Page 154 - INDONESIA ISLAMIC CULTURE

Mystical Union and

the Ideal Raja:

The Ideology of

Islamic Kingdoms

Taufik Abdullah

Reflections on Doctrine and significant. This text, like other traditional looked as the dissidents who questioned Another tale tells of a Hindu priest who, Hamzah Fansuri’s poetry
Cultural Accommodation historiographies, wanted to create and the validity of the system of authority. equipped with his books wanted to from the 18 century.
th
maintain a world of shared meaning. It The legendary Sufi, al-Hallaj faced the enter into a debate with Sunan Bonang.
One day, the Sultan of Malacca, Sultan Source: Indonesia the
th
Mahmud Shah, had to settle a debate wanted to offer a paradigm that could same problem (10 century A.D.). However, on his way to meet the famous first fifty years 1945-
among scholars that had been going be used as the basis for communal life Now we find ourselves confronted with a saint, his ship was stranded and his 1995.
on for a long time. The issue was so within a mutually recognized hierarchical field of issues that touches on reflections books were ruined. After having arrived
system. In this system, it was unthinkable
complicated that he resolved to send an that everybody should know the king’s and thoughts about the essence of and safely, he met a man who was putting
envoy to the King of Pasai to ask him answers. Only certain groups of people the demands for religious teachings and a stick into the ground. It was Sunan
for the right way to settle the dispute. were allowed to know it, so the answer no longer with the cultural justification of Bonang. In the theological debate that
What could possibly be the answer to a would cause damage to the listener or to the conversion process that had already ensued between them the priest realized
statement as “who says that God is the the public. taken place. In traditional historiography that his now-missing books could not
creator and the eternal protector is an and in collective memory, the king, who compare with the true “book”. After event
infidel; and who says that God is not the The story above is only one illustration had been the main focus of conversion he became one of Sunan Bonang’s
2
creator and not the eternal protector is of the notion that a distinction had to be myths ---his dream (Pasai), his pain devoted disciples.
a genuine infidel.” After having listened made between the group of Jawara and (Patani), the king being visited by the In this atmosphere the world of meaning
to the questions, the King of Pasai those who had deepened their religious Prophet (Tallo), and so forth--- was that inspired the cognitive community
summoned the royal scholars and he understanding in order to understand slowly replaced by ulama and Sufis was no longer at stake, but the old-
requested them to settle the dispute. the nature of divinity. Not everyone who desperately looked for certainty. In style higher civilization that needed to
However, none of their answers satisfied was allowed to join the discussions on conversion myths we can see how local be conquered. With this mythological
Malacca’s envoy. In the end, the King complicated divine issues. Only the rulers and kings had to go through a victory, the victor earned cultural
summoned the envoy, Tun Muhammad, learned could, and were allowed, to enter wide range of experiences before they legitimacy as the propagator of religion
to appear before him and he whispered this complicated theological sphere. could finally make the definite decision and the pursuer of the essential truth
something in his ear that were the The Sejarah Melayu is not the only the to convert to Islam. Now, cultural behind the teachings. In this way, the
answers the Sultan of Malacca really. 1 text that present this issue and it is also accountability had been replaced by an myth of the intellectual clash could
not the most well-known. In Javanese
What the King of Pasai had said? The tradition, the story of Sheikh Siti Jenar, unyielding quest for the utmost truth. be seen as the explanation of why
Sejarah Melayu does not say. However, who was punished by the saints, is very Conversion myths that wanted to lay old elements persisted in new way of
perhaps the absence of the answer in famous and it is not hard to find other the basis for a new paradigm by offering thinking. The old elements’ validity was
the Sejarah Melayu reveals its cultural stories. People who divulged esoteric the mythological explanations of the not totally negated, but it had been
1. From the story of 2Q, the Shellabear knowledge to the public in general necessity for a transformation of the turned into something subordinated
(Abdulkadir Munsyi) version of the Sejarah Melayu were not only accused of disturbing the religious and cultural foundations had to the new way that now featured as
edited by Teeuw & Situmorang, 1950, and the the “vessel of the hegemony” of the
Raffles 19 version, which was translated by Brown stability of the orthodoxy that had been been replaced by stories of triumphant
(1953), Reprinted 1983, pp. 148-149. confirmed by consensus; they were also intellectual competition. 2. Schrieke, (1916); 44.

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