Contemporary Indonesian Pesantren Novels:

Articulating Muslim Women Existence and Ideal Male-female

Relationship

Sri Muniroch

and Asni Furaida

Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Jalan Gajayana 50 Malang 65145 Indonesia

Keywords:

Contemporary Indonesian Pesantren Novels, Ideal Male-Female Relationship, Muslim Women, Women

Existence.

Abstract: Gender issues in pesantren literature have become an important topic through which readers of

contemporary Indonesian literature find ideas about Muslim women in Indonesia. Despite various

perspective of gender among Muslim in Indonesia, some pesantren writers offer their specific ideas about

Indonesian Muslim women. This article aims to find out the ideas, especially about Muslim women’s

existence and Muslim male-female ideal relationship the pesantren writers present in their works. In the

perspective of ethical literary criticism, the analysis explores the ethical and moral ideas concerning Muslim

women’s existence and ideal Muslim male-female relationship.

1 INTRODUCTION

Indonesian literature in the first period of twenty

first century recognized a large number of novelists

with pesantren backgrounds. They produced new

creative works, followed by their popularity and

influence on other media, such as film and

television, (Hoesterey and Clark, 2012; Rani, 2012).

The emergence of the large number of novels by

pesantren writers indicates their significance in

Indonesian literature and Muslim society as well.

The factors influencing the emergence of such

novels are the celebration of new freedoms by

Muslims after the suppression of the New Order era,

the emergence of a new Muslim middle class, the

commodification of Islam, and the revival of

religious expression (Hoesterey and Clark, 2012;

Fealy, 2008). Previous studies on pesantren novels

concern with patriarchal Islam, gender, Muslim

identity, popular culture, Islamic literature in general

and traditional Islamic poems (Abdullah,1996;

Candraningrum, 2007; Arimbi, 2009; Arnez, 2009;

Hellwig, 2011;Dewi, 2011;Rani, 2012). The studies

conclude that similar to other Islam-labelled

products (books, films, television programs, and

fashion) pesantren novels are produced for economic

and political reasons. Economically, they are closely

related to consumer capitalism, Islamic culture

industry, cosmopolitan culture and popular taste

(Howell, 2013; Hasan, 2009; Jones, 2010).

Politically, they are linked to the government’s

policy on democratic freedom that gives people

freedom of expression, including religious

expression (Heriyanto 2008; Widodo, 2008).

Gender issues as one of the main concerns of

pesantren novels are also found in the works of three

prolific writers, that is, Habiburrahman El Shirazy,

A. Fuadi, and Abidah El Khalieqy. The three writers

share the same ideas of a worldwide Muslim

community and devotion to Islam as the main

principle of life in their novels, that is, Shirazy’s The

Romance (2010), Fuadi’s Negeri 5 Menara (2009),

and Khalieqy’s Mataraisa (2012). As pesantren

alumni, they also share similar ideas and experience

about pesantren. Pesantren with various values,

including gender relation, can be found along their

stories that each focuses on different themes but

with the same spirit to proselytize Islam among

young Indonesian Muslims who are in the stage of

finding self-identity. In this stage, the need of

knowledge of male-female relationship is of utmost.

Hence, male-female relationship is the most

requested topic and the three writers discuss the

topic specifically among other topics they write. In

The Romance, for example, Habiburrahman El

Shirazy mainly talk about the way man finds good

way to be good and successful person in his life. As

generally in his novels, this novel also tells about

love romance story. The love story is included in the

576

Muniroch, S. and Furaida, A.

Contemporary Indonesian Pesantren Novels: Articulating Muslim Women Existence and Ideal Male-female Relationship.

DOI: 10.5220/0009912105760583

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 576-583

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

pursuit of a good life. Romantic relation between a

man and a woman is still considered important that

determines the happiness of their lives. Along the

story, the value about male-female relationship is

slipped but it still gets important portion among the

love stories.

In this article the discussion of gender issues

focuses on the ethical ideas of the issues. Discussion

of ethical ideas on the life of Muslim women

challenges the thorough explanation of three terms,

that is, ethics, women, and Islam that relate to each

other on the discussion of ethics of gender and

women in Islam. Ethics of gender gives a

perspective on how it is to be women and how it is

to be men ethically and what it is ethical treatment to

women and men. The discussion of women in Islam

relates to how women are viewed in Islam and this

includes the discussion of ethics.

This article aims to explore the ethical ideas

of gender issues presented in the three novels and

specifically focuses on women existence and ideal

male-female relations. It is expected to give some

perspectives about the ethical ideas of gender issues

in pesantren novels and open other perspectives

about the same topics or other topics in the study of

pesantren novels or literature.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Ethics and gender in western tradition is explained

by Parsons (2002) who tries to make relation

between ethics that has long established in the

tradition of western thinking with the notions in

gender theory and gender studies. Parsons defines

ethics as having three features, that is, ethics as a

discourse concerning good that should be learned by

participating in the discourse ourselves, ethics as a

textual field in which our lives follow its thinking,

ethics as a deliberate practice that gives a way to

shape our lives because ethics gives a bridge

between our lives and what is called good. To think

with gender leads to the way of thinking about what

it is to be a woman and what it is to be a man

(Parsons, 2002: 9-17). Gender issues are closely

related to the discussion of ethics in that the issues

challenge almost all dimensions of ethical thinking.

Ethics relate to gender issues in the question of how

the notions of good are defined in the context of men

and women’s reality (Parsons, 2002: 4).

The ethics of gender in the western

perspectives are here related to the view of Islam on

gender issues.Many Muslim scholars have paid

specific attentions on how Islam views gender

issues. One of the prominent discussions is

concerned with the interpretation of an important

verse of the Qur’an describing the relationship

between men and women that is proposed by

Chaudhry (2013). She focuses on the two different

interpretations of the verse (Q 4: 34), that is “Islamic

tradition” interpretation and gender-egalitarian

interpretation. The general interpretation (more

according to pre-colonial Muslim scholars or Islamic

tradition) of the verse into “Men are qawwamun (in

authority) over women, because God has preferred

some other and because they spend of their

wealth….” is interpreted in the perspectives of

egalitarian ethics. The spot of difference between the

Islamic tradition based and modern interpretation to

the verse is on the word qawwamuna that in

traditional interpretation it is interpreted as “having

authority to” while in egalitarian interpretation the

meaning does not suggest authority but equality so

that there is no subjugation of women. Chaudhry

focuses her discussion on the marital violence that is

legitimate based on the Islamic tradition

interpretation. She questions the ethical problems of

the domestic violence and the answer is to bring

egalitarian “that treat men and women with equal

human worth” (Chaudhry, 2013: 8). This also deals

with hermeneutical negotiation that meets its

correspondence to a gender-egalitarian Islam that

find its way to the fact about the compatibility

between Islam and modernity.

Concerning the position of men and women

in Islam, Amina Wadud (1999) criticises the

interpretation of traditional Muslim scholars to the

Qur’an that only uses verse per verse interpretation

from the beginning to the end of the Holy Book.

This kind of interpretation ignores the relation

between a verse to the others, among all the verses

and a verse to the whole meaning of the Qur’an. It is

not a holistic interpretation so that it could miss the

whole meaning of the Holy Book. Similarly, the

method that relates the various ideas, syntactic

structure, themes and the related principles is not

conducted. In this respect, the kind of interpretation

is only partial that the result is questionable. Modern

Muslim scholars inquire the traditional approach to

the interpretation of the position of women in Islam

in relation to men. However, the approach is still

used by most of Muslim scholars at present. Ziba

Mir-Hosseini (1999) in her study reports that one of

the approaches used by Shia religious leaders in Iran

to discuss gender issues is that of traditional

patriarchal interpretation that demonstrates

complementary but unequal relation between men

and women. This approach clearly represents the

traditional approach to the interpretation of the

Qur’an. One of the verses that arises so many

discussions about the position of women and men in

Islam is Q 4: 34.

Contemporary Indonesian Pesantren Novels: Articulating Muslim Women Existence and Ideal Male-female Relationship

577

Related to the context of Indonesian Muslim

women in pesantren, gender equality has obtained its

place in pesantren sphere. Ismah (2016) in her study

finds that the existence of female ulama is identified

as destabilising the male domination. Female ulama

have existed in the history of pesantren but their

authority has not been as strong as male ulama. In

contemporary development the condition has

changed in that the female ulama have now obtained

increasing supports from male ulama to get their

religious, social and cultural, and institutional

authority. In related context, in her study of Muslim

girls and religious authority in a Modernist Islamic

boarding school in Indonesia, Hefner (2016)

concludes that in spite of the decreasing interest of

girls to attend modernist Islamic boarding school

whose aim is to mould the future female leaders

even shows a positive change in that Muslim women

or in this study Muhammadiyah women involve in

broader scope and proceed to the higher ranks of

various social and educational fields. The movement

places women in to the position of higher education

and profession that show the fact about the role of

education as a powerful force for gender change and

their potential roles for transformation.

3 METHODOLOGY

This study is a literary criticism and uses ethical

criticism as the literary theory to analyse the novels.

Ethical criticism is employed to explore the ethical

ideas of women existence and ideal male-female

relationship. Ethical criticism is concerned with the

ethical and moral values of literary works and how

the values affect the readers (Gregory, 2010; Booth,

2005). As a literary criticism it assesses value

systems (Womack, 2002: 106-107). The significance

of ethical criticism has been shown in many studies.

Marshall W. Gregory (2010) shows ethical criticism

can even work to a literary work that does not

apparently show any ethical references. Stephen K.

George (1997) finds out that in spite of bad

experience the character still has responsibility and

moral progress at the end. This insight can only be

done by the application of ethical perspective to

literature. In another study James Phelan (1998)

analyses the ethical perspectives on the choice of the

main character to kill her children rather than let

them return to slavery. The choice is considered

beyond the standard ethical judgement, but it

clarifies that slavery is really an evil, not any more

an abstract evil. Ethical criticism enables critics to

explore such ideas.

4 ANALYSIS

4.1 Women Existence

The female characters in the novels by the

three writers are involved much in gender issues at

different levels. The issues lead to the identification

of women existence because when women fall

victim to the gender issues the result is always the

comparison between men and women and the

question about the existence of women compared to

men. The three novels have female characters with

different background and character.

The main female characters in The Romance

are Zizi and Silvie, young women with different

family backgrounds but a similar interest in Islamic

teaching and its application in everyday life. Zizi is a

daughter of a Kiai or Muslim scholar and pesantren

owner. She is a hafidhah or a woman who

memorizes the Qur’an and studies Islamic teachings

seriously in a pesantren since she was a child. Silvie

is a daughter of a rich businessman, a university

student and very fashionable but religious. The

choice of these two different characters is not

without any reason. The two women are involved in

romantic relationships with the same man, but at the

end of the story Sivie is killed in an accident. It

seems that the writer gives his preference to a

woman with a very religious background while also

givingrespect to the woman with non-specific

religious background but very religious. Although

the writer never directly talks about the existence of

women in the novel, through the main female

characters, the existence of women can be identified

from the novel. His idea on this matter can be

explored from the way he presents his female

characters, the way they build relation with the male

characters, and how the male characters treat them

as women.

In The Romance the writer presents the

female characters as bright and respected. As a

daughter of a Kiai and a hafidhah, Zizi has a very

high position as a woman in Muslim society.

Similarly, as a daughter of a respectable

businessman, a university student, and having good

religious knowledge, Silvie is also considered as

having high position. Both main female characters in

the novel are presented in a socially good position

and are described as ideal women to whom the male

characters idolize. Their relation with the male

characters is in equal position. Zizi, in spite of a

woman coming from a pesantren family she can

express her ideas freely among the men of the family

members. She also builds an equal relationship with

other male characters or even the other male

characters put her in a higher place than their own

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

578

due to her position as the daughter of a Kiai. The

members of pesantren owner family have privileges

and honour from the society. In the relation between

man and woman, Zizi places herself as equal to

them, even in personal matters, such as marriage

proposal. It is actually rare in Indonesian people in

general, except in certain ethnics that women

propose for marriage but Zizi does it. The writer

does not consider the common custom in Indonesian

society but the Islamic rules in proposing a marriage.

Here, the writer also shows one of the Islamic rules

that are new and not recognized by Indonesian

people in general. This also shows that Islam treats

women and men as equal. They have the same and

equal rights, even in a very personal matter, such as

marriage proposal. The male characters and also the

other characters treat Zizi as a respected woman.

They listen to her and respect her. Correspondingly,

Silvieis also presented as a respected woman. Even

she has been treated badly by one of the male

characters, it is not because she is not respected but

the male character, Burhan, is actually a bad guy.

Silvie is Syamsul’s, the main male character, fiancée

who is finally dead because of an accident. The

accident leads to the engagement between Syamsul

and Zizi. The two women become models of good

women in Muslim society. Both of them represent

women from completely different background but

the same interest in Islam. They are the

representation of Muslim women in current

Indonesian Muslim society. Not only Zizi and Silvie,

but also all other female characters are treated

respectfully. None of them get bad treatment from

male characters. This shows that women described

in The Romance have equal rights and are respected

as men.

In Negeri 5 Menara Alif’s mother and Ustad

Khalid’s wife and daughter, Sarah, represent female

characters. Fuadi represents female characters that

also play important roles in the development of the

novel. Alif’s mother, Amak, is a very strong and

tough woman. For Alif, she is the best model of

woman. Compared to his father, Amak has stronger

power that finally makes Alif goes to pesantren.

With the background of Minangkabau culture that is

not patriarchal but matriarchal, Amak’s role in the

family is very significant. However, there is no sign

that the father’s role is not respected. The writer who

is also the narrator of the novel, describes Amak as

not only strong but also with all character that

supports her strength. She is discipline, self-reliant,

determined and decisive. Supported by the cultural

privilege as a Minangkabau woman who holds the

power of the family line, Amak is an innate strong

woman. The cultural privilege only supports because

personally Amak is a woman with strong character

who has great concern with the development of the

people, not only her family but also her community

and human in general. Such concern is represented

in all aspects of her life, as a member of a big

family, a mother, a wife, a teacher, a colleague, and

a member of society. She is concerned with the

character building and moral development of her

children, her family, her students, her colleagues,

and even her superordinates. She is a very brave

woman. Concerning with character and morality, she

has no accuse if immorality happens around her. It

starts from her strong personality that enables her to

do something that not many people have courage to

do that, which is, challenging whoever doing

something immoral, even her colleagues and her

superordinates. In a condition where people choose

to save themselves more than refining the condition

that may cause negative impacts personally, Amak

chooses to be in front of them to refine the

condition. She does not care who does that and she

is not afraid of any consequences that may be

harmful for her personally. But instead of getting the

consequences, Amak can motivate other people to

do the same, refining the condition and their

morality. For her family and her children Amak is a

model they use as a patron of doing good things in

their lives. Amak motivates Alif very much.

Whenever he loses his spirit of study, he remembers

Amak’s strong spirit in facing her life. Other female

characters, Ustad Khalid’s wife and daughter

represent women in pesantren environment. They

have only small role in the novel but significantly

present the writer’s presentation of women. As a

wife and daughter of an Ustad in pesantren, they do

the roles perfectly. They do not much involve in the

pesantren business but give big support for their

husband and father to be great ustad with total

dedication, ignoring their worldly needs to be

successful in general image. For Ustad Khalid,

dedication to the pesantren is a life choice, it is his

dedication to education and Islam. Without

considering his economic success, he devotes his

knowledge and energy to pesantren. His wife and

daughter fully support his choice. The support is

very valuable for Ustad Khalid to dedicate himself

to pesantren. Women’s roles in supporting men’s

career are considered very important and they must

support to each other. The description shows us that

women and men in this novel exist side by side in

complete harmony. Amak is a teacher and Ustad

Khalid’s wife is a housewife. Both of them play

their roles harmoniously.

Different from the two novels,

Mataraisa

questions and corrects many things about the

existence of women. Mataraisa looks at women

from the eyes of a famous woman writer, Raisa, the

main character of the novel. Her concern with

women inherently appears and integrates with her

Contemporary Indonesian Pesantren Novels: Articulating Muslim Women Existence and Ideal Male-female Relationship

579

personality as a result of long and deep experience

of male-female relationship in her personal life.

Since she was a child she witnesses uneven relation

pattern between her own mother and father. As a

young girl she has realised how man and woman

should relate to each other. Her concern with gender

issues is her innate capacity as a human being and a

woman. Her eyewitness of other women’s bad

experience of gender issues enriches this concern

from time to time. It seems that she was born as a

woman with great concern with her woman fellow’s

condition. As a result, this novel becomes true

portrait of women condition shot by the pure eyes of

a woman with deep and brilliant views of women’s

problem and gender issues.

As a writer, Raisa thinks that her noble duty

is to give enlightenment over the unfair condition for

women. She acknowledges that it is gender issues

that she is familiar with because she is a woman. For

her, it is not related to the label of a feminist, and

more, a liberal feminist. The statement implies that

women will understand their own problems in the

best way. Women can perfectly look into their own

situation. This novel seems a perfect novel to

portrait woman condition since both the writer and

the main character are women.

The representation of women in the novel is

viewed from Islamic perspective. Raisa has

pesantren educational background. As a woman

good in Islamic knowledge, Raisa has ample

capacity to talk about women and their problems in

Islamic perspective. Along the story, she not only

talks about her own problem as a woman, even she

talks more about women’s problem in her society.

She not only discusses the existence of women from

the very basic perspective but also tries to help them

overcome their problems. Her concern with women

includes in her duty of life as a human, a woman,

and a Muslim.

The first thing that Mataraisa questions and

corrects is concerned with the basic creation of

women compared to men. There is a common belief

that women are created from men’s bent rib. This

makes women become subordinate to men because

their function is only to complete men’s existence. A

woman is only a part of a man so that she has no

roles at all except as a complement of men’s

existence. This novel tries to correct that based on

the Qur’an women and men are equally created from

soil through gradual processes. Raisa’s witness of

how her father treats her mother leads her to ask all

the time about the real existence of women

compared to men, including the question about the

creation of human beings. Through Raisa this novel

wants to give appropriate answer for many questions

that have never been answered and still become big

questions for many people. All are basic questions

about the existence of women compared to men.

Another question is about women’s intellectual

capacity. Since a child, Raisa always listens to her

father saying that women’s brain is smaller than

men’s and the quantity of the brain influences the

quality of thinking so that women is considered

having less logical capacity. Raisa cannot accept this

even she is still a child and always refuses when his

father says that her mother is not clever because of

her brain size. Raisa is always so curious about the

truth about the size of women’s brain that finally she

read an article that the size of a cow’s brain is bigger

than a man’s. She is so happy to find the fact and

that she can mock his father to be more stupid than a

cow. One more, this novel tries to correct what

people think in general about women’s capacity of

thinking.

Clarifying the existence of women seems the

main mission of this novel. The creation of men and

women from the same substance, that is, soil, is the

essence of all concepts of the equality between men

and women. God give them distinctions to each of

them. The difference between them does not make

them unequal. They are equal with their own

distinctions, their own excellences by which they

can complete to each other. Women’s excellences

are that they have reproductive organs, they have

honourable positions as the mothers of human

beings, and they are given extraordinary power and

strong mentality. With the excellences women are

truly the mothers of culture and the subjects of

civilization. The excellences require them to access

knowledge to the highest level. The facts of

subordination to women are the results of distortion

to the excellences by some authorities for many

centuries. The facts that women in any situation and

with any background always experience bad and

unequal treatment are undeniable. Raisa in her novel

reveals that not only women from lower class

society experience such bad experience, but those

from upper class society and other milieus with

various background, such as pesantren, Arab culture,

intellectuals, students, artists and those with extreme

religious conception and the others. Raisa is directed

to be for Raisa, her novel is as her efforts to support

the thinking revolution concerning women’s

positions, especially after they reach intellectual and

economic independence and correct interpretation to

the verses of the Qur’an. Raisa always tries to

inseminate her ideas about women’s excellences in

all occasions.

From all of the presentation about women in

the three novels, we can see that the three writers

have no difference in concepts of women existence.

They may present in different ways and different

angles, but they have one similar concept on

women’s excellences.

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

580

The ethics emerges in the novels include the

three dimensions of feminist ethics, that is, ethics of

equality, ethics of difference, and ethics of

liberation. Ethic of equality gives the idea of

goodness in equal relationship among human beings

regardless the gender. Ethics of difference is based

on feminist positive claim to the differences of

women and men. Women and men have natural

differences and distinctive qualities and

characteristics that even can be used to revalue them

as equal or even superior to those of men. Ethics of

liberation involves the notion of goodness in this

ethic is based on the belief that trueness and

goodness are the products of the particular historical

situation, material circumstances and social

conditions in which women and men’s lives are

formed into the roles and activities in order to keep

the good required in the social-economic condition.

The ethics brings a sense of responsibility for

women to shape their own lives and to change the

conditions in which they are living. The expected

result is more humane social relationship for women

and men.

4.2 Ideal Male-female Relationship

The concept of ideal male-female relationship in the

three novels seems refreshed and different from the

old conception of male-female relationship. The

three writers in their own ways present new

conceptions that will open the readers’ minds on

how Muslim men and women should interact and

relate to each other. The three novels seem to

remake and also refine the common concept of

male-female Muslim relationship. The common

concept in general asserts that men are the leaders of

women. This concept denotes that men will have

initiatives of everything and women should follow

men. This concept is redefined in the three novels.

Mataraisa clearly present the redefinition of

male-female relationship. Looking at her parents’

relationship pattern, Raisa learns how women and

men should relate to each other. Her father is typical

old-fashioned Muslim man who holds a belief that

men are superior to women. In relation to his wife he

determines everything and makes his wives only

stay at home and he is responsible to any economic

needs of their households. He believes that women

have no capacity to do something more than those of

domestic affairs. The husband or man in general

determines the relationship pattern between husband

and wife or man and woman. Women have no power

and capacity to determine any affairs, including the

domestic one. In short, women are only subordinates

who have to follow what men want and ask. Women

are only complements and have no important roles

in this world. For Raisa, the relation between her

father and mother gives many lessons and

perspective to redefine the relation pattern between

man and woman. Not only the relation between her

father and mother but also the polygamy in her

father’s households gives perspectives of an ideal

relationship between men and women. Raisa

witnesses how women in polygamist family feel

from the very inside hearts of her two mothers. They

can live peacefully because of their sincerity and

compliance to accept the condition. But the fact that

her mother always fell unhonoured as a woman

because of her father’s treatment cannot be denied.

From the personal experience, Raisa has her ideal

about male and female relationship that she wants to

create in her future and this is what she always

presents in her novels.

For Raisa, ideal male-female relationship lies

on the equality between men and women. Women

and men have the same rights and they are not

superiors and subordinates but equal partners.

Concerning the relation between husbands and

wives, both of them should complete to each other.

A husband and a wife are soul mates that will find a

part of him in her and vice versa a part of her in him.

Nothing is less and nothing is more. If people want

to know a husband, they can see his wife. It means

that a wife is the reflection of her husband and a

husband is also the reflection of his wife. That is in

accordance with a verse in the Qur’an, “Hunna

libasun lakum wa antum libasun lahunna.” If a

husband is bad so is his wife, if a wife is bad so is

her husband. In this context no one can say that men

are superior to women. In Islam the term ‘kufu’

meaning the same level is known in the context of

marriage. A husband to be and the wife to be are in

the same level. That implies that no husband or wife

is in lower level than the other. Marriage in Islam

will not distort women’s dignity. That is what Raisa

worries about before deciding to get married.

Marriage will make women busy with household

chores, childcare and other domestic affairs. Raisa

criticize the facts that some marriages trap women

into domestic affairs. They have no chance to

improve their capacity because they will be busy

with pregnancy, giving birth, caring for the children

while his husband can improve his career. At the

end, women will only be plunged in the corner of the

house without any hope to improve their lives, while

men will enjoy their successful careers. For Raisa,

the goal of marriage that only produces children

cannot be accepted at all. In a marriage women and

men should improve and develop their capacities

and potentials to make better and more qualified

lives, not only for them but also for their next

generation and society in general.

Contemporary Indonesian Pesantren Novels: Articulating Muslim Women Existence and Ideal Male-female Relationship

581

She describes how men can voluntarily feel

and think as equal to women through her ideal man,

Fozan Ibadi. For a long time Raisa has been haunted

with her thought and imagination of how man will

treat woman because of her bad experience of seeing

how her father treatsher mother. Due to this thought,

she cannot decide to accept Fozan Ibadi as her

husband while she actually falls in love with him

and even decides not to get married if she cannot

find a man who can treat woman equally as a man.

The thought and imagination influences her so much

and it is a serious problem for her that she cannot

stop being worried about her husband to be. She

finally decides to accept Fozan Ibadi due to his

promise and her belief that Fozan is the man who

will treat her as a human not as a woman that is

different from man. Raisa can see that Fozan Ibadi is

different from her father and believes that he is the

right man who will respect her and understand about

the equality between man and woman. That is the

ideal man she has imagined.

Fozan Ibadi is an ideal man for Raisa. He is a

typical romantic but serious man. Their relationship

is little bit different compared to Indonesian people

in general. Fozan Ibadi is like an admirer for Raisa.

He not only falls in love with Raisa but also

voluntarily wants to be a person who will do

anything for her. Raisa’s character as a woman is

also different from Indonesian women in general. As

a woman, she is very independent, self-confident,

brilliant, educated, easy-going, and determined. The

character of both of them is compatible and

complete to each other. This creates an equal

relationship that is a requirement for an ideal male-

female relationship.

The ideal male-female relationship also

shows ethics of equality, ethics of difference, and

ethics of liberation. There is no fundamental

difference between women and men. Full humanity

brings about a fundamental equality of human

beings that is grounded in the capacity of human

beings for reasoning and for understanding. The

base of the emphasis on the capacity of reason can

be found in the theological insight. The insight is in

line with feminist idea that the common possession

of reason and moral consciousness refers to the

actual capacities of men and women.

Humans are gendered persons and the

abstraction about universal humanity. This becomes

an ethic concerning the differences between men and

women, the existence of gender differences, and the

importance of social order of roles and relationships

that enable our gendered identities to be manifested.

The notion about the naturalness and the function of

social order that enable differences to grow in

balance and in complementary will be the best for

women and men together.

5 CONCLUSIONS

In spite of different representation, the three

pesantren writers demonstrate somewhat similar

ideas about Muslim women existence and the male-

female relationship. The pesantren novels present

the excellence of Muslim women. They are

described as intellectual, independent, and equal as

men. Their relationship to men shows a new kind of

male-female relationship pattern compared to the

pattern in the previous era. Muslim women and men

have equal right and responsibility even they may

change their position in certain task. Ethical ideas

shown in the analysis include ethics of equality,

ethics of difference, and ethics of liberation.

REFERENCES

Abdullah, Muhammad. ‘Puji-pujian :

tradisilisandalamsastrapesantren’, Warta ATL. Jakarta

:Jurnal ATL, 1996.

Arimbi, DiahAriani.Reading contemporary Indonesian

Muslim women writers: representation, identity and

religion of Muslim women in Indonesian fiction,

Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2009.

Arnez, Monika.'Dakwah by the pen: reading HelvyTiana

Rosa's Bukaviï ', Indonesia and the Malay World, vol.

37, no. 107, 2009, pp. 45-67.

Booth, Wayne C.‘Why ethical criticism can never be

simple’, Style, vol. 32, no. 2, 1998, pp. 351-364.

Candraningrum, Dewi. 'The quest for Islamic identity:

HelvyTiana Rosa's call for universal brotherhood

(Ummah) and the return to total Islam (Kaffah)',

Orientier- ungen, vol. 2, 2007, pp. 101-127.

Chaudhry, Ayesha S. Domestic Violence and the Islamic

Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013

Dewi, Novita. ‘Formation of youth in Indonesian Islamic

chick lit,’ Kata, vol. 13, no. 1, 2011,pp. 134-146.

Fealy, Greg, Hooker, V, & White, S. ‘Indonesia’, in Fealy

G & Hooker V (eds.), Voices of Islam in Southeast

Asia: A contemporary sourcebook, Institute of

Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2006, pp. 39-50.

Fuadi, A. Negeri 5 Menara. Jakarta: Gramedia, 2009.

George, Stephen K. ‘The horror of Bigger Thomas: the

perception of form without face in Richard Wright’s

Native Son’, African American Review, vol. 31, no. 3,

1997, pp. 497-504.

Gregory, Marshall W.‘Redefining ethical criticism’,

Journal of literary theory, vol. 4, no. 2, 2010, pp. 273-

302.

Hasan, Noorhaidi. ‘The making of public Islam: piety,

agency, and commodification on the landscape of the

Indonesian public sphere’, Cont Islam, vol. 3, 2009,

pp. 229-250.

Hassan, Riffat. “Is Islam Help or Hindrance to Women’s

Development?,” in Meulemon J (ed.), Islam in the Era

of Globalization: Muslim attitudes towards modernity

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

582

and identity, RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2002, pp.

189-209.

Hefner, Claire-Marie. “Models of Achievement: Muslim

Girls and Religious Authority in a Modernist Islamic

Boarding School in Indonesia,” Asian Studies Review,

volume 40, 2016 – Issue 4: SPECIAL ISSUE:

Studying Female Islamic Authority: From Top-Down

to Bottom-Up Modes of Certification.

Hellwig, Tineke. ‘Abidah El Khalieqy's novels:

challenging patriarchal Islam.’ Bijdragen tot de Taal-,

Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 167, no. 1, 2011,pp. 16-

30. KITLV, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast

Asian and Caribbean Studies, viewed 5 April 2013,

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/41203119>.

Heriyanto, Ariel.‘Pop culture and competing identities’, in

Heriyanto A (ed.), Popular culture in Indonesia: fluid

identities in post-authoritarian politics, Routledge,

London and New York, 2008,pp. 1-36.

Hoesterey, James B, Clark, M. ‘Film Islami: gender, piety

and pop culture in post-authoritarian Indonesia’, Asian

Studies Review, vol. 36, no. 2, 2012, pp. 207-226.

Howell, Julia Day. ‘‘Calling’ and ‘Training’: Role

Innovation and Religious De-differentiation in

Commercialised Indonesian Islam’, Journal of

Contemporary Religion, vol. 28, no. 3, 2013, pp. 401-

419.

Ismah, Nor. “The New Generation of Women Writers

from the Pesantren Tradition in

Indonesia,”Explorations: a graduate student journal

of Southeast Asian studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 2011, pp.

105-112.

Jones, Carla. ‘Images of desire: creating virtue and value

in an Indonesian Islamic lifestyle magazine’, Journal

of Middle East Women’s Studies, vol 6, no. 3, 2010,

pp. 91-117.

Khalieqy, Abidah El. Mataraisa. Yogyakarta: Araska Pub,

2012.

Mir-Hosseini, Ziba.Islam and Gender: The Religious

Debate in Contemporary Islam. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1999.

Parsons, Susan Frank. The Ethics of Gender.New

Dimensions to Religious Ethics, no 2. Maiden, MA:

Blackwell, 2002.

Phelan, James. ‘Sethe's choice: beloved and the ethics of

reading’, Style, vol. 32, no. 2, 1998, pp. 318-333.

Rani, Mohd. Zariat Abdul. ‘Islam, romance and popular

taste in Indonesia, Indonesia and the Malay World,

vol. 40, no. 116, 2012,pp. 59-73, viewed 6 April 2013,

<http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2011.648998>

Shirazy, Habiburrahman El. The Romance. Semarang:

Ihwah Publishing House, 2010.

Wadud, Amina. Qur’an and Women: Rereading the

Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1999.

Widodo, Amrih. Writing for God: Piety and Consumption

in Popular Islam. Inside Indonesia 93: Aug-Oct 2008,

viewed 10 April 2013,

<http://insideindonesia.org/content/view/1121/29>

Womack, Kenneth.‘Ethical criticism’, in Wolfreys J (ed.),

Introducing Criticism at the 21

Century, Edinburgh

University Press Ltd, Edinburgh, 2002.

Contemporary Indonesian Pesantren Novels: Articulating Muslim Women Existence and Ideal Male-female Relationship

583