Sojourning on Mecca’s Verandah: Place, Temporality, and Islam in an Indonesian Province by Daniel Andrew Birchok A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology and History) in the University of Michigan 2013 Doctoral Committee: Professor Webb Keane, Chair Professor Nancy K. Florida Professor Paul Christopher Johnson Associate Professor Farina Mir Professor Andrew J. Shryock © Daniel Andrew Birchok All Rights Reserved 2013 Acknowledgements I cannot imagine that anyone ever reads the acknowledgements of a dissertation or monograph in the same way once he or she has written his or her own. For me, the trail of debts- -intellectual, personal, even medical—began to accumulate from the moment I arrived at Michigan as an MA student in Southeast Asian Studies. It is with deep-felt regrets that it is only some of the most outstanding of these debts that I can acknowledge on these pages. My dissertation committee has provided me with intellectual nourishment and support, all while allowing me to develop my project in my own way and on my own terms even when I am fairly certain they were not quite sure if I knew what I was doing. Webb Keane has provided me the kind of sharp and straightforward criticism that one most needs to grow as a scholar, and he has done so in a manner that has been supportive, consummately professional, and always in my best interest. Nancy Florida was the first of my mentors at Michigan and, among other things, I owe to her nearly all of what I know about how to approach Islam as a scholar of religion. Andrew Shryock has provided me with invaluable mentorship when it comes to myriad aspects of my professional life and I remain inspired by the many things we have in common intellectually. Paul Johnson has been a tireless supporter of not only me, but all of my colleagues in Anthro-History, and I always look forward to hearing his so often unique take on a piece of writing. Farina Mir came on the committee at just the right time, when I was struggling with the need for another historian’s eye. She provided me with precisely that as I worked my way through the job market and the final stages of the dissertation. ii The research on which this dissertation was based was supported by several generous funders, including the Aceh Research Training Institute (funded by AUSAID and administered by the University of Melbourne and the Universitas Syiah Kuala), a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Grant, a Rackham International Research Award, and the Roger Dashow Indonesia Research Fund at the University of Michigan. The writing of the dissertation was supported by the final year of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a Mellon Humanities Dissertation Seminar Grant, and a Rackham Centennial Award. Among those in Indonesia to whom I owe much gratitude are first and foremost my research sponsors, which included Pusat Penelitian Islam dan Masyarakat (PPIM) at the Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, the Pusat Latihan Penelitian at the Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry in Banda Aceh, and the Pusat Pengkajian Islam dan Masyarakat (PKPM) in Banda Aceh. In particular, the faculty, staff, and students at PPIM saved me multiple trips to Jakarta to renew my visa. The staff at PKPM provided not only visa and intellectual support in Aceh, but a place where I could find friendship and a weekly “English lunch.” The Aceh Research Training Institute (ARTI) was not an official sponsor until the final five months of my research, but provided so much support to me that they might as well have been. The administrators and staff at the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, the Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, the Arsip Propinsi Aceh, and the Yayasan Perpustakaan dan Museum Ali Hasjmy made my archival work more productive and enjoyable. Here I single out Ibu Endang Sumarsih at the Perpustakaan Nasional, and Ibu Ani and Ibu Hafni at the Arsip Propinsi Aceh for all of their help and our shared snacks and conversations. Ida Tumengkol facilitated my access to the complete Waspada collection at her late father’s estate in Medan. iii Bachtiar, my Acehnese teacher in the summer of 2005, deserves a special expression of gratitude for his dedication to developing an Acehnese language curriculum and then sticking with me through three months of intensive study. Cut Zahara Hamzah and her family, as well as Munawar Liza Zainal, have been involved in helping me with my research since the writing of my MA thesis, when I was focused on Acehnese living in the United States. Sayyid Hamzah and his family have become my oldest and dearest friends in Aceh and I sometimes regret not choosing to conduct my field research closer to them. I could write pages about the following people, each of whom provided me with something during my research. Unfortunately, for the sake of brevity, I will have to leave my expressions of gratitude at the mention of their names: Teungku Adami, Bapak and Ibu Zakaria Ahmad, Armia, Leena Avonius, Chris Bheda, Harold Crouch, the late Anwar Dayat, Bapak Dirman, Zubaidah Djohar, Jesse Gerstin, Jesse Grayman, Azwar Hamid, Basyuni Hamid, Hamrizal Hamid, Hendrik, Nurjannal Jalil, David Kloos, Dian, Sayyid Jauhari, Sayed Johar, Ibu Kartini, T.R. Keumangan, Barbara Leigh, Michael Leigh, Cek Li, Sayyid Mahli, the members of the Majlis Taklim Ansharullah, Dewie Marliza, the late Teungku Marwardi, Marzuki, Hasnul Arifin Melayu, Mujiburrahman, Ibu Nelly, Sarah Newman, Jane Palmer, the late Bapak Panyang, Raja, Teungku Ramli, Arskal Salim, Annemarie Samuels, Sarjev, Catherine Smith, Eka Srimuliyanti, Ida Tumengkol, Drs. A. Djalil Usman, Eve Warburton, Laura Meitzner Yoder, and Fajran Zain. Also deserving of special thanks are the medical care professionals who got me back to the field and the archive following a period that involved three extended hospital stays. At the Rumah Sakit Harapan Bunda these included Dr. Ridwan, Dr. Pria Agustus Yadi, and Taufik. At the Raffles Hospital in Singapore it was Dr. Eric C H Teh. Jean and Jim Allen, and Ronit Ricci iv and Tamir Yahav generously allowed me to stay in their homes during a frustrating month of recovery in Singapore. During the writing of this dissertation I benefited from the critical feedback of a number of colleagues. I have presented iterations of chapters and parts of chapters in the following places: the Fakultas Adab at the Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry, the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, a Mellon Humanities Dissertation Seminar at the University of Michigan, the Anthropology and History Workshop at the University of Michigan, the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society, the Islamic Studies Interdisciplinary Seminar at the University of Michigan, the Southeast Asian Studies Reading Group at the University of Michigan, the University of Pittsburgh Anthropology Colloquium Series, the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University, and the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University. I received invaluable feedback and suggestions in each of these forums. Individually I would like to thank the following mentors and colleagues for their input and criticism on iterations of chapters and parts of chapters that found their way into the dissertation: Danna Agmon, David Akin, Ismail Alatas, Saul Allen, Laura Brown, En-Chieh Choa, Rahmad Dawood, Deirdre de la Cruz, Michael Feener, Nancy Florida, Chiara Formichi, Brady G’Sell, Emily Hein, Federico Helfgott, Daniel Hershenzon, Laura Hilburn, Sarah Hillewaert, James Hoesterey, Anneeth Kaur Hundle, Paul Johnson, Webb Keane, David Kloos, Alexander Knysh, Sonja Luehrmann, John Mathias, Farina Mir, Emma Nolan-Thomas, Esteban Rozo Pabon, Rachel Rinaldo, Jessica Robbins, Guillermo Salas, Annemarie Samuels, Aaron Seaman, Nafisa Essop Sheik, Andrew Shryock, Catherine Smith, Stephen Smith, Stephen Sparks, Charley Sullivan, Nat Tuohy, Martin van Bruinessen, Kate Wright, and Chip v Zuckerman. Erika Alpert, Emily Hein, Laura Hilburn, Sarah Hillewaert, Jim Mannheim, Leah O’Donnell, Jane Palmer, Karen Siegel, and Charley Sullivan offered much needed help with the editing. Of course, all shortcomings of substance and style are my own. To say that Nicole Scholtz of the University of Michigan Clark Library helped me to make the maps would be a gross understatement. We used ArcGIS software to create all three maps, drawing from several on-line databases, including ESRI World Water Bodies, GADM World, GeoFabrik OSM, OpenStreetMap from Cloudmade, Geonames, and an Indonesia geospatial data website. It would be an inexcusable error of judgment if I did not offer a special expression of gratitude to Michael Feener. Michael has shown an inexplicably enthusiastic interest in my work. Aside from my committee, no other mentor has gone to such a great extent to support my professional development and the circulation of my scholarship. Add to this the fact that I can think of no one with whom I would rather take an eventful, if somewhat ill-fated, road trip around Aceh’s southwest coast and one has the consummate colleague. Also, I would like to acknowledge Ann Stoler and Nancy Hunt who, during an Anthropology and History seminar many years ago, first encouraged me to explore the ways in which Acehnese narrate histories of Islam. The task of expressing gratitude to the people who mean the most to me is one for which the final two paragraphs of an acknowledgements section of a dissertation seems wholly inadequate. All I can say is that I owe those people whom I will mention here much more than I could possibly offer them on the printed page. I do not think my parents, Daniel and Annemarie, always have understood exactly what it is that I do and, especially, why it has taken me so far away from home so often and for so long.