From One Piece to Qur’anic Ethics: Digital Muslim Readings of Symbolic Protest in Indonesia

Abstract

During Indonesia’s 2025 Independence Day commemorations, the Jolly Roger flag from One Piece moved beyond fandom to become a contested public symbol. This article asks how selected Indonesian Muslim public actors interpreted that controversy through Qur’anic ethical vocabularies. Rather than treating the Qur’an only as recited text or formal exegesis, the study approaches online Muslim commentary as a site of vernacular Qur’anic reception. Using qualitative digital textual analysis, it examines nine purposively selected public texts published in August 2025 by Muslim organizations, Islamic media, and Muslim intellectuals. Coding focused on scriptural references, moral concepts, interpretive operations, civic boundaries, and claims to religious authority. The analysis identifies four recurrent patterns: justice and freedom as moral frames; al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar and bi-l-ḥikma as communicative ethics; civic restraint and respect for national symbols as interpretive boundaries; and competing forms of platformed authority that translate Qur’anic ethics through anime and youth culture. The article proposes vernacular digital Qur’anic reception to describe this hybrid process. These findings extend Living Qur’an studies beyond ritual practice to platformed public moral reasoning in a non-Arabic Muslim society.