ISLAMIC NATIONHOOD AND COLONIAL INDONESIA This book argues that Indonesian nationhood rested to a large degree on a pre-existing sense of Islamic ecumenism. This ecumenism was heightened both under colonial rule and through the experience of life in the Hijaz, where Southeast Asians were simultaneously co-believers in Islam and foreigners to Arabia. The author contrasts the latter experience with life in modern Cairo, where Southeast Asians were drawn to the ideas of Islamic reformism and nationalism. Laffan also shows how this Cairene experience had an influence on an Indonesian nationalism defined in religious terms. However, rather than leaving the discussion at this point, this book shows how developments in the Middle East – and particularly the Saudi takeover of Mecca in 1924 – continued to have a profound impact on Indonesia. Michael Laffan obtained his doctorate from the University of Sydney, 2001. He is currently a research fellow with the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University, working within a project examining the develop- ment of religious authority in twentieth-century Indonesia. This book evolved from the author’s doctoral thesis, which won the 2001 Asian Studies Association of Australia President’s award. SOAS/ROUTLEDGECURZON STUDIES ON THE MIDDLE EAST Series Editors Benjamin C. Fortna & Ulrike Freitag History Department & Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies SOAS, University of London This series features the latest disciplinary approaches to Middle Eastern Studies. It covers the Social Sciences and the Humanities in both the pre- modern and modern periods of the region. While primarily interested in publishing single-authored studies, the series is also open to edited volumes on innovative topics, as well as textbooks and reference works. ISLAMIC NATIONHOOD AND COLONIAL INDONESIA The umma below the winds Michael Francis Laffan ISLAMIC NATIONHOOD AND COLONIAL INDONESIA The umma below the winds Michael Francis Laffan First published 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon, an imprint of Taylor & Francis 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2003 Michael Francis Laffan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,mechanical,or other means,now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-22257-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-27705-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-29757-5 (Print Edition) CONTENTS Plates and figures ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xii A note on transliteration and dates used in this book xiv List of abbreviations xv Introduction 1 Studies of Islamic nationalism in Indonesia and the contribution of this book to the field 3 Typologizing Islam in Southeast Asia 7 Knowing Islam 8 1 An ecumene in ‘The lands below the winds’ 11 The foundations of a Muslim ecumene: the Islamization of the bil¯ad al-j¯awa 11 The ecumene underlined by networks of Jawi ulam¯a and texts 18 The foundations of anti-colonial activism: Islamic reformism 27 One Javanese reformist: Ahmad Ripangi of Kalisasak 31 Heightened Jawi ecumenism above the winds: the H. ajj 33 2 Arab priests and pliant pilgrims 37 Dutch responses to the pilgrimage 37 The Aceh War (1873–c.1910) and the renewed Islamic threat 39 An increasingly polarized colonial society: 1870–1900 43 3 The Hijazi experience and direct colonial visions of the heart of the ecumene 47 Leaving the lands below the winds 47 The Hijazi experience 50 CONTENTS Counting the pilgrims 53 Opening the prism of Snouck Hurgronje 54 The Jeddah consulate and a Javanese filter 55 The ulam¯a of Mecca in the latter half of the nineteenth century 62 Pan-Islamism and Jawi ecumenism in Mecca 65 Jawi–Arab relations in Mecca 67 Ambiguity within the ecumene 70 A shortened stay: politics and murder in the Hijaz 71 Mecca’s Southeast Asian ‘colony’ 73 4 Colonizing Islam and the Western-oriented project of Indies nationhood 77 Advisers and collaborators 77 K.F. Holle (1829–1896) 80 Hasan Moestapa 82 Informants and local knowledge: orientalists as interpreters 84 Said Oesman and the Hadramis 85 Colonizing Islam: ‘pacification’ 88 Colonizing Islam: ‘association’ and ‘emancipation’ 90 Bintang Hindia as Malay propagator of the Ethici vision of an Indies national community 95 One language, one people, one homeland: Bintang Hindia’s vision of a new Indies nation 97 5 Reorientation among the Jawa of Mecca 103 A changing Mecca 103 From Naw¯aw¯ı al-Bantin¯ı to Ah.mad Khat.¯ıb al-Minankab¯aw¯ı as leader of the Jawi community in Mecca 106 The ‘anti-colonialism’ of Ah.mad Khat.¯ıb 109 The reformism of Ah.mad Khat.¯ıb? 112 6 The Jawa and Cairo 114 Revivalism, pan-Islam, and a modern Cairo 114 Al-Urwa al-wuthq¯a 117 Cairene reformism 120 Pan-Islam below the winds as an ‘Arab’ movement 123 Cairo as an Islamic metropole and modern experience for Indies Muslims 127 Cairo and the national idea 131 vi CONTENTS Japan as an Asian and Islamic model 134 An emerging Jawi national community in Cairo 136 7 Islamic voices from Singapore, Java, and Sumatra 142 The Jawi press: connecting script, language and faith 142 Wazir Indië: the first jawi paper of the Indies 145 Al-Imam (1906–08): the first channel of Cairene discourse in the bil¯ad al-j¯awa 148 Watan and umat 151 Lessons on the road to independence: our Islamic history 157 The impact of Meiji Japan below the winds 160 Conventional origins of the ‘national’ movement on Java 165 Parallel Islamic activism on Java: Sarekat Islam and Moehammadijah 166 Abduh in Indië 169 The religious Kaum Muda of Sumatra 171 Al-Munir 172 Al-Islam and the decline of the jawi press 178 8 Towards an indigenous and Islamic Indonesia 181 Hadji Agoes Salim: connecting Western civilization with ‘modernist’ reformism 181 A foreign movement within the bil¯ad al-j¯awa: the Hadrami awakening (nahd.a) and its impact on Indies identity 189 Life in the Hijaz under Shar¯ıf H. usayn and the pilgrimage as a mirror of Indies aspirations 195 Rash¯ıd Rid.a’s¯ ideas on the neo-Caliphate and their impact on the Kaum Muda 202 Doenia Islam and Noesa Hindia; placing the Indies in a Muslim world 206 Atatürk in Indië 210 9 Indonesia visualized as a fractured umma below the winds 215 A new vision of the bil¯ad al-j¯awa from Cairo 215 Janan Tayyib, Ilyas Yaqub, and Seruan Azhar 218 The commencement of Saud¯¯ ı rule in Mecca and heightened divisions in Indonesia 222 The formation of Nahdlatoel Oelama 226 After the war: a model state for independent Islam? 228 vii CONTENTS 10 From the Meccan discourse of a Jawi ecumene to the Cairene discourse of an Indonesian homeland 232 Further reflections 235 Glossary 239 Notes 247 Bibliography 261 Unpublished manuscripts held by the Leiden University Library 261 General State Archive (ARA), The Hague 262 KITLV Archives 262 Mailrapporten 262 Selected Periodicals 263 Books, articles, and unpublished works 263 Index 282 viii PLATES AND FIGURES 1 ‘Pilger aus Batjan (Malukken): Sohn des Sultans, Oheim des Prinsen und ein Priester’. Taken from the proofs for the albums of C. Snouck Hurgronje (1888–89), no. XXXI. (NINO 2.65) 22 2 The first pages of a nineteenth-century manuscript copy of the S.ir¯at. al-mustaq¯ım of N¯ur al-D¯ın al-R¯anir¯ı with rubricated Arabic (Or. 3.278, pp. 1–2) 23 3 Four Acehnese fighters (Or. 18097 S66 file h) 40 4 Staff of the Jeddah Consulate with a visiting party en route to the Indies, taken Jeddah 1884. Rear: (from left to right) Hussayn al-Qawwas, C. Snouck Hurgronje; middle: (?), J.L.A. Brandes, J.A. Kruijt, P.N. van der Chijs; front: Johar, a servant of Kruijt, Mohammad, a servant of van der Chijs. (Or. 18097 [NINO large plate, 2.2]) 56 5 Aboe Bakar Djajadiningrat (Or. 12.288 K2/AR 4774) 58 6 A very young Abd All¯ah Zaw¯aw¯ı? (NINO 1.43) 60 7 The administrators of Cianjur (Bintang Hindia vol. 2 no. 19, p. 203) 78 8 Hasan Moestapa and an Acehnese (Or. 12.288 CSH I.17) 83 9 Said Oesman of Batavia (Or. 12.288 CSH I.17) 86 10 The Ethici mode, R.M. Tjokroadikoesoemo and his teacher (Bintang Hindia vol. 2 no. 8, p. 85) 91 11 Boys reading Bintang Hindia (Bintang Hindia vol. 2 no. 15, p. 157) 96 12 Shaykh Tahir Jalal al-Din, ‘a Minangkabau now a religious teacher in Cairo’ (Bintang Hindia, vol. 3, no. 23, p. 265) 130 13 The Japanese emperor Mutsuhito (Bintang Hindia, vol. 2, no. 5, p. 47) 135 14 Staff of the Jeddah consulate, April 1907. From left to right are: Aboe Bakar Djajadiningrat, Mas. Moh. Hasim, Hoesen, Consul N. Scheltema, Moh. Saleh alias Soeradi, ‘August’ Salim and Ahmad bin Hoesen (Or. 12.288 NINO D-5) 183 15 The ‘professor’ of Mecca, Shaykh Abd All¯ah Zaw¯aw¯ı (Or. 12.288 CSM I.18) 198 ix PLATES AND FIGURES 16 Tjokroaminoto with his wife and family aboard the SS Rondo en route for Jeddah, March 1926.