Kloos suggests that taking responsibility for, and reducing, sinfulness represents ‘a crucial dimension of religious agency in Aceh, namely the role of (self-)perceived moral failure in processes of ethical formation’ (132). This is especially significant, as the implementation of shari’a-compliant laws seems to ‘have failed to achieve their goal of “perfecting” official norms both among individual Muslims and in Acehnese society at large’ (157). Kloos shows how – in a province where laws have been reformulated to comply with Islamic principles – individual Muslims’ trajectories of ethical and moral improvement are mostly grounded in personal reflection and action, unveiling a ‘[r]eligious agency [that] reflects a perception of religious consciousness and associated action that allows for certainty and truth as much as ambivalence, doubt, and imperfection’ (158). I particularly appreciated the presentation and content of the ethnographic materials. The narrative follows the lives of a few selected individuals whom Kloos had come to know well during his fieldwork – as we do too, in turn – and who live in two different locales in and around Banda Aceh – one rural and the other urban. I was less enthralled by the historical analysis, as this is grounded on what, to a historian, seem a too limited selection of sources. However, I would also suggest that this is less an indication of poor research and more evidence of the fact that archival sources dealing with colonial war zones are indeed limited in numbers, breadth and scope. This reality should push historians to think and work ‘out of the archival box’. Overall, Becoming Better Muslims is a fine work that enriches extant scholarship on Islam as an everyday phenomenon of lived religion. Nevertheless, it also distances itself from this subfield by not treating the ‘everyday’ as opposed to, or incompatible with, ‘scriptural’ and ‘normative’ forms of piety, as David Kloos sharply addresses the intersection of these modes of religious performativity.

中文翻译：

---

成为阿拉伯人：马来世界的克里奥尔历史和现代身份认同

Kloos 认为，承担责任并减少罪恶代表了“亚齐宗教机构的一个关键维度，即（自我）感知的道德失败在伦理形成过程中的作用”（132）。这一点尤其重要，因为符合伊斯兰教法的法律的实施似乎“未能实现其在个别穆斯林和整个亚齐社会中“完善”官方规范的目标（157）。Kloos 展示了 - 在一个法律已经重新制定以符合伊斯兰原则的省份 - 个体穆斯林的道德和道德改善轨迹主要基于个人反思和行动，揭示了一个“[r] 宗教机构 [that] 反映了一种看法宗教意识和相关行动，允许确定性和真实性以及矛盾、怀疑、和不完美”（158）。我特别欣赏民族志材料的介绍和内容。故事讲述了一些经过挑选的人的生活，Kloos 在他的田野调查中非常了解这些人——我们也是如此——他们生活在班达亚齐及其周边的两个不同地方——一个是农村，另一个是城市。我对历史分析不那么着迷，因为这是基于对历史学家来说似乎过于有限的资源选择。然而，我也认为这不是研究不足的迹象，而是更多的证据表明处理殖民战区的档案来源在数量、广度和范围上确实有限。这一现实应该促使历史学家“跳出档案框”思考和工作。全面的，成为更好的穆斯林是一部优秀的作品，丰富了关于伊斯兰教作为生活宗教日常现象的现有学术研究。然而，它也通过不将“日常”与“圣经”和“规范”形式的虔诚相对立或不相容来与这个子领域保持距离，因为大卫·克洛斯（David Kloos）尖锐地指出了这些宗教表演模式的交叉点。