148 Islam and Modernity
but their ritual roles, attempted to reformulate and systematise Alevi teachings.
The urban voluntary associations, which had initially been political or cultural,
assumed religious roles as well and organised cem rituals, adapting the traditions
of closed village communities to the needs of heterogeneous urban congrega-
tions for expressing a common, national Alevi identity. Rather than simply
fading away, Alevism self-consciously presented itself as an alternative form of
Islam, standing beside and remaining separate from the Sunni mainstream.^26
Javanese syncretism
In the entirely different context of South East Asia, similar but even more
complex developments took place. In the mid-twentieth century, perhaps a
majority of the Muslims adhered to various forms of syncretism, which have,
since Clifford Geertz’s infl uential study (1960), come to be generally referred
to as abangan. The division of Javanese society into syncretists and scripturalist
Muslims (called santri by Geertz and putihan in the earlier literature) was exacer-
bated by the political polarisation of early independent Indonesia but found its
origins in the nineteenth century, as a recent study by Merle Ricklefs (2007) has
documented.
Javanese spiritual teachers typically taught eclectic combinations of esoteric
metaphysical doctrines, meditation techniques and magic. Sufi ideas, especially
of the wahdat al-wujud kind, and Sufi prayers and spiritual techniques were readily
borrowed, adapted and put to new uses by such teachers, along with older indig-
enous, Indic and Chinese traditions. There was, prior to the nineteenth century,
no sharp dividing line between Sufi masters and syncretistic mystical teachers,
and the Islamic content of the teachings gradually increased over the centuries.
From the late nineteenth century onwards, however, many of these teachers
took a negative attitude towards scripturalist Islam, some distancing themselves
from Islam altogether, others claiming that their own teachings rather than
those of the Muslim reformists represented ‘true Islam’. In the early twentieth
century, several groups of disciples around a master became institutionalised
and transformed into organised esoteric (kebatinan) movements, with formalised
and systematised teachings, standardised ritual practices and a formal board.
Some kebatinan movements have their own sacred scripture, received by the
founding master during meditation.
Kebatinan, at least as it developed in some of the mystical movements, thus
came to represent a scripturalised, ‘high’ form of abangan religiosity, deliberately
presented as an alternative to ‘high’ Islam. During the years when they appeared
to enjoy political support, the kebatinan movements consolidated themselves and
attracted large followings. In the late twentieth century, however, the political
balance turned against them and they were marginalised. Scripturalist Islam
gained the ascendancy, politically as well as demographically, but within the
Islamic spectrum the ‘orthodox’ Sufi orders were spectacularly successful.^27