Suluk Abesi

Mrs Himemoto Yumiko was for a long time the official for Indonesia of the Toyota Foundation. She asked me probably in 1985 for a proposal from the IAIN, to be sponsored by her organization. In Yogyakarta from IAIN staff there was the proposal for a study of Suluk literature. Some scholars have deducted the typical Javanese Suluk poetry as influenced by the mystical suluk, popular in the Naqshbandi brotherhood, as a period of fasting and praying, practised in seclusion during forty days. More generally accepted is the theory, that the word suluk does not originate from the Arabic salaka or mystical travel, but from the Sanskrit shloka, the chief metre used in the epic poetry of India. Whatever may have been its origins, this great corpus of Islamic poetry in Javanese, created during the sixteenth until the nineteenth century, experienced a lack of interest in the last century when Malay and later Indonesian became the most important la­nguage. This poetry was `too Islamic' for the few experts in older Javanese literature. So it was neglected by most. It was also seen as  `too  Javanese' for Muslim scholars. So, with the help of the Japanese dollars a project could start in Yogyakarta.

                Because very little was published, the project took a Leiden Manuscript, LOr 7375. Its Javanese script was put in Latin script on the computer and translated by a small team. The ten poems were translated into Indonesian. Then this was dipuitisasikan or put in poetic Indonesian by the well known poet Emha Ainun Najib.

                One of these is the poem Suluk Abesi. It has the riddles of the Abyssinian faqir, a poor black man, who was insulted by a penghulu or qadi of Java, because he had entered a mosque: “You should not sit in front of me, because I never will give my instruction to common people like you...” Thereupon the Abyssinian planned to obey and only wanted to inquire after a few things: “ Where is the shore of the wide ocean? Where is the tablet without any scrip­ture? The Lotus flower outside any pond?.. A lamp without a wick, a green leave without a twig, a mu'azzin without a drum?” The answer to the riddles is always the same: “An ocean without a coast is nothing else then Allah: every being will vanish and merge, be lost in God's essence, the Zatullah...  The lotus flower, that blossoms forever, without standing in a pond, that is the Ruh Idafi. The Most Highest exists without a location ... The lamp, burning without a wick, reflects Allah, existing by Himself: He eradiates out of Himself, without oil, there is no source for his shine. He gleams continuously and illuminates this world. So it is. Everything is God.”

                The last verse of the poem formulates the basic democratic value of the religious education. The wise man shows that there is no social hierarchy valid in the face of God: “And you, my Excellency, you became a penghulu, not by yourself; also the King has no final power: only Allah is the true King, who appointed you to become a qadi. When you leads the prayer, followed by the congregation, it is not you who performs the salat. If you would think so, your prayer would be fraudulent.”

                Kejawen means literally ‘something Javanese’. But it is often used in contrast to pure Islamic belief. Then it has the connotation of ‘Javanese folklore, deviating from pure Islam’. In the mood of a more proud and self-respecting Indonesian Islamic identity or the culture of Islam Nusantara, this word Kejawen perhaps will experience an update. Then it can be the label for a self-respecting distinct Islamic culture.

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