Snouck Hurgronje: pilgrim or outsider?

Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) is still by far the best known Dutch scholar of Islam, in general and especially related to Indonesia. Hundreds, probably thousands of publications mention him, but until now there was no proper biography. In 2017 a journalist, popular writer of non-fictions books, has publlished a no too big, but fascinating book on him.

Dröge begins with a very realistic story of the bloody circumcision of the adult Snouck in 1884 in Jeddah, where the local barbar cut about 1 cm. from the skin of his penis as part of the process of becoming a true and formal Muslim. This was required for his entry to the town of Mecca, in January 1885. The period in Jeddah and Mecca cover the first 100 pages of this book after very short information about his adulterious father, his upbringing and study at Leiden University: it is not an academic but a journalistic book and Dröge selected the most interesting and even shocking stories for his book. A biography is a 'life story' and the author has the right to formulate his own image of the personality.

The word pelgrim in the title refers to Snouck's dissertation in Leiden (1880) about the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage. However, due to problems in Mecca, Snouck could not join the hajj of 1885 and so never was a Muslim haji or pilgrim. One should also not conclude that he had a personal pilgrimage in life to God or a religion. In the introduction Dröge has two characteristics of his personality: an obsession, intense quest forknowledge about languages and cultures. Second is his ambition, legendary. But he never was in charge of a group of people. He was president of the Dutch Academy of Sciences, was Rector of Leiden University, but maybe more in a ceremonial sence than as a true administrator: he was an individual, a scholar, not a team worker. Nearly all his 'friends' or comrades were either afraid for his severe judgments or the object of his curiosity.
Dröge criticises him for inconsistency: he promoted good schools for Indonesians like Husein Jayadiningrat, but his children from two spouses lived in Ciamis, not in Batavia and pesantren was good enough for them. A somewhat split personality: close to the natives and Muslims in private contacts, but officially in all respects a colonial administrator.
And in the end: he remained an outsider, a keen observer, not someone who could bring calm or revolutionary changes in society. But definitely a good observer and fantastic writer!

Carool Kersten about the 'longue durée' of Indonesian Islam

In 1983 Ben Boland wrote the preface for the bibliographical survey of Islam in Indonesia, (most of the work was done by Irene Farjon!). Boland commented that there was no great overview of this history: Fragmenta Islamica, only fragments (quoting the title of a book by G.F. Pijper). Since this publication we have seen the article and three books on six centuries of Islamization in Java by Merle Ricklefs. There is Le Carrefour javanais by the late Denys Lombard. In some way Michael Laffan's The Makings of Indonesian Islam looks somewhat like a history of Indonesian Islam. But now we have a surprising thin book (just under 200 pages) by Carool Kersten, covering the theme in five chapters. Clear, based on recent publications and not too detailed.

24 January Carool came to Leiden and gave a talk about recent developments in Indonesian Islam. It was for me a good incentive to read his history book.
Kersten studied Arabic and Middle East developments, then worked with the oil business for nearly 13 years before returning to academic life and concentrating on Indonesia. It is clear in the book that he has good feeling for the international, especially Arab connections of the archipalego. Chapter I is on the arrival of Muslims in Sumatra, chapter II on the conversion of parts of Java to Islam. I noted 'more about from where Islam came than why people embraced Islam?' In fact: our sources do not give much real information. The historical novel by Pramoedya Arus Balik is a fascinating picture of the period, but it is a novel, not the history we want to find in books like this.
Chapter 3 is on the 19th century and concentrates on 'Islam as resistance': the Java War/Diponegoro, the Paderi Wars and Aceh are the major issues here. Kersten gives here ample space to the Malay sources, written by 'Fakih Saghir' Jalaluddin and by Imam Bonjol. For Aceh he does not join the school of Snouck Hurgronje, but has lucid summaries of the findings by James Siegel. Acehnese society is divided in four interest zones: the sultan, the ulebalang, common peasants and the ulama. The first three were connected to the soil, but the ulama were outgoing people. They did not study on their home villages, travelled elsewhere. He quotes Siegel stressing that the ulama were not really interested in a community on earth 'but in Paradise....  It was not until the 1930s that men began to realize a new life in this world was possible' (p. 90).  I must check this with the book by Siegel again, because it sounds somewhat mysterious.
Chapter 4 is about the period 1890-1945 (rise of SI, Muhammadiyah, NU) and chapter 5 about the last 75 years. Also here we find a cosmopolitan Islam: much about the Egyptian sources for Reform in Indonesian Islam.
In his oral presentation he introduced the terminology of watershed years. 1998 as the turn to democratization; 2005 as the conservative turn (the well known serious of fatwa against Ahmadiyyah, pluralism, liberalism; 2015-6 again a turn towards Islam Nusantara and the 16-point statement of NU and ISOMIL, 9-11 May 2016, the International Summit of Moderate Islamic Leaders.  However, 2016 was also the year of street politics, FPI against Ahok. It remains difficult to give clear and simple qualifications for historical developments. This small book will remain a standard work, stgimulating broader perspectives. Thank you, Carool for this.

The little first man of Flores: a Catholic one?

Frank Westerman is a Dutch journalist who worked for some time in Russia and Turkey as a foreign correspondant. In his twenties he studied agricultural biology, had much interest in evolution, any way interest in many things. From 2000 on he publishes books with scientific themes, in a funny way. While reading him you have often have the feeling that he writes about anything interesting he meets, but still he is able to concentrate on a major theme.

His most recent book (in translation We, the humans) is about the quest for the first human being, in case related to the findings in Flores of fossiles of what may have been the link between apes and human beings. The first of these findings were from the 1950s when Catholic missionary Theodor Verhoeven SVD (of the order of the Divine Word) discovered in a cave in West Flores fossile bones of a very small examplar of the homo Floriensis. Unfortunately he should have digged deeper, because only few decades later better examples of the same were found, besides huge mouses, giant bats. Apparently animals could grow bigger, humans in Flores were small, according to modern standards.
Westerman begins his books with reports as 'writer in residence' with students of the Humanities Department of Leiden University, late 2016. His students find data about missionary Verhoeven, who was a well trained teacher of Latin with a PhD on a Latin theological tekst, but also some training in archeology of Pompei, the Italian town covered by a volcanic eruption in about 70 CE.
They visit the SVD museum in Steijl. The excavations in Java by  Dubois are also recalled at large, until in the last chapter many new findings in Georgia are mentioned from the last decade. So, besides the discovery of the fossiles in Flores, many other items enter the book, which sometimes also has more philosophical thinking about the difference between animals and humans and the bad role of religion in negating the theory of evolution.
Westerman also came to Flores to see the site itself. Here in Flores he met the daughter of a Protestant minister who discovered the truth about the 1966 killings of suspected Communists in Sumba. She later married a Catholic man in Flores. She was allowed to marry, but had to observe the initiation rituals, seven days in the adat house of Leko Lembo. But through clever discussion she could also buy off this obligation: a liberal donation of palm wine (236).
Chapters 18 and 19 (or pp. 237-258) are about the killings of 1966 in the Maumere region, finally decribed by Father John Prior SVD. It is the story of an internal fight in the Catholic Party of Flores around late 1950s, how the elite took revenge by giving the label of 'communists' to critical people, how the clergy obeyed and dares not even to give a proper burial to between the 800-2000 who were killed: no digging has been taken place, just only 'covering the whole affair with sand'. In this way Westerman is connecting the story of the 1966 killings with the main theme of the book, the quest for the oldest man on the earth, also in Flores.
There are many themes in this book. One of these is a continuing theme of Westerman: leaving the religion of his youth and becoming an atheist. Another is his surprise about tenacity of religion and even its return. But he did not see a first Catholic some 100.000 years ago in Flores. Not yet.

CMR vol. 12: The 18th century in the Philippines and Indonesia

The great CMR-project on Christian-Muslim Relations has arrived at vol 12, the first (out of plannes three) about the 18th century. The volume has in 912 pages some 150 contributions on Asia, Africa and the Americas. The Middle East, the Arab and the Ottoman countries are included. There are 23 entries about Armenia and Georgia, two Christian countries amidst the Muslim of the Caucasus.
On Southeast Asia we find here 13 contributions. This is less than for the preceding 17th century when there were stories about the arrival of the Dutch, the British and the French in this region.
On the Philippines there are five articles by Isaac Donoso, from the University of Alicante, Spain. He mentions writing by Christians and Muslims in the Sulu Archipelago. One sultan here seeks support from the Ottoman Empire against the Spanish Colonialism. There are internal conflicts: some Spanish Christian want a soft politics and spend money and nice words to try to convert the Muslims to their faith. Sometimes with success. A sultan from Sulu who lost his throne, sought support from Manila and offered to be baptised. (It sounds like Paris vaut bien une messe.. if necessary you should convert to keep you position). In this case the Archbishop of Manila did not agree, but nevertheless the baptism was administered (but outside the archdiocese!). This Archbishop gave the example of Spain, where five centuries earlier the Muslims were attacked and in the end they had lost all their positions in the Iberian peninsula. This is still the mentality of the crusades.

The cover is explained further on p. 21: It is the Byzantine emperor Markianos (ruled 450-7), but here depicted in a Melkite manuscript about 1200 later and in the dress of the Ottoman emperor.
About Indonesia there is a nice article by Peter Riddell on Abdussamad al-Palimbani who wrote a call for jihad against the colonial European countries from Mecca where he lived. Yusak Soleiman has a contribution on the Church Council of Batavia, with complaints about the increase of mosques in Batavia (compare this to the protests of modern Muslims to the increase of churches: this book is about religion as a battlefield!)
I wrote several contributions as well here: on Valentyn, on the Corpus Diplomaticum, Plakaatboeken, with negotiations and rules for Muslims living under Dutch authority. I found it also nice to do some more work on the Javanese court chronicles about the arrival of the Dutch. My teacher for Javanese, Pak Soedoro, used to say that Javanese have no limit to their fantasy and this is clear here as well. All my own contributions for CMR are also available through the site academia.edu.

A new Indonesian Tafsir: a truly big no 5!

In 1970 I started my PhD research about Indonesian Islam. My first idea was to write about Indonesian Tafsir of the Qur'an. But soon I realised, that I should do fieldwork and concentrate on  the readers first and leave for some time the writers, although I loved Hamka and his mosque in Kebayoran Baru. But looking to the text while in the country seemed a waste of time, as long as I could see much of the Muslim world by visiting pesantren. So, my doctoral dissertation was about the schools of the Indonesian countryside.
Still, I continued to work sometimes on Qur'anic subjects: one book on the Indonesian Interpretations of the story of Adam, one on the Qur'anic Jesus, a commentary on the longest sura, no 2, Baqarah, and one on the short chapters. Four small books: not bad, perhaps.
I used the four big commentaries: Hasbi Ash-Shiddieqy, Hamka, Departemen Agama and Quraish Shihab.

Last week I received a copy of the big project by Yunan Yusuf, a young lecturer in Jakarta in the 1980s, but now already in the midst of his sixties. As if the big five only now are coming to their final stage! Yunan started his commentary with the smaller sura: Juz 30, then going backward in the holy book, he has now arrived at juz 24. Yunan has an easy style if writing. Not so technical. Not too long in details. Not too much Arabic. This volume explains elements of the surahs 39-41, although not exactly the full surahs. This style of tafsir brings a method that is not concentrated on the sura as a literary unity, because it begins in the midst of a sura. It is explanation verse by verse or small blocs of 6-10 verses as unity. Angelika Neuwirth and her classification of the Meccan surahs is not used here, always taking a sura as a whole.
Yunan does not write for colleagues/teachers, but for pious or curious readers. His conclusions and his theological comments are in the subtitles.
He starts with one complicated verse, just still in juz 23: pages 31-33 are about sura 39:29. It is a parable of one verse only. Arberry translates: God has struck a parable: a man in whom partners disagreeing share, and a man the property of one man. Are the two equal in likeness? Praise belongs to God! Nay, but most of them do not know. This is first about a slave owned by three men: the three owners are in conflict about their property and the way they could use this slave. Another slave is owned by only one man, that is the right way. So, this world, mankind, must be seen as owned by One God alone, What if there would be three Gods ruling over mankind? nd the three quarreling about how to manage mandkind?

In the copy which Yunan sent us, he added a poem, syair, remembering our long relationship. In Ciputat we lived together, and my wife Paule tought him Dutch preparing for a study in the Netherlands (1983). We once made together a trip to Volendam, a touristic destination for many Indonesians. And last year, 2017, we met again in Utrecht. We hope to see you again in this world fi dunya and who knows, even once fi-l akhirat. But first we hope that Yunan will finish all thirty juz!

Taqlid versus Islam Nusantara

Islam Nusantara is recently advertised as panacee against Islamic Terrorism, Wahabi or Salafi 'infiltration' in Indonesia. Not only the Nobel peace prize is here mentioned (see my blog earlier this month). Mark Woodward wrote an interesting piece in Inside Indonesia about some related words: besides 'Islam Nusantara' as the keyword for Nahdlatul Ulama, there is wasathia or 'middle Road Islam'  as the favourite word among the Sa'diya organization of the Buginese Muslim who have spread all over Indonesia. 'Cosmopolitan' or 'Global Values' sometimes related to Islam as God's mercy for all mankind or rahamatun lil 'alamin is another word, now loved by Muhammadiyah members.
One may doubt, however, whether this terminology is in fact attractive. Islamic ideals should be about important issues, even worth to die for. Martyrdom for something 'in the middle' or 'saving Indonesia culture' is probably not the right slogan?

Above is a picture of my self with in the back a banner for a speech I gave at the IKIP Muhammadiyah in Maumere, last October on Muslim Terrorism and European Reactions. For accreditation these institutions need proven international contacts and a personal picture, together with the banner of the speech is so needed.

In this war of words I had to think about about two debates of the 1970s and 1980s when I started research and encounter with Indonesian Islam. The first is about 'pure Islam' whether or not taqlid  is needed. In fact taqlid suggests that Islam is a complex and complete system: embracing Islam is not partial, but once accepted it is to be taken in full. Second: This is more clear in the question and answer with my students at IAIN, the Islamic Academies in Jakarta and Yogyakarta where I taught in Yogyakarta and Jakarta in the 1980s. Quite often I expressed sympathy with Muslim ideas and practice, and criticism towards Christianity. Students then asked: 'Why do you not embrace Islam in full'? My standard answer was that some of my European colleagues indeed had married Indonesian women and embraced Islam. But then they were mu'allaf or recent converts: worthy to be supported (one even received a free ticket for the hajj to Mecca from the Minister of Religions), but they should accept everything, all aspects of Islam. I said to my students that I would prefer to be a critical Catholic rather than a convert to Islam who had to be silent about aspects of Islam I did not like (like quite many detailed commands of shari'a). But this nuanced approach to religion generally is not so attractive, does not create massive support. Also in Europe liberal Christianity is shrinking while more fundamentalist churches are growing.

Nobel Peace Prize for Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama?

From various contacts I received recently a suggestion/request to support the idea that the Nobel Peace Prize 2019 should be awarded to the two largest Muslim organizations of Indonesia. Muhammadiyah was founded in 1912 to reform Islam in urban areas, making it modern and pure and attractive like Christian mission through modern schools and hospitals, orphanages and social work. Nahdlatul Ulama was founded in 1926 to give more power to the traditional Muslim boarding schools of the countryside.
Both organizations grew steadily. Initially they were small in comparison to the political and social movements for Indonesian independence like Budi Utomo, the nationalist movement of Soekarno. But they continued to grow and still are a great social power in the country of Indonesia.

Above is the Muhammadiyah logo, below the emblem of Nahdlatul Ulama. Muhammadiyah is not so strongly concentrated on Arabic (most members are much more fluent in English than Arabic!), but Muslims feel happy with green and Arabic. So, Muhammadiyah's emblem looks like that of Utrecht University, both show God's light to humankind!
Both organizations now are taken as moderate and anti-Salafi organizations. Prominent leaders of the two organizations published in 2009 a book against the Ilusi Negara Islam, the false messianic Illusion of an Islamic State. That book condemned the 'infiltration of Salafi and foreign elements in mosques, organizations and Indonesian society in general'. Muhammadiyah is member of  ICG the International Contact Group which facilitates the contacts between Muslims and Christians in the south of the Philippines (different from ICG or International Crisis Group).
Dr. Din Syamsuddin general chairman of Muhammadiyah 2005-2015 is now personal advisor to President Jokowi in the field of interreligious harmony.
Quite a few of my international colleagues in Indonesian studies welcome the idea of  nominating the two organizations for the Nobel Peace Prize. It will support the moderate Muslims worldwide, it will fight he rise of Islamophobia and strengthen the stream of peace and harmony seeking people among Muslims.
There are, of course, also some problems with this nomination. In 2005 another Muslim Organization of Indonesia issued several radical conservative and intolerant, even insane fatwas. It condemned pluralism (whatever it may be) as a dangerous heresy, it banned all religious mixed marriages for Muslims (against a much more lenient vision of the tekst of the Koran itself!) and it repeated a very severe condemnation of Ahmadi Muslim, which lead to burning of villages, killing Ahmadi people.
These fatwa were issued by the national council of Muslim clercs, Majelis Ulama Indonesia, but endorsed and signed by MD leader Din Syamsuddin and NU leader Ma'ruf Amin.

In 2016 there was a heavy political debate about some religious statements of the Jakarta governor known as Ahok. Many intimidating demonstrations resulted in a court case against him, his abdication and imprisonment. Muhammadiyah leader Haedar Nashir was negative about the demonstrations and expressed his sadness about the loss of time, insight and social harmony due to this political abuse of a complicated and distorted personal opinion. But NU leader Ma'ruf Amin wanted to make profit of this case and created his own mass organization to plead against the Jakarta governor.
These are two recent weak moments in organizations that have given much good to the country of Indonesia. If we go back to the beginning of Soeharto's New Order and the killing of probably more than 500.000 people associated with leftist or Communist groups in 1965-1966, the name of Ansor, the youth organization of NU and of HMI, Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam, loosely connected to Muhammadiyah, must also be mentioned. This makes the nomination of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama to the Nobel Peace Prize not an undisputed proposal.