Co-optation of Power in Muslim Communities

Abstract

The collapse of the Al-Khoziny Mosque generated not only physical casualties but also complex socio-religious debates concerning safety, accountability, legitimacy, and religious authority within Indonesian Muslim society. Rather than treating the incident solely as a technical infrastructure failure, this study examines how online media constructed competing narratives surrounding the tragedy and how these narratives reflected processes of power co-optation. In this study, power co-optation refers to the ways dominant actors, including state institutions, religious authorities, and media organizations, shape public interpretation by legitimizing particular explanations while marginalizing alternative perspectives. Using a qualitative thematic discourse analysis approach, the study analyzed thirty-seven online news articles published between September and October 2025 from national and regional media outlets, including Kompas, Tempo, CNN Indonesia, BBC Indonesia, Detik, and Tribunnews. Articles were purposively selected based on their relevance to themes of safety standards, legal accountability, religious legitimacy, and spiritual communication. The findings reveal three dominant discursive patterns. First, safety regulations and technical standards were framed as instruments of institutional authority and governance. Second, the prevalence of negative narratives contributed to the construction of public distrust toward religious institutions. Third, spiritual communication emphasizing destiny functioned both as a coping mechanism and as a symbolic source of legitimacy. The study concludes that the mosque collapse was discursively constructed as a social and political event involving negotiations among religion, state authority, and public accountability. These findings contribute to the sociology of religion and media studies by demonstrating how religious crises become arenas for contesting legitimacy, governance, and symbolic authority.