Studies on Islamic religious leaders or kiai in Indonesia (Geertz, 1959a and Horikoshi, 1976) reveal that they have a strategic and central position in their society. The centrality of their position is related to their being educated and wealthy people in their community. As an educated elite, the kiai provide knowledge of Islam to villagers. The pesantren as a traditional Islamic educational institution is an important means through which the transfer of knowledge to each kiai's local society takes place. Through their wealth, on the other hand, the kiai become patrons on whom many villagers depend. The centrality of the kiai's position can be seen in the pattern of patronage, especially as it relates and ties the kiai to his santri or students (see Fox and Dirjosanjoto, 1989).

As an informal Islamic leader, the kiai is a man perceived by villagers to have great worth and charismatic authority. This is because he is a holy man endowed with baraka or blessing. As this type of authority is “outside the realm of the everyday routine and profane sphere” (Weber, 1973:53), the kiai is seen to have exceptional qualities which make his leadership popularly acknowledged. Furthermore, in addition to his personal qualities, the kiai's authority in the eyes of his community and his involvement in a pattern of tight relationships with its members, are shaped by his concern for, and orientation toward, the interests of the umma or Islamic community.

The kiai, because of his position, plays a brokerage role for Muslims to give them an understanding of what is going on at the national level (Geertz, 1959a). Villagers who usually call themselves wong cilik or ordinary people, realise that they are not well equipped with knowledge to understand events at a national level. Their close relationship with the kiai makes him a translator who provides illumination in a religious context and clarifies Indonesian problems in general. The kiai's prominent position has been particularly evident when party politics have been intense, penetrating rural Javanese communities. This is because the kiai is also part of a political elite, a position related to the religious significance of having legitimate power to unify the umma in the face of real and imagined threats from other groups.

Recent studies, however, suggest that changes in regard to the kiai's position in society (Usman, 1991) and their socio-political perspective (Abdullah, 1988 and Bruinessen, forthcoming) require a new approach. The role of the kiai in rural Java, which was previously decisive and charismatic and long encompassed all aspects of village life, is beginning to erode. Usman (1991) in his study of villages in Jombang has illustrated this point by showing that most religious leaders^[1] he studied were less popular in their villages compared to other village elites, such as the village headman or wealthy villagers. The religious leaders were less involved in local government projects to improve village standards. This study also reveals that the kiai have a smaller network, either within their own midst or in relation to other village elites. In many cases, according to Usman, people did not go to religious leaders to discuss matters relating to their worldly lives but, rather, went to bureaucratic officials at the village level.

Although Usman's focus is more general and outside the field in which the kiai traditionally and culturally has been involved, his findings reveal that the leadership of the kiai is in general undergoing change. The inevitable processes of pembangunan or development taking place throughout villages in Java have resulted in a change in the Muslims' broad socio-political situation and perspectives. This has affected Muslim perception in relation to the leadership role of kiai as well.

As a result of the introduction of development programs or modernisation in general, there are three factors which give rise to challenging the leadership role of the kiai. The first is the emergence of a younger santri generation in the pesantren who are modern in character. By modern^[2] I mean they have a greater capacity and a greater freedom to think about and evaluate the kiai's attitude, at least in the domain of politics. Such a change raises a legitimacy problem for the leadership role of the kiai. This is a result of the modernisation program in the pesantren system of education, which is marked by an increase in the number of the schools in its environment. As will be discussed, some modern pesantren in Jombang provide a modern schooling system from primary to tertiary level. The second factor is the increase in the number of educated middle class Muslims in Javanese society. The emergence of younger scholars, both secular and religious among Nahdlatul Ulama^[3] (NU) members has not only made the kiai's position as legitimator competitive, but has also led to his credibility and authority being examined. This situation indicates that in Javanese villages and within NU, people can now go to a variety of agents who provide them with knowledge of Islam and leadership in a more general sense. The third factor is the enlargement of the sphere of operation of the state under the guise of enhancing the quality of Muslim life. The state, among others, became concerned with inequality and involved in matters previously under the kiai's concern. The introduction of birth control has involved the state in the definition of social knowledge about birth, which was traditionally subsumed under the religious domain in which the kiai play an important role.

These factors have not only produced younger Muslims who are critical to the kiai leadership but have also provided an alternative in the existence of other forms of leaderships. The kiai's position and his charismatic leadership is therefore inevitably challenged. It is no accident, for example, that a kiai whom I knew well was accused of being corrupt for taking money from a waqf property (endowment) which he had managed. In this particular case, the kiai's respected position was shaken, not only because he committed a religiously prohibited act, but also simply because of the changes in social norms which dominate social relationships among villagers. This type of accusation had never occurred before because villagers would not have considered it appropriate to criticise a kiai. The same holds true for the case of some santri of the Pesantren Darul Ulum in Jombang who held a demonstration, protesting against their kiai's policy on education in the formal schools of his pesantren. Such instances confirm Usman's findings that the kiai are becoming less influential compared to the government's officers.

Even though the problem faced by the kiai is not new, its intensity and capacity to shake their position are relatively recent. The problem faced by the kiai in Javanese villages is similar to that experienced by religious leaders in other Islamic countries. It has become a general problem encountered by religious leaders throughout the Islamic world. It is also a problem faced by leaders of other religions, since the problem of acceptability, in the sense of how the religion's values and norms are internalised and applied by people in their daily lives, is a problem faced by many religious leaders.

Seen from a more popular perspective, these changes in the kiai's social position and in the Muslim perception of the kiai leadership seem to be taken for granted in the sense that it is a logical result of the intense changes in social structure which have been occurring in Java lately. These changes in social structure have also changed the pattern of kiai leadership since they need to adapt to the changing situation if they want their leadership to be continually accepted by Muslim society.

Despite being influenced by the development of society in general, the leadership of kiai continues to influence the development of Muslim society itself. There are two reasons which sustain this. Firstly, the kiai is traditionally an influential elite in Muslim society. Secondly, the kiai is also a political elite with great influence on the political attitudes of Muslim society. As some kiai from Jombang, where my study took place, also held political leadership at provincial and national levels, the changes brought about through their leadership have a national character. In other words, changes which occurred at the local level are often the result of changes which occurred in the wider society. In the political domain, this matter was more obvious. The acceptance of Pancasila^[4] by the kiai through NU as their ideological base has not only altered political views among kiai at all levels but also Muslim society at its grassroots. Thus, in the political field the change at the grassroots is a reflection of a change in the wider society.

This study tries to look at the leadership of kiai generally by focusing on the cultural and political aspects of their leadership. As the relationship between the kiai and society is governed by norms derived from their understanding of Islam, the changes in their relationship are not only affected by changes at the wider social level, but also by changes in these existing norms. The shift in the latter is very much related to the process of Islamic reinterpretation. As the Javanese attachment to Islam is “the dominant force of their religious belief and rite and by which the character of their social interactions in daily life are shaped” (Woodward, 1989:3), changes in the wider social realm are closely related to the new Javanese understanding of Islam. These changes in the norms and in the wider social structure are crucial. They raise questions about the emergence of a new order, which regulates a new pattern of relationships between the kiai and society or between various segments of Javanese society. This, in turn, involves the recognition by these different groups of their new “social location.”

A general question pertaining to this study is to what extent social change influences the change in Muslim religious belief and understanding, and to what extent this change contributes to change in the wider social and cultural domains. A more specific question relates to the leadership of the kiai in general. How far do these changes influence the pattern of relationships between the kiai and Muslim society? As these changes are assumed to impinge on the norms and values underlying the kiai's relationship with society, a second important question is directed to understanding the political influence of the kiai: to what extent can the kiai influence socio-political action within Muslim society? The study also tries to clarify the problem of the relationship between the kiai and his own colleagues and the kiai with other Muslim groups.