Part 1 of 2: Syncretism inevitable propagation of Islam

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.