Wahhabi influences in Indonesia

Abstract

Summary of paper presented at the Journée d’Etudes du CEIFR (EHESS-CNRS) et MSH sur le Wahhabisme. Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales / Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, 10 June, 2002.

The first alleged incursion of Wahhabism into Indonesia occurred in 1804, when three pilgrims returned from Mecca to West Sumatra and initiated a radical and occasionally violent movement of religious and social reform. Dutch observers soon assumed that these pilgrims had been influenced by Wahhabi ideas during the Najdi occupation of Mecca in 1803, and this assumption has been adopted by most later Indonesian authors, although the evidence is extremely thin and there are many indications to the contrary. The large Indonesian community resident in Mecca was a medium through which knowledge about Wahhabism reached Indonesia, but the community itself appears to have remained virtually immune to Wahhabi influences.