Encounter and dialogue

From Manila I received a link from the Indonesian Jesuit Greg Soetomo. It was related to the review of my book on Catholics in Independent Indonesia, 1945-2010, published in his journal Asia Pacific Mission Studies, vol 2 (2020). This journal is the continuation of the East Asian Pastoral Review. The review was written by Paul Steffen, teaching in Rome at the Urbaniana University.
It was nice to see how Steffen presented the whole structure of the book (as third volume of the history since 1800) in a well written, informative article, with some personal additions.
 Thank you Paul (and Greg).

Greg also published an article in this issue of the journal: Maturing as believers through Interreligious Encounters. He studied Christian theology in various places and countries, but wrote his Ph.D at the Islamic University of Jakarta (UIN Syarif Hidataullah) on the history of Islam by Marshall Hodgson. His mission is not conversion, but maturing belief. Evangelization, proclamation of the Gospel are not the first words he would like to use for his way of life and worldview. In the end he formulates from the document Nostra Aetate (of the Vatican II Council of 1965) three questions: 1) Can structures (Church as religious system) save? 2) Is Muhammad a prophet? 3) Is Qur'an the Divine Word?
Dialogue between religions had in the 1960s the same dynamic as ecumenical dialogue: ultimately with a goal that Christianity should be united in one church organization. Therefore divided Reformed Protestantism started with the World Council of Churches. Finally this institutional unity was not reached and for most more or less religious people nowadays it is no longer an ideal. The churches are human creations and not divine per se. The same can be said for religions: let them focus on encounters where personal belief can grow.
About the Qur'an as Divine Word, Wilfred Cantwell Smith already formulated that this depends on the reader/hearer: when it is used as motivation for hatred, religious crimes and terrorism, it is definitely not functioning as divine word. But when it gives inspiration for good acts, solace in troubles, it can be seen as a divine gift.

Resurrection and hijrah

At the occasion of Easter, my former student Syafaatun al-Mirzanah, now a very active professor of interreligious thinking at the UIN, Universitas Islan Negeri of Yogyakarta, sent me an article publisehd already in 2014 (19 April) in the English language Jakarta Post. It is a column on the meaning of Easter from a Muslim viewpoint. First she refers to differences amongst Christians: followers of Bultmann will not easily receive the story as 'historical event'. She also has a reference to Qor'an 4:158 ('Allah raised him up to himself') that usually is read as such that Jesus straight from the cross was taken to heaven, without dying. In this case Jesus should be 'resurrected' some 36 hours earlier than in the Christian story.

Syafa makes a comparison with the life of Muhammad, who was also rejected by most of his people in Mecca and with a small number of his faithfull Muslims moved to another place, 400 km north, Yathrib, later called Medina, or city of the prophet. About one year after he had to flee from threats in Mecca, moved to Yathrib in the hijra or the migration, Muhammad could stand the attack of people from that place who wanted to kill him in Yahtrib/Medina at the battle of Badr. But there God helped him and he received a military victory. After Easter also Jesus became the Lord of Glory and so Muhammad after the hijra.
This is quite a different interpretation from Snouck Hurgronje who claimed that while moving from Mecca to Medina, Muhammad put off his robe of being a prophet and became a politician (see also the title of the book by Montgomery Watt: Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman).
In the vision of Syafaatun, Muhammad in Medina was a further development of his prophetic role. It was not all smooth and easy, like also in the last chapters of the gospels and the book of Acts of the Apostles we read often about faith and courage, but also doubt and incertainty. But the hijra was the further development and now often in glory.

Saints used to fight fundamentalists

George Quinn is a lecturer of Javanese at ANU, Canberra. 12-13 December last year he was at the farewell seminar of Willem van der mlen and held a nice speech on the modern production of Javanese literature. He was more or less the defender of what seems to be a lost cause: interest for the use of Javanese in public for modern people.
I had already bought his last book on perhaps another lost case: abangan religiosity, especially found nowadays in the places of pilgrimage. Only now I had the opportunity to read the book in full: Bandit Saints of Java, How Java's eccentric Saints are challenging fundamentalist Islam in modern Indonesia (Burrough on the Hill, Leicestershire UK: 2019, 432 pages). The book has an extension of its title on the front page: George Quinn meets the wacky figures from Java's past, whose mysterious tombs have an enduring hold over the Muslims of Indonesia. I bought the book at the Periplus Book Shop in Jakarta, Senayan Plaza.

Quinn is tall, 194 m. and so quite visible amidst the crowds of the pilgrimages centres he loves. The book is an extended Tour of the Wali Songo, the Nine Muslim Saints of about 1500 in Java. It begins with Sunan Bonang and Sunan Kalijaga, ends with the grave of Sunan Bayat. All major figures are discussed: Siti Jenar who died like al-Hallaj, Jumadil Kubra who was perhaps the first. The only lady perhaps is Sharifa Ambami (268), unless we talk about a Puteri Cina. And perhaps no 10 must be Abdurrahman Wahid whose grave is still quite recent. The stories of the official guides at the graves (juru kunci) are mixed with the classical Javanese texts, modern practise in the time of 'religious and spiritual tourism'.
At various places in this book the schism between santre and abangan is discussed. The cultural change in Indonesia after Communism was banned in 1965-6 and more rigorous Islam was seen as a strong vaccin against Communism, and abused as a movement to destroy the validity of abangan Islam. Thousands and thousands of new teachers of religion, educated to promote strict Islam received an increase in hours of teaching and public respects. But according to Quinn this not only ended in the rise of fundamentalist Islam (Madinier and Bruinessen), but the popularity of graves, pilgrimages continued and increased even thanks to more money, the impossibility to go on the hajj (restricted to 200.000 per year and a waiting list of some twenty years!)
The writings about the Wali Songo can be very sophisticated: the Suluk Malang Sumirang (about 1600! On pages 162-8) is a very keen defence of what now is Islam Nusantara, a plea in favour of a distinct Indonesian interpretation of Islam and rejection of privileges for Arabic.
Quinn wrote a challenging, sometimes very funny book, sometimes with direct quotes from his field notes, historic wisdom. One should hope that he is not fighting for a lost cause.