Islamic Connections: Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia

4. FROM JEWISH DISCIPLE TO MUSLIM GURU: On Literary and Religious Transformations in Late Nineteenth Century Java

68 4 FROM JEWISH DISCIPLE TO MUSLIM GURU On Literary and Religious Transformations in Late Nineteenth Century Java Ronit Ricci When the shared histories of Muslims residing in South and Southeast Asia as well as the diverse and significant connections among them are considered, two regions stand out as being especially interconnected: Southeast India and the Indonesian Archipelago. The coasts of these regions were part of the Indian Ocean’s commercial network that was permeated by an Islamic ethos; where goods and shared texts and values crossed the seas carried by Muslim merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, and scholars, and where coastal towns, which functioned as important trade centres and ports, developed into major centres of Islamic learning and culture. The Muslims of South India and the Indonesian Archipelago shared a variety of relationships, including a shared set of pilgrimage sites, some of which are still popular today.Trade contacts, especially between Muslims residing along the Coromandel coast and those living along the coasts of Java and Sumatra, flourished, with the Nagore-Aceh route becoming one of the most profitable in the eighteenth-century networks. Similar Islamic educational institutions developed in both regions, a shared madhhab was followed, and intermarriage was not uncommon.1 During the colonial period contacts continued in the form of the employment, deployment and exile of subjects.2 From Jewish Disciple to Muslim Guru 69 Much of the evidence for these contacts comes to us from accounts by travellers such as Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, archeological finds, and local historical and literary sources. If we look to the latter, we find the Archipelago mentioned in early Sanskrit and Tamil works, as well as South Indian Sufi literature.3 India is often mentioned in Javanese and Malay literature as the land “above the winds”. Many similarities exist between the Javanese tales of the wali sanga (the nine “saints” credited with bringing Islam to Java), and of Tamil teachers fulfilling the same mission.4 In this chapter I present and discuss a narrative that features prominently in the literary traditions of Muslims in both South India and the Indonesian Archipelago, known as the Book of One Thousand Questions. My focus here is on its dissemination and transformation in Java. Although it will be shown below that it was embedded within the particularities of Javanese history and culture, it is important to remember that beyond its local dimensions it was also the kind of work that connected South and Southeast Asian Muslims across boundaries of geography and culture and, along with multiple other translocal links, contributed to the sustained religious and intellectual vitality of these important regions of the Muslim world. JAVA IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY Many changes were taking place on Java in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among them were the gradual dismantling of the Cultivation System, the rising number of Javanese embarking on the hajj, the anti-Dutch peasant uprising that began in Banten and spread widely, the budding nationalist movement, and the implementation of new policies in the fields of education, labour, land ownership, and political representation. This chapter addresses yet another change, less well known, but nonetheless intriguing and indicative of larger trends: a shift in a longfamiliar literary corpus which was infused with new meaning at this particular historical moment, reconfigured in a way that placed Javanese Islam at its centre. I examine the literary changes and offer an interpretation that ties them to broader social processes unfolding in Java at the time. I begin with a brief introduction to the literary corpus and its history, before turning to its transformation in the late nineteenth century. THE BOOK OF ONE THOUSAND QUESTIONS The Serat Samud (Book of Samud) is a Javanese translation of a story well known across the Muslim world, usually titled the Book of One Thousand 70 Ronit Ricci Questions. The book depicts a dialogue between the Prophet Muhammad and an important Jewish leader by the name of Abdullah Ibnu Salam in seventh-century Arabia. Versions differ across and within languages, but the basic outline remains quite constant: the Jewish leader, described as wise and revered, receives a letter inviting him to meet with Muhammad. After creating a list of questions based on the scriptures, he, along with seven hundred of his followers, go to Medina where Muhammad awaits them. Ibnu Salam asks his questions, spanning diverse topics which range from ritual to genealogies to theology and...