Contesting Sharia Law and Moral Enforcement in Aceh, Indonesia: A Contextual Approach

This webinar will address the complexities and the unexpected outcomes of enforcing Sharia—Islamic law—through the machinery of inefficient statecraft in the Indonesian province of Aceh, which is located on the periphery of the world’s largest archipelagic nation. Of Indonesia’s 38 provinces, Aceh is the only one that has been granted the official right to implement Islamic law. Sharia promises to provide comprehensive guidance in all aspects of life.  Local authorities in Aceh have used the scope and force of the law to prohibit expression and criminalize conduct deemed to deviate from “Islamic ideals.” Movies, concerts, New Year’s Eve celebrations, punk and other “alternative” lifestyles were outlawed and seen as signs of calamity, moral disorder, and social disease. Yet the Sharia state’s efforts to limit the “acceptable” range of ways of being Muslim in Aceh are not impervious to opposition. Various forms of resistance to the everyday workings of state Sharia institutions have occurred. In the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, for example, several youth groups have creatively confronted government efforts to discipline them and control their space despite facing continuous harassment from Muslim hardliners and the Sharia Police. Beyond reviewing these conditions, Professor Idria’s analysis of the state enforcement of Islamic law on the periphery of a large country’s rapidly changing society will explore and explain how the implementation of Sharia in Aceh has both influenced and been shaped by broader contexts, political, economic, social, and cultural in character.

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Reza Idria is an Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology in the Ar-Raniry State Islamic University in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where he chairs the Aceh Association of Oral Tradition.  He also serves in various scholarly and journalistic capacities and as a researcher in the International Center for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies. His writings have appeared in journals and books and he has given talks and presented papers in Asia, Europe, and the United States.  His post-graduate degrees are from Leiden University (Islamic Studies, MA 2010) and Harvard (Social Anthropology, MA 2016 and PhD 2020)