136 Islam and Modernity
narrative, for saint-worship and the ‘genealogical conception of sanctity’ as the
core of classical Moroccan Islam.
The transition from these mystical–magical religious styles to a religiosity
focused exclusively on scripture, as advocated by the most prominent spokes-
men for Islam in the twentieth century, is a sea change. Geertz does not seek
an explanation in terms of single causes or stages of social evolution, but he
does mention colonialism, the dominance of the West and the rise of national-
ism as crucial experiences shaping the nature of the shift. In the mid-twentieth
century, it was the charismatic nationalist leaders Sukarno and Muhammad V
who exemplifi ed the traditional religious ethos of their cultures, illuminationism
and genealogical sanctity, respectively. Scripturalism, especially in the form of
‘ideologised’ Islam, had gained importance as an alternative claim to legitimacy
in the encounter with the West as well as with modern (secular) nationalism.
(Geertz speaks of a ‘scripturalist interlude’, suggesting that it will in due time
succumb to further secularisation.)
A major criticism of Geertz is that his description of the classical religious
styles compounds historical fact with later legend and gives a fl awed represen-
tation of ‘traditional’ Islam in both countries, overstating the miraculous and
magical and insuffi ciently recognising the pervasiveness of scriptural learning.
Even in Indonesia, where ascetics and miracle-working holy men abounded
before the arrival of Islam, scriptural Islam has existed alongside the mystical
variants of the faith almost from the beginning, and most of Indonesia’s earliest
great Sufi authors, venerated as saints in retrospect, were also scholars of Islamic
law. Moreover, living saints kept emerging even in circles of traditionalist
scholars well into the twentieth century (Bruinessen 2007). Geertz’s exemplary
marabout, Lyusi, was also a scholar and the author of learned treatises, some of
which are still in print today (Munson 1993). The ecstatic Sufi and the sober
scholar who studied and wrote commentaries on learned texts never were the
polar opposites they have often been made out to be.
In pointing at scripturalism as a modern phenomenon, distinctly different
from the ‘classical religious styles’ of these two societies and perhaps still contrary
to their basic religious orientations but increasingly infl uential, Geertz nonethe-
less made an important point. His use of the term is not entirely consistent
throughout the essay: sometimes it also appears to include at least some of the
traditional ulama, but it refers primarily to those socially and politically involved
Muslim reformists who ‘ideologised’ their religion – that is, those known at the
time as Salafi s in Morocco and Modernists in Indonesia.^11 These people tended
to reject the traditional authority of the ulama, oppose ‘popular’ religious beliefs
and practices and adhere to Islam as an alternative to such secular ideologies as
socialism and liberalism. They were typically the products of modern education,
and mass education was dramatically to increase the number of people who
adopted similar ‘puritan’ religious attitudes.