Feillard, Andree. 2011. The constrained place of local tradition: the discourse of Indonesian Traditionalist ulama in the 1930s. In Michel Picard and Rémy Madinier (eds.). The politics of religion in Indonesia: syncretism, orthodoxy, and religious contention in Java and Bali. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.pp. 48-70.
The passage from Hinduism to Islam in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is commonly presented in Indonesian chronicles as having been the result of a smooth process, underlining continuity and compatibility rather than rupture and confrontation. This is also the way Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama, relates Java’s Islamization...
The ‘wisdom’ of the saints (wali) reputed to have Islamized Java in the sixteenth century was their ability to adapt to the feelings and ways of life of the people. This may have been, Aboebakar suggests, a ‘tactic’ not to frighten the Hindu rulers and their people. This questioning of the wali’s ultimate intention is quite interesting: if such is the case, could today’s ulama not ask how much accommodation they should still allow, four centuries later, after Islamization has progressed significantly?
One thing, however, is often forgotten: both Reformists and Traditionalists see Islamic law as binding and both hold as ‘blameworthy’ associationism (shirk), i.e. wrongly giving to others than God faculties which only belong to God. Concretely, incense for offerings, Javanese keris, and parts of gamelan, for example, are among the forbidden items found in pre-Islamic rituals. It is the degree of preoccupation and the effort towards purification which vary, the Traditionalists being generally more accommodative than the Reformists to local traditions, in particular toward the saints cult which was partly Islamized (Chambert-Loir and Guillot 1995: 244).
How accommodative the Javanese ulama (kiai) were is difficult to ascertain because of so many variations. Tensions have been described that reveal a complex trilateral relationship between Javanism, Reformist and Traditionalist Islam.
The prominent historian also notes a decrease in tolerance towards Javanism in the twentieth century, and in particular since independence in 1945.5 The events triggering this decrease, he writes, were mainly the Madiun affair of 1948, the political competition exacerbated by the 1955 elections, and the 1965 communist divide.
For the period of the New Order, Hefner has revealed the Nahdlatul Ulama’s strongly oppositional relationship to Javanist Islam in the region of Pasuruan, East Java (Hefner 1987: 533–7; 1990: 197). In the months following September 1965, many Javanists were killed by Muslim youth groups from NU strongholds.6 Guardian spirits (danyan) cults were attacked, pressures increased on Javanists, regarded as heathens, and dakwah (predication) activities focused on countering adat custom, as part of a rather successful Islamization programme with the support of some local authorities (Hefner 1987: 544–6).
Later, in the late 1980s, a Traditionalist current of thought emerged, calling for a return to indigenous culture (pribumisasi), arguing in favour of maintaining Javanese rather than Middle Eastern aesthetics. For example, maintaining a Javanese aesthetic in mosque architecture and using the national Indonesian language in day-to-day greetings instead of Arabic, thus countering the so-called trend of ‘Arabization’ (Arabisasi) (Feillard 1995: 200–3, 280). The Reformist-minded Muhammadiyah followed suit in the 1990s, albeit more timidly (Mulkan 2000; Thoyibi et al. 2003; Zakiyuddin and Jinan 2003).
Many questions remain as to the relationship between Traditionalist/orthodox ulama and Javanist tradition before independence, although it seems that Islam had already progressed by then in Javanist areas, to the NU’s advantage (Hefner 1990: 196–7). If indeed there was, as Ricklefs suggests, an ‘absorption’ of established kiai and zealous haji in the mid-1950s, when did this movement start? Can we trace back this growing divide between Traditionalists and Javanists exposed clearly after 1948, 1955 and 1965? This
question is essential in comprehending today’s ‘pribumisasi’ current of thought: is it a natural child of NU’s earlier ‘accommodative stance on Javanism’?
This chapter sheds some new light on this delicate question by examining the ulama’s stance on local pre-Islamic tradition in the 1930s, in reports in one of Nahdlatul Ulama’s official publications, the bi-monthly Berita Nahdlatoel Oelama (BNO, ‘News of the Nahdlatul Ulama’). Reading the BNO for the period of June 1936 to January 1939, it appears that besides the Reformist movement, the Reformist movement, the Nahdlatul Ulama also contributed to a normalization of the religious order.
The passage from Hinduism to Islam in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is commonly presented in Indonesian chronicles as having been the result of a smooth process, underlining continuity and compatibility rather than rupture and confrontation. This is also the way Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama, relates Java’s Islamization...
The ‘wisdom’ of the saints (wali) reputed to have Islamized Java in the sixteenth century was their ability to adapt to the feelings and ways of life of the people. This may have been, Aboebakar suggests, a ‘tactic’ not to frighten the Hindu rulers and their people. This questioning of the wali’s ultimate intention is quite interesting: if such is the case, could today’s ulama not ask how much accommodation they should still allow, four centuries later, after Islamization has progressed significantly?
One thing, however, is often forgotten: both Reformists and Traditionalists see Islamic law as binding and both hold as ‘blameworthy’ associationism (shirk), i.e. wrongly giving to others than God faculties which only belong to God. Concretely, incense for offerings, Javanese keris, and parts of gamelan, for example, are among the forbidden items found in pre-Islamic rituals. It is the degree of preoccupation and the effort towards purification which vary, the Traditionalists being generally more accommodative than the Reformists to local traditions, in particular toward the saints cult which was partly Islamized (Chambert-Loir and Guillot 1995: 244).
How accommodative the Javanese ulama (kiai) were is difficult to ascertain because of so many variations. Tensions have been described that reveal a complex trilateral relationship between Javanism, Reformist and Traditionalist Islam.
The prominent historian also notes a decrease in tolerance towards Javanism in the twentieth century, and in particular since independence in 1945.5 The events triggering this decrease, he writes, were mainly the Madiun affair of 1948, the political competition exacerbated by the 1955 elections, and the 1965 communist divide.
For the period of the New Order, Hefner has revealed the Nahdlatul Ulama’s strongly oppositional relationship to Javanist Islam in the region of Pasuruan, East Java (Hefner 1987: 533–7; 1990: 197). In the months following September 1965, many Javanists were killed by Muslim youth groups from NU strongholds.6 Guardian spirits (danyan) cults were attacked, pressures increased on Javanists, regarded as heathens, and dakwah (predication) activities focused on countering adat custom, as part of a rather successful Islamization programme with the support of some local authorities (Hefner 1987: 544–6).
Later, in the late 1980s, a Traditionalist current of thought emerged, calling for a return to indigenous culture (pribumisasi), arguing in favour of maintaining Javanese rather than Middle Eastern aesthetics. For example, maintaining a Javanese aesthetic in mosque architecture and using the national Indonesian language in day-to-day greetings instead of Arabic, thus countering the so-called trend of ‘Arabization’ (Arabisasi) (Feillard 1995: 200–3, 280). The Reformist-minded Muhammadiyah followed suit in the 1990s, albeit more timidly (Mulkan 2000; Thoyibi et al. 2003; Zakiyuddin and Jinan 2003).
Many questions remain as to the relationship between Traditionalist/orthodox ulama and Javanist tradition before independence, although it seems that Islam had already progressed by then in Javanist areas, to the NU’s advantage (Hefner 1990: 196–7). If indeed there was, as Ricklefs suggests, an ‘absorption’ of established kiai and zealous haji in the mid-1950s, when did this movement start? Can we trace back this growing divide between Traditionalists and Javanists exposed clearly after 1948, 1955 and 1965? This
question is essential in comprehending today’s ‘pribumisasi’ current of thought: is it a natural child of NU’s earlier ‘accommodative stance on Javanism’?
This chapter sheds some new light on this delicate question by examining the ulama’s stance on local pre-Islamic tradition in the 1930s, in reports in one of Nahdlatul Ulama’s official publications, the bi-monthly Berita Nahdlatoel Oelama (BNO, ‘News of the Nahdlatul Ulama’). Reading the BNO for the period of June 1936 to January 1939, it appears that besides the Reformist movement, the Reformist movement, the Nahdlatul Ulama also contributed to a normalization of the religious order.
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