{"title":"A Biographical Study of A “Salafi Political Jihadist”: Dr. Fauzi","authors":"M. N. Azca","doi":"10.17645/pag.7984","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A biographical study through the lens of Mills’ sociological imagination provides an interesting understanding of Dr. Fauzi AR, an Islamist political activist who became a salafi jihadist. Fauzi was born in Yogyakarta in 1956 from a devout Muhammadiyah family, and grew up in Kauman, Yogyakarta, the heartland of the modernist Islamic mass organisation, Muhammadiyah. He was educated in Muhammadiyah schools and qualified as a medical doctor. His political career included chairmanship of the Islamic United Development Party (PPP), which he maintained when he joined Laskar Jihad, a salafi-wahabi paramilitary group, during the inter-religious conflict in Maluku in 2000. Fauzi became a reformed “maverick jihadist”, that is a person who is unpredictable yet competent. He remained the chairman of PPP during his jihadi involvement, which was unusual, as participation in partisan politics (hizbiyya) is forbidden by salafi doctrine. He remained a heavy smoker until his end of life in 2021, although smoking is forbidden (haram) by religious decree (fatwa), as declared by salafi clerics. When the salafi movement fragmented, he created his own “third way” by conducting regular salafi religious sermons at his home but somehow maintained good relations with Ja’far Umar Thalib, the former commander of Laskar Jihad, who was also an excommunicated salafi leader. Finally, Fauzi made an unprecedented move while a salafi activist by supporting, and campaigning for, his wife in an unsuccessful bid for a seat in national parliament as a member of the secular-nationalist party, Gerindra, in the 2009 election.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Politics and Governance","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.7984","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A biographical study through the lens of Mills’ sociological imagination provides an interesting understanding of Dr. Fauzi AR, an Islamist political activist who became a salafi jihadist. Fauzi was born in Yogyakarta in 1956 from a devout Muhammadiyah family, and grew up in Kauman, Yogyakarta, the heartland of the modernist Islamic mass organisation, Muhammadiyah. He was educated in Muhammadiyah schools and qualified as a medical doctor. His political career included chairmanship of the Islamic United Development Party (PPP), which he maintained when he joined Laskar Jihad, a salafi-wahabi paramilitary group, during the inter-religious conflict in Maluku in 2000. Fauzi became a reformed “maverick jihadist”, that is a person who is unpredictable yet competent. He remained the chairman of PPP during his jihadi involvement, which was unusual, as participation in partisan politics (hizbiyya) is forbidden by salafi doctrine. He remained a heavy smoker until his end of life in 2021, although smoking is forbidden (haram) by religious decree (fatwa), as declared by salafi clerics. When the salafi movement fragmented, he created his own “third way” by conducting regular salafi religious sermons at his home but somehow maintained good relations with Ja’far Umar Thalib, the former commander of Laskar Jihad, who was also an excommunicated salafi leader. Finally, Fauzi made an unprecedented move while a salafi activist by supporting, and campaigning for, his wife in an unsuccessful bid for a seat in national parliament as a member of the secular-nationalist party, Gerindra, in the 2009 election.
期刊介绍:
Politics and Governance is an innovative offering to the world of online publishing in the Political Sciences. An internationally peer-reviewed open access journal, Politics and Governance publishes significant, cutting-edge and multidisciplinary research drawn from all areas of Political Science. Its central aim is thereby to enhance the broad scholarly understanding of the range of contemporary political and governing processes, and impact upon of states, political entities, international organizations, communities, societies and individuals, at international, regional, national and local levels. Submissions that focus upon the political or governance-based dynamics of any of these levels or units of analysis in way that interestingly and effectively brings together conceptual analysis and empirical findings are welcome. Politics and Governance is committed to publishing rigorous and high-quality research. To that end, it undertakes a meticulous editorial process, providing both the academic and policy-making community with the most advanced research on contemporary politics and governance. The journal is an entirely open-access online resource, and its in-house publication process enables it to swiftly disseminate its research findings worldwide, and on a regular basis.