Part 1 of 2: Syncretism inevitable propagation of Islam

Mirza Tirta Kusuma, Chicago

Java is well known for its combination of a variety of cultural forms and religious beliefs. Indeed, it was once a Hindu-Buddhist land until the mid-16th century, when Islam arrived in the region. Java converted to, or more precisely adopted, Islam quite late. The process started around 1500 by the Christian calendar.

Conversion to Islam has never meant that one has to leave all he formerly believed in and practiced behind. Elements from previous religions remain present in the beliefs and rituals of ordinary people all over the Muslim world.

This is also the case with Javanese Muslims. Indeed, Islam as actually practiced in the local context is often rather different from what we would expect from a study of Islamic scripture. Robert Redfield's distinction between "great" and "little" tradition seems well represented here. The beliefs and practices of Javanese Muslim communities can be designated as folk Islam or popular Islam, to distinguish them from "high Islam", which is scripturalist and sharia-oriented.

In such a situation, in order for Islam to make sense to the Javanese and for the Javanese to grasp the deeper meaning of Islam, it seems that syncretism is inevitable (here I agree with Leonardo Boff, in Church: Charism, and Power, that syncretism is something positive and a normal process). It is an ongoing process of the development of Islamic life, practice, and doctrine. The arrival of Islam in Mecca, not disregarding the Arabic tradition, is an example. It is also said in the Hadiths that when Muadz ibn Jabal went to a new area, the Prophet asked to him: "what would you do if you could not find a reference from the Koran and the Sunna (or Hadiths) for your judgment?" He replied: I will use ijtihad (individual judgement). It can be inferred from the above Hadith that contextualization is a must. Furthermore, there is another saying: al-adah muhakkamah, what is proven by custom (culture) is also proven by sharia.

Syncretism, it should be noted, is viewed negatively by some researchers, and has been rejected by the leaders of some groups and their followers. The idea of syncretism is considered by many today to "pollute" an assumed Islamic "purity." The term itself, according to Rosalind Shaw and Charles Stewart in Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism, The Politics of Religious Synthesis is often taken to imply "inauthenticity" or "contamination" -- the infiltration of a supposedly "pure" tradition by symbols and meanings seen as belonging to other, incompatible traditions. This idea must be rejected; we see that syncretism is to be found de facto in the everyday rituals, beliefs and practices of the majority of Javanese, including the most orthodox group.

Based on the above, this article will concentrate on attempting to explain and analyze the relationship between the Javanese and Islamic aspects of beliefs and rituals in Javanese life, specifically the use of the local language in rituals, and conclude that the syncretism of Javanese and Islamic traditions, and elements from other traditions, does not deviate from the tradition of Islam as a whole, and thus should not be disdained.

This article is grounded theoretically in the affirmation of the basic Javanese characteristic of promoting harmony. For Javanese, such "synthesizing" is the central element of the dominant Javanese ideology. Referring the work of Stewart, Relocating Syncretism in Social Science Discourse, the term syncretism is used to refer to a systematic interrelation of elements from diverse traditions, an ordered response to pluralism and cultural difference. It does not imply a substantial merging of types, with a loss of their separate identities, something that cannot be presumed in the Javanese case.

Syncretism, in this sense, refers to a dynamic, recursive process, a constant factor in cultural reproduction, rather than to a settled outcome. As Stewart suggest, seen in this light it is a concept that directs our attention toward "issues of accommodation, contest, appropriation, indigenization and a host of other dynamic intercultural processes".

Many researchers have tended to regard syncretism with disdain. Influenced by them, most religious leaders in turn regard syncretism as a decadent fusion that pollutes the purity of religious tradition. This perspective fails to acknowledge the fact that there is no religion that is entirely pure or free from syncretism, whether as regards its origin or its subsequent history, as already mentioned above.

Religious syncretism is manifest in almost every aspect of the majority of Javanese rites. It is a product of the historical process of Islamization. In Java, it is widely known that Islam was propagated by nine wali (saint). According to some accounts, one of the nine wali, Sunan Kalijaga, spread Islam in Java by using a syncretic approach. He modified the elements of pre- Islamic culture by introducing Islamic elements into them.

The Koran, in fact, does not help us very much when it comes to Java as this part of the world was not part of the context of early Islam. As some scholars argue, the study of the Koran, as a non-local text, is, however, an essential element of any analysis of Javanese religion for several reasons.

The first is that many Javanese read the Koran, memorize it, and believe that it is the word of God. Possibly, the most important aspect is the fact that non-local texts, including the Koran, served as part the foundations upon which local oral and written traditions are constructed. Non-local texts are interpreted and acted upon. It is through this process of interpretation that the foreign text is localized and incorporated into local cultural and religious knowledge.

With regard to the use of the local vernacular in prayer (salat), we can see how the Javanese have tried to incorporate Islamic tradition into their own tradition. We can also say that the Javanese apply their efforts to understand the Koran in their cultural perspectives. Indeed, there are a number of factors that can influence an individual in his understanding of the Koran.

Sociological, cultural and intellectual circumstances, are significant in determining the forms and substance of interpretation. Thus Islam, as it actually exists, because of "the divergence in contexts", means different things to different people. This interpretable nature of Islam has functioned as the basis of Islamic flexibility.

The writer, an alumni of the Pabelan Muntilan Islamic Boarding School, Magelang, Central Java, is studying for a Ph.D and D. Min at the Divinity School U of Chicagolic Theological Union and the Lutheran School of Technology in Chicago. She can be reached at mirzatk@yahoo.com.