Kesenian Bernuansa Islam Suku Melayu Minangkabau

This paper is an in-depth study of Islamic nuance arts and their development of Minangkabau Malay in Western Sumatra focusing on the berzanji, dikia rabano, salawat dulang, and indang as they characterized the Islamic arts of the community. Data were collected entirely from field observations and intensive interviews with the professional performers and general public who supportthose art genres in a period of study about two weeks, from June 3 to June 19 2010 in several negeri (villages) in Western Sumatra Province. We found that at their initial stage, those Islamic art genres were rooted from the surau. In fact, they are still in these days identical with the surau. The heart and soul of these arts were the practice of Syattariyah tarekat among their community. Thesearts have undergone development together with the community’s sociocultural development. Since the end of 19th century, with the enhancement “adat bersendi syarak, syarak bersendi kitabullah,” the had come into being new version of these arts in the form of folk-arts. Then, with dramatic development in economic, political, education and sociocultural of the community that coincided with the introduction Orde Baru (since 1960s and 1970s), the has come into anothernew version in the form of popular-culture. At present, while the original version which is identical to surau still intact, there are two new versions, that are those Islamic nuance with the elements/influences of folk-culture and popular-culture respectively. We found that although there are changes but all the Islamic art versions still strongly hold the conservative and Islamic elements. It is of these elements that incorprate as the core of Islamic arts dynamism in WesternSumatera.