Safe Space For Urban Muslim’s Society

Abstract

This study is about the increase in Muslim housing complexes in Jakarta, which is marketed to specific targets. Those houses are exclusively designed for Muslims, to provide them with a house and a community to ensure they can raise a good and blessed family. Although the development of Islamic housing complexes can be traced to the 1990s, they are mostly found near the Islamic boarding schools or Islamic centers. Today, we find dozens of Muslim housing complexes built in Jakarta’s suburbs such as in Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi. The settlements are characterized by one entrance gate, fenced with concrete wall, and are commonly known to form gated communities. It is worthwhile to learn more regarding the reasons and processes used to create Muslim gated communities. Experts usually relate this gated community with fear and threats a community has to face in urban life. Although Islam is the majority in Jakarta and Muslim solidarity is currently growing stronger, our inquiry is to focus on the reasons individuals would live in closed and exclusive housings. In addition, we would like to know the Muslims who choose to live there and what type of community is formed by this process of fencing their life so that they are separate from other groups in the city. We also found that women play a significant role to construct the safe space perception for the urban middle-class Muslim’s movement. Women are also an active agent for social movements based on Islam as way of life. Using an ethnographic approach, we interview and observe one selected housing complex in Jakarta, namely, “Cahaya Besar.” Although there is a tendency that new houses in Indonesia are usually associated with a new family, we found that a Muslim housing complex is today a preference of young Muslim couples. As the price of the houses is competitive, we also would like to describe the dynamic of the middle class Muslim today. Keywords—urban space, housing, muslim, gated