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.