Mukh Imron Ali Mahmudi

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From Social Media to the Streets: The Baalawi Lineage Debate and the Shifting Authority of Sufi Leaders in Indonesia

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In recent years, Indonesian social media has become a battleground over the religious authority of Sufi leaders. A prominent polemic initially concerns the Baalawi, or Habaib—Muslims of Hadhrami descent who claim lineage from the Prophet Muhammad. On platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, this claim has been increasingly challenged, turning questions of genealogy into debates marked by hate speech, racial sentiment, and everyday online banter. This article examines how the controversy circulates across digital platforms and how it reshapes authority within Indonesian Sufi orders. Drawing on digital ethnography that combines online observation with offline fieldwork and interviews with young Sufi students, the study shows that social media not only amplifies theological disputes but also spills into offline life, fueling physical confrontations among Islamic students and culminating in the removal of a Sufi leader who held power for 23 years in the largest Sufi order organization in Indonesia. By tracing this entanglement between digital polemics and offline conflict, the article argues that social media is transforming both the fragility of religious authority and the lived experience of Muslims in contemporary Indonesia.