392 Part V: Southeast Asia
cessful state, unlike Jesus and Buddha, meant that the Islamic state was norma-
tive, a part of Islam from its very origin. There developed an early emphasis on
the administration of the law, or Sharia, based on the Quran. The benefit of the
Sharia was that wherever Islam spread, converts shared a common law to gov-
ern their lives, even if they had no actual Islamic state to enforce this law. This
law potentially included governance even of commerce. The Quranic admoni-
tion “fill the measure when you measure and weigh with balanced scales” led
to the market inspector, who checked weights and measures, oversaw local
transactions, approved medical practice, and ensured that bazaar folk observed
prayers and fasts (Risso 1995).
In this new, post-Indic, Southeast Asian environment, Islam grew into
something quite different than it had been in its Arab, North African, and Cen-
tral Asian forms. Even though Islam was a universal religion with a common
sacred text and law, it took very different forms as it adapted to cultures as far
apart as Morocco and Indonesia. Clifford Geertz’s classic little book, Islam
Observed (1968), describes the different spiritual climates in the two civiliza-
tions. In Morocco, the Islamic conception of life came to mean activism, mor-
alism, and intense individuality, while in Indonesia Islam’s view of life, newly
planted in Indic soil, emphasized aestheticism, inwardness, and the radical dis-
solution of personality.
The conversion story of Kalidjaga, the culture hero who is said to have
brought Islam to Indonesia, shows more than a touch of Hindu-Buddhist piety.
The spiritual transformation of a debauched thief takes place after decades of
yoga-like meditation beneath a tree, a familiar Indic sort of inner Enlighten-
ment. He then went on to introduce the abangan form of Indonesian Islam, a
complex of ideas and practices that was dominant for over four centuries.
Compared to the Hindu-Buddhist complex, it was simplicity itself; yet com-
pared to the santri form of Islam, which arrived late in the nineteenth century, it
was rich in symbol and rite. Its central event was the slametan, a communal
meal given by Muslim households for all men in the immediate neighborhood.
Almost any event can be the pretext for a slametan: a birth, wedding, funeral,
Islamic holy day, name changing, illness, circumcision. After a formal speech
and Arabic prayer, a meal is quickly eaten, and it’s over. Its purpose is to pro-
tect from spirits that may want to upset us, to seek well-being, and to honor a
host of spirits, animals, gods, ancestors, and other beings not generally a part of
canonical Islam. At the same time it functions to enhance equality and solidar-
ity among the men of the neighborhood, who may or may not be relatives,
friends, or equals in an absolute sense.
In the late nineteenth century Muslims in Indonesia, so undifferentiated
from earlier Indic mysticism and Malay adat (custom), reconnected with Mid-
dle Eastern orthodox Islamic sources. Quranic schools sprang up, devoted to
correct doctrinal understanding of the Divine Law. Islamic reform movements
begun in Egypt and India reached Indonesia. In the early twentieth century a
pilgrim returned from Mecca and founded the Muhammadijah sect—vigorous,