| Summary/Abstract |
This article explores the contestation over the meaning and uses of shari’a (Islamic Law) in South Sulawesi Indonesia. Its purpose is to shed light upon the importance and limits of shari’a discursive argumentation in Muslim life, and to examine how shari’a is used in contemporary sociocultural and political processes. The escalation of shari’a formalisation after democratization in Indonesia has widely gained scholarly attention. While the existing literature largely focuses on shari’a politics and the shari’a of the elites, this article focuses on the anthropology of the shari’a politics and the varied usage of shari’a in sociocultural processes across different social assemblages. The research was conducted in Bulukumba, a district divided by the initiative for the formalisation of shari’a at district level. The study reveals that Muslims engage and imagine the shari’a in strikingly different ways, many of which are not at all discursive in a manner consistent with fiqh or scholarly legal commentaries. Discursive argumentation is not the only source of authority in Islamic community. It is a point in a vast network of relationships. The experiences of ordinary Muslims in South Sulawesi illuminate that discursive argumentation can be a less direct and less explicit tool than ritualisation to resist shari’ahisation.
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