The commercialization of da’wah: Understanding Indonesian Sinetron and their portrayal of Islam

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Article

The commercializationof da’wah: UnderstandingIndonesian Sinetron andtheir portrayal of Islam

Inaya RakhmaniDepartment of Communication, Universitas Indonesia, Depok,

Indonesia

Abstract

The impact of media industrialization on mediated religious expression all over the

world has been substantial, and this study tries to understand the Indonesian case by

looking at the intersections between commerce and Islamic expression. Focusing on

Indonesian Islamic sinetron (soap operas), we shall see that contrasting ideological

motivations among producers have resulted in particular narratives within their con-

tent. Despite these peculiarities, all narratives use Islamic teachings to address societal

issues experienced by middle-class Indonesian Muslims. This, in turn, projects an image

of Indonesian Islam that blurs existing political divisions in Indonesian society.

This article argues that the sinetron plots are inherently a commercialization of

da’wah (proselytizing of Islam).

Keywords

Commercialization of da’wah, Indonesia, Islamic representation, Islamic sinetron,

television production

Introduction

In Media and Religion, Hent de Vries contends that there is a ‘return of the reli-gious’ on a global scale that contests the ‘often self-congratulatory narrative ofWestern, ‘‘secularist’’ modernity—whose hegemony has only been reinforced bycurrent tendencies toward globalization and the almost unchallenged appeal of freemarket capitalism’ (2001: 3). Hent de Vries focuses on the complementarities andcontradictions among religion, morality, authority, traditional values, and politicalideology, which are recoding themselves in the new media system (Castells, 2000,cited in De Vries, 2001: 13). This new media system includes technological forms,

Corresponding author:

Inaya Rakhmani, Department of Communication, Universitas Indonesia, Depok 16242, Indonesia.

Email: [email protected]

at University of Indonesia on June 5, 2014gaz.sagepub.comDownloaded from


discursive protocols, and market values of globalizing media infrastructure(Hirschkind, 2011: 90).

De Vries’s reintroduction of Derrida’s (2002) criticism on the ‘return of thereligious’—which shows how religious expression takes on new forms in modernspaces—may seem at odds with Van Bruinessen’s thesis (2011, 2013) of a ‘conser-vative turn’ in contemporary Indonesian Islam. De Vries emphasizes the connec-tions with contemporary mediatizations of religious expression, demonstrating thehistorical situatedness of different manifestations, which according to us is whereBruinessen’s thesis lies. Van Bruinessen begins with the assumption that IndonesianIslam, once celebrated by the ‘West’ as tolerant, has known a number of ‘conser-vative’ developments since the end of Suharto’s authoritarian regime (1965–1998).In De Vries’s frame, which sees religious developments in the long term, the ‘con-servative turn’ is a moment in Indonesian history in which ‘various currents thatreject modernist, liberal or progressive re-interpretations of Islamic teachings andadhere to established doctrines and social order’ (Van Bruinessen, 2013: 16)become mainstreamed by market capitalism. This is strengthened by Fealy andWhite’s (2008) edited volume on how the expression of Islam is now embedded inIndonesia’s economy. With such considerations in mind, this article delves into the‘electronic materiality of spiritually transmitted habits’ (Castells, 2000, cited in DeVries, 2001: 13) by looking at how Islam is being mainstreamed in and byIndonesia’s commercial television system.1

From 1965 to 1989, Indonesia’s sole televised information source was the state-owned Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI), whose portrayal of Islam stayed care-fully within the religious plurality framework acknowledged by the authoritarianNew Order regime. In 1990, Indonesia’s first private television (RCTI) wasfounded. Around the same time, new media technologies (particularly satellitetelevision and, earlier, video cassette rentals) performed an important role in cul-tural globalization, which challenged the regime’s tight control over information(Kitley, 2000; Sen and Hill, 2000). With exposure to foreign television programs,the audiences’ demand for quality programs increased—more than TVRI couldafford to produce. Thus, by 1995, RCTI was quickly followed by four others. By2000, Indonesia had nine commercial stations and a highly competitive televisionlandscape.

Compared to the 1980s and 1990s, when Islam was shown mainly for tokenisticpurposes (Rakhmani, 2013), the 2000–2005 period saw a steady increase in thecommodification of Islamic images. This occurred in parallel to the rise ofIslamic expression among middle-class Muslims. We argue that religious expres-sion is adjusting to a new system that includes the particular characteristics oftelevision, its political discourses, market value, and media infrastructure (see DeVries, 2001; Hirschkind, 2011). With established television production standards,new strategies for efficiency and risk reduction are also practiced in the way Islam isportrayed in television programs. This blatant commodification of the religioustriggered the Islamic zeal of a number of producers, who began to use televisionprograms as a means to propagate Islamic orthodoxy (da’wah).2 In an attempt to

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reach specific markets/congregations, the production process of Islamic televisionprograms has required the cooperation of the producers and Islamic teachers(ustad)3 to endorse/validate Islamic content. These new relationships and represen-tations have resulted in an intermingling between Islam and television productionand content.

Overview of Islamic sinetron

Under the former authoritarian rule, TVRI mostly avoided incorporating overtIslamic themes into its popular programming, opting instead to display tokenisticreligious plurality. This avoidance went on after the end of the regime, but with themotive now shifting to avoidance of commercial risk. This risk avoidance is mostapparent in the highest-rated television format: the sinetron.4

The rise of Islamic themes in sinetron began in 2003 with the success of RahasiaIlahi (God’s Secret), a supernatural drama with gory representations of Islam.Moderate Muslim figures and scholars saw these portrayals of supernatural occur-rences as misleading (Darmawan and Armando, 2008; Subijanto, 2011). Despitethe criticism it received, Rahasia Ilahi launched a spate of prime time sinetron religi(Islamic sinetron), and its commercial success encouraged producers to incorporateIslamic themes in other shows.

The success of Rahasia Ilahi unleashed a torrent of similar supernatural dramasacross television stations. Meanwhile, the success of the Islamic film Ayat-ayatCinta (Verses of Love) sparked a trend in Islamic melodrama. Responding tosuch commodification, prominent director, producer, actor, and devout MuslimDeddy Mizwar set out to produce his own Islamic sinetron that portrayed everydayMuslims in a comedic setting. This, he says, was his own form of da’wah. And, hoton the heels of the supernatural drama and Islamic melodrama fads, Mizwar’s hitKiamat Sudah Dekat (The End of Nigh) also started its own trend.5

Before 2003, no TV station ventured to incorporate Islamic content into asinetron to avoid commercial risk, in particular owing to the exacerbated religioussensitivities of the 1990s.6 The commercial success of Rahasia Ilahi (2003), Ayat-ayat Cinta (2008), and Kiamat Sudah Dekat (2003) gave precedence for furtherreplication by television producers, leading to the ubiquity of Islamic sinetron onvirtually all major television stations. By 2010, 335 Islamic sinetron titles had beenaired on Indonesian television.

Between the 1990s and the year 2003, Indonesian sinetron was a variation on theclassic soap opera format. In early 2004, inspired by Malaysian magazine Hidayah,a small production house called KEP Media initiated the phenomenon of Islamicsinetron. The drama’s success baffled television producers with its juxtapositioningof supernatural occurrences and Islamic rituals, two things that are usually thoughtto be at odds with each other. Supernatural dramas portray two extreme poles ofgood and evil (Nazaruddin, 2008: 26). Essentially, a supernatural drama follows aformulaic story line in which sinners of all kinds (corrupt state officials, gamblers, amisbehaving son, etc.) are condemned by God to a very painful death (burnt in

342 the International Communication Gazette 76(4–5)



hell, consumed by flesh-eating worms, swallowed alive by the Earth, etc.)(Taufiqurrahman, 2005).

The format of the second cluster of Islamic sinetron, Islamic melodrama, isessentially very similar to conventional soap operas or popular melodramas. Thesuccess of the film Ayat-Ayat Cinta (Verses of Love) in February 2008 inspired TVproducers to adapt its theme into the sinetron format (I. Kurniawan, 11 June 2011,personal communication). To ensure commercial success, production house MDEntertainment consulted with the Muslim organization Muhammadiyah to deter-mine what was and was not permitted in an ‘Islamic film’ (‘Layar Ayat’, 2008). Notonly was the film commercially successful, it also received positive feedback fromstate officials, moderate Muslim organizations, and scholars. The plot of an Islamicmelodrama is generally similar to that of the popular melodrama, revolving aroundinterpersonal relationships: friendly, familial, filial, or amorous. The difference liesin the presence of Islamic symbols. Such symbols are everywhere: in the clothing ofthe characters (headscarves for the females and baju koko—a Malayan-Chineseshirt often symbolizing Islamic piety—for males), in the settings (mosque), in theprops (calligraphy), even in the way amorous relationships are resolved and legit-imized through marriage.

Since the production houses that make Islamic melodramas also make popularmelodramas, their actors and actresses star in both types of shows, with or withoutthe headscarf and other Islamic fashion attributes. Such low-cost solutions haveinvited criticism fromMuslim audiences who claim that the actors and actresses arenot ‘Muslim’ enough, sometimes citing their personal lives that often feature intelevision gossip shows. Amid such ‘misleading’ portrayals of Islam, Mizwar feltthat the content of Indonesian soap operas and film did not represent the socialreality of its majority Muslim population (D. Mizwar, 24 May 2011, personalcommunication). He expressed his concerns that Islamic sinetron were condemna-tory, extremely ‘black and white, and not educational’ (Amri and Syahid, 2010).His concern was shared by colleagues in theatre and film, as well as a number ofprominent Islamic scholars. After consulting with well-respected Islamic scholarsfrom State Islamic University Jakarta (UIN—Universitas Islam Negeri Jakarta), hedecided to produce films and television series with religious substance that werealso high in production quality and entertainment value. In contrast to most pro-duction houses that were established to answer the demands of television stations,Citra Sinema was founded to produce Islamic propagation sinetron and films(‘Lahir untuk Mengisi’, 2009).

Most of the sinetron produced by Citra Sinema reveal ‘the narrative of the strug-gle (jihad) of a Muslim in defining his piousness based on his level of piety andknowledge of Islam’ (Subijanto, 2009: 22), in which comedy is often used to nor-malize dissonances. The characters in Mizwar’s sinetron often laugh at their ownignorance, which is then remedied by learning more about Islamic piety through theQuran and hadiths as well as from fellow Muslims. The storylines portray lower-middle-class families and communities trying to survive on a limited income, streethawkers, etc. Settings include urban villages, small alleys, shelters, etc.

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Despite the different characteristics of each cluster, the sinetron industry’s pro-duction processes make for several commonalities across clusters. However, themotives behind each cluster of Islamic sinetron determine the Islamic values andalliances that inform the production process. To understand the factors that influ-ence the production process and their impact on content, we take a closer look atthree Islamic sinetron titles, one for each cluster: Hidayah (God’s Guidance),Munajah Cinta (Surrender to Love), and Para Pencari Tuhan (God Seekers).

Producing popular piety

Both Hidayah and Munajah Cinta were produced to emulate the success of anotherproduct. Hidayah was pitched by MD Entertainment in the hope of repeating thesuccess of Rahasia Ilahi, while Munajah Cinta was pitched by another large pro-duction house, SinemArt, to replicate the commercial success of Ayat-ayat Cinta.In comparison to this, Para Pencari Tuhan was produced as part of an attempt topropagate Islam through the TV drama format. The first two commodify Islam toattract Muslim audiences, while the third uses existing commercial entities forda’wah purposes. This underlying difference determines the commonalities andconstraints between clusters.

Religious authority

During the production process of Hidayah, Munajah Cinta, and Para PencariTuhan, Islamic teachers (ustad) were consulted with to validate the outcome.The reasons for such consulting, however, were different. In the production ofHidayah, MD Entertainment mostly sought to validate its Islamic content. UstadK.H. Acep Nurhasan was not a celebrity preacher and he was never used for anyother MD-produced television shows. Interviews revealed that the ustad’s valid-ation was sought to avert public criticism over inaccurate representations ofreligious practices because the production team was not confident about theircomprehension of Islamic rituals. He mainly made sure that things such as thepronunciations of Arabic phrases, Quranic recitation, or Islamic funeral ritualswere correct. Hidayah director Katili claimed that the Islamic teacher was notalways present on set. When Nurhasan was unavailable, he consulted over thephone and sometimes sent his assistant to the set. This suggests that the ustad’svalidation was comparable to proofreading, as he corrected form rather thansubstance.

With Munajah Cinta the consultation provided was limited to viewing andvalidating the first episode only. The ustads were those previously involved inother SinemArt-produced television shows, with whom good contact had alreadybeen established. There was no selection process or ideological consideration inselecting them. ‘We worked with Neno Warisman7 on Pintu Hidayah. With reli-gious sinetron, we needed an ustad or ustazah to set the limits within which wecould work (pakem-pakemnya sejauh mana). Ustad Mansyur was involved




with Maha Kasih’ (D. Suryani, 11 June 2011, personal communication). However,unlike Hidayah, no ustad appeared in the credits of Munajah Cinta, and no ustad-inspired content change was made.

In the production process of Para Pencari Tuhan, the role of the ustad wassubstantial, comparable to that of a scholar. In contrast to Hidayah’s cursoryconsultation by a single ustad or his assistant, and to Munajah Cinta’s threeustad and ustazah who were only asked to validate the pilot, Para PencariTuhan’s producers had no less than five Islamic scholars brought in to approveevery script. While on Hidayah and Munajah Cinta Islamic scholars were contentwith ‘least objectionable’ situations (Klein, 1979), those involved in the productionof Para Pencari Tuhan verified the validity of Islamic interpretations in the light ofthe Quran and hadiths. ‘They re-evaluated Para Pencari Tuhan’s religious sub-stance. Generally Indonesians are Muslims. Particularly, while MuhammadiyahMuslims might think something is valid, NU Muslims might think otherwise’(W.H. Sudarmo, 19 May 2011, personal communication). Sudarmo was referringto the two largest Muslim organizations in Indonesia, the liberal Muhammadiyahand traditionalist NU (Nahdlatul Ulama), which are often at odds on Islamic rit-uals. A classic case, which often provides fuel for casual jokes, is different Idul Fitridates (the two organizations use a different calendar in relation with the end of thefasting month). Thus, the script was verified based on both sources as a consciouschoice to step away from the political divisions in society and return to authorita-tive texts. Mizwar mentioned the book Al-Islam bila Mathahib or Islam withoutMadhabs (Muslim school of law), arguing that Indonesian Muslims have becometoo preoccupied with appearing more righteous than others instead of basingbehaviors on authoritative text (D. Mizwar, 24 May 2011, personal communica-tion). For Mizwar, Islamic orthodoxy is a means to reunite fragmented IndonesianMuslims.

Despite the differences in the way the ustads or scholars endorsed Islamicsinetron, in all production processes they were seen as a figure of religious author-ity. The endorsement of an ustad brings added value to a sinetron, whether as amarketing strategy or to give it the authority of scholarly Islamic interpretation.To a varying extent those involved in the production of Islamic sinetron—namelytelevision station programmers and the production houses—treat them as reli-gious promotion. . The producers of Munajah Cinta adapted Islamic content—inessence, polygamy—to market tastes. Hidayah enlisted the help of an ustad toensure ‘accuracy’ of Islamic rituals in order to avoid controversy, whereas theIslamic scholars involved with Para Pencari Tuhan ensured accountable Islamicpropagation. The Hidayah and Munajah Cinta producers court the Muslimmarket by avoiding inauthentic Islamic portrayals fraught with commercialrisk, while the Para Pencari Tuhan producers focus on family viewers in thehope of drip-feeding Islamic teachings into their daily lives. While motivatedby different factors, the various producers all approach Islamic sinetron as abalancing act between commercial interests and conformity with Islamicteachings.

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Risk avoidance

A second shared commonality of the three Islamic sinetron is the producers’ deci-sion to self-censor to some extent. Although the government does regulate TVcontent, none of the producers referred to this when explaining why they skirtedsensitive issues. ‘Our government is still feudalistic, conservative in terms of [con-tent], which is expected to provide ‘‘good’’ lessons. Lessons are both good and bad.But our government, our censorship body, is not like that’ (I. Kurniawan, 11 June2011, personal communication). Kurniawan alludes to Philip Kitley’s descriptionof ‘the audience as childlike’ (2000: 83) and therefore needing guidance. In contrast,Kurniawan posited the ‘audience as market’ (Kitley, 2000: 94).

The positioning of the audience as market determines which issues are too sen-sitive to be represented in Islamic sinetron. These include issues related to ’SARA8

or those that are much too ‘‘confrontative’’ (memojokkan) of a religious group’(D. Rusmana, 23 June 2011, personal communication). The producers’ view of theaudience as market guides the production of each sinetron in different ways. WithHidayah, the producers avoided overtly sensitive issues to make sure it was unob-jectionable. In preproduction, an ustad’s approval was the first safeguard.However, in some cases, the director might ‘stray too far’ (nyeleneh) which thenrequired censoring in the editing process (D. Rusmana, 23 June 2011, personalcommunication). Such postproduction content control suggests that this riskaversion manifests itself through several levels (Barkin, 2004; Shoemaker andReese, 1996).

The production ofMunajah Cinta was also guided by commercial interest. WhileHidayah eschewed SARA issues altogether, Munajah Cinta had to find waysaround depicting sexuality.

There was a scene about marital relations but we had to show it visually to the

audience. Beforehand, we discussed how we should represent it. We finally decided

to set the characters on a bed, with the help of camera tricks. We moved the angle

away. People would understand, so we wouldn’t need to picture it explicitly.

(B. Hutabarat, interview, 10 May 2011).

Like most Islamic melodramas Munajah Cinta has characteristics in common withpopular melodrama, but its Islamic packaging limited permissible male–femalephysical contact. ‘We shouldn’t violate existing norms, particularly since this isrelated to religion. It’s a public show with norms. Morality needs to be upheldbecause it’s related to religion. [How] to remain attractive without stirring conflicts(pro kontra)’ (B. Hutabarat, interview, 10 May 2011). What is allowed in popularmelodrama, such as hugging or holding hands, had to be displayed with morerestraint in Islamic sinetron (D. Suryani, 11 June 2011, personal communication).

In contrast to the Hidayah and Munajah Cinta producers’ view of the audienceas market, the producers of Para Pencari Tuhan had a more pedagogical approach:the audience as pupils. Suspecting that audiences might take at face value whatever




they heard on TV, scriptwriter Sudarmo argued that producing Islamic sinetronrequired content checking by Islamic scholars.

If you want to write about politics, you would have to understand [politics]. I learned

Islam through reading the Quran here and there. In writing, I’m not an expert. That’s

why Para Pencari Tuhan has high-quality content, because I am not the sole writer.

I am not an Islamic scholar. I am supported by a team of qualified Islamic scholars

who were hired because of their knowledge. (W.H. Sudarmo, 19 May 2011, personal

communication)

While Hidayah and Munajah Cinta avoided commercial risks with the routinemedia practice of token endorsements, Para Pencari Tuhan production avertedthe risk of Islamic misinterpretation through organizational practice of embeddingIslamic scholars in scripts preapproval mechanisms.

Although previous observers of Indonesia’s sinetron industry have argued thatits prime motive was to make money (Barkin, 2004; Ida, 2006), we see that withIslamic sinetron it is not always the case. The religious packaging allows someleeway between Islamic orthodoxy and commercial interests. For instance, onestrategy the Citra Sinema producers used to maintain both profitability andIslamic validity was product placement: sponsor’s products (e.g., herbal medicine,motor oil, household goods) were given pride of place in the plots. Sudarmo saidthat they wrote their scripts around hadiths which lent themselves to productplacement. He illustrated this with a first season episode in which an ustadturned down a cash payment after a sermon because a hadith forbade takingmoney in such circumstances.

An ustad can receive pay, but he cannot set a fee. So usually when we invite an ustad,

we’d say ‘Here you go, ustad. Not much, but enough to buy toothpaste’. Ustad Ferry,

an ustad with integrity, discusses with his wife whether he really should buy toothpaste

with the money he had received. Trying to be amanah (trustworthy), he buys one

million Rupiah’s [USD110] worth of toothpaste and distributes the stuff throughout

the village. Enzim toothpaste was the sponsor. (W.S. Sudarmo, 19 May 2011, personal

communication).

Sudarmo’s testimony suggests that the script was developed by critically re-con-textualizing a Hadith to accommodate income from the sponsor. Ironicallyenough, the episode contradicts its hadith inspiration inasmuch as it unwittinglysets a fee for the sermon. Thus, while positioning themselves as critical of theblatant commodification of Islam, Para Pencari Tuhan’s producers failed to prac-tice the Hadith they preached. We would argue that despite the da’wah intention,Mizwar’s sinetron are more akin to supernatural drama and Islamic melodramathan is perceived. All three production houses resorted to further mechanismsintended to ensure efficiency in producing Islamic sinetron—namelyhiring Islamic teachers to avoid risks. Despite the various normative motivations,

Rakhmani 347



this shows that the media economy guides the production processes of Islamicsinetron.

The politics of piety

Media texts can reveal competition of meaning among groups, or the ‘politics ofrepresentation’ (Barker, 2003). Based on this assumption, we studied 37 Hidayahepisodes, 92 Munajah Cinta episodes, and 30 Para Pencari Tuhan episodes tounderstand how authority is maintained and challenged. In this section we examinethe ‘struggle for power, between those who seek to assert and maintain their powerand those who seek to resist it’ (Chilton and Schaffner, 2002: 5) within each Islamicsinetron by also being mindful of how they were produced.

Divine intervention

Based on our viewing of Hidayah episodes, the series seems to revolve around thepersonal experiences ofMuslims set as binary, good vs. evil situations. All of the pro-tagonists are tested by economic problems, either successfully returning to the right-eous path or finally driven to their doom at the end of the episode. Economicissues are portrayed through relationships between social classes, with unfair treat-ment at the hands of other Muslims resolved through divine intervention.

At the end of each episode, characters who dared defy religious authority embo-died in ustad, husbands, mothers, etc. are stricken by God with mysterious, incur-able diseases or sudden death. This celebration of authority centers on the family asa religiously legitimate social institution, as well as on interclass relationships. Inthe case of family, marital relationships are patriarchal and filial relationships arematriarchal. In marriage, a husband rules his wife, and by defying her husband, awife is defying God. In the case of filial relationships, a child that offends his/hermother defies God, as suggested by the hadith that says ‘Heaven lies undermother’s feet’ (Surga di bawah telapak kaki ibu). Quoting a hadith gives religiousauthority to these figures, legitimizing their power. However, regardless of thenature of the conflict, the trigger for such defiance is often financial. The financialautonomy gained by a wife or daughter allows her to defy religious authority. Thisdefiance is quickly thwarted by an authoritative figure regaining his/her powerthrough supernatural occurrences.

Those mothers and husbands who lose authority over their children and wivesare comparable to the many oppressed, lower-middle-class Muslims portrayed inTV dramas—the ‘poor.’ Such characters are all similar in that they are devoutMuslims trying to stay on the righteous path. They finally get the justice theydeserve through divine intervention—which suggests it could not happen anyother way. When authoritative figures lose their power or the poor are abusedby socioeconomic power, most often by members of the upper-middle class, it isa result of some disorder in the social structure, and to restore this order, divineintervention is necessary.




In this regard, Hidayah shows that official and/or state institutions are helplessin assisting the poor. In one episode, a company’s struggles to preserve employeebenefits are presented in the context of gasoline subsidy cuts which came into effecton 1 October 2005. In other episodes, hospitals are portrayed as lacking compas-sion toward patients who are unable to pay their medical bills, causing more suf-fering in their lives. In a system that does not side with the poor, divine interventioncomes to the rescue of protagonists suffering abuse and neglect at the hands ofunscrupulous, powerful people. A general distrust toward formal institutions drivesthe main characters to find solutions to their problems. The root cause of suchproblems, as in the case of family conflicts, is lack of financial autonomy or ‘pov-erty,’ which positions the protagonists as oppressed. Antagonistic characters con-sult healers (dukun) and protagonists consult ustad. Caught between the former andthe latter, doctors and law enforcers have limited power to solve the problem.

Dukun and ustad are polarized in Hidayah as evil and good, respectively. Such apolarization was invented by the film industry in the Suharto years to avoid cen-sorship (Van Heeren, 2007: 219). Interviews with Hidayah producers also suggestthat the presence of ustad in the storylines owes much to commercial risk avoidanceconcerns. In other words, while textual constraints remain—what may and whatmay not be represented in the realm of the supernatural—they are now reacting tochanges in ideological pressure.

Likewise, there is never an open battle between dukun and ustad. Instead, thebattle between good and evil occurs between the main characters and their socialsurroundings. The dukun’s black magic is considered shirk (idolatry) or polytheismor bid’ah (heresy) by liberal Indonesian Muslims (Mujani, 2003: 99; Mundayat,2005), but in Hidayah, black magic is a response to institutional failures. Thissuggests that the role of the dukun relates to the moral panic sparked by fearsthat these institutions are ‘threats towards a functioning social system’(Ferzacca, 2001: 223). The ustad, for instance, advises a protagonist to seek theadvice of doctors, and if unsuccessful, to surrender to God. When this does notwork, the protagonist goes to a dukun. The strained relationship between modernIslamic practice and old, ‘traditional’ ways is stabilized by a fictitious power thatsupersedes both ustad and dukun and is limited to the protagonists’ individual andprivate religious experience.

The show, and many others like it, received praise from the highly conservativeHizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) Muslim group. The group called the show is ‘abreath of fresh air’ compared to other sinetron. In fact, the good–evil polarizationand unreal or improbable resolutions in Hidayah storylines are not novel sinetrondevices. By resorting to such improbable solutions to the poor’s plight and decay-ing social authority, the drama posits religion as the only means of salvation orescape. This notion is in line with senior television program director HarsiwiAchmad’s explanation of Nielsen’s9 class C audience (lower-middle class) and‘escapist’ content. While popular melodramas target lower-middle-class audiencesthought to escape reality by losing themselves in the lives of fictitious upper-middle-class characters (see Rakhmani, forthcoming 2014), Hidayah offers up

Rakhmani 349



religious content through divine intervention as remedy to the social injustice itsproducers perceive to be part of the identity of their target audience. While nar-ratively similar, supernatural dramas mainly differ from those sinetron that do notfind favor with HTI in their obvious references to Islam.

Islamic piety

There are two major recurring themes in Munajah Cinta episodes. First, in varioussubplots, Islamic piety is often contrasted with a hedonistic lifestyle. In one scene,for instance, Muslims of both sexes have just returned from their umrah, or minorhajj (the lesser pilgrimage to Mecca). They are shocked to find that a karaoke barand massage parlor has opened in front of the travel agency of main male protag-onist Attar. The ensuing conversation between the pilgrims centers on the taintingof their great religious endeavor by their choice of a travel agent whose neighborsoperate such shady businesses (commonly associated with illegal sexual practices).

In response to his customer’s protests, Attar asks the neighboring business’sowner to take down a provocative poster of a woman. Owner and main maleantagonist Bakrie declines to do so and tells Attar that if he disapproves, hemight want to move his travel agency to ‘Arabia.’ This scene and many otherslike it play on the frictions between Islamic piety and social practices that arepermitted in Jakarta (although illegal). The dispute cannot be resolved and thekaraoke bar becomes a recurring trigger for tensions between piety and ‘hedonism.’The characters try to maintain the purity of their Islamic experience and as a result,their piety is challenged by politics and money. The pious characters thus pray toGod to help them in this test, and their problem is resolved through acceptance(‘This must be Allah’s grace’).

The second recurring theme inMunajah Cinta often plays on the degrees of pietybetween ustads. In one episode a kyai that is Attar’s mentor has an argument withan anonymous ustad. Attar visits Maemunah, one of his two love interests, in hermodest apartment (kost). Having had coffee accidentally spilt on him, he takes offsome of his clothes, which leads nosey neighbors to think he is having an extra-marital affair (zina). The couple is dragged to the police station on charges ofadultery. They are imprisoned and interrogated. The witnesses and an anonymousustad who recited a relevant hadith are interrogated as well.

The ustad claims that Islam prohibits a man and a woman from sharing a roomunless they are married or muhrim,10 further incriminating the couple. The policediligently type all statements made by the suspects, the witnesses, and the ustad.The kyai arrives and talks to the main protagonist, without giving him a straightanswer, only quoting ambiguous verses from the Quran. On reflection, Attar deci-des to take his female friend as his second wife, provided his first one does notobject. The charges are instantly dropped and the couple is released from prison.

The anonymous ustad is portrayed as a stereotypical, black-and-white religiouszealot, whereas the kyai (a Javanese term for ‘Islamic teacher,’ in common useamong traditionalist Muslims) is portrayed as a spiritual leader who helps the




main protagonist find his own way of practicing religion. This difference is symbo-lized in their attributes. The anonymous ustad wears Indonesian clothing (peci andbaju koko), and the kyai wears a turban, a scarf, and a gamis (Middle Eastern men’sshirt) down to his knees (see Figure 1).

Such ‘Middle-Eastern’ references are often related to a character’s degree ofpiety. It is not only the kyai’s apparel that symbolizes his Islamic authority overthe ‘local’ ustad, but praying scenes are often accompanied by Middle-Easternmusic. Such songs never accompany the praying scenes of characters with lowerdegree of piety.

In the above-mentioned episode, the police detain a couple suspected of adulteryuntil all testimonies have been checked, including those of the anonymous ustadwho was there to testify as an expert. This conflict is resolved when Attarannounces his intention to marry Maemunah and the police release them. Ineffect, the storyline turns the policemen into enforcers of Islamic tenets: they pro-cess the case as if it were an offence punishable by law. Although Indonesian lawdoes not prohibit extramarital relations, the plot has policemen enforce Sharia onthe two characters as a device to legitimize their romantic relationship. In thisepisode of Munajah Cinta, State officials are shown as subordinate to religiousauthority.

At a glance, this may seem like puritanism, reminiscent of Saudi Arabia-basedWahabism (Hadiz and Teik, 2011). However, the goal of Munajah Cinta’s produ-cers was to replicate the commercial success of Ayat-ayat Cinta, a film set in Cairo,Egypt. One may therefore see the uncritical adoption of ‘Middle-Eastern’ valuesless as a portrayal of ‘puritanism’ and more as the commodification of ‘MiddleEastern’ cultural attributes. The sinetron producers we interviewed claimed thatMunajah Cinta was meant to portray a ‘pure, peaceful’ brand of Islam and tohighlight the ‘sincerity’ of female Muslims in polygamous marriages, along thelines of the classic love triangle of popular melodramas (I. Kurniawan, 11 June2011, personal communication). Such ‘purity’ is embodied through idealized,

Figure 1. Different apparels on ustad to symbolize the degree of piety.

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‘Middle Eastern’ religious rules. The degree of piety portrayed in Islamic melo-dramas does not reflect Islamic ideology so much as the producers’ ideas of whatmay attract those pious, middle-class, upwardly mobile Muslim audiences whohave been loyal popular melodrama viewers.

Political criticism through Islamic views

Islamic tenets as remedy to poverty and/or social injustice—such is the general toneof Para Pencari Tuhan. The focus in this section is how collective identity asso-ciated with Islam becomes a means to challenge the purportedly essentialistassumption that religious authority is only in the hands of the learned ustad.Centering on the everyday lives of the residents of a small urban village, thisshow is often used as a vehicle for criticism on two major issues. The first issueis the economy, usually in the form of the villagers’ struggle against poverty. Aparticular scene portrays the main protagonist, bang11 Jack, who is concerned thatfewer and fewer people come to At-Taufik, the show’s central, but small, mosque.This reinforces the larger context of Para Pencari Tuhan: criticism of a decrease incollective religious practice caused by an economic downturn. As an illustration,here is a scene where the main characters are waiting at the mosque for more peopleto join in prayer (shalat berjamaah). Bang Jack asks several passers-by to join them,but is rebuffed as they are all headed to work.

Bang Jack: People used to not visit our mosque because they were trying to savetheir families from poverty.Barong: And now?Bang Jack: Now they’re still not visiting our mosque, because they’re trying to savetheir jobs.

The second issue is related to everyday politics. Islamic tenets are usually invokedto challenge unquestioned traditions practiced in the village. In one episode, forinstance, the villagers tell the richest man in the village, pak12 Jalal, that they wantto celebrate his birthday, in the hope of getting free entertainment on his dime. PakJalal’s niece Kalila reminds everyone that the Prophet and his companions did nothave birthday celebrations. Therefore, if there should be an event funded by pakJalal, it should serve to strengthen the bonds between everyone in the village.Before pak Jalal agrees on a carambole competition, he wants to have a poleclimbing competition, usually performed on Indonesia’s Independence Day.

Bang Jack: Yes, but why do we have to have a pole climbing competition, pakJalal?Pak Jalal: What’s wrong with a pole climbing competition?Bang Jack: Pole climbing is a tradition inherited from the Dutch when theycolonized us, pak Jalal.Pak Jalal: Wow, that’s cool!




Bang Jack: Not really. Natives were instructed to compete against each other,through pole climbing, to win prizes of clothes, cheese, sugar, coffee, etc., while theDutch watched, laughed, and drank tea, looking at natives scrambling to outdoone another to win clothes and food.Pak Jalal: Really? But it has since become our tradition.Bang Jack: Pak Jalal, our society’s traditions also needs correcting. For me, thepole climbing tradition can only degrade our nation’s pride by perpetuating acolonizer’s game.Pak Jalal finally tells the committee that no matter what they suggest, the eventshould not include a pole climbing competition. This scene clearly shows that ParaPencari Tuhan is used to tell audiences that several traditions need to be questionedand that their current practices have roots in history. Here, pak Jalal listens to thereligious advice of bang Jack, a man from a lower socioeconomic class. The episodeabout pak Jalal’s birthday introduced the issue of dominance and national pride,with Islamic teachings becoming a means to challenge otherwise unquestionedtraditions.

Similar social criticism is also apparent in another episode, where several villagerscome to the mosque to pray together. Upon arriving, they are confused aboutwhether to join in the congregational prayer: there is usually only one suchprayer going on in a mosque at any given time, with latecomers joining in asthey arrive. Here, however different groups are praying separately (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Simultaneous congregational prayers in Para Pencari Tuhan.

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Responding to the unusual situation, one of villagers says that maybe there aredifferent prayers because each group follows a different schools of thought: onemay be hardline (garis keras) and the other one more progressive (garis lembut). Toavoid confusion, the newcomers join neither group and conduct their own prayer,stating that they would rather not be led in confusion ‘thus we should create ourown [political] party that accommodates our aspiration.’ This implies that theirreligious ritual is comparable to religious–political affiliation. Finally, while thethree congregational prayers are being held simultaneously in the mosque, themain characters chat in dumbfounded disbelief:

Bang Jack: This is just like our people (umat), we have too many political parties.The more flags we have, the less power each party possesses. Like bubbles in thesea, abundant but without force.Azzam: Let’s do our preprayer washing. Then we can start our own political party.Bang Jack: No, we shouldn’t imitate them. This is an example of people conduct-ing rituals without understanding why. We’ll wait until they finish.

The multiple congregational prayer scene alludes to the dealignment (dealirani-sasi) of Islamic political parties after Suharto stepped down (Tomsa, 2010; Ufen,2006). The scene shows the villagers choosing to have their own congregationalprayer rather than unwittingly following another prayer. An anonymous villagersays that having their own authentic congregation is like having ‘a party thataccommodates our aspiration.’ Bang Jack echoes the reference toward politicalparties. He states that political dealignment is what makes the umat or ummah(Islamic community) weak: because Muslims are fragmented into small, powerlessgroups. The scene occurs at the end of the episode, leaving the issue open-ended.The panjat pinang scene indicates that a dominant group may tear people apartby pitting them against one another. Such fragmentation is depicted negativelyin the above episode, with Islamic views being used to further the notion ofMuslim unity.

In both scenes Islamic views elucidate the ambiguity of everyday ethical prob-lems that manifest themselves through Muslim politics. Despite the nontrivialissues, the humor blanketing social criticism helped the show become unobjection-able. Para Pencari Tuhan airs on SCTV (Surya Citra Televisi). ProgrammingDirector Harsiwi Achmad says that Mizwar’s sinetron has been popular becauseits lower-class setting appeals to lower-middle and middle-class audiences while itsrealistic narratives appeal to upper-middle-class viewers, with its comedic packa-ging appealing to all three categories. This is a new strategy of television stationsintent on widening their audiences. Therefore, while Para Pencari Tuhan’s produc-tion process and content show this sinetron is intended for da’wah, it appeals to amarket that transcends the Nielsen audience class that is not apparent in the firsttwo clusters that were produced to repeat commercial successes. Citra Sinemaadopted new creative strategies that followed the commercial logic of the sinetronindustry while enlisting Islamic scholars to validate Islamic representations.




The negotiations between re-contextualizing Islamic texts and remaining sellablesuggest that the da’wah agency is working through the commercial space oftelevision.

Concluding remarks: What brand of ‘Islam’ on Indonesiantelevision?

This article studied the connections between the commerce of Islam and its expres-sion in order to understand how religion, morality, authority, values, and ideologyare recoding themselves in a system that involves market values and media infra-structure. The main findings draw a complex picture that challenges uncriticalassumptions as to how the television industry may have commodified religioussymbols in Indonesia. By looking at sinetron production processes and represen-tations of Islam, we can argue on two levels that what is actually occurring is acommercialization of da’wah.

Firstly, in their early stages Islamic sinetron were meant to emulate the commer-cial success of other films or television series. Ustads were brought in to avoidcommercial risks by ensuring that representations adhered to dominantIndonesian Islamic practices. As a result, the Islamic practices, symbols, and ritualsportrayed are identified with previously monitored audience class types, thus con-structing an Islamic identity that speaks to middle-class Muslims as stereotyped—and validly so, based on ratings—by the television industry.

Such ‘safe’ portrayals were thought to ‘cheapen’ Islam, thus prompting theagency of Muslim producers. By consulting with Islamic scholars to checkconformity with the Quran and hadiths, they brought their sinetron into therealm of Islamic propagation, or da’wah. The irony is that such da’wahagents unwittingly commercialized their calling by ‘setting a fee for theirsermons.’

On a second level, various ideological motivations resulted in particular narra-tives within Islamic sinetron. In supernatural dramas divine intervention savesoppressed lower-middle-class Muslims from the failures of social institutions,while Islamic melodramas coddle upwardly mobile, middle-class Muslims wearyof half-baked Islamic rituals with representations of an imaginary, ‘pure and peace-ful’ Islam fraught with ‘Middle Eastern’ values. The sinetron produced by da’wahagents criticizes the fragmentation of the ummah and appeal for unity. Despitethese different dominant narratives, all three sinetron offered up a version ofIslamic teachings in response to the perceived social concerns of their middle-class Muslim target audiences.

Based on these findings one may argue that what is currently occurring is acommercialization of da’wah through the televised delivery of ‘sermons’ to aMuslim audience. In Indonesia today, television has become a space for preaching:sinetron as sermon, audiences as congregation. And commercialization—or thecreation of a relationship between advertising and audience—is the ‘new system’within which da’wah works.

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This raises the question: what kind of ‘Islam’ is it that we have on Indonesiantelevision today? We would argue that owing to risk avoidance and audiencetargeting, the social divisions between Muslim groups in Indonesia (e.g., tradition-alists, liberals, conservatives) become blurred in Islamic sinetron. Validated byboth ratings and advertising, such portrayals take on a life of their own. Inother words, such televised images of Islam are not an accurate reflection of religi-osity in Indonesia today. What they are is a construct—an artificial, ‘Indonesian’Islam born of the intersection of market capitalism and Islamic propagation.

Funding

This research formed a small part of the author’s PhD thesis, for which she received ascholarship from the Australian Government through the Australian Leadership Awards

(ALA).

Notes

1. We explain the commodification of Islam, or the shift from use value to exchange value

(Mosco, 2009: 129) that is often inaccurately interchanged with commercialization, orthe creation of a relationship between audience and advertiser (Mosco, 2009: 132).

2. We use the term ‘orthodox Islam’ in reference to the position that holds the Quran and

hadiths as the two primary sources of Islamic teachings (see Kamali, 2003).3. In an Indonesian context, ustad and ustazah for women refer to Muslim clerics, priests,

teachers, or leaders (in a scholarly context, they are often called ulama). Such terms are

comparable to the words kyai (Javanese) and buya (Minang). The term ustad hasbecome more mainstream with the growing popularity of ‘celebrity preachers.’

4. A portmanteau of sinema (cinema) and elektronik (electronic), the term sinetron usuallyapplies to soap opera style, primetime drama (Barkin, 2004: 56). On average, audiences

spend 26% of their viewing time on sinetron, the most popular of all program types(Nugroho et al., 2012: 52). Although Islamic themes in television programs can be tracedback to the 1960s (see Rakhmani, 2013), the portrayal of daily Islamic practices in a

context which viewers can easily relate to has been especially intensive in Islamic-themedsinetron.

5. The success of Mizwar’s Islamic sinetron initiated a trend producers dubbed ‘religious

comedy’ (komedi religi), examples of which are Islam KTP (2010) and Pesantren Rockand Roll (2011), both aired on SCTV. While they adopted the same comedic approach asMizwar’s, these two sinetrons had different ideological motivations (see Rakhmani, 2014forthcoming).

6. A case in point is the outrage expressed by Surabaya audiences when Canadian programWok with Yan demonstrated a recipe with pork fat as one of its ingredients at thebeginning of Ramadan (Kitley, 2000: 102).

7. Neno Warisman is a former 1980s singer who became popular in the mid-1990s as aprominent female ustad, often appearing on television.

8. SARA or Suku (Ethnicity), Agama (Religion), Ras (Race), and Antar-Golongan (Inter-

group)—a commonly used acronym in the Suharto years in reference to potential socialunrest caused by friction between groups.




9. Here, Nielsen refers to AGB Nielsen Media Research, the sole rating body monitoringtelevision audience in Indonesia.

10. In the Quran, muhrim refers to persons of the opposite sex one is not allowed to marry,

such as siblings, maternal cousins, etc. In practice, however, the word has a transitionalmeaning for urban middle-class Muslim Indonesians: persons of the opposite sex onemay not have intimate contact with (bukan muhrim).

11. The function of the Bang character is to inspire respect and endearment. Bang (shortfor Abang) is a term that designates an older male in Betawi culture, the largest ethnicgroup ‘indigenous’ to Jakarta. It is mostly used to address an older brother or a

husband by his wife.12. Pak is short for Bapak comparable to ‘Sir.’

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The commercialization of da’wah: Understanding Indonesian Sinetron and their portrayal of Islam

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