Ummah: Between Cosmopolitanism and the Struggle for Recognition

The concept of ummah—often misunderstood and misrepresented in Western discourse—has been framed as a form of transnational Muslim solidarity that challenges the modern nation-state. Within cosmopolitan ethics, scholars such as Kwame Anthony Appiah critique ummah as an exclusionary identity that prioritizes religious and cultural loyalty over universal moral obligations (Appiah, 2007, p. 220). However, such critiques risk flattening the ummah into a monolithic construct, failing to account for its historical evolution and its role as a dynamic site of ethical struggle, particularly for marginalized Muslim communities navigating systems of exclusion.

This research critically engages Appiah’s cosmopolitanism, highlighting its limitations in addressing structural injustice and its failure to recognize the lived experiences of immigrant and racialized communities. While Appiah’s cosmopolitan vision seeks to transcend cultural and religious boundaries, it remains insufficiently attuned to political struggle and the realities of systemic exclusion. Drawing from critiques by scholars such as Chike Jeffers and Cheryl Sterling that emphasize scholarship on racialized religious minorities in the West, this study interrogates the entanglement of cosmopolitan discourse with Eurocentrism and colonial narratives, arguing that dominant cosmopolitan ethics often reinforce the very inequalities they purport to challenge.

In contrast, ummah is neither a rigid ideology nor a static doctrine but a historically contingent and contested concept. Etymologically rooted in notions of communal belonging, its meaning has shifted over time—from early Qur’anic references to its mobilization in anti-colonial and postcolonial contexts. While some modern expressions of ummah emphasize geopolitical solidarity, others—especially among Muslim minority communities—reinterpret it in localized, and pragmatic ways. Scholarships on Muslim diasporic identity, such as the works of Talal Asad, Seyla Benhabib, and Salman Sayyid, has highlighted the dynamic negotiation of Muslim belonging beyond static ideological frames. This study builds on these discussions by situating ummah within the broader discourse of alternative cosmopolitanisms (Walter Mignolo, Chandra Mohanty), decolonial thought, and comparative religious ethics. 
Through a field study at Al-Falah Mosque in Philadelphia, this research examines how Indonesian Muslim immigrants, living as a religious minority in the U.S., redefine ummah as a struggle for recognition—one that is fluid, pragmatic, and non-political—rather than as a fixed theo-ideological and political construct. To this end, I draw on Joel Blecher and Joshua Dubler’s study of Philadelphia’s Salafi community, which explores how Salafis navigate their religious identity in a predominantly secular and often Islamophobic American landscape (Blecher & Dubler, 2016). A key similarity between these groups is their deliberate disengagement from mainstream American political discourses, particularly concerning race and politics.

However, the underlying reasons for this disengagement differ significantly. Philadelphia’s Salafis reject political and racial activism due to their commitment to religious purity and quietism. In contrast, Indonesian Muslims at Al-Falah Mosque distance themselves from these issues because they reject involvement in American culture wars, which, in their view, have both instigated and exacerbated Islamophobic anxieties in the U.S. Another significant difference lies in the sources of their religious teachings. While Salafis in Philadelphia derive their theological orientation from the Arabian Peninsula, emphasizing the purity of Islam, Indonesian Islam—shaped through a syncretic process with Javanese religious traditions beginning in the 13th century—prioritizes harmony, adaptation, and social engagement. This divergence in religious emphasis further informs their respective approaches to identity formation and political participation.

The outcome of this process is a concept of ummah that reflects a nuanced ethical engagement—one that resists both Islamophobic portrayals of militant universalism and liberal attempts to depoliticize Muslim identity. Ummah thus emerges not necessarily as a form of liberation theology but, more importantly, as a praxis of liberation and solidarity—an ethical practice rooted in moral imagination that challenges systemic exclusion while advocating for dignity, religious freedom, and the right to be heard within an often-exclusionary sociopolitical landscape. Rather than being assumed as merely an expression of “Islamic (internal) unity,” ummah is reinterpreted as an Islamic unity oriented toward the liberation of others who are likewise oppressed and marginalized. Ummah thus becomes a unity forged in the recognition of marginalization and oppression.

By centering the lived experiences of Indonesian Muslim immigrants, this study situates ummah within broader comparative religious ethics, particularly as it relates to liberation. It challenges essentialist interpretations of ummah and offers a more complex vision of Muslim identity—one that is deeply situated, ethically responsive, and engaged in the ongoing negotiation of belonging and justice. In doing so, it argues that ummah is not an obstacle to cosmopolitan ethics but rather an alternative cosmopolitanism, grounded in lived struggle rather than elite abstraction. More broadly, it highlights how religiously rooted moral imaginaries serve as sites of liberation, resistance, and ethical creativity in the face of systemic marginalization.