The Apotheosis of Siti Khotijah: Islam and Muslims in a Balinese Galactic Polity

International Journal of Interreligious and Intercultural Studies (IJIIS) ISSN: 2654-2706, Volume I, Number 1, October 2018 THE APOTHEOSIS OF SITI KHOTIJAH: ISLAM AND MUSLIMS IN A BALINESE GALACTIC POLITY Mark Woodward Center for the Study of Religion and Confiict Arizona State University <[email protected]> Introduction century and the performative approach This article seeks to describe the to ritual studies developed by Victor way in which Gusti Ayu Made Rai, an Turner in the 1970s. eighteenth-century Balinese princess Bali and Orientalist Romanticism from Badung became Raden Ayu Siti Khotijah, one Indonesia’s few widely Bali is often called the “Island recognized female Muslim saints. In so of the Gods.” As Boone observes doing I develop an alternative reading of representations of Bali have been tinged the dynamics of the history of religion with romantic longing since the days of 1 in Bali, countering the common view the Netherlands East India Company. that it is a static monolithically Hindu Tropes of Rousseau’s “noble savage” tradition. Rather than turning inward as and a longing for an other than Muslim the surrounding areas embraced Islam, Indonesia are the implicit subtexts of Balinese kingdoms sought to include much of the academic and more, if not Muslims and elements of Islam in most, popular writing about Balinese scared narratives and geographies. Two religion and culture. Bali is often seen distinct theoretical approaches are used as a Hindu island in a sea of Islam and in this analysis: the structural approach as a fossilized version of what Java, to indigenous Southeast Asian states and much of the rest of Indonesia, pioneered by Robert Heine-Geldern 1 Boone, J. (1972) The Anthropological Romance of .o] íñõóríõóîW 5Çvu] tŒ•‰ŸÀ• ]v aŒŒ]P v in the early decades of the twentieth /•U t}o]Ÿ• v wo]P]}v, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4 Mark Woodward used to be.2 Vickers mentions that the illusionary text based image of Bali as ›rst Dutch mariners to visit Bali in “Little India” to impede the spread of the seventeenth century were pleased Islam and the growth of nationalism to discover that Balinese, unlike in much the same way that Raffies Turkish Muslims, ate pork and unlike constructed an image of a less the Portuguese Roman Catholics, did not Islamic Java in support of his advocacy fast on Fridays.3 of an expansionist “forward” policy for These cultural similarities led them the British East India Company in the to conclude (incorrectly) that Balinese early nineteenth century.6 kingdoms were natural allies in their Romanticized accounts of Balinese struggle against these rivals and Muslim religion and culture by Geertz, Lansing Mataram.4 Following Raffies‘ lead, and other present it as a tranquil, generations of orientalists and following involuted agrarian civilization obsessed them anthropologists, described the with ritual and the performing arts, Balinese aristocracy as refugees from self-consciously distancing itself from the fall of the Hindu-Javanese kingdom its political and economic environments Majapahit to “Goth-like Muslims” and the Islamicate civilizations in 1478.5 This evokes images of the surrounding it.7 Geertz’s description of Ottoman conquest of Constantinople a Balinese kingdoms as “theatre states” quarter century earlier (1453) and the replicating the Hindu-Balinese cosmos subsequent siege of Vienna in 1529. and more concerned with ritual than Dutch Orientalism constructed an realpolitik builds on this Orientalist tradition.8 2 Geertz, C. (1985) [}o Yv}ÁoPW CµZ 9••Ç• Romanticized representations of ]v LvŒ‰ŒÀ !vZ}}o}PÇ. New York: Basic Books. ï dZ h©}uv•U t}ŒšµPµ•U .Œ]Ÿ•Z v 5µZ ÁŒ “exotic” cultures rarely stand up to Z ]v]o ]Ào• (} }v}o }( Z {}µšZ• !•]v •‰] šZ]• uX hv Z h©}uv •v close scrutiny especially those depicting ]v {}µšZ• !•] •W t}lU !X v Doo}U !X the “exotic other” as a mystical, artful, (2015) C}u !v}o] } !ZW h©}uv•U Çµl•U v ^}µšZ• !•], Oxford: Oxford University Press and alternative to materialist modernity. .µoµU aX ~îììî• ^dZ w}o }( Z h©}uv• v 5µZ ]v Z /}uu]o LvP}v Áv Z [Àv Vickers, Andaya and other historians v !ov ]v Z {ÀvvZ /vµÇU_ :}µvo }( Z 9}v}u] v {}]o I]•}Ç }( Z h]vX Çµo]•U ò Dµu}vÌU WX ~îììí• ^[ wo]P]}v .o]v]• v• o}vP ]}v] }( 5µZ µoµU ÁŒ }]P]vooÇ ]u} o a]}] I]v}µ]•uU_ .µoov 9}o CŒvP]• (}u h©}uv ÇµlÇ ÁZ ZÇ ÁŒ v ]u}v [9ÆšŒu h]vX {u]ZU .X v í}}ÁŒU aX ~îìíð• v}vo •Çu}oX {W ÇZµv]••vU IU v w}]vPU ^5}o}v]Ì]vP L•ou v Cu]v]•uU_ ]vW {u]ZU .X v aX ~•X• ~íõõï• dZ Çµo]U ! {Çu}o }( ÇÁ} bŸ}v•. t}}ÁŒU aX ~îìíð• DvŒ v t}Á ]v Lv}v•]v hZW L•vµo Çµ}r5µZ CŒ]v•Z]‰ !••}]}v /•ouW [Œ•U Cu]v]•š•U {µ.• v t•vv {oÀ•. t••X ÇZ Á}o[• P• •‰] ul Á•U v •oo [}v}vW w}µoPX ]•U ]v L•vµoX ó DŒšÌU /X ~íõòó• ^tŒ•}v Ç]u v /}vµ ð s]lŒ•U !X ~íõôó• ^,]vµ]•u v L•ou ]v ]v .o]W !v 9••Ç ]v /µoµo !voÇ•]•U_ American /v}v•]W .o] v Z t•]•]Œ í}oU_ Lv}v•] AnthropologistX [v•]vPU {X ~íõôï• dZŒ í}Œo• }( ñ 5ÇU !X ~íõôï• ^/•ou v []Œµ ]v {}µZr Bali, New York: Praeger. 9• !•]W {}u tra}ŒvU a]voÇ WÀv• 8 Geertz, C. (1981) EPŒW ÇZ ÇZš {š tŒ•‰ŸÀ•U_ ]vW L•ou ]v {}µZr9 !•]U I}}lŒU aXU ]v b]vvZr/vµÇ .o]X Princeton: Princeton []vW .]ooX University Press. 5 The Apotheosis of Siti Khotijah: Islam and Muslims in a Balinese Galactic Polity have shown that far from being bastions complexity. Dependency on narrow guarding a besieged Indic civilization, theoretical frames contributes to pre-colonial Balinese states were analytic reductionism. It also leads actively engaged in commercial and to neglect of elements of complexity political relations with neighbouring that cannot be captured or explained Muslim states. They also supported the in terms of a single or small set of development of Muslim communities. variables. Here I rely on a combination According to some accounts Javanese of structuralist theory in the analysis Muslims came to Bali with the of the spatial orientation of Hindu- Majapahit “refugees.” Ironically Balinese states and performance others were established by Muslim oriented ritual theory in the analysis refugees fieeing the Dutch conquest of of how a Balinese Hindu and Hindu Makassar.9 space are transformed to incorporate In this article, I carry this line of Muslims and Muslim space. These analysis a step further, demonstrating approaches are united by an overarching that Muslim themes, symbols and at complexity theory based model of state least one saint were incorporated into systems including three components: the sacred geography and symbology 1) Symbologies: institutionalized of Hindu-Balinese kingdoms. As was meaning systems including narratives, true of other Indianized Southeast symbols and rituals that establish the Asian states in what are now Burma legitimacy and primacy of the state and Thailand, religious others were in religious or ideological ways; 2) incorporated into the symbolic orders Technologies including expenditures characterized by the hegemony of a on the military and security forces, politically dominant religious tradition. education, infrastructure and To make these points, I rely primarily architecture promoting conformity on performance theory based analysis with state symbologies and 3) of the sacred biography Raden Ayu Siti Identity spaces that includes face to Khotijah and ritual practices associated face and imagined communities that with her grave and secondarily on support, contest for, or elude state observations concerning the sacred symbologies and technologies.10 geography of Klungkung. The failure of the establishment of a woman as an exemplar of Muslim Theoretical Perspectives piety to foster social transformations Theoretical myopia is among the diminishing patriarchal hegemony challenges confronting ethnological 10 dZ]• ]• •o]PZoÇ u}]. ÀŒ•]}v }( u}o analysis of social and cultural Ào}‰ Ç []µU C]•ZŒrhv v í}}ÁŒX []µU :XU C]•ZŒrhvU bX v í}}ÁŒU aX ~îìíð• ^/]o iµvµ•M /}uoÆ]Ç v Z t}•r/}o}v]o b}vr õ s]lŒ•U !X }X ]. state, /vŒvŸ}vo W}µvo }( LvŒµošµŒo woŸ}v•. 6 Mark Woodward problematizes feminist theories what Tambiah calls “Galactic Polities.” predicting that the sacred biographies He describes them as totalizing of female saints inspire feminist praxis institutions in which administrative promoting women’s autonomy and and other aspects of state technologies empowerment.11 and identity spaces are subordinated to and structured in terms of state Sacred Geography and Indianized symbologies.15 Balinese states were States exceptional case only because of the The equation of microcosm extent to which this pattern of spatial and macrocosm in a basic structural orientation pervades daily life.16 principle of what Coedes calls the Some Muslim states including the “Indianized States” of Southeast contemporary Sultanate of Yogyakarta Asia.12 Heine-Geldern and following in Indonesia and Negeri Sembilan in him generations of anthropologist, Malaysia preserve this pattern of spatial historians and political scientists have orientation.17 Southeast Asian states taken this cosmic equation as a point of were, however, more than replicas departure for exploring the structure and of Indian textual prototypes. In most dynamics of indigenous Southeast Asian instances, Southeast Asian Galactic states.13. Throughout the region states, Polities absorbed elements of non- palaces and temples were constructed dominant religions as components of as mandala, a central point surrounded sacred geography and state ceremonies.

Load more