Women's Majelis Taklim and Gendered Religious Practice in Northern Ambon

Abstract

This article explores a case in point: women's majelis taklim in the Leihitu area of Ambon Island in eastern Indonesia.[4] The emergence of such groups in this locale is certainly linked to national visions of contemporary Muslim women. However, the core activity of majelis taklim in Leihitu involves a longstanding practice in that setting: recitation of Arabic-language religious texts in order to gain religious merit, in particular a genre known as barzanji. I argue that majelis taklim should be understood primarily as vehicles for (re)presenting long-extant modes of devotional performance in Leihitu as being compatible with contemporary forms of Muslim identity. In doing so, these groups reaffirm the Islamic credentials of their communities. At the same time, majelis taklim have increased the participation of women in public and semi-public devotional recitation as well as its frequency of occurrence; a situation that is subtly transforming normatively gendered forms of local religious practice.

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