> Research & Reports Rethinking the Islamization of the Malay World In his highly influential work the Preliminary Statement on a General Theory of the Islamization of the Malay-Indonesian Archi- sanity and balance in a debate that has pelago (1963), Syed Naquib al-Attas argued that “the coming of , seen from the perspective of modern times, was the most seriously gone off the rails in the momentous event in the history of the ”.1 Naquib al-Attas’ qualification of the coming of Islam to the Malay Malaysian context over the past few world in such terms is understandable, when bearing in mind that in the work of the man - who later became the intellectual men- years. Drewes’ biographical essay on tor to a whole generation of Islamist scholars, students, and activists in the country - we find traces of a form of reversed Orien- Kern sheds much needed light on the talism and that he aimed for a radical break between the Malay pre-Islamic past and the Islamic presence in the here-and-now. man and his personality, while the other essays in the second part of the By Farish Noor overnight, the works of people like Kern derhaka (treason) and others to show book take the argument of Kern further Forum > were discredited for containing traces just how the formation of Islamic socio- by looking at the process of Islamiza- here are two problematic elements of ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, and cultural, political, and legal discourse tion in other parts of the archipelago T in this thesis. The first is the claim prejudice towards Islam and Muslim was developed according to the needs that fell outside the orbit of Kern’s that the coming of Islam represented a culture. Sadly, the rejection of the West- and circumstances of the contempora- scholarly interest. radical break with the pre-Islamic past. ern canon merely led to the creation of neous local environment. Kern also The Propagation of Islam in the The second is the implicit claim that other equally hegemonic and static dis- points to the local genius of the , Indonesian-Malay Archipelago is won- Islam arrived in its totality and was pre- courses that were rooted in notions of who had adapted Islam to their culture derfully comprehensive and lucid, sented to the Malay world as a com- essentialism and authenticity. Many of and vice-versa, in a process of cultural doing justice to the man who pioneered plete, totalized discourse with clearly the writings emerging in the ex-colo- cross-fertilization enriching Malay cul- the study of Islam and Islamization of identifiable boundaries of its own. Nei- nial societies were equally biased, ture and Islamic civilization at the same the Malay archipelago. It is hoped that ther of these claims, implicit in the essentialist and in some cases down- time. with the publication of this book the works of many contemporary Islamist right inaccurate and caricatural. In all these cases, one detects a com- debate over the question of Muslim scholars, stands in the light of close The republication of Kern’s essays mon sensitivity and awareness of the identity in Southeast Asia can be reac- scrutiny. therefore comes at an opportune fact that Islam’s entry into the Malay tivated, but then on the right track. < Yet to engage in any debate of this moment as the debate on an Islamic archipelago was not a forcible one, but sort today would mean getting oneself state and Islamic society is once again rather a “penetration pacifique” that Reference involved in a highly contested dispute current in . His essays show came in gentle waves which adapted - Gordon, Alijah (ed), The Propagation of that has also taken on a broader politi- that the coming of Islam to the Malay themselves to the local socio-cultural Islam in the Indonesian-Malay Archipelago, cal dimension. The rewriting of the pre- world and the Islamization of Malay terrain. This would also explain why Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Islamic Malay past has become a mat- society was indeed a long, complex, and Islam managed to spread itself from Research Institute (MSRI) (2001), 472 ter of political interest and it is no highly differentiated process that did the lowest sections of society upwards, pp., No ISBN accident that the revisionist attempt to not take Islam and Muslim identity as and why the ruling courts and royal re-inscribe the story of the Malay peo- fixed and stable categories. Kern’s close houses finally allowed themselves to Dr Farish A. Noor (Dr Badrol Hisham ples took off in the 1970s when the anti- readings of early Malay and Indonesian come under the sway of this new faith Ahmad-Noor) was a visiting fellow at the Orientalist debate also engulfed the Muslim texts, social rituals, and rites from abroad. International Institute for the Study of Islam Malay academic world. (Edward Said’s clearly show the plasticity of Islamic If anything, Kern disproves the oft- in the Modern World (ISIM), Leiden. was published in 1978, the discourse that has lain at the core of repeated assertion that Islam had E-mail: [email protected] same year that Naquib al-Attas’s Islam Islamic civilization itself. The spread of spread across the world at the point of and Secularism was published in Islam was due in part to the fact that, the sword and that the expansion of Malaysia by ABIM) Malay society - being a discursive econ- Islam was motivated by the desire for What complicates matters further is omy - was open and flexible and its bor- territorial conquest and imperial rule. the lack of reliable material and ders were porous and ever shifting. More so than any writer today, Kern had resources with which one could arm Evidence to the early presence of shown that Islam in the Malay world oneself, should one decide to join in the Islam in the Malay archipelago also tes- has from the very beginning been paci- fray. It is therefore timely and fortunate tifies to this. In his important essay on fist, accommodative, and tolerant of indeed that the Malaysian Sociological the famous Trengganu stone- which cultural diversity and difference. How Research Institute (MSRI) has man- today is still referred to as proof of else could one explain the lingering aged to put together a collection of Islam’s arrival to the traces of the pre-Islamic past, with us important writings by the prominent in the fourteenth century- Kern notes still today, even in the rites and rituals historian and scholar of Malay Studies that the impact of Islam was subtle. The of Islam themselves? (indeed, traces of Rudolf Aernoud Kern in a volume enti- Trengganu stone bears an inscription the pre-Islamic past in the experience tled The Propagation of Islam in the in the Jawi script. While this has been of Islam lived in the Malay world Indonesian-Malay Archipelago. used time and again as a reference abound. The very word “sembahyang” For years, the writings of people like point to mark the immaculate arrival of (prayer/to pray) literally means to offer Kern were vilified and condemned on Islam in the Malay world, few have homage (sembah) to Hyang (the Primal the grounds that they were tainted by cared to point out that the inscription ancestor of pagan times). One cannot Eurocentric and Orientalist biases. One itself does not mention the word help but wonder if the Malay Muslims of the saddest (and surely unintended) “Allah” but rather refers to God as of today are aware of how close they are consequences of Said’s Orientalism was “Dewata Mulia Raya”- a phrase that is to their pre-Islamic Other in their daily that it opened the door for a flood of fully Sanskrit in origin. Kern is trying rituals. anti-Western polemics by non-Euro- to show that Islam’s early arrival did not Credit must also go to the editor of peans. They used it as a justification to come as a forceful impact that marked The Propagation of Islam, Alijah Gor- demolish the entire order of knowledge a traumatic break from the past, despite don, for her masterly handling of the that had been constructed during the the claims of many an Islamist scholar work. This MSRI publication stands colonial era. While it is true that during today. head and shoulders above most of the the nineteenth to early twentieth cen- Kern renders similar observations in publications that have come from other tury much of the scholarship of the his writings on the Islamization of publishing houses in the country. Ali- West about the rest of the world was , South , Java, , jah’s scrupulous editing, careful anno- indeed shaped by a jaundiced view of Sulawesi, and the Malay peninsula, tation, and the abundance of footnotes all things Asian and Muslim, it is equal- going to great lengths to show the rich with valuable data make the book ly important to state that much of that degree of overlap and interpenetration a joy to read for any serious scholar with scholarship was also carried out with that took place in these diverse social a deep abiding interest in the subject. great care and attention to detail. In a settings at a number of levels. Working Most important of all, her handling of radical gesture of throwing the baby out within the communicative architecture the text and her selection of other with the bath water, post-colonial schol- of the period, Kern explores the etymo- accompanying articles by the likes of G. arship in many ex-colonial states has logical roots and development of key W.J. Drewes, Charles Ralph Boxer, ended up rejecting anything and every- concepts in Malay culture like kuasa Denys Lombard, and Claudine Salmon

thing written by Westerners. Almost (power), kewibawaan (authority), sakti, have added a much needed touch of SPACH. of courtesy Powell, Josephine Notes > A terracotta head of a young man, probably a monk, found at Hadda, Bagh-Gai. Formerly Kabul Museum. 1 See: Syed Naquib al-Attas, Preliminary Statement on a General Theory of the Islamization of the Malay-Indonesian Archipel- ago, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, (1963). … see this issue’s theme section, pp. 8-16.

18 IIAS Newsletter | #27 | March 2002