quality-assurance instruments.

Problematika Mistisisme Jawa dan Praktik Supranatural dalam Pembuktian Delik Spiritual

2026-08-27T13:01:36+00:00

The implementation of Article 252 of Law No. 1 of 2023 concerning the Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP) criminalizes individuals who claim to possess supernatural powers that can cause illness, death, or mental or physical suffering. This study examines the evidentiary challenges faced by law enforcement officials in East Java in prosecuting such spiritual offenses within a society still deeply influenced by Javanese mysticism. Using a socio-legal approach, this research analyzes the normative construction of Article 252 as a formal offense, the evidentiary framework under the Criminal Procedure Code, and the sociological realities of East Javanese society. The findings reveal that while the formal offense construction strategically avoids the metaphysical causality problem, evidentiary challenges remain multidimensional: absence of direct witnesses, inability of forensic science to prove supernatural causality, potential for multiple interpretations of the phrase "supernatural powers" that may violate the lex certa principle, and risks of compromised presumption of innocence due to social pressure and judicial bias. This study recommends strengthening operational definitions in the article's elucidation, establishing special evidentiary guidelines by the Supreme Court, and ensuring fair trial commitments from all law enforcement officials.

Konstruksi Epistemologi Bayani, Irfani, dan Burhani pada Kitab Tanqīḥ Al-Qaul Al-Ḥathīth Karya Syekh Nawawi Al-Bantani

2026-09-17T08:00:25+00:00

Kajian mengenai karya ulama Nusantara tidak cukup berhenti pada inventarisasi teks dan penjelasan kandungannya, tetapi perlu diarahkan pada pembacaan terhadap struktur pengetahuan yang membentuk argumentasi di dalamnya. Artikel ini menganalisis konstruksi epistemologi ilmu dalam Tanqīḥ al-Qaul al-Ḥathīth fī Sharḥ Lubāb al-Ḥadīth karya Syekh Nawawi al-Bantani dengan menggunakan tipologi epistemologi Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri yang meliputi bayani, irfani, dan burhani. Penelitian menggunakan metode kualitatif berbasis studi kepustakaan dengan pendekatan filosofis dan analisis isi. Sumber primer penelitian adalah Tanqīḥ al-Qaul, terutama bab Fī Faḍīlat al-'Ilm wa al-'Ulamā', sedangkan karya al-Jabiri serta penelitian tentang Syekh Nawawi dan tradisi intelektual Islam Nusantara digunakan sebagai sumber sekunder. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa konstruksi pengetahuan Syekh Nawawi tidak memperlihatkan bayani, irfani, dan burhani sebagai tiga sistem yang bekerja secara seimbang. Nalar bayani menempati posisi dominan karena Al-Qur'an, hadis, dan otoritas ulama menjadi sumber serta titik awal penetapan kebenaran. Unsur burhani muncul ketika Syekh Nawawi memberikan penjelasan rasional terhadap hubungan ilmu, tindakan, dan akibat moral suatu perbuatan, tetapi rasionalitas tersebut tetap bergerak dalam horizon normatif teks. Sementara itu, kecenderungan irfani terutama muncul pada orientasi batin penuntut ilmu melalui keikhlasan, warā', kedekatan kepada Allah, dan penyatuan ilmu dengan amal. Temuan ini menunjukkan pola epistemologi hierarkis-komplementer yang dapat dirumuskan sebagai bayani sebagai basis otoritas, burhani sebagai mekanisme rasionalisasi, dan irfani sebagai orientasi etis-spiritual. Pola tersebut memperlihatkan karakter khas epistemologi turats pesantren yang tidak memisahkan teks, akal, dan pembentukan moral subjek pencari ilmu.

Human Identity

2026-10-31T02:55:23+00:00

The existential crisis of modern humanity frequently originates from an illusion of absolute autonomy that overlooks moral and spiritual vulnerability. This study aims to reconstruct the concept of human identity through the interpretation of Surah an-Nas in Buya Hamka's Tafsir Al-Azhar using Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical framework. Employing a qualitative library research method, the analysis operates across the three stages of the hermeneutical arc: semantic-symbolic (expliquer), reflective-existential (comprendre), and moral praxis (appropriation). The findings indicate that Hamka deconstructs human sovereignty through the grammatical status of the soul as an entrusted entity and the biological-organic dependence on divine sustenance. Existentially, human identity is positioned as a fragile self whose interiority serves as a battleground for whispering doubts (waswas) amidst ambivalent social relations. At the level of appropriation, human integrity can only be restored through active agency moving beyond verbal passivity into concrete protective praxis within the fortress of tawhid. This study proves that human identity according to Hamka is relational, ethical, and transformed through dynamic moral agency.