This dissertation examines the contestation of genealogy and identity within the BāʿAlawī community in Indonesia, a Hadhrami Sayyid diaspora that has claimed unbroken genealogical descent from the Prophet Muḥammad since the migration of Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā al-Muhājir to Hadhramaut in the ninth century CE. The study focuses on the dynamics of Ba’ Alawi community in Indonesia in facing a challenge to their authority and identity. The dissertation argues that the challenge was not an isolated academic dispute but the culmination of three simultaneous erosions in the BāʿAlawī authority system. First, the breakdown of the nasab–akhlāq nexus through the commodification of that “Ḥabīb” title in the post-Reformasi religious marketplace. Second, the fragmentation of muwallad identity across three structurally distinct typologies, namely social status preservationist, re-Hadhramisasion, and cultural assimilation, each shaped by a different social and geographic ecology. Third, the fracturing of the historic alliance with Nahdlatul Ulama that culminates the emergence of anti- BāʿAlawī sentiment among Islamic organizations and important figures in Indonesia. Drawing on fieldwork in Jakarta and Ambon, archival and manuscript analysis, and interviews with key figures, the study deploys a theoretical framework integrating some important works that relate to BāʿAlawī in Indonesia. The study concludes that challenge to BāʿAlawī cannot be resolved by genealogical documentation alone, because the crisis it represents is social before it is textual. What is at stake is not only whether a name appears in a fourth-century manuscript but whether the conditions that make a community’s identity claim socially credible, moral exemplarity, institutional integrity, and communal recognition, can be restored. This study contributes to scholarship on Hadhrami diaspora studies, the sociology of religious authority in post-reform of Indonesia, and the epistemology of science of lineage (ʿilm al-nasab).

Keywords: BāʿAlawī, nasab, genealogy, Ḥabīb, Hadhramaut, Indonesian Islam, religious authority, muwallad, Nahdlatul Ulama, ʿilm al-nasab, identity, diaspor

He currently serves as a Lecturer at the Faculty of Shariah, Universitas Perguruan Tinggi Ilmu Qur’an, Jakarta, and Manager of the Cadre Development Division at Pusat Studi Al-Qur’an, Jakarta. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Qur’an and Hadith from Universitas Cadi Ayyad, Marrakech, Morocco, and his Master’s degree in Islamic Thought from Universitas Hassan II Ben’ Msik, Casablanca, Morocco.