Winning the Battle of Authorities: The Muslim Disputes Over the Covid-19 Pandemic Plague in Contemporary Indonesia

Scholarly works on the way Indonesian Muslims perceive and respond to a pandemic—including Covid-19—have left an untouched theoretical gap. Works on pandemics or plagues mostly consist of sporadic and preliminary brief reflective pieces. This article endeavors to fill the academic gap concerning this theme. This article seeks to portray the dynamics of the religious disputes among Indonesian Muslims about the Covid-19 pandemic that affects the entire world. Using a qualitative method of analysis based on data derived from various sources - such as social and non-social media like newspapers and such - the paper argues that the public sphere serves as an open stage to contest ideas among society members where ideas based on sacred and scientific texts are publicly tested. While the majority of Muslims comply with the official disease prevention protocol, others resist it on the grounds that the protocol might undermine the spirit of Islam and the quality of the faith. Their resistance to some degree indicates the dominance of the deductive paradigm that religious authority is endangered in the public sphere.