Introduction

Surakarta is home to more than fifteen dakwah (Ar. da‘wa, Islamic propagation) radio stations with diverse Islamic orientations. These radio stations reflect the diversity of Islamic trends in the region. The significance of their role in religious life is indicated by the enthusiasm of listeners participating in the interactive programmes they broadcast. My aim is to examine the dakwah radio stations in Surakarta (Solo). The discussion will be limited to four stations: MTA FM, RDS FM, Suara Quran FM, and Suara Al-Hidayah FM. They have been selected partly for a practical reason – the accessibility of sources available on these stations – but also because they represent specific Islamic groups and identities. Other dakwah radio stations will be mentioned in passing, in order to make comparisons. I argue that these stations represent the diversity of Islamic trends in a region in which Islamic identity is being contested. Dakwah radio is a contested arena for Islamic identity among Muslim groups in the region.

This study is significant in several ways: first, there have been no studies to date on radio as a medium of Islamic expression in public life. The book New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, edited by Dale Eickelman and Jon Anderson (2003), does not include a specific article on Islamic dakwah radio. Brinkley Messick’s article on Radio Mufti (Messick 1996) explores the intellectual carrier favoured by Muslim preachers in Yemen, who broadcast their fatwas on the radio. Although he emphasises the importance of the radio, Messick pays less attention to how it has played a role in the emergence of new Muslim audiences. In line with the rise of Salafi dakwah in Indonesia, a number of writers have noted the important role of radio as a medium through which Salafi activists can spread their Islamic message to the public (e.g. Hasan 2002; Hefner 2003). However, they do not deal specifically with dakwah radio. Second, among existing types of audio-visual media, radio is relatively neglected compared to television (Abu-Lughod 2004) or the audio cassette (Hirschkind 2006). While the importance of radio in Indonesia's socio-cultural and political life has been the focus of a number of studies, none has paid attention to Islam-based, dakwah radio stations (for instance, Sen & Hill 2000; Jurriëns 2004).