- October 28, 2025
- / Anthropos Institute / Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading: Adat and Islam among the Minangkabau (Indonesia)
Dr. Vinsensius Adi Gunawan SVD
The Minangkabau of the Sumatra’s highland in Indonesia still preserve their matrilineal structures which are closely-knit with the Islamic socio-religious system of Islam.
The article informs about the historic and ethnographic insights, explores the role of males and females, and highlights the significance of adat and Islam in the tradition and under the influence of recent migrations. Adat, in the broadest sense, is what could generally be described as ‘traditional culture’.
The Minangkabau in Indonesia are the largest ethnic group in the world which have preserved the matrilineal structures of their culture to this day but at the same time are considered the most Islamized among the peoples of Indonesia. Although generally men acquire a privileged position in the Islamic socio-religious system, the matrilineal tradition of the Minangkabau culture has been closely linked to Islam for centuries. The Minangkabau themselves are proud of this.
This unique mixture of adat and Islam, and with it the question of the role of women and gender relations, has long been a subject of interest for ethnologists and religious scholars, and has spawned a flood of publications. Adat and Islam in the matrilineal society of the Minangkabau are, incidentally, two realities that rather complement each other than are in total contradiction. Quack recalls the opinion of T. Abdullah who wrote: ‘Islam is complementary to adat, and the synthesis between Islam and adat … is not like the combination of “water and milk” but like “the union of water and oil in milk”’ (Adat and Islam. An Examination of Conflict in Minangkabau. Indonesia 2: 1–24).
The article is divided into five parts. It begins with the history and ethnography of Minangkabau, then describes the roles of women and men and so called “visiting marriages.” The third part deals with adat and Islam, followed by the classification of the Minangkabau population: the population living in the central areas (darek) and the population living in the peripheral areas (rantau). The article concludes with a summary, addressing changes and perspectives on contemporary reality.
This article is one of the unpublished works left by the late Anton Quack SVD († 2009). His research on the intersection of adat and Islam is based on scholarly literature and does not show any significant novelties in relation to contemporary realities among the Minangkabau. Nevertheless, it constitutes an important basis for further analysis, as the described phenomenon occurs exclusively among the Minangkabau.
