Communal Salafi learning and Islamic selfhood: Examining religious boundaries through ethnographic encounters in Indonesia

Over the past 30 years, the translocal Salafi movement has expanded rapidly across Indonesia. Propagating a strict ‘literal’ interpretation of Islam, Salafis place strong emphasis on separating themselves from un-Islamic (non-Salafi) society. However, the daily implementation of such rigid boundaries remains rife with tension, depending less on Islamic scripture and more upon how adherents interpret it in a given time and place. A reflexive approach to ethnography provides a unique tool to examine and make visible these anxieties, placing the ethnographer at a vantage point to observe the communal interactions through which religious ethics are given meaning. By reflecting upon my study of the al-Hasanah mosque in Yogyakarta, I describe the ways my informants and I negotiated each other’s presence and how this illuminated the struggles to create a Salafi selfhood and modern religious ethic.