In Islam, Muslims are ordered to be conscious of the connectedness between themselves and Allah or, as one Achenese Muslim expressed it, of the rope binding themselves with Allah, the rope which neither rots in the rain nor cracks in the sun (Siegel,1969:115). With their consciousness awakened, Muslims can remember Allah, His mercy and His love to themselves and be thankful to Him for their existence. The earthly life of human beings, however, makes it hard for them to be always conscious of this 'rope'. They easily forget that their life does not exist without the mercy of Allah. As media to overcome this state of oblivion, Muslims are enjoined to practise salat five times daily and one month’s fasting in a year. These moments provide them with chances to reflect upon the bond between themselves and Allah and to reaffirm the connectedness between themselves and Allah.

To those who feel that daily salat and the fast are not enough to keep them conscious of this connection and to make their life closer to Allah, Islamic traditions have offered additional options. As the followers of Sufism have done, they can seclude themselves from the mundane life and spend their time meditating on and remembering (dzikir) Allah. In this way, they can Islamise their life, that is, to think and to practise what is related to Islam. Not all Muslims, however, can pursue this way nor are they recommended to. For them, the starting point of Islamising their life is not to isolate themselves from this world but to stick to it.

The efforts of the reformist villagers in Kolojonggo to Islamise their life have followed two lines. On the one hand, they try to increase religious activities. All Islamic days are celebrated and religious meetings are regularly held on ordinary days. As the example of a young reformist villager shows, some of them are involved in a certain religious activity almost every day. On the other hand, they make efforts to increase the junctures in daily life in which their reflexivity as a Muslim can be awakened. This is carried out by replacing non-Islamic perspective on certain social as well as personal affairs with Islamic one. By taking an Islamic perspective, the reformist villagers are given more chances to be conscious of the contrast between the Islamic and the non-Islamic and to prompt themselves to be aware of their thought and behaviour, namely, whether these are congruent to Islam or not. In this way, they do not need to go to isolated places to Islamise their life. They keep their position firmly in the society and try to Islamise their life by transforming their social and personal life into the Islamic one.

In Chapters III and IV, the developmental process of Islam in Kolojonggo and the efforts of the reformist villagers to Islamise their life have been discussed. The following Chapters will be devoted to examining some of the changes which have taken place as Islamic development has accelerated in Kolojonggo. Among these, the focus will be on the relationship between reformist Islam and tradition and between reformist villagers and Christians which have been most fundamentally influenced by the Islamic development.