These changes have been viewed differently by various Islamic youth movements. First, there are those who view these changes positively as clear evidence of a rise in the predominance of Islam. Many formerly critical issues, such as the marginal role of Muslims in Indonesian political, social, economic and cultural life, are no longer concerns. When many Muslim intellectuals and leaders became members of the House of Representatives and became Ministers, their numbers lessened Christian influence in the parliament and in the Cabinet. Some young Muslim activists believe that Islam in Indonesia is no longer peripheral, no longer kept in a ‘corner’ (terpojok) position. The friendly attitude of the government toward Islam is regarded as reflecting purely good intentions for which the Islamic community should be grateful.

Second, other young Muslim activists have responded carefully to the government's action and to recent Islamic developments in Indonesia. They view these as something for which they should be grateful but, at the same time, something they should be wary of. In their view, it is true that there have been some changes in the government's attitude toward Islam, but they question the motives behind those changes. They are worried that this apparent attitude represents a government strategy to gain wider support from the Muslim community. They are worried about being used by others, as previously in Indonesian Islamic history. Despite their worries, they believe that such changes and developments will benefit their movement. They hope that the decline in military suspicion of Islam will create a much wider opportunity for dakwah activity. Islamic youth activities, which previously were always suspected as being political activities, today are conducted freely, without the fear of being accused of subversiveness. Nowadays Islamic dakwah activities involve almost all strata of society, from the lower to elite classes, from children to older people.

The third view is quite extreme. Some young Muslim activists maintain that as long as an Islamic system has not been adopted across the board and as long as an Indonesian Islamic state has not been established, there has been no significant progress or development. For them, the increasing number of Muslims in the House of Representatives and in the new Cabinet are not signs of advances for Islam in Indonesia. They argue that recent developments are similar to others in the previous history of Islam in Indonesia. Many times, they believe, Muslims have been tricked into unwaranted rejoicing.

It is difficult to pin-point exactly which view belongs to which movement since among those youth movements each of these views is shared among them. Among members of the Young DI movement and ex-LP3K, for example, I found two different views, one which views the social and political changes carefully and moderately and the other which claims those changes have nothing to do with Islamic prospects. In the latter view, “there have been no changes at all as long as the existing regime remains in control.” As long as the existing system is not replaced by Islam, there is no significant change.

Similar division can also be seen among other movements. It is quite different in those movements which originated outside Indonesia. Indonesian social and political changes have no significant impact on them, because they already have certain standards which have been drawn up internationally. One informant, a sympathiser (or probably a member) of Hizb al-Tahrir, said “it is true that there are some changes within society, but they are nothing as long as the Islamic Caliphate (Khilafah Islam) has not been established (in Indonesia or internationally) and as long as Muslims’ thought is far from the true Islamic thought.” This is an example of the extreme view.

Unlike the Young DI, LP3K and Hizb al-Tahrir, the Darul Arqam and Jamaah Tabligh seem to be happy (or not bothered) with those social and political changes. This is perhaps because they put more emphasis on ritual aspects and are less concerned with social and political matters. Jamaah Tabligh for example always tries to avoid even talking about political matters. Darul Arqam’s view toward those changes can be found in a book written by its leader Ashaari Muhammad, Presiden Suharto Ikut Jadual Allah (President Suharto Follows God's Schedule). In this book he supported President Suharto for doing the pilgrimage to Mecca, and praised him for becoming a much better Muslim. On the evidence of this view, these movements belong to the first category which view these changes positively as clear evidence of a rise in the influence of Islam.

Despite these differences of opinion, political, social and cultural changes have inevitably influenced Islamic resurgence movements among young people. During the development period, those revivalist movements encountered resistance and criticism from many parts of the community and the government. Moreover, with various changes within society, they in turn were forced to change certain aspects of their movement to suit current social and political situations. Therefore, in order to survive and to make their ideas more acceptable to a wider community, they modified their original doctrines, their methods of education, their syllabus, and their views of the current social and political situations. During this adaptation process they were often trapped into internal conflicts, which often ended in disunity (perpecahan) among them. Although all of the movements tried to adapt to the current situation, their degree of adaptation varied considerably.

The adaptation process resulted in new trends among the resurgent Islamic youth movements. Previously, most of them were quite radical, and they paid more attention to increasing Islamic emotional attachment. Since the late 1980s Islamic youth movements have varied in how radical they are. At least two major trends developed among young Muslim activists: namely ‘activism’ and ‘intellectualism.’ The former trend is seen among young Muslim activists who put more emphasis on Islamic activism and behaviour, that is concrete and visible application of Islam. They believe that Islam should be applied comprehensively to daily life activities, including those of the individual or of the community. Today, in their view, Islam is not visible in Muslims' daily activities, and consequently the blessing of God and His glory have never been gained by Muslims. The intellectualism is represented by those who believe that the thinking (pemikiran) of the Islamic community should be enlightened, and that Muslims' understanding of Islam should be reconstructed. They argue that the main cause of various problems faced by Muslims is due to intellectual weakness and backwardness. Unlike other activists, they pay more attention to the intellectual aspects of Islam.

The activist camp is divided into five categories: ritualists, mystics, radicals, philanthropists and fun-seekers (hura-hura). Ritualists are those young Muslim activists who stress the ‘ritual’ aspect of Islam, or the concrete aspects of Islam. They wish to practise Islamic activities, exemplified, they believe, by the Prophet (sunnah), and they call these practices “rituals”. According to them, the Islamic community has strayed from the sunnah. Such a tendency can be seen clearly, for example, among the Darul Arqam and Jama'ah Tabligh movements. They wear a special type of clothing, wear beards and moustaches, have special ways of eating and other behaviour, which they believe are sunnah.

The mystics emphasise the mystical aspects of Islam. They seem to be unsatisfied with those Islamic organisations and movements that are devoid of the mystical aspects of Islam. They began to involve themselves in various tariqat (Islamic mysticism) orders. In the Bandung pesantren Bengkel Ahlak Darut Tauhid (see Appendix E), about four thousand people, mostly students each week, attend sermons which always finish with a kind of “collective confession” during which all attending cry. An informant said that through this kind of sermon “I experienced the pleasure of crying”. As in tariqat orders santri are also introduced to a package of dzikir (recitation).

The third category are the radicals including those who wish to change, revolutionarily and immediately, the existing system including the government into an Islamic system. According to this group, the world is divided into two sides: the Islamic (God's system) and the non-Islamic (thaguth or jahiliyah).^[21] These two sides, in their view, cannot accommodate one another. Furthermore, they view every aspect of life from this radical ‘black or white’ perspective. Since the present system is non-Islamic, it should be changed as soon as possible. Within this category, there are usually imam (leaders), who take their followers' oaths (membaiah). Included in this category of radicals are the Young Darul Islam movements, and Islamic youth movements which are genealogically related to the Darul Islam movement.

The philanthropists stress the social aspects of Islam. In their view, Islam should help and assist people who are poor, who have suffered and who are oppressed. For them, freeing peple from their suffering means applying Islam to other people. Such a tendency derives from their dissatisfaction with other Islamic organisations which neglect the social aspects of Islam. Their activities are directed toward helping people in rural areas, or in the slums of urban areas. Their activities include teaching children who do not go to school, helping at orphanages, being readers for the blind and other social actions.

‘Fun-seekers’ represent a new trend among young Muslim activists. They are more interested in fun activities but their actions are still inspired by Islamic teachings. This tendency, I believe, is a response to other Islamic groups and activities, which they view as too strict and rigid to accommodate those of an elite and Westernised younger generation. This young elite Westernised group has found psychological and social difficulties in involving themselves in many existing Islamic activities. Besides ordinary religious sermons, they often hold glamorous activities, such as big artistic performances, concerts, dances and other big events. One channel of development for this category is through various radio stations. In Bandung, one of the favourite stations is the Ardan radio station, and in Jakarta Prambors Rasisonia radio station (Tempo 29:4:1994).

The intellectuals can be divided into three sub-categories: philosophers, pseudo-scientists and Islamic-experts (tafaquh fial-din). The first includes those who focus on Islamic philosophy in particular and philosophy in general. They try to revitalise Islamic philosophy through various study centers and Islamic higher education. The pseudo-scientists are Muslim activists who try to seek scientific explanations of Islamic teachings. They argue that Islam, and the Qur'an in particular, are scientific, and the true Islam, for them, should be scientific Islam (Islam yang ilmiah). The last category of Islamic experts is more interested in Islamic knowledge in general and Islamic law in particular. This tendency can be seen clearly in the emergence of various Pesantren Mahasiswa (University student pesantren), which like ordinary pesantren, teach their santris (students) Islamic knowledge. In Bandung, there are at least two Pesantren Mahasiswa, namely Miftahul Khair (Key of Goodness) and Fi Zhilal al Quran (In the Shade of the Qur'an).^[22] Similar types of pesantren have also been established in other cities such as Bogor and Yogyakarta.

Compared to activism, intellectualism tendency seems to have a much better future. First of all -unless there are dramatic political changes- a more stable social and political climate will give a greater possibility to the development of this trend, and at the same time militate against the development of activism, especially the radical one. Activism can easily develop in a situation where ideological conflicts frequently occur, or in a time of political turmoil. Second, the next period of Islam, as Kuntowijoyo (1985:71–7) points out, will be a period of “ideas and science” in which the Islamic community, including young people, become more enlightened. This is a period when modern communication technology will give Muslims a wider access to information, including information about the Islamic ummat in other parts of the world and about the diverse views of Islam.

 The emergence of these idiosyncratic categories of Islamic youth movements shows that in conjunction with the social, political and cultural changes in Indonesia, Islamic resurgence movements among young people also change. In response to resistance and criticism from the community, they modify their original teachings and doctrines by adding, emphasising, playing down and eliminating certain aspects of their own movement. Because each movement has responded differently, there is greater variation in the emphases of the movements. Some of these categories already existed before, but they developed and spread more widely in the 1990s, when they gained more followers than before. The influence and popularity of some other categories declined.

This stage, borrowing Weber's term (1947:358–373), is the routinisation of charisma, a phase in which charismatic ideals and practices are transformed -either traditionalised or rationalised, or a combination of both- into a “permanent routine structure.” In Weber's view this transformation is based on “(1) the ideal and also the material interests of the followers in the continuation and the continual reactivation of the community; (2) the still stronger ideal and also stronger material interest of the charismatic leader in continuing their relationship.” Similar to Weber, Anthony F. C. Wallace (1979:427) named this stage as the routinisation stage in which effective actions and programs of the movement in “nonritual spheres [reduced] stress-generating situations, … [and] established as normal economic, social, and political institutions and customs.”