Islamic Tradition and Politics: The Kijaji and the Alim

Binder, Leonard. 1960. "Islamic Tradition and Politics: The Kijaji and the Alim". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 2 (2): 250-256.

"Unity and variety" in the Islamic cultural tradition has recently been made the centralizing theme of a number of essays by eminent orientalists in a volume edited by Professor von Grunebaum. Another important recent book by Professor W. C. Smith has a similar theme, though it is more concerned with the contemporary adjustment of Islam to new political and social conditions in a number of Muslim countries. Social scientists, however, as opposed to orientalists, have tended to disregard the unifying aspects of classical Islam and have concentrated upon the particular variety of Islam practiced in a particular place or that practiced by a particular group of people. Perhaps the only social area where both "unity" and "variety" are brought close enough for examination by the social scientist is in the study of the organization, the social and political role, and the ideology of the recognized learned man of Islam: the alim, mullah, akhund, or kijaji.

From Mr. Geertz's article we are left to infer that the religious ideology of the kijaji does not differ from that of the ulama of the Middle East and Pakistan. On the other hand we are told that the pesantren owes more to the Buddhist monastery-schools which preceded it than to the Middle Eastern madrassa. The point here is not so much that the principles of Islam cannot be communicated through a variety of institutions, but that the organization of the ulama, the means by which purity of doctrine is maintained, and the pattern of attitudes acquired by the alim are all closely related to the long established madrassa pattern. Mr. Geertz does not tell us how and where the kijaji was himself educated, and he seems to indicate that until the Nahdat al-Ulama was founded they were totally disorganized. The pesantren itself, despite its importance in the village where it is located, does not seem to be a center for the training of kijajis. The pesantren does not train ulama, it rather helps in the creation of a class of peasants and petty traders who are distinguished from their fellows by their greater piety and learning. It also seems that these santris are the major social and political support of the kijajis, though one has the feeling that those who donate land and money to the pesantren must have some claims upon the kijaji.