JAKARTA — The sight of tens of thousands of Islamists marching through the Indonesian capital this month, demanding that its Christian governor be jailed for blasphemy — some even calling for his death — brought back recurrent fears of “creeping Islamization” in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, where a more tolerant brand of Islam has been the norm.

But analysts here saw something different: a protest that was really about cutthroat, secular-dominated domestic politics, and an attempt to strike a blow at President Joko Widodo.

“If you look at their posters during the demonstration, there is no mention about banning alcohol, banning gay and lesbian groups, nothing like what they normally protest about,” Azyumardi Azra, a prominent Muslim scholar and former rector of the State Islamic University in Jakarta, said of the Nov. 4 protest, which erupted in violence that left hundreds injured and one dead.

“It’s purely political, and they are using the blasphemy issue as an entry point to challenge Jokowi and pressure him,” Mr. Azra said, referring to President Joko by his popular nickname.