Hearing Allah’s Call: Preaching and Performance in Indonesian Islam - Hardcover

Millie, Julian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1501713116 ISBN 13: 9781501713118

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Hearing Allah’s Call changes the way we think about Islamic communication. In the city of Bandung in Indonesia, sermons are not reserved for mosques and sites for Friday prayers. Muslim speakers are in demand for all kinds of events, from rites of passage to motivational speeches for companies and other organizations. Julian Millie spent fourteen months sitting among listeners at such events, and he provides detailed contextual description of the everyday realities of Muslim listening as well as preaching. In describing the venues, the audience, and preachers―many of whom are women―he reveals tensions between entertainment and traditional expressions of faith and moral rectitude.

The sermonizers use in-jokes, double entendres, and mimicry in their expositions, playing on their audiences’ emotions, triggering reactions from critics who accuse them of neglecting listeners’ intellects. Millie focused specifically on the listening routines that enliven everyday life for Muslims in all social spaces―imagine the hardworking preachers who make Sunday worship enjoyable for rural as well as urban Americans―and who captivate audiences with skills that attract criticism from more formal interpreters of Islam. The ethnography is rich and full of insightful observations and details. Hearing Allah’s Call will appeal to students of the practice of anthropology as well as all those intrigued by contemporary Islam.

About this title

Review

"A richly-textured and critically insightful ethnography of Islamic preaching in contemporary Indonesia.... [The book succeeds in] stimulating critical reflections on modes of cultural production and religious communication that are potentially important for scholars working on contemporary Muslim societies well beyond the borders of Indonesia."

Source: Reading Religion

"Offers much more than a thorough analysis of Islamic preaching, as it provides inspiring reflections on today's emerging Muslim publics that a readership interested in the development of Islamic societies generally will find highly relevant."

Source: Anthropological Forum

""One of the most important features of recent Indonesian history has been the astonishing growth of interest in and activity revolving around Islam. Analysis by a well-informed and sympathetic observer, as Julian Millie clearly is, of any aspect of this phenomenon is very valuable. Religious oratory is also a topic of great significance, not only with respect to Islam but also in contemporary Buddhism, certainly, and in some strands of Christianity, as well.""

Author: Ward Keeler, author of Javanese Shadow Puppets

""Innovative and illuminating, Hearing Allah’s Call is an excellent account of Muslim oratorical practice in West Java. It should find a readership among those who wish to know about the way Islam is understood and practiced in everday life in Indonesia.""

Author: Bill Watson, University of Kent and Bandung Institute of Technology, author of Of Self and Nation

About the Author

Julian Millie is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Monash University. He is the author of Bidasari and Splashed by the Saint.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1501713116
• ISBN 13: 9781501713118
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 276