Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Contemporary Islam

05-08-2023 | Original Research

Ramadan in the plague year: Indonesian Muslim responses to the onset of COVID-19

Author: Mark Woodward

Published in: Contemporary Islam

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Excerpt

The Prophet Muhammad said, “If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it; but if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place.” Sahih al-Bukhari: 5728.
It is impossible in a visitation to prevent the spreading of the plague by the utmost human vigilance … It is impossible to know the infected people from the sound or that the infected people should perfectly know themselves. Daniel Defoe – A Journal of the Plague Year, 1772.
…

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Footnotes
1
For more general accounts of Indonesian responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, see Hasyim (2020a, 2020b), Hilmy and Khoirun (2020) and Olivia, Gibson and Nasruddin (2020). This paper expands on previous accounts of responses to the onset of the pandemic by Muhammadiyah (Woodward 2020a) and NU (Woodward 2020b).
 
2
World Health Organization (2023).
 
3
Mirvis (2020).
 
4
Kleinman (1980).
 
5
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2021).
 
6
Rosen (2007).
 
7
Dols (1974).
 
8
Benedictow (2005).
 
9
Engelmann, Henderson and Christos (2018).
 
10
Swellengrebel (1950)., Meerwijk (2022).
 
11
For a comparison of the epidemiology of bubonic plagues, small pox epidemics and the 1918 influence pandemic and their social consequences see: Patterson et al. (2021).
 
12
Benedictow (2005).
 
13
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2021).
 
14
Erll (2020).
 
15
Hilmy and Khoirun opcit.
 
16
Dols (1970), Hilmy and Khoirun (2020) are examples.
 
17
Dols (1974).
 
18
Quoted in Gottfried 1983:41.
 
19
Cohn (2007).
 
20
Dols (1974).
 
21
Dols (1974).
 
22
Mahendradhata et al. (2017).
 
23
World Health Organization (2020).
 
24
Pancasila is the Indonesian national ideology. It consists of five principles: Belief in the Almighty God, Just and Civilized Humanity, Indonesian Unity, Democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of deliberations among representatives and Social Justice for the Indonesian people. All Indonesians are required to profess one of the six officially recognized religions: Islam, Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism (Weatherbee 1985).
 
25
The Jakarta Post (2020). Putranto was widely criticised for his inept response to the pandemic but remained in office until late December 2020.
 
26
The Jakarta Post (2020), De Salazar et al. (2020).
 
27
Gorbiano (2020).
 
28
Los Angeles Times (2020).
 
29
Allard & Lamb (2020).
 
30
For more extensive discussions of Indonesian Ramadan traditions, see Moller (2005) and Woodward (2010).
 
31
Slametan are also known as kenduri. For a discussion of these rituals, see Woodward (1988).
 
32
For a discussion of these events, see Woodward (2023).
 
33
Harian Terbit (2020). These interpretations resemble those offered by Medieval Christians commenting on the Black Death more closely than they do the ways in which other Indonesian Muslims understood the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
34
Falahuddin, F. (2020a), NU Online (2020g), Riddell (2021).
 
35
Badshah (2020) and Beech (2020).
 
36
Hilmy (2013), Lukens-Bull and Woodward (2021).
 
37
Hosen (2013).
 
38
For discussions of these Shari’ah principles and their application to measures to mitigate the COVID-19 see Mashuri et al. (2021) and Hasyim (2020a).
 
39
For an extended discussion of Muhammadiyah’s modernist agenda, see Nakamura (2012).
 
40
For an extended discussion of NU traditionalism, see Saenong (2021).
 
41
Dhofier (1999)
 
42
Dhofier (1999)
 
43
Lukens-Bull (2005).
 
44
Van Bruinessen (1990).
 
45
Mashabi (2020a, 2020b), Muhammadiyah (2020a).
 
46
Lazimu Jawa Timur (2020).
 
47
Suara Muhammadiyah (2020a).
 
48
Muhammadiyah (2020c) expands on this point.
 
49
Dols (1974).
 
50
Suara Muhammadiyah (2020b).
 
51
Muhammadiyah (2020c).
 
52
Muhammadiyah (2020b).
 
53
NU Online (2020d).
 
54
NU Online (2020e).
 
55
NU Online (2020c).
 
56
Fanani (2022b) and Surya.co.id.
 
57
For a detailed study of COVID-19 related devotional practices, see Baidowi et al. (2021).
 
58
Hasani (2020) Burhani (2021).
 
59
Putranto (2020).
 
60
On the Wali Songo, see Rinkes (1966). Gus Dur is now often described as the tenth wali.
 
61
Muslim.Sg (2022). My italics.
 
62
NU Online (2020a).
 
63
NU Online (2020b).
 
64
Mashabi (2020a, 2020b), NU Online (2020f).
 
65
Asip (2020).
 
66
Sutrisno (2020).
 
Literature
Ayalon, Y. (2014). Natural disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, famine and other misfortunes. Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
Badshah, A. (2020). Spread of coronavirus disease-19 among devotees during religious congregations. Annals of Thoracic Medicine, 15(3), 105–106.CrossRef
Cohn, S. (2007). The Black Death and the burning of the Jews. Past and Present, 196(1), 3–36.CrossRef
De Salazar, P., Niehus, R., Taylor, A., Buckee, C., & Lipsitch, M. (2020). Identifying locations with possible undetected imported severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 cases by using importation predictions. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 26(7), 1465–1469.CrossRef
Dhofier, Z. (1999). The pesantren tradition: The role of the kyai in the maintenance of traditional Islam in Java, Tempe: Arizona State University Program for Southeast Asian Studies.
Dols, M. (1970). The Black Death in the Middle East. Princeton University Press.
Dols, M. (1974). Plague in early Islamic history. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 94(3), 371–383.CrossRef
Erll, A. (2020). Afterword: Memory worlds in times of Corona. Memory Studies, 13(5), 861–874.CrossRef
Engelmann, L., Henderson, J., & Christos, L. (2018). Plague and the city. Routledge.CrossRef
Gottfried, R. (1983). The Black Death, Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe,  New York: Free Press.
Hilmy, M. (2013). Whither Indonesia’s Islamic moderatism? A Re-Examination on the Moderate Vision of Muhammadiyah and NU. Journal of Indonesian Islam, 7(1), 24–48.CrossRef
Hilmy, M., & Khoirun, N. (2020). Winning the battle of authorities: The Muslim disputes over the covid-19 pandemic plague in Contemporary Indonesia. Qudus International Journal of Islamic Studies, 8(2), 294–326.
Hosen, N. (2013). Revelation in a modern nation state: Muhammadiyah and Islamic legal reasoning in Indonesia. Studia Islamika, 10(3), 65–96.
Kleinman, A. (1980). Patients and healers in the context of culture: An explanation of the borderland between anthropology, medicine and psychiatry. University of California Press.CrossRef
Lukens-Bull, R. (2005). A peaceful Jihad: Negotiating identity and modernity in Muslim Java. Springer.CrossRef
Lukens-Bull, R., & Woodward, M. (2021). Variation of Muslim practice in Indonesia. In Lukens-Bull and Woodward (Eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives, Springer.
Meerwijk, M. (2022). A history of plague in Java, 1911–1942. Cornell University Press.CrossRef
Mirvis, P. (2020). Reflections: US coronavirus crisis management–learning from failure January–April, 2020. Journal of Change Management, 20(4), 283–311.CrossRef
Moller, A. (2005). Ramadan in Java: The joy and jihad of ritual fasting. Lunds University publications.
Nakamura, M. (2012). The crescent arises over the Banyan Tree: A study of the Muhammadiyah movement in a central Javanese town. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.CrossRef
Olivia, S., Gibson, J., & Nasruddin, R. (2020). Indonesia in the time of Covid-19. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 56(2), 143–174.CrossRef
Rinkes, D. (1966). Nine Saints of Java. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute.
Riddell, P. (2021). Divine testing and the covid pandemic: Searching for hope in Sufi Commentaries. Teosofia: Indonesian Journal of Islamic Mysticism, 10(2), 143–160.CrossRef
Rosen, W. (2007). Justinian’s Flea: Plague. Empire and the Birth of Europe, New York: Viking.
Saenong F. (2021). Nahdlatul Ulama (NU): A grassroots movement advocating moderate Islam. In Upal, M., & Cusak, C. (Eds.), Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements, Leiden: Brill, pp. 129–150.
Swellengrebel, N. (1950). Plague in Java, 1910–1912. The Journal of Hygiene, 48(2), 135–145.CrossRef
Van Bruinessen, M. (1990). Kitab kunning: Books in Arabic script used in the Pesantren milieu; Comments on a new collection in the KITLV Library. Bijdragen Tot De Taal-, Land-En Volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 146(2), 226–269.
Weatherbee, D. (1985). Indonesia: The Pancasila State, In: Lim, J. (ed) Southeast Asian Affairs, Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 133–151.
Woodward, M. (1988). The “Slametan”: Textual knowledge and ritual performance in central Javanese Islam. History of Religions, 28(1), 54–89.CrossRef
Woodward, M. (2010). Java, Indonesia and Islam. Springer.
Metadata
Title
Ramadan in the plague year: Indonesian Muslim responses to the onset of COVID-19
Author
Mark Woodward
Publication date
05-08-2023
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Contemporary Islam
Print ISSN: 1872-0218
Electronic ISSN: 1872-0226
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-023-00537-6

Premium Partner

    Image Credits