Khataman Practice among Bimanese Muslims: Navigating Tradition, Modernity and the Formation of Religious and Social Identities

Abstract

This study elaborates on the configuration of the Khataman practice in Bimanese Muslim society within contemporary dynamics and the role of this practice in shaping religious identity to contend with modernity. By focusing on how the Bimanese Muslims construct the form and meaning of Khataman and using Bourdieu’s theory of practice as a perspective, this study argues that Khataman among Bimanese Muslims is not only seen as a social action that goes beyond the inner dimension of subjective motives and meanings into an objective dimension that produces social life. Through an ethnographic approach, this study collects data on the contemporary development of Islamic practices in the Bimanese Muslim community related to the socio-cultural factors surrounding Qur’anic practices. This study particularly discusses the role of Guru Ngajis as authorities and religious institutions (teachers’ houses or TPQs and schools), both traditional and modern, in constructing the form, function, and meaning of Islamic practices in general through Khataman. This study argues that Khataman transcends its basic function as a religious expression, becoming a social praxis that serves as a field of contestation where its supporters’ values and social status are contested, intersecting with middle-class spirituality and the massification of Islam. For the Bimanese Muslim, Khataman is part of their religious and social identity, becoming an arena to face the challenges of modernity, characterized by social transformation and the growing role of religious institutions.