Auditorium of Prof. Dr. Suwito, MA SPs UIN Jakarta, SPs NEWS – The Graduate School (SPs) of UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta held the 1690th Doctoral Promotion Exam in the Auditorium Room of Prof. Dr. Suwito, MA on Wednesday, July 15, 2026 with Rohman promovendus.

Rohman is a student of the Doctoral program in Islamic Studies with a concentration in Religion and Politics. His dissertation is entitled "The Dynamics of Political Islam in Banten 1998-2020: From Islamism to Post-Islamism".

This research is here to unravel the tangled thread of changes in the political Islamic movement in Banten for more than two decades post-Reformasi, especially looking at how the Islamism movement grew, weakened, and finally transformed.

This in-depth study is dissected using a qualitative method through a historical-political inquiry approach sharpened with a political anthropological perspective. To map the reality in the field, Rohman collected comprehensive data through in-depth interviews, observations, document studies, and archival research that tracked the track records of the main actors in Banten.

The focus of this dissertation analysis is focused on the network of political Islamic organizations and actors that once dominated the public space of Banten. Among them are the Hezbollah Front, the Banten Islamic Sharia Implementation Preparatory Committee (P3SIB), Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) Banten, Pamswakarsa, the Tarbiyah Movement/PKS, and the Banten Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

The results of the study revealed that at the beginning of the Reform era, the Islamism movement in Banten had strengthened significantly. This phenomenon is driven by the strong agenda of formalizing Islamic law, mass mobilization in the streets, moral vigilantism, and the support of informal elites, bureaucracy, and the strengthening of local Islamic identity that soared after the establishment of Banten Province.

However, the glory of the radical and formalistic Islamist movement is slowly fading. This weakening is triggered by internal fragmentation in the body of the movement, the consolidation of mainstream Islamic organizations, the increase in the capacity of the state in managing the political space, and the most dominant is the strong grip of the local patronage system.

Interestingly, local patronage in Banten does not only limit the space for Islamist groups. This sociological structure actually acts as a mediator that directs, adjusts, and changes the face of their religious political articulation in order to survive in the dynamics of the local socio-political space.

Rohman argued that the shift towards the post-Islamist era in Banten did not go rigidly and one-way. This phenomenon manifests itself through six unique transformation paths: organizational demobilization, normative reinterpretation of sharia, adaptive repositioning to the world of Islamic education, socio-institutional fragmentation, electoral-institutional moderation, and the metamorphosis of street vigilantism into pragmatic electoral politics.

Through these findings, Rohman's dissertation succeeded in expanding and criticizing the classical theories of Post-Islamism by Asef Bayat (2013) and Olivier Roy (2004) which tend to see this process in a linear and uniform manner. As a new theoretical contribution, Rohman offers the concept of "multi-trajectory Post-Islamism" to explain how fluid the diversity of political Islamic transformations is at the local and subnational levels.

Rohman successfully defended his dissertation under the guidance of Prof. Dr. JM Muslimin, MA, Prof. Dr. Rusli, S.Ag, M.Soc.Sc and Prof. Dr. Khamami, MA, and Prof. Jajang Jahroni, MA, Ph.D, and was tested in front of a board of examiners consisting of Prof. Dr. Zulkifli, MA, Prof. Dr. JM Muslimin, MA, Prof. Dr. Rusli, S.Ag, M.Soc.Sc, Prof. Dr. Khamami, MA, Prof. Dr. Didin Saepudin,  MA, Prof. Jajang Jahroni, MA, Ph.D, Prof. Yanwar Pribadi, SS, MA, Ph.D.

After paying attention to the dissertation writing, the comments of the examiner team and the answers of the promovendus, the examiner team determined that Rohman graduated with the title of Very Satisfactory. Rohman is the 1690th Doctor in the field of Islamic Studies, doctoral program of the Graduate School of UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. (Jay A)