The quantitative data used in this thesis derives from the survey I conducted in four villages of the three kecamatan. The four villages were deliberately chosen. As the survey aimed to collect data on the political affiliation of Muslims and the role of kiai in influencing Muslim politics, it was conducted in villages in which the influence of kiai and Islam in general is perceived to be great. I chose four villages which are very close to a pesantren but which also represent the two categories of Muslims, that is, devout and less devout Muslims. This choice was made to obtain a variety of Muslim perceptions and viewpoints on kiai leadership and Islamic politics. Three of the villages, that is Cukir, Puton and Peterongan, were under the influence of the Pesantren Tebuireng, Pesantren Cukir and the Pesantren Darul Ulum respectively; and the fourth, Rejoagung, was near the Pesantren Shiddiqiyah. The four villages are under the jurisdiction of the Kecamatan Diwek, Peterongan and Ploso.

Devout villages (or kecamatan) are those in which the Islamic influence on people's life was perceived to be great, while the less devout are those in which Islamic influence was less perceptable. In addition, a devout village (or kecamatan) can be defined as one in which the number of devout Muslims is greater than the less devout, so that Islamic life flourished. How I categorised a village was based on my interview with Islamic figures who gave me a general description of various villages in the three kecamatan. They pointed out that a village, like Cukir in Diwek, was devout because the Muslim practice of Islam is maximal. On the other hand, they called a village as less devout, such as Puton in Diwek, because Muslim's attachment to Islam is minimal. I tried to relate the explanation I received from these Islamic figures to the 1971 general election results in Jombang. I assumed that because of their greater concern with Islam, devout Muslims were more likely to affiliate with the Islamic party than other parties^[11]. The 1971 general election results in Jombang revealed that the average share of votes for the Islamic parties in Jombang as a whole was 43 percent. In the kecamatan which are commonly known^[12] as devout kecamatan more than 50 percent of the share of votes was cast for the Islamic parties, while the share of votes for these parties in less devout districts was less than 30 percent. On this basis, two kecamatan, Diwek and Peterongan, were chosen to represent devout kecamatan and Ploso was chosen to represent a less devout kecamatan. However, this is only a general categorisation. Each district, in fact, contains a variety of villages in terms of religious attachment. For example, Diwek, a devout kecamatan, can contain a village classified as less devout. Of the four villages chosen as my survey sample, I considered two, Cukir in Kecamatan Diwek and Peterongan in Kecamatan Peterongan to represent devout villages. Two other villages, Puton in Kecamatan Diwek and Rejoagung in Kecamatan Ploso, represented the less devout villages.

I tried to survey around 200 respondents spread throughout these four villages. Unfortunately, data from only 182 respondents could be collected: 45 respondents from Cukir, 42 respondents from Puton, 45 respondents from Peterongan and 50 respondents from Rejoagung. These respondents were chosen from sub-village areas which were close to pesantren or to kiai in order to understand the extent of people's attachment to Islam. The respondents were chosen randomly from the list provided by local ‘Ketua RT’ (sub-village heads).