10 - The Javanization of Islamic Prayer; The Islamization of Javanese Prayer

Summary

The role of Muslim prayer in the corpus of mantras used during the maésa lawung ritual at Krendawahana was a superficial one. It was also a temporary one in as much as eventually (1979+) the highest ranking abdi dalem juru Suranata one would confine himself to Muslim prayers in Muslim settings and no longer attend the offering of sacrifice buffalo meat at Durga's tertre. Constantly changing with each generation, it needs to be envisaged against a much broader historical and geographical backdrop which is what this chapter sketches out. Most of the material presented here comes from Central Java but the earliest witnesses are found on its north coast.

The Javanese were in a way colonized theologically by their way of defending their own traditions. We give examples from over four centuries of how Islamic prayer took root in Javanese soil. Perhaps the real test for the progress of Islamization is the increasing awareness of the content of Islamic doctrine and the differences between the mantras studied above in Chapter 9 and mosque-based prayer.

MUSLIM PRAYER IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY JAVA

When Islamic prayer entered Java, it was subject to Javanese influence. The Javanese are noted for the ease with which they adapt and incorporate foreign beliefs and practices from outside the archipelago. They provide a case study of adoption and adaptation. Syncretism is not the first word which comes to mind in describing Islam. Nonetheless Islamic prayer practice could not have taken root in Javanese soil without some “adaptations” undertaken by the Javanese, with repeated Islamic corrections of these adaptations over the centuries. There was a process of ebb and flow of what was still a marginal orthodoxy.

Examples from old texts are “thin” descriptions and cannot rival the “thickness” of contemporary socio-linguistic analyses. Nor do the citations from these literary witnesses make any pretence at balancing witnesses from all the currents in Javanese Islam, something which would require a full book in itself. We are not seeking to question the extent to which Java has become Muslim. That question should find answers from the mouths of the Javanese themselves, but in any case the massive impact of Islam on Javanese culture is everywhere present.