Charisma, Sanad, and the Making of a Local Sufi Order: K.H. Abu Arif Muhammad Achsan and the Diffusion of the Qadiriyya wa Naqshbandiyya in Bogor Regency, 2002–2020

Abstract

This article provisionally reconstructs the role of K.H. Abu Arif Muhammad Achsan (1973–2020) in the diffusion of the Tarekat Qadiriyah wa Naqsyabandiyah (TQN) in Bogor Regency, West Java, between 2002 and 2020. By establishing chronological boundaries as a criterion for source selection and treating unverified retrospective accounts as provisional information, this article draws upon archives, institutional documents, and oral testimonies from family members, senior students, and alumni of the Fajar Dunia Islamic Boarding School (Pondok Pesantren). The study examines accounts of how a pesantren founded on the margins of a spiritually underserved village became a regional node within the TQN Suryalaya network. It argues that the order's expansion in Bogor was not merely a matter of doctrinal transmission but of the development of charismatic religious authority, anchored in a reported sanad to Pangersa Syekh Ahmad Shohibul Wafa Tajul Arifin (Abah Anom) and enacted through everyday practices of hospitality, gradualist da'wah, and disciplined communal dzikir. territorial consolidation by his senior disciple K.H. Suparman in Bogor's rural periphery, and institutional, discourse-oriented expansion by his younger disciple Ustaz Iqbal Mohammad through the Lembaga Dakwah TQN network in Jakarta and among Indonesian students in Cairo. The article situates these provisional interpretations within the historiography of tarekat studies in Indonesia and considers how the Fajar Dunia accounts might suggest that charismatic religious authority, once legitimated through sanad and institutionalized through pesantren structures, can be routinized rather than extinguished by the founder's death.