Islamic Prayer Across the Indian Ocean: Inside and Outside the Mosque [1° ed.] 0700712348, 9780700712342

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Preface
1 Inside and Outside the Mosque: a Master Trope
2 Imputations of Faith and Allegiance: Islamic Prayer and Indonesian Politics Outside the Mosque
3 Islamic and Non-islamic Prayer in Java
4 Localising Islamic Performances in Mayotte
5 Swahili and Ismā'īlī Perceptions of Salāt
6 Portrait of Seyyid Silima from Zanzibar: Piety and Subversion in Islamic Prayer
7 Invocation: Salaa, Dua, Sadaka and the Question of Self-determination
8 Sembah/Salat: The Javanisation of Islamic Prayer; The Islamisation of Javanese Prayer
9 Afterword: The Mirror in the Mosque. . .
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

I s l a m ic A c r o ss t h e

Pr a yer

I n d ia n

O cea n

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o u t l ed g e

In

d ia n

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c ea n

Ser

ie s

E d ito rs: D avid Parkin & R uth B arn es, University o f O x fo rd

There is a need to understand the Indian Ocean area as a cultural com plex which should be analysed beyond the geographical divisions o f Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and South-East Asia, as its coastal populations have interm ingled constantly. The movement o f people, goods and technology make it imperative that spatial concepts and the role o f m aterial culture be central in the study o f the region by archaeologists, historians, ethnographers and anthropologists.

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Inside and O utside the M osque

ED ITED BY

David Parkin and Stephen C. Headley

First Published in 2000 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0 X 1 4 4RN http://www.routledge.com Transferred to Digital Printing 2007 Editorial Matter © 2000 David Parkin and Stephen G. Headley Typeset in Mrs Eaves by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised 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 of this book is available from the British Library Library o f Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-7007-1234-8 Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

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Acknowledgements Contributors Preface

v ii ix xi

1 In side an d O u tside the M osque: a M aster T ro p e

1

David Parkin

2 Im pu tation s o f Faith and A llegian ce: Islam ic Prayer an d In d o n esian Politics O u tside the M osque

23

John R. Bowen

3 Islam ic an d N o n -islam ic Prayer in Java

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Andrew Beatty

4 L o calisin g Islam ic P erform an ces in Mayotte

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Michael Lambek

5 Swahili and Ism ā 'īlī P erceptions o f Salât

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Farouk Topan

6 P o rtrait o f Seyyid S ilim a fro m Zanzibar: Piety an d Subversion in Islam ic Prayer

117

Allyson Purpura

7 Invocation : Salaa, Dua, Sadaka an d the Q u estio n o f S elf-d e te rm in atio n

137

David Parkin

8 Sembah/Salat: T h e Jav an isatio n o f Islam ic Prayer; T h e Islam isatio n o f Javan ese Prayer

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Stephen C. Headley

9 A fterw ord: T h e M irro r in the M osque. . .

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Stephen C. Headley

239 251

Bibliography Index v

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The editors and contributors than kjean-C laude Vatin, Director o f the M aison Française at O xford, Farhan Nizami, Director o f the O xford Centre for Islamic Studies and Stephen Tsang, D irector o f the Centre o f Asian Studies at St. Antony’ s College, for providing accom m odation and financial support, and Gina Burrows, Paul Dresch, K atrin Hansing and D om inique Lussier o f the Institute o f Social and Cultural Anthropology for assistance and advice.

N o te o n lo c a l te rm s Italicised terms denoting prayers and religious concepts and activity are drawn from the Rom anised spelling prevalent in the Indonesian and Swahili languages and dialects o f the societies depicted in this volume, although for some terms the Arabic equivalent is initially indicated through use o f a circumflex to denote stress, e.g. salāt . The editors are o f course cognisant o f m ore precise use o f diacritics but, given the emphasis on indigenous rather than Arabic form s, have adopted this sim pler denotation.

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is a lecturer in anthropology at Brunei University. He has conducted fieldwork in Nias and Java, both in Indonesia, and is the author o f Society and Exchange in Nias (1992) and Varieties of Javanese Religion: an anthropological approach (1999).

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n d r ew

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o h n B o w e n is Professor o f Anthropology at Washington University in St Louis, where he also directs the university’ s Program in Social Thought and Analysis. The author o f books on history, culture, and Islam in Indonesia, he is most recently the author o f Religions in Practice (1998) and coeditor, with Roger Petersen, o f Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture (1999). He is presently finishing a book on law and religion in Indonesia and beginning fieldwork on Islam and public space in France.

J

S t e p h e n C. H e a d l e y is a researcher in social anthropology at the Centre N ational de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. In 1994 he edited a special issue o f the French review L ’Homme entitled 'Anthropologie de la p rière’ . In 1996 he published a collective volum e Towards an Anthropology o f Prayer: Javanese Ethnolinguistic Studies. A m onograph The Spilt Seed. From Cosmogony to Exorcism in a Javanese Genesis is in press. Current research interests: comparative A ustronesian mythology; the islamisation o f Java; the reconstruction o f social confidence in central Java after the fall o f Soeharto. M i c h a e l L a m b e k teaches at the University o f T oronto. His publications include Human Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte (1981), Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery, and Spirit Possession (1993), and the co-edited Tense

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Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory (1996, with Paul Antze)

and Bodies and Persons: Comparative Perspectives from Africa and Melanesia (1998), with Andrew Strathern. is Professor o f Anthropology at the Institute o f Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University o f O xford. A fter spending much o f his career working in the interior o f East Africa, he has since spent many years studying coastal Swahili-speaking Muslims, including com parisons with nonM uslims, with special reference to Islam and systems o f therapy. Books relevant to the topic include The Sacred Void (1991), Continuity and Autonomy in Swahili Communities (1994), Pouvoir et Autorité chez les Swahili (with F. Le Guennec Coppens 1998). D

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l l y s o n P u r p u r a is Visiting Assistant Professor in the D epartment o f A nthropology at H averford College. She is currently working on a book on the politics o f Islamic culture in Zanzibar Town.

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r o u k T o p a n is Senior Lecturer in Swahili at the School o f O riental and A frican Studies, University o f London, and was form erly research officer at the Institute o f Ismaili Studies, L on don. He has worked throughout the East A frican coast, principally on language, literature, Islam, song, dance and spirit possession am ong Swahili-speakers. He is also a wellknown fictional writer in Swahili. His publications include Réseaux Religieux chez les Swahili (1991), Swahili as a Religious Language (1992) and Song, Dance and the Continuity of Swahili Identity (1994).

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Within and outside m osques along the Indian O cean littoral, prayer styles and traditions merge in some respects but rem ain distinctive in others. T he Islam ic canonical prayers are conducted five times a day, ideally in the m osque, and dem onstrate a degree o f uniform ity that stands in contrast to other ways o f invoking the transcendent, especially outside the m osque. T his shifting between modes o f invocation cannot simply be branded as syncretism. The five form al prayers are in some regions the pivot around which others turn and im part m eaning to them, while in other areas canonical prayer serves to reproduce society, reflecting it in its entirety and so either accentuating or abridging social cleavages expressed by mosque differences and by activities inside and outside them. Analysed as one might tropes, the anthropology o f Muslim prayer provides one perspective on the transm ission o f value in a society and on the cultural effects o f the growth o f Islam am ong com m unities o f Swahili-, and mixed Bantu/Austronesianspeakers extending from eastern Africa, through the Indian O cean islands to Indonesia itself. However, intonation and invocation did not begin with the arrival o f Islam; each o f the two broad ethno-linguistic areas under consideration had known other traditions for centuries before any mosques were constructed. The chapters in this volume are drawn from papers presented at a workshop on this topic held in O xford in March 1998 under the auspices o f the Institute o f Social and Cultural Anthropology.

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David Parkin

G lo b al and lo cal in Islam Spatial tropes in anthropology are useful fictions. Much discussed in the subject, those such as lan dscap e’ or the 'global and local’ introduce the idea that social relations have a territorial provenance or attachment but then show how they spread beyond or straddle such physical boundaries. At issue is the tension between these com peting proclivities o f spatial fixity, m erging and dispersal. Places or buildings may define a social relationship but also hint at attributes which reach beyond its spatial identity. M osque-based prayers denote a large m easure o f Islamic piety while those outside the mosque provoke questions: was there no choice but to pray away from a m osque; is a provisional place o f prayer thereby made sacred; to whom are the prayers addressed, G od or lesser divinities; and is it expected that the address will be reciprocated and constitute dialogue? Metaphorically rather than literally, then, the spatial contrast o f inside and outside the m osque refers to the boun dedness and coherence o f Islam as against its fragmentary and contestable expression. Thus, as described in a num ber o f chapters in this book, the hierarchy o f Friday and other m osques within a community provides a local centre to a globally uncentralised religion. But such hierarchy may co-exist contentiously with a diversity o f other local form s o f belief and 1

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worship, not all o f which are unambiguously regarded as part o f Islam but which may all be subject to oral rites, including what we may translate as prayer. Taking a cue from Beatty, we can say that praying in or out o f the m osque is, metaphorically, a matter o f perspective and intent: the idea o f prayer in the m osque connotes unam biguous Islam ic piety, while that outside points towards the possibility o f other kinds o f worship. In practice, w orshippers’ intentions may vary regardless o f where they pray. Focusing on the Indian Ocean rim as an area in which to study Islamic prayer adds to the fiction, but is a useful heuristic device. It is a fiction to delineate the region as distinctive if we do not include reference to Islamic influences on and from areas o f the world away from the Indian O cean. O n the other hand, we need to capture for analysis the centuries-old m aritim e movements and settlements o f peoples along the Indian O cean rim , from Yemen and the G u lf states to East A frica, K uch , G ujerat, southern India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. These all indicate continuities o f belief and practice which are constantly being reinforced in new ways and create regional Islamic consciousness. Som etim es such influences are so subtly made part o f a locality’ s understanding o f Islamic legitimacy that local people may take them for granted as being part o f their religion. P urpura’ s analysis o f the creation and transm ission o f Islamic knowledge on Zanzibar island, o ff the East African coast, refers to a certificate o f Islamic authority issued in Indonesia; Lambek m entions south Asian Islamic reform ers in the island o f Mayotte near Madagascar arguing for what they regard as proper prayer; the devotional text analysed by Wieringa and D orpm ueller in Indonesia (1998) was probably originally written in Arabic, either in the Middle East or in Indonesia itself by, say, H adhram i im m igrants or local clerics trained in Arabic, but is now also available as versions in Javanese and Acehinese; A rabic-inscribed amulets and the procedures for preparing them as protection against m isfortune and disease circulate between the different com m unities along the rim , as do other material goods; Arabic copies o f the Q u r’an and other

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Islamic holy texts also move freely, such that, in the archives as well as today in the streets o f Zanzibar, some books and m anuscripts detailing prayers and other oral rites come from Egypt, Iran, Saudi A rabia, India and Pakistan; m odern videos and tapes o f holy recitations stemming from other Islamic countries are also freely available anywhere along the rim . C om plem enting the rim are the islands o f the Indian Ocean, which act as concentrations o f cross-cultural effect and influence. Lam bek’ s study o f prayer and oral rites as an aspect o f Islamic performativity is based on fieldwork in the island o f Mayotte in the northwestern Indian O cean, which combines A ustronesian and Bantu linguistic and social elements. Given the strategic position o f Mayotte, Lambek not surprisingly rem inds us that transnationalism and globalism are by no means new processes. Academic interest which focuses on worldwide expansion o f western-derived capitalism and consum erism neglects the much older diasporas o f people, ideas and practices created and carried by Muslim merchants, especially in the Indian O cean. The rate o f influence is highly variable, with Islam having entered Mayotte in the m idfifteenth century yet only taking root am ong the Kibushy people o f nearby northern Madagascar in recent generations (though o f m uch longer duration am ong certain other Malagasy peoples). Such variability reveals quite different processes o f Islam isation in which we must distinguish a relatively rapid process o f conversion from what Lam bek calls 'acceptance’ o f Islam, which is likely to take longer and to be reciprocally inscribed in pre-existing custom and cosmology. T he term conversion presupposes a shift from one to another unam biguously defined religion. Acceptance is less visibly dram atic and does not mean abandonm ent o f a p reexisting cosmology. Yet it may well typify much Islamisation in the region in allowing for Islamic and non-Islam ic traits to inter-m ingle steadily. This is evident also in the chapters on Africa by Parkin, Purpura and Topan, and on Indonesia by Beatty and Headley, and in Wieringa and D orpm ueller (1998). While acceptance thus defined can produce ambiguities in the definition o f Islam, it may in some situations prom ote almost

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blanket tolerance o f its local form s. Mayotte is characterised by the latter and so Lam bek argues that it is through the actual perform ance o f prayer that people accept Islamic precepts and practice, not through any prom ulgation o f neatly demarcated creed. That is to say, since the people o f a locality who are brought together in worship will also be kin and neighbours, their existing acceptance o f each other becomes also their acceptance o f Islam. While people may accept Islam when it is couched in fam iliar local activities, its over-arching religious injunctions in turn shape existing social institutions. Localisation o f Islam and Islam isation o f society go together. Against the fuzziness o f local practice, in which an outsider sees indiscrim inate mixture, the rules o f Islamic law are interpreted to distinguish 'piou s’ and 'bad’ Muslims, 'orthodox’ and ’mystical’ , and ’reform ist’ and ’traditional’ . I place such distinctions within quotation marks to indicate that people do not always agree as to who fits into which categories. But this arbitrarinesss does not lessen the impact o f such discrim inations in particular situations.

T e r m s a n d fo r m s in I s la m ic p ra y e r However, a remarkable feature o f Islam is how consistent over a wide area is the use o f Arabic terms for different kinds o f prayer and invocation. In this volume, prayer, invocation, devotional address and oral rite are some o f the rather vague expressions used in English both to make distinctions but also to indicate their relatedness. But in Islam, the term inological distinctions o f divine invocation are much m ore tightly codified: salat, dua, tawasul, dhikr, fatiha , shahada, maulidi, qasida, sifat (or sim ilar sounding) make up an Arabic-derived classification o f addresses to, or through, G od, all o f which are described in this volume and which show remarkable similarity o f m eaning throughout the Indian O cean region. They co-exist with quite different non-A rabic variants. These are usually specific to a local area or region and may be synonyms, opposites or semantically incorporated in the Arabic term.

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Headley (1 9 9 4 :7 -1 4 ; 19 9 6 :5 -4 6 , 30 7 -4 2 ) and M etcalf (1989:10—13) have grappled with the definitional issues o f prayer, and o f socio-cultural and linguistic approaches to its study. Headley revisits some o f his considerations in the C onclusion to the current volume. M etcalf s two-part fo rm ulation o f invocation and supplication is relevant as a broad contrast o f emphases in Islam, especially as between salat and dua (see Parkin). Invocation is o f course the sine qua non o f prayer. But it need not always include or lead to supplication. Invocation in Islam, as in certain kinds o f salat, may be solely or mainly an assertion o f faith in G od ’ s existence, om nipotence, om niscience and beneficence, without there being any evidence o f a request (although one might always argue that there is an im plicit wish for G od to bless humanity and grant it wellbeing). In this volume, Headley also refers to what he sees as a puzzle: while prayer may or may not be dialogue, it is nevertheless quasi-universal. A principle problem is, indeed, whether the prayer or invocation presupposes sufficient reciprocal response to constitute dialogue, and whether such dialogue must be understood as a form o f propositional language. Following on from previous work (see especially Headley 1996: 334—35), let me here propose four broad dim ensions or levels o f dialogue as evidenced in various examples drawn from chapters in the current volume and elsewhere. For shorthand convenience let me call them reciprocal, n on -recip ro cal, indirect, and reflexive, although these terms capture only part o f the distinctions which, in reality, may partially overlap. 1 Rec

ipr o c a l

. H

um a n

HS

Se n

d er

→ DR,

→ D iv

in e

Rec

e iv e r

→

et c

This is what we normally understand as standard reciprocal com m unication, and occurs if a worshipper believes that the deity responds to a request or invocation through word or sign: ’I speak to my god who speaks back to m e’ . This is a matter o f b elief on the part o f the worshipper, which may or may not be evident also from his/her behaviour and the consequences o f

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the prayer. A m ong Swahili-speaking people in East Africa (Parkin), dua shade from those addressed to G od as supplication, which G od may or may not grant, to others addressed to (usually) lesser deities or spirits, who are arguably no longer within the realm o f Islam and who, through the voice o f human interm ediaries or shamans, engage in mutual verbal negotiation with worshippers. Included in this genre, perhaps, are the many kinds o f form ulaic recitations, consisting sometimes o f Q u r’anic verses (often also called dua) or o f devotional poetry such as the burda, whose purpose is that G od reciprocate by granting a boon or removing m isfortune. Hunwick (1993:256—57) refers to one fam ous throughout the Islamic world which, in West Africa, also serves as a kind o f talisman. Its recitation may include a prayer for the Prophet and, if so m inded, G od responds by curing the sick, protects a child and its mother, or a traveller or m erchant, or sends the worshipper a vision o f the Prophet. 2 No

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en c e

Much prayer, or aspects o f prayer performance, are mainly or solely affirmative, as in some o f the cases o f Islamic salat described in this volume, its purpose being to communicate to G od confirm ed belief in His existence and a pledge o f loyalty and perhaps tribute. Included here is the shahada, consisting o f a statement o f sincere intent followed by the repeated assertion in Arabic, ’I witness that there is no god but G od and I witness that M ohamed is the messenger o f G od’ . As well as constituting the first o f the five Islamic pillars, shahada is o f course the means by which an individual becomes Muslim and recurs thereafter as an integral feature o f the worshipper’ s prayers. Some kinds o f devotional poetry, including certain qasida, fall into this category. Little or no outward sign o f response may be expected as a result o f such prayer perform ances, although the silence need not in fact preclude the granting to the worshipper o f divine bounty, grace or intercession. Seeking boons is not however supposed to be part o f the w orshipper’ s initial intention, who may however move on to this.

In

3 In

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d ir e c t

. Hu

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/D

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In tawasul intercessionary prayer, the worshipper may com m unicate indirectly to G od through a hum an intermediary, whose prayers are answered directly by G od by virtue o f his being a vehicle o f divine grace ( baraka), itself a property o f his descent from the Prophet M oham m ed. As in the example o f Seyyid Silim a in Sw ahili-speaking Zanzibar (P u rpu ra), he may additionally be acknowledged by G od for his inner sincerity (mwenye karama) and yet continue in due humility to have divine reward (thawabu) conferred on him for his pious prayers and worthy deeds, being able to recite his own and Q u r’anic protective dua. Tawasul taking the form o f intercession through dead saints may, however, incur the criticism o f W ahabi-influenced M uslims. This happened in Som alia in the second half o f the nineteenth century when an outgrowth o f the Ahmadiya brotherhood took issue with Qadiriya for visiting saints’ tombs for this purpose and rejected the claim that saints could act as interm ediaries between Muslims and G od (M artin 1976:161). 4 Re

f l e x iv e

. H

uma n

/D H

iv in e

uma n

/D

Se l

f

iv in e

→ H Se l

uma n

/D

iv in e

Se l

f

f

T he dhikr invocations o f G o d ’ s many names affirm belief in G o d ’ s existence. Through their often aesthetically tranceinduced effects in which much o f the focus is on repeatedly precise pronunciation, they may also be regarded as selfreferential in that they merge or fill the worshipper with G odliness and so confirm the divinity within mankind. Beatty, in discussing salat incorporations o f Q u r’anic verse am ong Javanese M uslims, distinguishes between what he calls orthodox M uslims and mystics. 'O rthodox’ understanding is that the prayer is effective because the worshipper, in quoting the words o f G od as com m unicated to the Prophet M oham ed, is drawing on its divine authorship. But the 'mystics’ say that one is not merely quoting but actually speaking with G od ’ s voice, the

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prayer’ s efficacy drawing on the force o f divinity within the worshipper. G od is here not external to the worshipper but part o f him , so that the worshipper is in dialogue with successive aspects o f his intrinsically divine selfhood. (As a kind o f prayer reflexivity, we should note here also M etcalf s reference to a doubling o f speech roles such as occurs either when the speaker takes on the voice o f a remote ancestor or deity or when s/he deputes, say, a sacrificial animal to speak to them instead (1994). It is difficult to imagine such a practice ever being acceptable as Islam ic).

We see that these four levels do rest on the assum ption that dialogue is made up o f propositional language: invocation is assertion an d, if it leads to supplication, becomes an appeal; b elief in divinity is also assertion; and demands and responses are negotiated and argued. In fact the approach from propositional language as a possible aspect o f prayer perform ance is not the only one, nor necessarily the most fruitful. We may additionally recast the notion o f prayer in other terms and thereby show it as being more ontologically inclusive. For instance, as Bowen shows in his com parison o f two Indonesian political leaders, recitation o f the fatiha (the first verse o f the Q u r’an) is judged for its apparent sincerity not propositional content. This, like the salat prayers, are G od’ s verbal creations and must be reproduced in as identical a m anner as humanly possible: wrong pronunciation, or the attempt to smuggle in new meaning, deviates from G od’ s design and betrays insincerity, impiety and even blasphemy. Q uestions about the design or form o f the oral rite or invocation are here fundam ental: how much is G od and how much m ankind the creator? I wish to distinguish two form s: textual and bodily/physical. The contrast sets up a num ber o f others as we shall see and does itself relate to and partly shadow that o f m osque-based fixity and extra-m osque dispersal and fragm entation. Let me begin with salat, which takes the form o f precisely followed rules o f procedure and stands out in some respects from other kinds o f Islamic oral rite and invocation.

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In the case I describe for Zanzibar the rules were expressed as essentially physical rather than verbal. Imams claimed that the correct bodily postures making up the rak’a o f the salat were central to the success o f the prayer: salat , they said, is param ountly to do with 'actions’ , for the words o f the prayer are anyway uttered by the prayer leader, to which other worshippers respond as appropriate. Now, it may be that the primacy placed on physical correctness in salat is particularly pronounced in Zanzibar. O th er chapters in the volum e, however, po in t to the significance o f physical determ ination in salat. Beatty and Headley both refer to the four nam ed postures in Java (standing, bowing, prostrating, sitting) as symbolising the four elements of, respectively, fire, air, water and earth that constitute a hum an being and their personhood. Further sub-divisions o f the full physical cycle (rak'a) denote ontological sequences such as conception and reproduction. Encom passing these bodily divisions and sub-divisions o f salat is the overall rule that the prayer must be perform ed five times daily at set intervals in the direction o f Mecca and, ideally, in the mosque. We have then a kind o f spatial-physical-bodily hierarchy o f salat perform ance rules. Put broadly, these successively encom passing rules are: m osque centrality > five times daily at set times and orientation > com ponentially significant bodily postures > commentary or m editation on the physical and spiritual makeup o f personhood. Jo stlin g with this emphasis on correct place, time and posture in salat is, to return again to Bowen’ s example, that on sincerity or conviction in the perform ance, denoted by the term niyat. Two worshippers side by side may appear to be praying through use o f the same words and bodily movements, but we cannot know their devotional intentions. This example echoes Beatty’ s distinction between the outer dim ension o f salat called lair and its inner called batin (niyat in Headley’ s case). I have already introduced the case o f the Indonesion politicians discussed by Bowen, whose recitations o f fatiha were held to dem onstrate their sincerity or lack o f it. What is interesting here is that the accusations o f insincerity and blasphemy arise

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out o f im proper readings o f sacred texts. It is o f course true that im proper perform ance o f the bodily dim ensions o f salat must be rem edied, but they seem less likely to result in a questioning o f the w orshipper’ s inner state as do incorrect textual recitations and references. Why should this be so ? Partly at least, it is because recitation o f such texts and the use o f specific Q u r’anic verses for curative as well as devotional purposes (as in the production o f verseinscribed amulets and certain im bibed m edicines) are regarded as 'unpacking’ the inner sacredness o f G od ’ s words, especially if they are written in Arabic. The externality o f a sacred text, namely the actual book or written form , is therefore subsumed in its interior divinity, much as the Javanese 'mystics’ described by Beatty argue that individual worshippers draw upon their inner godliness. Textual recitation, in reproducing the authorship an d/or voice o f this inscribed divinity, must therefore be flawless. The Zanzibari religious sage described by Purpura personifies this prioritisation o f the interiority o f sacred texts. He is not sought for his scholarly knowledge and credentials but for his personal character and pedigree o f descent from the Prophet in which is encoded his God-given capacity to recite Q u r’anic and other dua effectively. That is to say, it is not his mastery o f textual knowledge as an imam, teacher, judge or cleric that attracts people to him, but the fact that, being so loved by G od for his devotion, he is a conduit o f divine grace ( baraka) and so able to help his fellow humans through prayer. His godly interiority is somewhat akin to the notion o f sincerity. It draws from his oral and written prayers made on behalf o f others a holiness that cannot be read from the words themselves. At this point we can note that the distinction between the bodily and the textual in prayer has set up a distinction between external and internal textuality and outer and inner states o f worship: Bodily dim ension o f salat : textual dim ension o f salat : : textual externality : textual interiority :: appearance : sincerity.

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O ther dualities partly replicate but partly cross-cut these. Thus, the contrast o f salat and dua, as expressed by Zanzibari imams themselves (Parkin), is as follows: salat : dua :: m osque-based : not necessarily m osque-based

:: bodily and verbally form ulaic : negotiable possibilities

P ray e r as p a r a d ig m While clearly abstracted from the flow o f social process, and provisionally ignoring the many other oral rites and invocations, the above dualities in Islamic prayer have sufficient quality as templates o f procedure to be taken as fundam ental. At this point it is im portant to stress that, while oppositional dualities are often the basis o f debate in Islam as in other textual religions, outside scholars have a particularly difficult task o f adequately translating them. A characteristic one, as Beatty acknowledges, is that between so-called orthodox M uslims and mystics. A key problem is that it is o f course doubtful that the latter would ever refer to themselves by the English term 'mystics’ , given the sometimes pejorative nature o f the designation and its im plication o f being heterodox or non-m ainstream . They are indeed m ore likely to see them selves as in various ways m ore 'orthodox’ or true to the original way o f Islam. They and their adversaries have, after all, been in existence since the emergence o f Islam. Similarly, in East Africa, the allegedly W ahabi-trained reform ists seek to elim inate supposed innovations o f belief and practice incurred since the Prophet’ s lifetim e. Such innovations are called bida’a , and, ironically reversing the appellation, their practitioners call their reform ist critics ’people o f the bida’a' . Unsurprisingly, then, they do not actually call themselves unlawful innovators, though I have heard one or two refer to themselves as 'traditional’ Muslims, using the English term. For their part, the W ahabi-trained reform ists do not norm ally refer to themselves as such. The point, then, is that while such oppositions are certainly the basis o f debate and conflict, we

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need alternative ways o f identifying them from those currently used in English. The distinction between orthodox and mystic as given in Beatty’ s case, for instance, is perhaps im plicit in that made between two tendencies in Islamic prayer and devotional thought. By orthodox we really mean those worshippers who perceive there to be an unbridgeable ontological gap between themselves as humans and G o d , who is therefore always likely to be in some way external to m ankind. I propose calling them ontological dualists. By mystic we mean a worshipper who assumes from the outstart that divinity is within him /her and whose task in prayer and devotion is to express and reinforce this ontological onesness with the Absolute that is G od. I refer to these as ontological m onists. Now, while the terms to describe them may vary, both am ong the people who are subject to them and am ong outside com m entators, the dichotom ies and oppositions making up the paradigm o f prayer are remarkably persistent even when under attack. Thus, Beatty notes the fury o f 'orthodox’ (ontological dualist) Javanese M uslims at the 'mystic’ (ontological monist) justification for perform ing salat at any time, and without rak’a postures or facing Mecca. The m onists’ claim is that such spatial and bodily dispositions are little m ore than outward signs or idolotry, a claim which would seem to erase the possibility o f talking o f prayer as emanating from a wider paradigm . Despite their claim, however, the m onists’ redefinition o f the bodily and spatial movements and orientations o f prayer as m erely 'outward signs’ simply reproduces the m etaphor o f externality and interiority, including that o f outside and inside the m osque, that is otherwise characteristic o f Islam as indicated above. Nevertheless, the case illustrates a drive am ong ontological m onists to try and dissolve the sharply defined dichotomies that pervade Islam as propagated by dualists. In refusing to set salat apart as a separate sacred tim e-space from the profane, the m onists each becom e their own self-transportable sites o f divinity and so merge what we might otherwise distinguish as

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the profane and sacred. The drive originates in a desire to be at one with the Absolute, and not to preserve the separation o f G od and humanity. O ne might even argue that m onists’ proclivity to dissolve sharp distinctions better reflects the reality o f an inclusive plethora o f prayer-types, oral rites and invocations existing within and beyond the mosque, which Lam bek usefully calls the generic practice o f prayer. This plethora characterises many M uslim societies, but may also be seen as a challenge to those who see Islam as needing to be made universally and unquestioningly consistent. T he governing preoccupation o f Islam remains, as at its inception, the perceived conflict o f polytheism (shirk) and m onotheism . The intensity o f this opposition has not been relaxed despite the passing o f centuries o f Islamic expansion, probably because the societies in which Islam has flourished are precisely those in which indigenous anim ism , pantheism and hierarchical polytheism have constituted powerful cosmic explanatory systems, proto-scientific in their bio-zoological classificatory scope and analogical in their method o f reasoning. T h eir explanatory usefulness has been incorporated in Islam to an extent less likely in European post-Enlightenm ent Christianity, where im perial control has forced on local peoples the exclusive equation o f m onotheism with rational positivism at the expense o f indigenous knowledge. The generic practice o f prayer is a kind o f paradigm into which are fitted both indigenous form s o f invocation and the many other Islamic kinds o f prayer and oral rite which exist alongside the m ain distinction between salat and dua. Lambek suggests that many arguments over Islamic reform turn on disagreem ents as to the correct methods and conditions o f prayer. This is certainly the case if we extend the orbit o f prayer to encom pass many other oral rites o f an invocatory, devotional and supplicatory nature. These other oral rites include: Sunni Arabo-Sw ahili m aulid celebrations o f the Prophet’ s birthday and o f thanksgivings (com prising biographical qasida poetry in praise o f the Prophet, interspersed with specific prayers, as described by Topan); khitima Q u r’anic recitations made at funerals; the use o f tawasul

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intercessionary prayers (Purpura and T opan); the Sh i’a Ismaili dhikr rem em brances o f G od through his attributes, often made silently (Topan), in contrast to the Javanese prolongation o f the five daily salat in m antra-like dhikr (Headley); and the recitation o f individual or annual fatiha (Bowen; Lambek). T h e perform ative variations are b ou n d to incur the disfavour o f W ahabi-influenced reform ists, whose solution is to reduce practices to the set few occuring with the Prophet’ s authority and during his lifetim e. Like language standardisers faced with proliferating regional dialects threatening centralised authority, the reform ists have their logic: diversification o f the Um m ah is at the expense o f its coherence and hence communicative power in the face o f hostile opponents, some o f whom are non-M uslim and some from within Islam; an essentialised Um m ah must be restored. I have touched already on the example o f Javanese monists ('mystics’) being condem ned for not perform ing raka nor facing Mecca while praying salat, and o f wrongful pronunciation o f sacred texts as constituting insincerity and even blasphemy. O ther areas o f contention include the extent to which Arabic or a vernacular language may be used. Topan records the changes over time on the East A frican coast in the extent to which there is use o f Swahili translations o f the Barazanji Arabic version o f the maulid and o f Swahili com positions juxtaposed with Arabic ones in the accompanying qasida. The alternations reflect the struggle between reform ists, who often insist on a knowledge and use o f Arabic as being the only sure route to G od through Islam, and traditionalists who support the vernacular. O ften exposed to Wahabi teachings in Saudi A rabia, reform ists also oppose maulid in general, together with the dhikr rythmic chanting o f G o d ’ s names and qualities, recitation o f prayers at funerals and veneration o f saints. Swahili-speakers’ use o f dua incorporating Q u r’anic verses to bargain with spirits is also a com m on feature o f disagreement am ong M uslims (Parkin), with Mayotte unusually showing a high degree o f co-religionist tolerance (cf. Caplan 1997:153, 185). As Lam bek puts it, the three discourses o f Islam, cosmology/astrology and spirit possession are incom m ensurate

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discourses and so speak past each other. The people o f Mayotte say that G od is, after all, the same whatever the belief system, with the result that any one family may contain Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and Ancestor W orshippers, and that it does not matter where and how a person prays. It is in fact at a person' s death and burial that their religious affiliation has to be made am biguous, being either Islamic, Christian or indigenous. It is as if the people o f Mayotte defer the disagreements over religious belonging, practice and interpretation until the last possible m om ent. This is consistent with the m ore easily m erged local customary and Islamic form s o f prayer, although even this is tempered by a general contrast made between Muslims and Christians on the one hand and, on the other, people who are neither Muslim nor Christian and who are negatively characterised as 'those who do not pray’ . Such broad uses o f prayer-capacity to distinguish whole peoples is clearly political. In the case o f Mayotte it may be that it suspends possible conflict between Muslims and Christians and re-locates it in the m ore fuzzy border area between 'believers’ and 'non-believers’ , although this is speculation. O ther cases are often m ore clear-cut. Earlier generations in Zanzibar and the East A frican coast accentuated differences (within in reality mixed populations) between what are locally called Sunni (often o f H adhram i origin), Ibadi (o f O m ani origin) and Sh i’a Ismailis and Ithnasheris (o f Indian origin). This was by reference not only to doctrine and their separate m osque sites and designs, but also to m inor differences in the conduct o f prayer, such as whether, in the salat standing position, the arms were held straight at the side o f the body or in front, one hand gently laid over the other. In recent years in Zanzibar, especially following the revolution o f 1964 and increased Arab and M uslim insecurity, m osques may be often be shared, with at least one Ibadi m osque built like a Sunni one, with the m inor differences o f com portm ent m aintained but thereby visibly tolerated and the doctrinal differences left undiscussed. T he use o f the body in its relationship to prayer is otherwise o f very powerful significance and can certainly be a political

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m arker. Analysing devotional colum ns in periodicals in Indonesia, Riddell describes how government tries to control the conduct o f Islam isation. M oral disapproval is directed at, for example, immodesty in dress ('G od gave Adam clothes to cover his nakedness’) and at the Miss Indonesia/Universe beauty pageants which are judged by foreigners, a clear indication o f the propensity o f non-M uslim outsiders to lure pious women away from their virtuous Islamic lives (see also the case o f Zanzibar in Parkin 1995). Men and women’ s seclusion in swimming pools is urged and the use o f clothes and headcovering to dem onstrate devoutness, with behaviour to be based on the four m odel women in the Q u r’an, namely Maryam, Aisha, K hadija and Fatimah. More generally, worshippers are exhorted to rise for the m orning prayer as a means o f meeting their 'beautiful C reator’ and as a way o f cleansing the m ortal flesh (the base body) on the route to becom ing O ne.

T h e bo dy in p ra y e r The fundamental role o f the body as arch-means o f purification takes us back to the central role o f salat as the pivotal dimension o f Islamic prayer, both in the making o f the Um m ah and in distinguishing correct from im proper Muslims, and Muslims from non-M uslim s, depending on protagonists’ perspectives. The body in this capacity has its own fons et origo as that which must be washed in a variety o f mandatory ways before prayer can begin and must be free o f the contam ination o f recent sexual intercourse. Exhaustive rules on the details o f these im pure states and their purification prior to prayer are everywhere published extensively and are central to Islamic instruction. T his is an area deserving o f m ore sustained analysis than can be attempted in the present context, but some initial notion is evident in Parkin’ s and Headley’ s chapters. Parkin talks o f the use o f the body as straddling expectations within and outside the m osque. Prior cleansing before and correct bodily postures during prayer, ideally in the m osque, contrasts with the swaying bodily m ovem ents and qasida chanting characteristic o f some maulid celebrations which are carried

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out outside the m osque. T he latter may som etim es be condem ned, and not ju st by reform ists, as too akin to the spirit possession dances o f neighbouring non-M uslim s. Headley echoes this theme when he refers to a devotional poem distinguishing four kinds o f worship, the first o f which is via the body ( raga) which is the lowest and requires ablution (o f salat) before it can rise to those o f thought, the soul and essence. Interestingly, while this hierarchy places the body lowest, it is also essential that worshippers be praised for proper treatment o f the body, for its refreshed state passes to the blood and thence to the peace o f m ind and clarity needed for ascetism and knowledge. O n the one hand, then, the body is a lowly starting point in the cumulative process o f prayer com m unication with G od. O n the other hand, it is only by purifying the body that it can becom e a conduit to the state o f m ind necessary to achieve this divine com m unication. T he hum an body is often characterised in so-called western Cartesian epistemology as standing in opposition to the m ind, soul or spirit. Its role in Islam as both humble starting point and means to m ore exalted thought and essence positions it differently. It can be seen rather as ambivalently mediating or standing between hum an m ind-soul and non-hum an creatures. That is to say, the body can be a route to the one and only G od and, for ontological monists, the site o f m a n s and G o d ’ s com bined divinity. But it can also be the site o f possession by n on-hum an spirits which, in most cases, are regarded as falling outside Islamic belief or at least as being unacceptable to Islam as objects o f worship, veneration and supplication. It is for this reason that ontological dualist ('orthodox’) Muslims may condem n rituals in which worshippers are seemingly taken over in their body-m ind by divine ecstasy. The worshippers may call the rites Islamic and G od as being the source o f their ecstasy. But their body language may be deem ed as sometimes closely resem bling that o f spirit possession sessions. The fact that, say, maulid cerem onies involve m en often m ore centrally than women and spirit possession usually women m ore than m en does not alter the view o f both as borderin g on shirk according to orthodox believers.

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A gain, the dom inant m onist em phasis in Mayotte is distinctive. The shijabo perform ance o f prayer and blessing on the island draws on considerable use o f body language, but is not regarded as too much on the edge o f Islam, as it might be by at least some influential senior Muslims on the East African coast, possibly because there are too few reform ists to make the com plaint. C onsisting o f overlapping dua recitations, the shijabo is held to provide com m unal cohesion and involves men perform ers standing behind seated women and children, reciting the dua in low voices, and ceremonially blowing into their hands and tossing rice onto the subjects’ heads, all participants facing Mecca but with men s posture in the standing position exuding strength. N or is the annual fatiha perform ance for ancestors regarded as in breach o f fun dam ental Islamic principles o f form and occasion, as might be the case elsewhere. However, like the widely reported m aulid celebrations, neither the shijabo nor fatiha prayer perform ances seem likely ever to occur in the m osque itself, and we may wonder whether this spatial exclusion is, so to speak, a bottom line beyond which firm er and m ore textually focused definitions o f Islam begin to emerge. What is illustrated by these and other contrasting cases is that there is no single line dividing ontological m onists and dualists, or reform ists and those they criticise, between whom differences shift markedly within and across situations and societies. Islamic purification o f the body before prayer, precise bodily movements during salat, and the bodily discom forts expected o f fasting during Ram adhan stand in contrast to their opposites: uncleanliness, incorrect posture and bodily excesses and greed. It is usually manifestly clear as to what constitutes cases o f uncleanliness and greed. But it is a matter o f contention as to whether, say, the swaying and chanting o f men linked arm -toarm while seated during a maulid celebration, are to be interpreted as im proper bodily movements m ore akin to the 'excesses’ o f spirit possession and other shirk activities. Early twentieth-century Q adiriya dhikrs in coastal Tanzania were indeed so criticised by rival orders but nevertheless won many new adherents for their practice o f sitting in a m osque in an

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enthusiastic circle loudly chanting in Arabic the fam iliar 'There is no god but G o d ’ and swaying to drum beats or to the poetry o f their founding Shaykh (M artin 1976:163). Anim al sacrifice occurring at set occasions such as Idd-ul-Fitr re-invokes A braham ’ s sacrifice o f his son and so equates animal with hum an body. But some cases o f ritual slaughter o f animals may not count as sacrifice and may be regarded as falling outside Islam. Yet, insofar as they may be accom panied by dualike prayers o f supplication, they pose problem s o f interpretation: is it the one and only G od or is it cosmic forces or spirits who are prayed to ? To take an example, at the launch o f a new boat, Swahili fisherm en appease sea spirits in order to avert one o f their num ber drowning while at sea during the com ing year. O fferings o f food are made and the term inology used suggests surrogate sacrifice: please accept the food instead o f the human victim. But the fisherm en also ask for the local m osque imam to say prayers to G od. He may or may not agree according to whether he regards the event as acceptable to Islam (Parkin). Lienhardt (1980:293—99) also provides a detailed account o f conflicting interpretations over the acceptability o f praying to ancestors as well as to G od for rain and o f slaughtering/ sacrificing a bull in this context while reciting Allah akbar. Such contestability returns us to the various dualisms on which much in Islam is prem ised, including prayers and their perform ance.

C o n c lu s io n The spatial distinction between prayer inside and outside the mosque is in fact one o f a number o f locally contestable moral and political dualisms in Islam. The moral entails and presupposes the political. Even the notion o f ontological dualism may itself be opposed by ontological monism. Dualist Muslims preserve the gap between humanity and G o d , while monists dissolve it and see God within themselves, and as inherent in their humanity. Piscatori characterises Islam as made up o f contestable ideas marking the religion o ff as a political field (1986:14—15), a suggestion that inevitably holds also for where, when, how, by and to whom prayers are perform ed, as this introduction has discussed. The

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centrality o f prayer as an act o f high political potential is evident from cases in the current volume and from other reported examples. For instance, a M ouride intellectual o f Senegal summoned by the French colonial authorities, defiantly said prayers in the shortened form reserved for Muslims in enemy territory, the only one o f his companions daring to do so in the face o f colonial opposition. The incident strengthened the movement, gave rise to a new Mouride pilgrimage and earned him a heroic name as 'the Man o f Refusal’ (Cruise O ’Brien 1988:15051). Similarly, when three drunken French officers in Damascus in the 1920s forced a prayer leader at gun point to halt the call to prayer and come down from his minaret, the outrage caused a strike and further fuelled the emerging nationalist movement (Kabbani 1989:53-54). T he priority o f shahada in the five pillars as the profession o f Islamic faith and its principles carries through into the range o f prayer-form s and invocations: a person might devotedly suffer in his fasting, be generous in alms-giving and visit Mecca regularly, but without perform ing salat as in a sense itself a com panion pillar to shahada in the profession o f total loyalty to G od , it would be im possible to call that person Muslim. A M uslim is ipso facto one who recognises the five pillars and the fundam ental im portance o f shahada and salat. Unless one follows these, there can be no G ood Sam aritan equivalent o f being regarded by other Muslims as o f essentially Islamic disposition, however com m endable on e’ s charitable practice. Salat , for its part, is a kind o f pivot around which other invocations and affirm ations o f G od turn, ranging from dua and fatiha to tawasul and others. These latter incur m ore potential disagreem ent as to their correct perform ance than is the case with salat . It is as if the further one moves from the form ulaic rigours o f salat, with its ideal location in time (five times a day), place (the m osque), orientation (facing Mecca) and postures (the rata), and into the field o f other oral rites, many o f which are less likely to be confined to the mosque and set times, the m ore contestable ideas and actions become. This contestability can be viewed as going in two possible directions. O ne is that o f an increasingly perilous journey into

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the beliefs and practices o f polytheism, such as when a dua is accom panied by a verse from the Q u r’an but is actually addressed m ore as a supplication to spirits or cosmic forces than to the one and only G od. In many ways, this has constituted a genre o f dangers feared by many Muslims o f each other who may not be able to agree that the other’ s is a doctrinally acceptable alternative version o f behaviour. The second possible direction is to arrive at a situation in which contestants debate whether and how much G od, who is o f course held indisputably to be om nipotent, omniscienent and the only granter o f blessing and mercy, may be ’helped’ in his work by, say, intercessionary saints, other humans and even 'acceptable’ jin n s or other forces. It may be asked whether prayer perform ances even partly addressed to these alternative agencies are, by way o f analogy, ways o f bringing in non-divine causes and understandings, and whether this threatens to dim inish belief in the absolute creativity, power and knowledge o f a single divinity. It is a further matter o f debate as to whether dualists or monists are closer to answering such questions philosophically rather than politically. The ancient Greek gods granted boons to worshippers, as we might expect, but also sought honour and recognition (Pulleyn 1998; see also Headley, C onclusion). Was this in com petition with each oth er? If so, why should humans have thought o f them in this way? Was this suggestion o f frailty enmeshed with power a kind o f hum an self-reflection? In later Judaism , Christianity and Islam, the honour and recognition to be accorded G od takes a less self-reflective and m ore obviously political turn. For, in advancing m onotheistic claims over and against pantheistic religions and, in due course, against each other, these later religions needed to affirm the existence o f the one and only G od as a means o f expressing collective devotional com m itm ent. Being essentially a political act in the competition for religious supremacy, declarations o f faith had to supplem ent divine supplication am ong their followers. In the light o f the fact, then, that Islamic prayer is like much ritual in being politically and linguistically performative, and

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effective through speech acts as well as m obilisation o f w orshippers’ power, the following chapters focus on particular cases and ask what is distinctive about prayer when treated as a form o f ritual inside and outside the m osque.

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S a lā t and ritu a l theory In the 1980’ s and 1990’ s, anthropologists abandoned the project o f constructing general accounts o f ritual to those who carved out the new field o f 'ritual studies.’ Whatever the reasons, that abandonm ent may bode well for an improved an th ropological u nderstanding o f Islam ic ritual, and in particular the ritual o f worship, salat . For, as in so many things, earlier attempts to develop general ritual theory ended up projecting outward from the cases known best to the writer, to a declared universe o f all ritual actions —and familiarity with Islamic ritual has been unusually underdeveloped within the anthropology community. What was taken as the key advance o f the 1970’ s, for example, was the study o f ’ritual as com m unication’ (Tambiah 1981; see also Bloch 1986; Wagner 1984). The key idea in this theory was that every ritual (or, som ething a bit different, every ritual worth its salt) had a symbolic or propositional core, and that its purpose or role was to say som ething to somebody. This idea seemed to work very well for the particular cases chosen for analysis. But it was never clear why it should be accepted as a general theory. A recent, excellent ethnography-cum-theoretical treatise by Humphrey and Laidlaw (1994) demonstrates both why this claim to have arrived at a general theory is implausible and why it does not work for Ja in and H indu rituals. Many 23

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rituals simply do not contain or communicate propositions, argue these authors, though actors do often impute or attach such propositions to rituals. They continue by asserting that the less that actors presum e there to be an authoritative propositional m eaning expressed or com m unicated by a particular ritual, the ’p u rer’ a case o f ritual it is. A nd, they claim, it is the Ja in (and to a lesser extent H indu) rituals that best exemplify this pure type o f ritual. Without so intending, Humphrey and Laidlaw do a great service to Islamic ritual studies by effectively dem olishing the claim that 'ritual as com m unication’ provides an adequate general account o f religious ritual. I wish to use their approach as a way o f further specifying the distinctive features o f salat; I then proceed to draw on those features to clarify recent public debate and uproar in Indonesia about ritual action and intentions. The 'ritual as com m unication’ theory failed to capture the key characteristics o f salat, characteristics also found in other Islamic rituals, none o f which are built around a propositional or semantic core. These characteristics are the connections to G od that guarantee its correct form and also can be created by worship itself. The underpinning or guarantee o f this connection to the divine is the genealogy o f the ritual. As Humphrey and Laidlaw correctly point out, the key question people ask about a ritual is: 'D id I get it righ t?’ Carrying out the ritual o f salat correctly m eans replicating those acts perform ed by the Prophet M uham m ad that were intended to serve as guides for the M uslim community. These divinely inspired acts and statements are collectively referred to as his sunna and they include all that he did in worship and service o f G od. Therefore,, in matters o f worship one should do precisely what Muhammad did —all o f it and no m ore (Bowen 1993: 289—314). That on e’ s own actions are in fact replications o f those o f the Prophet M uham m ad is guaranteed by a verified chain o f transm ission, a genealogy o f knowledge certified by experts in the science o f transm ission, who inspect all claims to direct contact between one transm itter and the next, as well as the piety and reliability

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o f said transm itters. It is not going too far, I think, to speak o f this chain or isnad as the backbone o f Islamic ritual knowledge (com pare Graham 1993). The genealogy o f the ritual guarantees iterated indexicality, starting from the actions o f the Prophet that were seen or heard by a C om panion, to others who listened to the C om panion, and so on, to those who recorded the report (hadīth) in a reliable written collection. Seen in this way, the m eaning o f each action perform ed in worship and service o f G od (' ibādāt) is its position in the indexical chain that stretches back to the initial event o f consecration — an event that is the ritual equivalent o f Saul K ripke’ s (1972) notion o f initial 'baptismal events’ that start o ff chains o f transm ission o f semantic meaning. So far, salat benefits from the theoretical dem olition o f ritual theory carried out by Humphrey and Laidlaw. But they go beyond claims about absence o f propositional m eaning to try and define how actors do conceive o f a ritual’ s meaning, and here, I believe, the effort to generalize from a single case once m ore goes awry. They claim (pp. 149—54) that actors conceive o f ritual acts not in term s o f necessary and sufficient conditions, but in much the way that we conceive o f 'natural kinds’ . We take such things as gold, lem ons, and horses (to use their examples, p. 151), as natural kinds, which we identify by perceiving attributes that serve as signs o f a presumably single essence, usually unknown to us. This attitude is opposed to the way we conceive o f 'artifacts’ such as chairs, homes, and novels. These objects 'all exist in the world, but they do not do so independently o f social convention and hum an im agination’ (p. 151). In other words, the terms do refer to a definite class o f objects, but that class could easily have been otherwise had people made them otherwise. People treat ritual acts in some respects as natural kinds, argue Humphrey and Laidlaw, as sharing some essential stuff even though the rituals might be carried out differently in, say, different regions. T his description may well account for Ja in epistemologies o f ritual — it certainly seems to fit the data. But Muslims practice a very different epistemology o f ritual, one that treat salat m ore as artifacts than as natural kinds. The distinction is on two

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dim ensions. First, any individual Muslim will state that the necessary and sufficient conditions for an act to count as salat are clear. The steps in worship can be read from manuals, although usually the worship is learned by precisely imitating another M uslim ’ s movements and utterances. Any deviation from the core actions is considered to be illegitimate (Bowen 1993: 2 8 9 -3 1 4 ). O f course, Muslims may disagree am ong themselves as to what those conditions are, but each believes his or her own version is correct. In other words, the epistemology o f ritual is that complete and perfect knowledge o f the single correct way to worship is attainable. Now, beyond the core actions required for worship, salat practices also include space for individual variation — in the choice o f scripture to be read, for example. Furtherm ore, behavior may vary still further, for example, in the position o f fingers at the close o f worship, or the movement o f arms at the beginning, and these variations often serve as indices o f particular religious or social affiliations held by the actors, as I have described at length in an earlier article (Bowen 1989). Worship behavior may also diagram local political ideologies, for example, in the degree to which places at the front o f the worship area are reserved for people o f high status. But these sociopolitical indices are clearly separated in the m inds o f worshippers from the fact o f an agree-upon core ritual. Secondly, the form o f salat is artifactual in that it is considered conventional, not natural — only the convention is one o f G o d ’ s making. G od could very well change what he requires o f his followers — as indeed he did once do. Worship once was in the direction o f Jerusalem , during the period in M edina when M uhammad was forging an alliance with local Jews. Later, after the alliance was broken, G od directed that the direction shift to that o f Mecca. The worship ritual thus possesses clear conditions for being correct, but these are conventional, indeed arbitrary. Furtherm ore, these two characteristics are connected. Discouraging a search for the semantic m eaning o f the ritual helps highlight the existence o f necessary and sufficient conditions. If the

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ritual were to be seen as mainly about com m unicating propositions about G od or about religion, rather than mainly the enactment o f a prescribed form , then Muslims might develop alternative ways to communicate those propositions, and there would no longer be clear necessary and sufficient conditions for correctly carrying out the ritual. O ther Islamic rituals share these qualities, and some also include comm em orative, propositional, or communicative elements. Som e acts perform ed during the pilgrim age to Mecca, for example, com m em orate historic events, such as H agar’ s search for water for her son, and the Prophet M uham m ad’ s conduct o f the first pilgrim age — recalled by the pilgrim as a historic event as well as a template for his or her own acts. Muslims elsewhere jo in in sacrificing an animal during the pilgrim age p erio d , and as they do so, many reflect on A braham ’ s willingness to sacrifice his own son. And yet even this ritual derives its obligatory character from G od ’ s directives, conveyed through the Prophet M uham m ad, that these specific acts be carried out. If M uslims share knowledge o f the necessary and sufficient conditions for the ritual, and believe that each ritual act is indexically related to G o d , because it replicates G o d ’ s act (or M uham m ad’ s act inspired by G od), then deviations become terrible threats to the religion’ s ritual unity. Any small deviation is either accidental — but nonetheless dangerous to the ritual’ s validity — or blasphem ous. It now becomes clear why small differences in ritual form can becom e occasions for vehement public disagreements, either about the intentions and orthopraxy o f the group (Bowen 1989) or the intentions and beliefs o f the individual.

S p e a k in g sig n s o f th e h e a r t: Two sto r ie s o f a l - F ā tih a h I wish now to turn to two cases from recent Indonesian public life where debates have turned on how to read something about the inner life o f an individual from his outer acts. In both cases, the key piece o f evidence is the utterance o f the first verse o f the Q u r’an, al-Fatihah . I first briefly describe the case o f a

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recent re-convert to Islam, A dm iral Sudom o, and turn to a m ore lengthy exam ination o f the case o f Harm oko, the current head o f the Indonesian superparliam ent, the MPR. When now -retired A dm iral Sudom o headed the state security apparatus Kopkamtib, he aggressively sought to m arginalise M uslim groups by claim ing that Islamic politics lay behind disturbances in several parts o f the country. Given his low standing am ong Muslims, his return to Islam in August 1997, at the age o f 71 and after 35 years as a Protestant, raised some questions and eyebrows. It was not surprising that journalists asked M uslim leaders if they accepted his reconversion as sincere ikhlās). After all, his turn to Protestantism had been in order to 'follow his heart’ , and rum ours abounded that now, too, he had his eye on a Javanese Muslim woman. Well, how would one know if he were sincere? Several M uslim leaders were quoted as saying that they did not think that Sudom o had ulterior motives for converting. Muslims must, in principle, accept anyone who utters the confession o f faith, which is the effective sign o f entrance into Islam. Sudom o did so in a highly publicized ceremony in Malang, East Java, attended by the G overnor o f the province and the district military com m ander, where he also recited the Q u r’anic verse, al-Fatihah, 'the base o f the holy book’ . But reporters pointed out that he had com m enced a new life as a Muslim some time before. He was said to have been worshipping well before the public conversion. 'The validity o f this report is strengthened’ , wrote the monthly magazine Gatra (August 30, 1997, p. 28), 'by S u d o m o ’ s gestures at the 52nd com m em oration o f the Proclam ation o f Independence, August 17th.’ At this ceremony, held at the Palace, the M inister o f Religion led Islamic prayers but urged all attendees who held other religions to pray according to their own faiths. Muslims held up their hand, said 'arnin’ , and wiped their faces after praying; others did not. Sudom o was observed moving his hands as did the other M uslims. The popular Jakarta Muslim preacher A .M . Fatwa, who twice had been jailed , probably on Su dom o’ s orders, was one who vouched for Su do m o’ s sincerity. All his actions against the

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M uslim community came about because 'at that time he was a tool o f the system’ , he explained (Gatra, 30 August 1997, p. 30). As p ro o f that Sudom o was not converting simply for reasons o f m arriage, political am bition, or protection against the rising M uslim m iddle class, Fatwa remarked that, in 1993, he had given Sudom o a copy o f the Q u r’an, and that time Sudom o said that although he had been a Christian for a long time he still was able to perform salat and to fast. 'Indeed, each time he prayed berdoa; (a religiously neutral term ), Sudom o always recited the verse al-Fatihah from the Q u r’an’ (p. 30). Su do m o’ s sincerity is thus supported by his perduring tie to Islam throughout his long Christian p e rio d , a tie dem onstrated by his continued ability to (presumably correctly) recite alFatihah. Ju st as holding up his hands at the religiously neutral Independence ceremony marked him as a Muslim, because the association between these behavioral differences and differences in religious affiliation are so well established, so too his capacity and eagerness to recite al-Fatihah demonstrates that somewhere in his heart he never gave up being a Muslim nor lost his ability to recite (or to fast, though we are not told whether he ever tried out this second ability). Far from seeking the path o f least resistance in political terms (or rom antic ones; the journ alists could never quite let this one go, even in the pages o f the pro-governm ent G atra), Sudom o was always internally a M uslim, even if outwardly a tool in the oppressive system and a congregant in a Protestant church. 'Because he was originally a M uslim ’ , explained Alwi Shihab, at that time a visiting lecturer at H artford Seminary, 'there was always a whisper in his inner heart (hati nurani) that Christian was not his original ( asli) religio n .’ Skeptics in this instance were not lacking, but critical for my purposes (which are emphatically not to figure out what Sudom o really had in m ind) is the perceived rhetorical effectiveness o f introducing into the public eye Su dom o’ s relationship with al-Fatihah. The verse rem ained so close to his heart that he would find him self saying it even as he prayed in Christian fashion; it was an indelible badge o f his 'original’ religion.

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The verse al-Fatihah, the opening verse in the Q u r’an as it is presented in written form , is the verse most fam iliar to any M uslim. W orshippers recite it at every worship cycle — thus in theory at least 17 times a day. Children learn it by heart very early on, and people recite it at various kinds o f celebrations and rituals. It begins with a Basmala: Bismillāh irrahman irrahīm ('In the name o f G o d , the M erciful, the Com passionate’). The sense o f the verse is as follows: Praise be to G od , L ord o f the Worlds, T he M erciful, the Com passionate, T he Master o f the Day o f Judgm ent. Thee alone we serve; Thee alone we ask for help. Guide us on the straight path, T he path o f those whom T h ou hast blessed, N ot (the path) o f those who earn Thy anger, n or o f those who go astray. In recitation, the verse is always followed by an amīn. Muslims regard the verse with special familiarity and reverence; it and Surah 112, al-Ikhlas are sometimes said to ’contain the whole o f the Q u r’an’ . In devotional manuals one finds statements such as that by A sh -Sha’rani: ’All the meanings o f the Q u r’an are gath ered together in the Fatihah’ (q u oted in Padwick 1961:109). For its ubiquity, familiarity, and collective recitation it has been com pared to the L o rd ’ s Prayer (Padwick 1961: 109). Although on some occasions it may be m um bled through in rather indistinct fashion, when it is recited by the worship leader at a congregational session, al-Fatihah becomes an object o f verbal art. Worship leaders can be particularly proficient in their singing o f this verse. Conversely, most worshippers will notice the slightest inaccuracy in pronunciation. Its close im printing on on e’ s heart makes m isrendering it a stronglyfelt twisting o f religion.

H a ji H a r m o k o ’ s 'S lip o f th e T o n g u e ’ ? A nd it was a slip in pronunciation — or perhaps m ore than a sim ple slip — that led to the outcry that is our second case, the

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case o f H aji Ahm ad H arm oko, then Indonesian Inform ation M inister, later H ead o f the state party G O LK A R , and as o f early 1999 still head o f the superparliam ent, the MPR Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat, (People’ s Consultative Assembly), that selects the president and vice-president. D uring the m onths o f August through O ctober, 1995, Harm oko was the object o f scathing attacks by several prodemocracy organisations, by groups o f dem onstrators in several cities, and by individuals writing on the Internet. Calls for prosecution rang out from several quarters and indeed were openly weighed, if eventually dism issed (on Septem ber 8), by the M inister o f Justice. O n the surface, the criticism concerned H arm oko’ s errors in pronouncing the last line o f al-Fatihah. The motives o f the critics were complex. H arm oko was and is intensely disliked by many Indonesians for a host o f reasons, not least am ong them his role in closing some newspapers and at the same time gaining controlling interests in several others, thus amassing wealth while muzzling the press. As head o f the state political party G O L K A R , he was also an obvious target for attacks from the other parties or from anyone irritated with the ways in which the government dom inates politics through its control o f elections, media, and the civil service. O ne could go on about H arm oko. He is rather pretentious and yet at base a bum bling village boy — the laudatory book intended to bolster his shot at the vice-presidential slot in Janu ary 1998 heralded him as a 'm an o f the peo ple’ , a wong cilik. He has gained positions on Islamic boards and has C hristian siblings. H is am bitions were based mainly on what was an unusually sycophantic, even by Indonesian standards, relationship with form er President Suharto — and he was then one o f the first to turn on Suharto in 1998 when the presiden t’ s fate became clear. But for my purposes here, the im portance o f the incident, called the 'H arm oko C ase’ in the press, is that it all turned on how those words most central to salat , al-Fatihah, were pron oun ced on a particular occasion, and what the pronunciation in question indicated about the speaker.

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Much o f the debate about the incident was over just what Harm oko had said, but the m ain outline is clear. O n July 15, 1995, H arm oko appeared as a puppeteer, a dalang, narrating a shadow puppet tale at a cultural festival in the central Java city o f Solo (Surakarta). Dressed in Javanese puppeteer’ s garb, he entertained the audience for a good half-hour. At the close o f the perform ance he recited al-Fatihah . It took three weeks for troubling news about this event to surface, and then at first only obliquely. O n August 3rd, the issue o f his 'slip o f the tongue’ during the recitation was raised by the Solo committee o f the Islamic party PPP. They had 'received inform ation about a dalang who m ispronounced alFatihah’ , without saying who the dalang was. The matter did not receive national attention before it was described in Media Indonesian August 24th, where Harm oko was first identified by name. Soon, two m ain versions em erged o f the events. The official version was outlined most prom inently by the head o f the governm ent’ s C ouncil o f Indonesian Scholars Majelis Ulam a Indonesia, K .H . Hasan Basri, who claims to have been the first to hear H arm oko’ s own version o f the story. Hasan Basri stated that it had truly been an innocent error (Republika on-line, 31 August 1995). H arm oko had simply failed to utter the final line o f the verse, he explained, and this was equivalent to what happens when an im am , a leader in worship, fails to add the takbir, 'G od is great’ after the second cycle in the salat held on either Idhul Fitr or Idhul Adha. In such cases, said Hasan Basri, the salat is still valid. H arm oko simply ' terpleset kata , slipped in his words. This dam age-control version was included in coverage by the daily newspaper Republika, the organ o f the governmentsponsored Islamic organization ICM I (Indonesian Intellectual M uslim s’ A ssociation; see H efner 1993). The monthly Gatra, fairly pro-governm ent in its coverage (and eager to grab the pu b lication license left vacant when the governm ent — H arm oko to be specific — had banned the m ore daring monthly Tem po), followed this version. Gatra even cleaned it up a bit by adding that Harm oko had opened his entertainment

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with the appropriate Islamic greeting, 'Assalamualaikum’ , and had simply been momentarily dazed for part o f the seventh, and final, line o f al-Fatihah (Gatra on-line 43/ I, 9 Septem ber 1995). He simply got his 'tongue twisted’ ( keseleo lidah): so, simply a matter o f m iscom m unication between heart and tongue, a momentary breakdown in physiology. But then (still according to Gatra) people made a big thing o f it — obviously they were put up to it (direkayasa) by unknown parties who would disturb the 'Islamic community’ (ukhuwah Islamiyah), even after the m ajor Islamic organisations had accepted his apology. 'Som e even com pared H arm oko’ s innocent mistake ( khilaf) with the Perm adi case, the paranorm al who is accused o f insulting the Prophet M uhammad pbuh’ . Imagine that! Surely some did see in the case a golden opportunity to em barrass a m inister who was far from being their favourite. But the rival account paints a very different picture o f the specific behavior and the im puted inner state. This second version, circulated largely over the Internet, mainly on the o n line Suara Independen jou rn al (whose reporters are frequently jailed), had Harm oko ' memplesetkan Qur’an , 'twist the Q u r’an’ , using the same verbal root, leset, found in the official version, but in its active form , which im plies intentionality o f action (SI N o. 03/1, August 1995). The lengthiest and sharpest version o f this second account came from an on -line user nam ed 'Priatna’ , writing from Indonesia (with an in do.n et address) on Septem ber 23, 1995. She (I assume a she here) rips Hasan B asri’ s analysis to shreds from within the discourse o f Islamic ritual theory. She points out that whereas om itting a takbir from the salat perform ed on the one o f the two feast days does not invalidate the salat, because the takbir is only recom m ended (sunna), om itting the final line o f al-Fatihah does clearly invalidate the salat, because the totality o f the verse must be recited at each cycle o f the worship ritual. Furtherm ore, if the worship leader makes such an error, those following him in worship are supposed to alert him to the fact that he has made a mistake, by saying subhanallah at that point. If the leader then repeats the verse, correctly, and from the beginning, the worship is valid, but if he fails to do so

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— either because he does not hear those who would rem ind him or because he chooses not to hear (a sly comment on H arm oko’ s protests o f non-intentionality), then it is invalid. In Priatna’ s version, which presumably reached Indonesians around the world as well as those in Indonesia who followed events over the Internet, Harm oko in fact admitted to other people that he had com m itted three errors o f pronounciation. He slurred both the greeting (which G atra’ s account had him saying correctly) and the Basmala. These mistakes may have been unintentional, says Priatna. But his third error, m isuttering o f the last line o f al-Fatihah, clearly was not, she claims. A ccording to the tapes made o f the incident and circulated thereafter, H arm oko 'played with’ the final line, adding Javanese words to the Arabic. Priatna reports that he said (I reproduce her orthography): wa ladl-dlol-lin — dulat-dulit, dulatdulit, dulat-dulit, ’ in other words, the correct ending, plus a series o f Javanese words, equivalent to Indonesian colak-colèk, or 'touched, pinched’ which, she claims, have a 'pornographic connotation’ . 'So how can the Muslim community rem ain silent in this H arm oko C ase ?’ What was at stake h ere? From within the normative confines o f Islamic m eta-ritual analysis, the dispute involved three questions: what were H arm oko’ s utterances; what were his intentions; and what are the consequences? D id Harmoko simply not say what he should have said, as in Hasan B asri’ s version, or did he m ispronounce some o f the verse (as the phrase terpleset kata used by most news media would imply), or did he add n o n -Q u r’anic words to the verse, as in the antiH arm oko version? I f the last were true, then clearly further scrutiny o f his intent would be unnecessary, because in Islamic terms he had insulted the Q u r’an. If one o f the other two accounts were true, then it could be claim ed that he unintentionally misspoke. A rguing the last position, that Harm oko had added words to the verse, Priatna repeats claims made by others that in his wayang perform ance he included some rather 'suggestive’ phrases. This evidence im plies that he had adopted a rather risqué stance, making the dulat-dulit claim m ore credible. She

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also repeats the claim made by some who attended the perform ance that the C oordinating M inister for the Political and Security Sector, Menko Polkam. Soesilo Soedarm an, who was seated behind Harm oko during the perform ance, sought to have him stop when Harm oko uttered the dulat-dulit phrase, but that Harm oko ignored the rem inder, 'as if a worship leader were to ignore the Subhanallah from the m ultitude’ . She thus rem inds us that salat provides clear rules for correcting leaders, and claims that these were ignored by H arm oko. At this point the second question, about H arm oko’ s intentions, comes into play. His claim is that he simply forgot, or made a mistake, about how to pronounce the final line o f al-Fatihah. T he credibility o f this claim could be undercut by pointing to the frequency with which he presumably utters this line every day. Several com m entators took this tack. At a meeting between protestors and representatives o f the different Parliamentary factions, a protest spokesman, the lawyer Ahmad Yani, said (I quote here the published account) that 'the H arm oko case should be brought to trial, because Harm oko, who slipped in pronouncing al-Fatihah, that at a m inim um is uttered 17 times each day by the Muslim community, is an advisor to the M ajelis Ulam a and has the title o f Amirulhajj [because he led a group on the pilgrim age to M ecca]. T herefore, intentionally or not, H arm oko must be tried, because considering his knowledge he is hardly new to Islam ’ (PIJAR 15 Septem ber 1995). This argum ent was heard from many quarters, that given the frequency with which Muslims, including presumably H arm oko, recited this particular verse every day, how is it possible that he could simply have a slip o f the tongue? There must be m ore to it, is the vague conclusion. Som ething either is very wrong with H arm oko, or he intended to twist the words. But even if H arm oko’ s intent was taken to be benign, the very fact o f his m ispronouncing the Q u r’an, and especially this verse o f the Q u r’an, has consequences — and this is the third question posed by com m entators. In a serm on on Septem ber 15 at the m osque located in the pricy Jakarta district o f Pondok Indah, the preacher took up the topic o f the high place reserved

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for al-Fatihah. 'You don’t even need to m ispronounce a verse,’ he said; 'even slipping on one letter can lead you astray; changing iyya to iya changes 'Allah’ to 'the sun’ . D on’t ever insult al-Fatihah , intentionally or otherwise, because G od has stated: 'Truly We have sent down the Q u r’an and We will protect it’ (PIPA, 15 Septem ber 1995). When we step outside the coniines o f Islamic m eta-ritual discourse, then we can, as in the case o f Sudom o, add to the internal analyses, about the close place o f al-Fatihah in the hearts o f M uslim s, political reasons why people responded to H arm oko’ s slip in particular ways. It was not ju st H arm oko’ s own past actions that led some to denounce him, but also a past history o f misuse o f legal resources by the state. The readiness o f accusers to call for H arm oko’ s prosecution surprised some outsiders — one Indonesian wrote from the U .S . that 'it is hardly fitting that mistakes in reading al-Fatihah could be brought to court with an accusation o f dishonouring Islam !’ ('D ikara’ , on aol.com , 8 Sept 1995). But these calls were not simply based on what H arm oko had done, but also against a background o f prosecutions o f less powerful people for similar actions. In the years preceeding H arm oko’ s gaffe, several people had been prom inently charged and sentenced to jail terms for insulting Islam, am ong them persons who had 'played with’ verses o f the Q u r’an exactly as Harm oko was accused o f doing. In 1992, for example, a student named Widiatmoko (so, another 'Bung Moko’ , a fam iliar form o f address for H arm oko), who attended the University o f Gajah Mada in Jogjakarta, was sentenced to 2½ years in jail. The student was accused o f having intentionally m isrendered the m eaning o f a Q u r’anic verse that forbid fornication, zina, translating it as forbidding fornication on Wednesdays, by reciting the line Wa lataqrabwzjna, and then playing on the sound rabu, which m eans Wednesday in Indonesian. M ore prom inent, although not involving m isutterances, were the cases o f Permadi, a Javanese mystic accused o f insulting the Prophet M uham m ad, and the editor Arswendo, who published a poll o f the 'm ost adm ired people’ in which he him self outranked the Prophet Muhammad.

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In all these cases, government spokespersons had vehemently called for prosecuting the misspeaking individuals. These same spokespersons were silent on the matter o f Harm oko, raising in the public eye the issue o f equal treatment before the law. (Prom inent in this regard was the political scientist Din Syamsuddin, a leading denouncer o f Permadi and G O L K A R enthusiast who had 'no com m ent’ on H arm oko.) Thus one saw many o f the dem onstrators emphasising the legal rather than the religious issues. O n Septem ber 15, for example, 300 dem onstrators gathered inside the Parliament building in Jakarta and called for bringing Harm oko to trial. O ne o f the posters that they managed to unfurl inside the building read Arswendo Sudah, Permadi Sedang, Harmoko Kapan : 'Arswendo Already D one, Perm adi In Process, Harm oko W hen?’ O ther dem onstrations took place in several cities on Java, and resulted in arrests on grounds o f insulting a m em ber o f the government.

C o n c lu s io n Ironically, it is precisely because salat does not communicate propositions, and the rules for its perform ance are so clear, that its enactment — either correctly or incorrectly — can be construed to communicate so much. The verses o f the Q u r’an serve as the verbal thread that links humans to G od. The verse al-Fatihah is the strongest strand o f that thread, so close to the experience o f worship that it is ineradicable from on e’ s inner heart — as in the case o f Sudom o. Precisely because o f that closeness, H arm oko’ s claim to have forgotten, or to have stum bled, is incredible to many Muslims. O r (what is the same thing for my purposes here), it provides the occasion for an attack on Harm oko that can claim public credibility. H is play, or slip, or silence, com m unicated som ething to some Muslims — perhaps a lack o f consideration or attention to what is im portant, perhaps the insouciance o f a bureaucrat who assures him self he is above the law, or perhaps the m omentary emergence o f a hidden Harmoko self that is m ore dalang-like, m ore Javanese, than Muslim, or something else, even m ore calculating, forbidding . . .

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Envoi D uring the trials and accusations o f witchcraft in 1692 in Salem , M assachusetts, the one sure way to prove o n e’ s innocence was to flawlessly recite the L o rd ’ s Prayer. Satan kept his followers from com pleting the recitation; a pure heart allowed G o d ’ s own to succeed. The details and the mechanisms were never very clear, as they are not in these Jakarta recitationordeals o f the 1990’ s, but in both cases it was what reciting said about on e’ s heart, and not what the words o f the text could be parsed to mean, that was at stake.

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In trodu ction Following on from the previous chapter, we can now say that, in the study o f ritual, attention has shifted in recent years away from its communicative and symbolic aspects to its pragmatic functions: from an interest in what people say by doing things to what people do by saying things. To be sure, interpretative and symbolist approaches were by no means exhausted; they seemed, on the contrary, inexhaustible. And religious rituals, with their scripted sequences, readily supplied commentaries and accompanying myths, seemed conveniendy packaged for interpretation. Indeed, as bounded, repeatable events they invited dissection and analysis in a way impossible with ordinary everyday action. Yet there was a growing recognition that ritual shared certain characteristics o f ordinary action improvisation, manipulation and dissent which demanded a different kind o f approach, one which could integrate meaning with action. This became apparent as soon as we took into consideration the motivations and life situations o f particular actors in ritual. The old questions about how meaning was located in symbolic action — whether it was somehow congealed in symbols or invented in interpretation, and if so by whom —then became matters for practical enquiry rather than for " close reading” or speculative theoretical concern. The pragmatic turn in anthropology has taken two form s. O n the one hand, there has been a sustained interest in the 39

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perform ative and form al aspects o f ritual and display inspired particularly by the work o f Tambiah (1985). Studies in this vein, building on speech act theory, have done much to explain the practical logic o f ritual, though they have been less successful in illum inating native understandings o f perform ativity and efficacy (a notable exception being Schieffelin 1985). O n the other hand, alongside and sometimes com plem enting an interest in perform ance, a m ore political, adversarial vision o f the field has em erged in which hum an action is construed in terms o f hegemony and resistance (Brown 1996). Ritual has come to be seen as the arena in which power is both legitimised and contested. But a sympathetic account o f religious life must go beyond a plotting o f ideological positions to take account o f what believers themselves take seriously. To do otherwise is to renounce any pretence o f dialogue with our subjects and may lead to the view that we know better than they what they are about or to the view that " religious rituals are misstatements o f reality” (Bloch 1989: 43) — a position which, for all its analytical advantages (exem plified by Bloch), risks equating reality with political economy. It is undeniably im portant to take account o f pragmatic and political context, even, or perhaps especially, when the individual feels he or she is acting outside social constraints — in com m unicating with the deity, for example. In the Javanese case, as part o f any rounded analysis, one would have to note that Islamic worship takes place in an ideologically mixed setting, and that piety is a public virtue and is played to a non active audience. There is the public walk up to the m osque, the am plified broadcast o f serm ons, and the fact o f congregating and identifying on eself as part o f the ummat (Bowen 1989: 610). O ne would have to note, also that active Muslims conceive o f themselves not simply as pious, but pious by virtue o f contrasting with the im pious. The pious man sprinkles his conversation with insha allahs, prays a bit longer and m ore passionately at slametan, fasts longer, and so on. He sets an example knowing it will not be followed; his piety is a reproach. In a setting o f com peting religious traditions, public prayer defines a community o f faithful from am ong a wider

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com m unity o f faithless, a set o f true as opposed to nom inal M uslim s. But to say all this is still to rem ain on the outside, missing the point o f religious activity. A prayer, as a religious act, rather than simply a political statement, contains much m ore than its context can ever reveal. Since I examine the ideological strains within Javanese religion in a separate study (Beatty 1999), I want to concentrate here on the less visible semantic and symbolic aspects o f prayer, and to look at the processes o f attribution and interpretation involved. There is a great diversity o f prayer form s in Java, from graveside invocations o f the ancestors to petitions at the shrines o f saints and pre-Islam ic deities, and from slametan addresses packed with am biguous symbols to private Muslim devotions. It would be easy enough to pick examples from different ritual contexts and to show the conceptual and linguistic gulf that separates them. But for me the fascination o f Javanese religion lies in the interplay between its different traditions and religious styles. It is precisely on that metaphorical boundary which separates the inside and the outside o f the mosque that one can learn most about how these different orientations have made their com prom ises with the fact o f diversity. I shall consider here, then, some mystical uses o f Islamic prayer in East Java which experiment with and play on the boundaries o f orthodoxy, and which invoke Islam only to universalise it and thus breach its exclusivism. It is in this sense that I speak o f non-Islam ic prayers am ong Javanese M uslim s. But before we consider some examples, it is as well to set such free thinking in context. Javanese mysticism comes in many varieties, ranging from the broadly orthodox to the plainly heretical, and the present essay is not intended to capture that variety. The views discussed here reflect a minority orientation and should not be regarded as typical o f contem porary Javanese Islam itself, a highly variegated field. However, it may surprise observers o f Islam as practised elsewhere in the Indian Ocean that some o f the more daring Javanist form ulations, which I can barely allude to here and which most ordinary Muslims would find unacceptable, have behind them a long and respected tradition in the

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m ainstream o f Javanese courtly literature (Anderson 1990: 271—98; Headley: this volume; Zoetm ulder 1995). Nothing reported below is without a precedent in the classical literature. Indeed, it is a measure o f Java’ s famous tolerance o f diversity, and p ro o f o f the continuing vitality o f Islamic debate in Indonesia, that such heterodox texts Centhini, the Rabelaisian Book of Cabolang, and the yoga like treatises o f Ronggowarsita are still in print and rem ain a subject o f research in some higher Islamic institutes (see, for example, Sim uh 1987). In contrast to certain nineteenth century texts, such as the Serat Dermagandhul (Drewes 1966), which openly rejected Islam, Javanese mysticism today often appears to share a com m on idiom with the dom inant faith. This allows those who disagree with it to turn a blind eye, and those who practise it to carry on with the appearance o f conformity. Nowhere is this clearer than in mystical interpretation o f canonical prayer.

M e a n in g a n d in te n tio n Prayer, as a ritual form , appears semantically explicit in a way im possible with material symbols. Nevertheless, one cannot know what is intended in prayer merely by observing it and attending to its ostensible m eaning. Even private prayer, in which the worshipper chooses his or her own words, may contain ambiguity and vagueness. In cases where the ritual language is imperfectly understood by the worshipper, the relation between sound and sense may be unstable and wholly contingent. Outward form s cannot therefore serve as a reliable guide to orthodoxy. In terms o f Stephen Headley’ s (1996) com parative categories, the genre, cultural contexts and pragmatic contexts o f prayer may be consistent while masking differences in the understanding and conception o f prayer. A nd here I refer not to the wider social meanings o f Islamic worship, to which Jo h n Bowen has effectively drawn our attention (1989, 1993, and this volum e); I am talking about the actual content, the m eaning and purpose o f the words and postures. When a Javanist mystic perform s the reflexive homage which he calls salat sejati, "true salat” , he has in m ind something

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altogether different from what the medieval doctors envisaged. It is som ething o f which his neighbour, seated beside him in the m osque, is unlikely to be aware. Indeed, the ordinary orthodox Muslim, by definition, will not question the prescribed form s o f worship and can therefore come to know little o f other interpretations. If you ask a Javanese santri (pious Muslim) why the n oon prayer involves four cycles, or the sunset prayer three, you will be told that the sunnah so decrees it. Javanese pantheists, however, recognise a num ber scheme at work, and one which connects with other schemes fam iliar from Javanese as well as M uslim tradition . From their perspective, worship is a m editation on hum an origins. The usholi, or declaration o f intent with which one begins prayer, is connected in word play with asale, m eaning origin — asale dumadi, the origin o f creation. T he rest o f the perform ance develops and enacts this idea. Thus the four postures o f salat symbolise, or as mystics put it, acknowledge, the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water which com pose a hum an being. Similarly, the varying num ber o f subdivisions or raka’at [Ar. rak’a] perform ed at the five prayer correspond to ontological sequences, such as a fourfold schema denoting conception ( wadi madi mani maningkem) or a threefold sequence (Akhadiyat Wahdat Wokhiyat) which Javanese mystics have taken from Sufi theosophy. To perform salat with this in m ind is to engage in a disciplined and form al contem plation o f the self: a spiritual exercise o f a kind very different from that instilled by Q u r’anic classes in the prayer-house or pesantren.

P ray e r a n d reflexivity That the self is identified in a certain sense with G od is indicated to the worshipper by the position o f the hands which, in the Shaft’i tradition, are crossed over the chest immediately after uttering the words Allahu Akbar. The hum an person is, then, both the instrum ent and object o f worship, or, as one form ula has it: kang nembah kang sinembah, "he worships is he who is w orshipped” (from a litany o f the East Javanese Sangkan Paran sect). The phrase is arresting, even provocative. It recalls the dogm a, com m on to Christianity and Islam, that G od

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created m an in order to receive his praise, that G od praises him self through m an; but it turns this already perplexing idea on its head. What should one make o f prayer which implies not merely reflection but reflexivity? Isn’t prayer a m isnom er in such cases? In his study o f Berawan prayer, Peter M etcalf suggests that, minimally, prayer must involve invocation and supplication. "To qualify as a prayer” , he writes, "an utterance needs to be directly and unambiguously addressed to some supernatural agency, requesting some kind o f boon (M etcalf 1989: 11)” . O thers have emphasised the dialogic aspect o f the com m u n icatio n ; though, as Sam G ill (1987: 493) has rem arked, " if one holds that prayer is dialogue, one must describe how G od participates in the com m unication act” . Both characterisations, at any rate, imply some separation between the partners to the act, and this is ju st what is denied in mysticism. Any separation is an illusion to be overcome, rather than a necessary condition o f hum an relations with the divine. We have, then, the paradoxical situation where two men may be perform ing the salat side by side in the m osque, but one is praying to a transcendent C reator, while the other is contem plating his origins. O ne is at prayer, the other by most definitions is not; yet both perform the same actions and words. T he boundary between what can take place inside and outside the m osque has been thoroughly blurred.

T r a n s c e n d in g r e lig io n T his paradox raises the m ore awkward and fundam ental questions about whether both kinds o f worshipper should be counted as M uslims. It would be characteristic o f sectarian politics that each claims to be the true Muslim while denying this status to the other. (Though, by definition, adherents o f kejawen, — "Javanism ” , prioritise the Javanese part o f their cultural inheritance over their allegiance to Islam .) The anthropologist, o f course, is in no position to judge. All he or she can do is pose the em pirical question o f whether it is possible to conform to the shariah in word and deed while at the same time denying the revelation o f a transcendent G od. And

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the present case suggests, surprisingly, that it is possible. The charge o f hypocrisy will not stick since the mystic is not merely going through the m otions. He means what he says, even if he means it differently. Only if, as orthodoxy asserts, Muslim worship is considered to be the "fulfilm ent o f dini, m eaning the practice o f religion in line with iman, or faith” , (Cragg 1987: 455) then the mystical practice I have described cannot be considered Islamic since, clearly, it does not depend on faith. But this is to accept the orthodox definition. T he connection between iman, faith, and service, ibadat, is, in fact, som ething emphasised not only in the Q u r’an but in ordinary prayer, du' a, and in discussion o f prayer, such as one commonly hears in Friday serm ons. In prayer the pious often ask that their faith may be strengthened, or "thickened” , as Javanese idiom has it. T he perform ance o f salat, in turn, is said to "verify” or "prove” on e’ s faith. Externally, it acts as a sign to others that one does indeed have faith. A m ong the pillars o f faith are b elief in G o d , the angels, the prophecy o f Muhammad and the divine origin o f the Q u r’an. Since heterodox mysticism in Java underm ines each o f these credos, it cannot be faith which leads a mystic to pray. In fact not many mystics actually perform the salat. In the East Javanese village where I lived for two years I knew o f only three or four recognised mystics who attended Friday prayers, though many m ore have been pious Muslims in their youth, and all engage from time to time in Islamic chanting at funerals. As far as the salat is concerned, most are content simply to refer to the symbolic correspondences or numerology and say that they have "perform ed their salat without needing to make a move” , an excuse that infuriates the pious. Indeed, the idea o f demarcating a sacred space oriented to some distant location (Mecca) runs counter to Javanist pantheism. The sacred geography o f Islam is, in the eyes o f mystics, an outward symbol o f an inner reality; and to turn to kiblat or undertake the pilgrimage (or to do so in ignorance o f their true meaning) is to mistake the sign for what it refers to and is thus a kind o f idolatry or unbelief. T his brings me to a point which is not, I think, sufficiently appreciated in discussion o f Javanese religion but which seems to

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me fundamental if we are to grasp how, in practical and psychological terms, the various form s o f religious experience in Java are related to each other. Whatever the cultural historical origin o f such heterodox practices and beliefs, it is not enough simply to say that Islamic terms have been borrowed, twisted, or syncretised with other meanings. This is not exactly how practitioners see it. They do not see themselves as smuggling a pantheist ideology into the mosque or as subverting orthodoxy from within, or even, more innocently, as borrowing terms from one system to make good another. It is im portant for their understanding o f what they are about that the shariah is recognised for what it is and is not confused with other systems. Mystical knowledge is not conceived as a rival system or alternative to orthodoxy, or as a deviation or transform ation o f it. It is regarded as a later stage o f knowledge which surpasses and in some respects contradicts the teachings o f form al religion, whether that religion be Islam or any other o f the faiths officially recognised in Indonesia. To use one o f the mystics’ tendentious analogies, mysticism is high school to the shariah's prim ary school. That doesn’t mean, o f course, that what one learns in prim ary school is wrong. Sufi tradition supplies Javanese mystics with one o f the most commonly used schemas o f spiritual progress. In its Javanese version, sare’at , from shariah, refers to the literal perform ance o f M uslim law, and by extension the practical concerns and ordering o f life. Hakékat refers to the underlying m eaning; and makripat both to mystical insight and u n io n with G od. Historically, Javanese opinion has divided over the question o f whether the shariah can be left behind in the mystical quest or must be retained, at least as an example to the ordinary M uslim. Som e o f the best known Javanese texts, such as the Cabolek and the Centhini, debate the question and appear to come down on the side o f orthodoxy, though it has to be said that the most persuasive arguments and the best poetry are reserved for the heretics. O ne can’t help feeling that, as Blake said o f Paradise Lost, the author was o f the devil’ s party. And in d eed , Satan’ s sceptical words to Adam could belong in many Javanese mystical poem s:

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Rem em berst thou Thy making, while the maker gave thee being? We know no time when we were not as now Know none before us, self begot, self raised By our own quickening power. (M ilton, Paradise L o st V : 85761) A nother schema which distinguishes levels o f understanding and enables practitioners to discriminate am ong styles o f worship is the opposition lair-batin. Lair (from Ar. zahir) is the outward, visible form o f things; batin, the inner spiritual, or esoteric. O n this criterion, the postures and words o f salat are the lair, outward, form o f devotion; the numerology and symbolism o f generation are the batin, inward aspect. A slightly different emphasis is given by an opposition native to Javanese, that o f alus and kasar, m eaning refined or spiritual versus coarse or m aterial, on which m ore later. T here are, then, various ways in which diverse u n derstandings o f liturgy and worship can be ordered. Ideological diversity is seen as patterned, rather than the chance effect o f historical change; and any given interpretation exists alongside other possible interpretations which are granted a relative and lim ited truth. As mystics themselves see it — and rem em ber we are not talking here o f objective cultural history or the etymology o f syncretic form ulations but o f personal transform ations, o f how people conceive their own biographies — the transition from an orthodox perspective to a mystical one is a matter o f seeing the reality underlying fam iliar form s, the inner hidden by the outer, the spiritual residing in the m aterial. Hence the logic is not "let what they — orthodox M uslims — call X stand for Y ” , rather: what they call X really means Y ; for example, what the word Allah means is "pure consciousness” , "life force” or whatever. Orthodoxy, in this view, is flawed by an incorrect use o f language. The words exist in the world and must correspond to some reality; but it is not the reality given by orthodox Muslim tradition. This way o f conceiving the problem was brought home to me one evening by an ordinary Javanist mystic who was talking

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about his discovery o f mysticism. He began with an analogy. Suppose som eone knows your name (he said), knows all about you, but has never met you. He might bum p into you but would not greet you because he doesn’t recognise you. He might even be sitting talking to you without knowing who you are. This is knowing the name but not the reality. As a young Muslim he had been in this position. He was a Q u r’anic teacher and used to be am ong those charged with chanting the call to prayer from the m osque. As such he was counted am ong the village santri. But one day, as he shouted the sacred words at the top o f his voice, it occurred to him that he didn’t know what they corresponded to: he knew the name, but not the reality. The whole fabric o f Islamic cosmology — angels, jin n s, heaven and hell, the prophet’ s ascension — dissolved at the very thought. But rather than — as we might — suffering a crisis o f doubt, he began to reflect on the m eaning o f these constituents o f the faith and to seek for new meanings in mysticism. It was not a question o f ceasing to believe in G od or the Q u r’an and believing in som ething else; rather, learning to understand them in a different way. The distinction may seem sophistical, but it is how mystics themselves analyse their enlightenment. If we fail to grasp this fact we miss the seriousness o f the mystical quest and reduce Javanist/santri differences to a quarrel over definitions, a contest in the sphere o f cultural politics. As Javanist mystics see it, the incorrect application o f words in orthodoxy reflects a category mistake or confusion o f levels: a mistaking o f the signifier for the signified, or as they sometimes put it, o f the symbol (perlambang) for reality (sejatine). The orthodox reply that mystics fall into the same error in equating man and G od and thus conflate what should rem ain distinct —fails to take account o f this notion o f levels. This is som ething I have elaborated on elsewhere (Beatty 1999). But I would like to illustrate the point with an anecdote. O ne o f the wealthy young mystics in Banyuwangi, about to set o ff on the pilgrim age, made an apologetic speech to his fellow mystics, m em bers o f the Sangkan Paran sect, assuring them that his journ ey was merely to satisfy his curiosity, to verify what his

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father had told him about the Holy L a n d , and to act out certain mystical notions which have not very much to do with Islam. Still somewhat unconvinced by these protestations, one o f the older mystics insisted to him that the haj is nothing m ore than a symbol o f hum an development, the M asjid al H aram being a kind o f womb. The acquisition o f a new name (he went on) recalls the nam ing o f a new born baby which is, in turn, a witnessing that the pilgrim baby’ s godly essence now has existence. As this example suggests, for Javanists, the paraphernalia o f religion, its prophets, doctrines, rites and architecture are all to be understood as hum an symbols, for the only reality which we can know with certainty is that o f ourselves; indeed, in Javanist metaphysics, the very existence o f the world depends on our perceiving it. N ot only are man and the world interdependent as m icrocosm and m acrocosm , but man and G od exist together or not at all. As it was often expressed to me, with a characteristic emphasis on the verificatory power o f language (witnessing being a kind o f p ro o f): there can be no G od without man, for who would name him ?

O b je c t a n d f o r m o f m y stical "p r a y e r ” Without a transcendent creator and a prim ordial act o f creation, the origins and purpose o f hum an existence become a mystery, and it is in contem plation o f this mystery, epitom ized in the m iracle o f life, that one approaches the divine. This focus on what Javanese call sangkan dumadi, the origin and destination o f being or creation, both directs the course o f mystical prayer and explains much about its form and content. Mystics o f the Sangkan Paran sect, for example, gather to chant a densely symbolic and enigmatic praise song (pujian) The song, which lasts about an hour, is conceived as a re-enactm ent o f the unfolding o f the cosmos. The chant is begun and ended with the silent recitation o f twelve names, a kind o f silsilah (chain) o f the preceptors o f the sect. The names each have a symbolic m eaning, beginning with names symbolising sexual

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reproduction and ending with the name o f the sect’ s founder, who is known in this litany as Echo o f the Voice. The act o f creation thus culminates in the hum an voice now about to be exercised. Each o f the twelve names also stands for one o f the constituents o f the person and, at another level, for stages in hum an conception and reproduction. The silent recitations which begin and end the chant therefore envisage the "u n fu rlin g” and " rolling u p ” o f creation as it is contained in hum an ontogeny. A constant refrain throughout the pujian is La illaha ilia llah, "T here is no god but G o d ” . But the final line is apparently, a rejection o f theism: "the maker is the bearer” , Ingkang gawe j a kang gawa. In other words, the mystery o f creation is borne within man. So what kind o f deity is being praised in the pujian? To find out, we must go back to the Q u r’an, not, however, the historical book o f the Prophet, but the "wet book” (kitab teles) o f the hum an body, the mythic’ s Q u r’an. For once external causes and entities are rejected, the hum an person becomes the sole source o f guidance. To "recite” from the this book, whether in m editation or (metaphorically) in sexual union, is to acquire knowledge o f the self and its origin. M uham m ad, as bearer o f the Q u r’an, signifies the hum an person; the very word M uham m ad, in Arabic script, resem bling a hum an being lying curled up (a conceit derived from classical Sufism [Schimmel 1975: 153, 225]). A nd the body, in turn, stands for material existence, wujud. What animates existence brings it into being, must be located within, since, as Javanists tirelessly insist, "there is nothing outside” . It cannot be grasped directly, only intuited. Yet without it there would be no life: indeed it is synonymous with life. D epending on context, the divine element may be term ed Allah, Wisnu, the Almighty, or simply Life. O ne can approach this indwelling ground o f existence through rasa, the organ o f consciousness and intuition. As the mystic draws inwards into rasa he enters rasa sejati, pure feeling or consciousness, and merges with the godhead. O nce this basic framework o f Javanese mysticism is grasped, the fam iliar terms o f ordinary religious discourse take on a different significance, though, crucially, and conveniently for

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the peace, the terms themselves rem ain consistent across ideological lines. Thus, for example, orthodox and mystic alike can speak o f the goal o f prayer as the "union o f servant and L o rd ” , though they differ in what they mean by this concept. In either case G od is Gusti, the L ord; man is kawula, servant. For the orthodox, G usti is the transcendent G od o f the Q u r’an, and kawula his creature: opposition sim ilar to the Q u r’anic robb and abd. For mystics however, Gusti is in rasa , and kawula is the phenom enal self, each being an aspect o f the other. Hence, as Zoetm ulder comments a propos o f yoga, "what happens [in m editation] is less a unification than the realisation o f an existing unity. It is the yogi’ s aim to make this unity constantly m ore real and to grow ever m ore conscious o f it, 'to become what he is’ ” (1974: 178). Zoetm ulder views O ld Javanese literature form o f yoga, in that it is directed to this goal; and one could perhaps say the same o f Javanist mystical prayer, even when, paradoxically, it takes the form o f Islamic worship. O rthodox and mystical term inologies, then, are similar, while diverging in sense.

T r a n s fo r m a t io n s o f th e s e lf: a lin g u is tic an alo g y There is another parallel, which I want now to consider, which qualifies the Gusti — kawula relation and takes us m ore deeply into the fundam ental differences between language use in Javanese mysticism and orthodoxy. Javanese make a general distinction between things which are coarse, kasar and things which are refined, alus (Geertz I960: 232). Alm ost anything can be graded in terms o f alus and kasar: cloth, coffee grounds, people, speech, meanings, arts. The evaluation can be either aesthetic or phenom enological or both. O rdinarily, one understands that any such evaluation is relative. A clerk is relatively coarser than a courtier but more refined than a peasant. Only the poles o f the spectrum are fixed. (Thus hum an beings belong unequivocally in the kasar world in contrast to the spirits who are called para alus, the ethereal.) Nevertheless, despite this relativism the alus kasar distinction relates to som ething real in the world, so that no

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one could confuse a clerk with a peasant, or a courtier with a trader, even though there may be interm ediary types. But there is another m odel — perhaps the pre-em inent m odel — o f the same distinction enshrined in the structure o f the language. In Javanese usage, an object can be named in several ways according to speech level, which is determ ined by the relative status o f speaker and interlocutor. The tenant farm er may refer to his landlord’ s house in the polite form , as griya, while the landlord, speaking down, uses the coarse form , umah. Griya is the alus form o f umah, and umah the kasar form o f griya. The preferred terms indicate something about the speaker and his perception o f things, rather than about the world to which he refers. In Javanist thinking, the phenom enal self, kawula, is the kasar, that is the gross or material form , o f Gusti, the indwelling deity. N ot only are the terms mutually defining, but they refer in a certain sense to the same thing, just as equivalent words in High and Low Javanese refer to the same thing. In mysticism, the linguistic analogy is made explicit in the so-called ingsun doctrine, in which different form s o f the pron ou n " I ” correspond to relatively m ore material or spiritual aspects o f the self. Kawula, a word which means both "servant” and " I ” , is at one pole; ingsun, the self appellation o f G od or the king, is the other (Zoetm ulder 1995: 219, 301—2). The union o f servant and lo rd , which is the goal o f mysticism, is therefore a matter o f moving from one m ode o f selfhood to another, truer, m ode, ju st as the yogi, to quote Zoetm ulder again, strives to "becom e what he is” . The Serat Centhini, that nineteenth century com pendium o f Javanism , contains a remarkable illustration o f this idea in the following m onist form ulation which plays on the High and Low Javanese words for water: Everything is completely com prised in us, we ascend completely in and are sim ilar to the Essence o f G od . . . our being is the same [as his], as banyu and toya, they are only different words . . . (H arun Hadiwijoyo 1967: 123). Unsurprisingly, orthodox Javanese are unpersuaded by the linguistic analogy, insofar as they are aware o f it. Indeed, they tend to m isconstrue Javanist mysticism as an arrogant equation

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o f the phenom enal self with G od: something even the most extreme Javanist would deny. For orthodox Javanese, when speaking o f G od and man, alus and kasar, that is, spiritual and material, are radically opposed, belonging to separate realms, rather than being jo in ed in a spectrum. The pure relativism exem plified in speech levels is rejected in favour o f a fixed hierarchy. Nevertheless, in both orientations, religious language is conceived as creating a bridge between the material and the spiritual, and its m edium must reflect this conception. In prayer, as in any kind o f ritual, one is working within the m aterial world as a means o f contacting the spiritual; but on e’ s speech and action are necessarily stylised, refined, alus. Ju st as, in canonical prayer, one addresses G od in his chosen medium, Arabic, rather than in ordinary speech, in prayer outside the m osque, whether to G od or the ancestors, one uses High Javanese. In addressing the alus, one must use speech that is alus.

V e rb a l e fficacy Language levels are a reflection o f power; and it could be said that in prayer the two poles o f com m unication are distinguished by a power differential, so that power, blessing, or whatever flows from one, as it were, positively charged pole to the other, negative pole. Mystics themselves sometimes talk in this way. The adept, as one mystic explained to me, is strong enough, pure enough, to master a sudden surge o f power (daya), while the novice offers too much resistance and glows but dimly like a five watt bulb. Language, in this perspective, acts as a conduit o f power. But this is still an analogy. Power, in the sense o f a concrete substance such as Benedict A nderson (1990: C h .l) has identified with the concept o f kasekten is not much evidence in the mystical traditions we are discussing here. The word sekti (or kasekten) does not normally figure either in discussion or in the secret texts o f Sangkan Paran mystics; nor is a substantive concept o f power prom inent in the older suluk literature (A nderson [1990: 274] notes its absence in the Genthini).

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Prayer is therefore not, or not principally, a means o f gaining access to power in this sense. The efficacy o f prayer depends upon a num ber o f quite complex ideas o f agency, which differ am ong orthodox and heterodox Muslims. A m ong the pious, prayer (which usually involves quotation from the Q u r’an), is effective because o f its divine authorship; in turn its fulfilm ent is entirely in the hands o f G od. In perform ing salat, which incorporates Q u r’anic verses, one is speaking the words the angel G abriel spoke to M uham m ad, and these words correspond to the Preserved Tablet, the pre-existent Q u r’an. The purpose o f recitation in general is to give voice to, and thus realise, a divinely authored text. In mysticism, this idea is taken a step further. O ne is not merely quoting G od. O ne is speaking with G od’ s voice. At a certain point in meditation the phenomenal self passes away and it is no longer the com m on man or woman speaking: it is God speaking through the individual. This idea can be found in many well known Javanese mystical texts, both orthodox and heterodox. To quote one example which has also struck Stephen Headley (this volume) as characteristic — an eighteenth century Javanese commentary called the Kitab Patahulrahman, says: G od said T hrough Me they speak Through Me they see T hrough Me they hear Through Me they are m indful, their walk is mine The Prophet said, "O u rs is no being save the Being o f the L o rd ” (Drewes 1977: 83) Worship, from this orthodox point o f view, is motivated by G od , not by the individual him self. The same text says: When desirous o f m eeting Me, . . . this intention springs from Me . . . Do not fancy that it is your own. This is what is meant by 'return hom age’ [sembah] [83]

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or, to take another example, from a book traditionally attributed to the 16th century Javanese saint Bonang: "as to worship, it is only the Eternal and Transcendent O ne who worships and is the eternal object o f His own worship . . (Drewes 1969: 41). O rdinary peasants, who have never read such things but can draw on related traditions, sometimes form ulate their ideas in much the same way. Here is a villager nam ed Sujana describing what happens during semedhi, meditation: What speaks is not Sujana. Sujana has been surrendered [pasrah] and no longer possesses speech, hearing, or sight: all have been given to G od. What speaks is the occult (ga’ib) and the scope o f its speech is great: whatever you want will be given. Evidently, one can construe such thinking in theistic terms, in which case it rem ains m eaningful to speak o f such com m unication as prayer. But many mystics o f my acquaintance explicitly disavow a theistic interpretation. When I asked one man if he had ever prayed, he replied bluntly, "Pray to what?” Sembahyang, as Javanese term salat, is, for such mystics, a purely reflexive act, a doing o f homage to the inner divinised self: sembah hyang . . . Hence such form ulas as: Kang nembah kang sinembah, or Kang muji kang pinuji

which both mean: "Who prays is who is praised” . In the initiation ceremony o f a prom inent Javanese sect, candidates are exhorted, aja mangeran liyan, that is, not to regard as L ord anything outside o f oneself. (The Centhini expresses the same idea. See Zoetm ulder 1995: 215, 218.) This gives a nontheistic, radically hum anist spin to the orthodox mystical form ulas ju st cited in which G od praises him self through the worshipper. Prayer, in this conception, is a kind o f dialogue between aspects o f the self, a penultimate stage before the illusion o f duality vanishes and mystical unity can be realised. As one Sangkan Paran form ula puts it: si Neng supaya takon si Ning

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(Let the Q uietened O ne ask the Clarified O ne). Dialogue can only take place once the senses have been stilled, and the adept, by employing techniques o f breathing and concentration, enters into a higher plane o f consciousness, a void which reproduces the primaeval void prior to creation. Som e people claim to be able to envisage or call upon their true self which is projected in front o f them. A m ong trained mystics, that is, followers o f a particular method or school, this is analogous to the projection o f the soul or jivatman in tantric yoga (Pott 1966: 16, 19—21). For example in the Sapta Dharma sect, which has many followers in rural East Java, the adept concentrates on the corner o f a square cloth, on which he is seated, and slowly bends or is drawn forward, allowing the divine energy to rise from its dorm ant state in the base o f the spine up through various nam ed and envisaged points in the body to the fontanel. In Sangkan Paran, the energised points are envisaged as a snake, its head being the adept’ s penis, its tail a point at the back o f the neck which is named after the gates o f heaven in the wayang shadow play. Once the serpent has been roused and united with rasa (equivalent to the tantric jivatman) , the true self can be projected in front o f one. Connoisseurs o f syncretism might be interested to learn that this exercise in K undalin i yoga is known in the Sapta Darm a sect as sujud, the name for prostration in salat . In a cruder form , the general idea o f a second, subtle self seems to be quite com m on am ong healers and dabblers in magic who mostly know little o f Javanist mysticism. Whether the idea is one o f those which have leaked out beyond the circle o f initiated mystics to survive in a travestied form , or whether it simply belongs to an older tradition o f spirit m ediumship is hard to say. At any rate, such people claim to be able to call up their second self by means o f spells and ascetic practices such as hanging upside down or im m ersion for long periods in water. T he aim is to avail oneself o f special powers associated with the subtle self, and the prospect o f attaining magical powers is often dangled before the candidate pupil, or whoever else will listen, in order to increase the glam our and wealth o f the magician.

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Such claims are less often made (at least nowadays) by serious mystics, who tend to take the view that a mystical quest corrupted by worldly desires is futile. As long as such desires find expression in meditation it can only be the worldly self which is voicing them. The efficacy o f ritual speech, then, in both orthodox and mystical perspectives stems from its connection with G od; but whereas the orthodox G od is an external agency, arbitrary and inscrutable, an unreliable source o f power, the G od o f the mystics is an attainable force within. Beyond the sphere o f religious language, Javanese mystics recognise a wider effect o f speech upon the world, or at any rate upon on e’ s own situation, and this is due to the law o f karma. In the philosophical wordplay beloved o f Javanists, karma is broken down into syllables, ka meaning karep, will or desire, ma m eaning manusa, humankind. So karma derives from karepe manusa, hum an will. The idea o f the inexorable law o f cause and effect in the m oral sphere is often repeated in mystical chants: Kang nglakoni bakal ngakoni (Who acts will acknowledge the consequences). O r again, a phrase already quoted, but here given a different meaning: Kang g a w e ja kang gawa (Who does [something] bears its consequences). Again the emphasis is emphatically non-theistic. The im plication is that the effect is automatic and does not depend on some divine link in the chain. But, staying with our theme, why should speech, and especially ritual speech, be conceived as inherently effective? In what way do words resemble actions? Rather than drawing on perform ative theory here, I want to draw attention to Javanese understandings o f performativity. In the first place, the power o f speech is conceived as deriving from the power o f the voice, which is, in a pantheist sense, God given. Speech, pangucap, is one o f the human faculties, along with hearing, sight, smell, and the master faculty, pangrasa, the organ o f consciousness in which all perceptions are united. Like these other faculties, speech is part o f the human constitution and is not o f our making; rather it is one o f the manifestations o f the divine inner life and as such must be used carefully and mindfully. The faculties, working in concert, connect one to the

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world and speech is their witness. However, whereas, in ordinary discourse, one is apt to lie, to "see something as red and say it is white” , thus to betray one’ s God-given faculties, in efficacious speech, pre-em inently in ritual speech, there is no hindrance in the economy o f perception and action. O ne sees red and says "red” . Word and reality are in harmony; speech conforms with action. The exemplar o f such efficacious speech is the Q u r’anic Kun Fayakun, G od’ s creative word. But what can this mean, translated into pantheist term s? Given that in reality we signally lack such creative magic, what remains o f a concept o f verbal efficacy? Simply a harm onising o f word and deed in the context o f an orderly anthropocentric cosmos. Mystical theory, as form ulated by Javanese villagers, thus reverses and demystifies m agical thought. Powerful speech is no m ore than the undeviating speech o f the powerful, that is o f anyone who gains insight into the ground o f his or her existence and is able to act in harmony with it. I want to draw here on a parallel from a totally different ethnographic field: Nias, in western Indonesia, where I carried out my first fieldwork. In Nias, too, there are different understandings o f verbal efficacy, one magical and concrete, one relational. Surprisingly, a sim ilar vocabulary is used. The word for verbal efficacy in Javanese is mandi, a word which also means venom ous. ( Wisa, "po iso n ” , and bisa, "able” , may also be related). In Nias we find the same equation o f poison with power. A powerful speaker, that is, a powerful man, is said to be mosöfu mbawa, poison m outhed; his speech is effective, acting directly on the world. This inherent power is sometimes hypostasised as an innate substance, possessed only by nobles and chiefs, which can be passed from father to son through the dying breath: this, at any rate, is how nobles like to see it. But the underlying practical logic is also understood. If efficacious speech is language that acts on the world, instead o f merely describing it, then any speech o f a leader is potent if, and only if, his com m ands are followed. When his orders are no longer followed then his potency has gone, his aura has passed. Powerful speech, then, is simply the speech o f the powerful. The same words issuing from the mouth o f an ordinary man

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have no effect on their audience. We recognise this fact from com m on experience: what may sound like a platitude from one speaker seems like wisdom itself when uttered with sufficient gravity by som eone whom we adm ire. Why should this be so? Because, as Niasans themselves comment, one has to earn the right to give an opinion by having travelled that road. O ne has done what one says, therefore what one says will be done. Javanese also appeal to experience as the final arbiter o f truth, but it is to the com m on inner experience o f speaker and listener rather than to outward achievement. Speech is effective and hits the target when the meaning o f the words has been "felt to the innerm ost being” , dirasakaken nganthi keroso. Some people, o f course, rem ain deaf to such appeals. Speech which is mandi is speech which is tepa, apt to its purpose, resonating with experience; and cerem onial speech is paradigmatically mandi. O ne states on e’ s intention, niyat, and then perform s the chant, spell, or whatever. This is a form al condition o f performativity; but there are also ritual conditions which enhance the effectiveness o f speech: a state o f purity and singleness, conceived not in orthodox terms o f bodily cleansing and avoidance o f pollution, but in mystical terms o f self concentration. In this mystical and essentially ethical perspective, words are powerful not because o f some outside agency or because they depend on some persuasive analogy (as in Tam biah’ s [1985] analysis), but because they commit oneself, like the b ride’ s "I d o ” . They imply a harm onious order in which word and action are fused. O nce this is recognised, even ordinary expressions o f intention may take on the feel o f a vow. Speech then implies and leads to action, instead o f being contradicted by action as in the duplicitous or hypocritical speech o f ordinary, u n enlightened hum an conduct. Conversely, false speech entails the retribution o f karma. Prayer or other cerem onial speech thus exemplifies and intensifies the interconnectedness o f things which it is the object o f mystical contem plation to reveal. Ideally, the mystic then carries this perception back into everyday life. He or she then recognises that although cerem onial speech is, by design, m ore effective, m ore personally binding, karma is not restricted

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to ritual contexts. O rdinary speech acts on the world for good or ill, com prom ising the speaker at every turn. T his discussion o f karma and verbal efficacy highlights another feature o f Javanese mysticism which contrasts with orthodox worship, namely, a tendency to blur or even deny the boundary between secular and sacred contexts. C onsider the orthodox case. D uring salat, the worshipper is in the sanctified state o f ihram, set apart in space and time from the profane world. But for the Javanist to quote an 18th century suluk (Zoetm ulder 1995: 145) — "All his actions become worship o f G od; he practices the 'everlasting salat’ , which is without time limits and for which no hours are set” . This is so simply because the individual is the site o f divinity, the point from which spatial co-ordinates originate, the bearer o f his or her own kiblat, and so on. Unlike salat, mystical devotions are not so much extra ordinary as an intensification or heightened awareness o f the life process. Correspondingly, ethical action is less com partm entalised, less tied to ritual prescriptions than is the case in orthodox Islam.

C o n c lu s io n I have considered ju st one aspect o f the m anifold relation between orthodox Islamic prayer and Javanese mystical practices. A broader study would ground the contrast in a wider set o f speech acts and cultural orientations (see Beatty 1996; 1999); and a general contrast could then emerge between Javanist ritual addresses and Islamic prayers, in which the form er are characterised by an emphasis on voluntarism or self motivation, symbolic density and allusiveness, a conception o f prayer as a gesture o f offering or self dedication (often accompanied by offerings o f food), and a frequent recourse to representation or m ediation (som ething which Robert H efner has brilliantly explored in Tengger ritu al); while the latter — Islamic worship — is characterised by an emphasis on obligation, literalism, the quest for merit, and distance from the deity. As we have seen, some o f these contrasts are present in Javanist mystical uses o f Islamic prayer, whether in perform ance

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or in speculative discussion. Obviously, Javanist ideas find their fullest expression in form s native to Java: in the praise songs and symbolic explications o f the slametan, for example. But for villagers o f a mystical bent everything is grist to the mill, and Muslim prayers, whether in the mosque or the domestic feast, can be transform ed into non-M uslim meditations simply by being viewed differently. O ne can jo in in tahlilan or Islamic funerary chants while meditating on the lack o f an afterlife: a com m on experience for elderly mystics who are often called upon to chant for the benefit o f the deceased. O ne can "send prayers” to the ancestors while acknowledging that the ancestors are either in oneself or nowhere. A nd one can bow to Mecca while orienting oneself to the Mecca within. Being inside or outside the m osque is, after all, a matter o f perspective.

N o te In Ward K eeler’ s analysis, the efficacy o f ritual speech depends upon "magical homology” (1987: 131—2), a concept rather like Tambiah’ s persuasive analogy. "Faced with a situation they cannot control, people set up, parallel to it, a situation they can control” . K eeler’ s fascinating study follows Anderson in emphasising the centrality o f an idea o f potency to Javanese thinking — an idea which, I suggest, is broken down and demystified in the rationalised thinking o f some o f the sects. Many of K eeler’ s insights, e.g. on vows (1987: 124—134), are highly pertinent to the present discussion. In other Javanese traditions, not considered here, divine power is mediated by guardians o f relics or by priestly intercessors. (See Beatty 1999: Chap 4; and Hefner 1985, esp. pp. 212—15).

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Michael Lambek

'Politics and social ethics are intrinsic to the psychocultural reality of conversion, informing an agent's commitment to an identity and the moral authority that commitment implies' (H efner 1993: 28).

In this chapter I argue that the perform ance o f prayer (including various form s o f recitation) has been the critical means by which Islam has been localised, rendered central to the conduct and understanding o f social relations in Mayotte, and conversely the critical means by which social relations have been Islam icised. I begin, however via a detour which provides two counter threads to the argument, an analytical one that refers to the question o f conversion, especially as it has been set forth by Robert H efner (1993), and an ethnographic one from the neighbouring, closely related, and yet in some respects strikingly different picture to Mayotte found in northwest M adagascar. Although the ethnography is drawn from small places, I hope it will illum inate some larger issues concerning localisation, conversion, and prayer.

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association 1993. Fieldwork has been supported at various times by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the University of Toronto, and most consistently by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. My thanks to Anne Meneley for her substantial help with an earlier draft.

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C o n te x t We hear a lot about transnationalism and the intersection o f the global and local without always explicit recognition that this is not necessarily a recent phenom enon and may have long been subject to reflection by the cosm opolitans o f the times. Extended m ercantile activity has been a part o f life in the region o f the Western Indian O cean —and, for that matter, the northern and eastern portions as well —for centuries. Islam has spread along with it, although not always evenly or consistently. Islam has been present on the island o f Mayotte in the C om oro Archipelago since at least 1441 (844) (Allibert 1984:86). However, given population movement in the region, many o f the Kibushy (a dialect o f northern Malagasy) speaking villagers am ong whom I lived in 1975—76 and have revisited on several occasions, had only been Muslim for about three generations. Som e em braced Islam in the first half o f the nineteenth century along with the Sakalava king Andriantsoly, who moved from northwest Madagascar to Mayotte, while others, especially those descended from indentured labourers brought from East Africa, only became active participants in this century. Beneath the present day global encroachm ent on Mayotte, evident in French social assistance, education, and wage labour in what is now a collectivité territoriale o f France and m igration o f people from Mayotte to R éunion and the French m etropole, lies like a palim psest the earlier spread o f Islam. Islam has also a long history in northwest Madagascar; certain com m unities, such as the Antalaotra, were fully Muslim for centuries, while others, such as the Antankarana, were partly so, and yet others, such as the northern Sakalava, include a significant m inority o f Muslims since at least the time o f Andriantsoly. Today some Muslims in Madagascar struggle to be recognised and accepted as a religious community at the national level rather than as a discrete regional group (Silam o). Whereas during the 1970’ s and 80’ s the population o f Mayotte was virtually exclusively M uslim (repeated reports to the contrary in the press notwithstanding), the situation in northwest Madagascar where I have been conducting sporadic

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research over the last decade, has been one o f lively religious pluralism and polyphony. I use the Malagasy situation to help contextualise the discussion o f Mayotte.

C o n v e r s io n a s A cce p tan ce I prefer to speak about 'active participation in , or even better, about 'acceptance o f Islam rather than about 'conversion to ’ it. The word 'conversion is problem atic insofar as it implies converting 'fro m ’ as well as 'to’ ; insofar as it privileges an im m ediate, virtually instantaneous, uni-directional, and distinct shift in self-identification over a gradual change (that is, insofar as it follows Christian ideology in making even the subjective side o f conversion into a digital rather than an analogic transform ation); insofar as it privileges a private, subjective experience over a collective process; and insofar as it privileges rationalised 'beliefs’ over ritual ord ers.1 These points are recognised, with varying degrees o f explicitness in H efn er’ s (1993) powerful general discussion o f conversion. Yet H efn er’ s account is really about the shifts that Weber ascribes to m odernisation, an argum ent that provides a counterpoint to my own insofar as it would address the globalisation o f Mayotte via Islam whereas I address the localisation o f Islam within Mayotte. 'C onversion understood as societal transform ation perhaps overlooks some o f the complexities inherent in the social reception o f a new order. Indeed, it may overlook some o f the very dim ensions o f m oral agency that both H efner and I would consider central. While it is easy enough to depict Islam as the religion 'to’ which people converted, it is a good deal m ore difficult to describe that 'from' which they converted, or indeed whether Malagasy speakers in this region deliberately repudiated or left som ething beh in d.2 Certainly, contem porary inhabitants o f religiously plural northwest Madagascar distinguish Muslims, Protestants and Christians from those they describe simply as fry mivavaka, those who do not pray. It is noteworthy that the nonChristian, non-M uslim s are described just as I am doing in English, that is, negatively, in terms o f not following Islamic or

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Christian practice rather than in terms o f a specific, nam ed, reified religious practice or identity. Such identification by means o f negation is com m on in Malagasy thought (Lambek 1992), nevertheless it is clear that the 'ancestral practices’ , to take a positive label that is sometimes applied by Malagasy intellectuals, form an unm arked category in this context, not least because people would hesitate to reduce complex or even total social facts to the abstraction o f 'relig io n . Moreover, what is described with reference to Muslims and especially to Christians is a generic practice — prayer — (not coincidentally the subject o f this volum e), rather than a thing — a specific belief, body o f thought or cosmology in the way that western scholars have typically thought o f 'a’ religion. So far this would appear to acknowledge the sort o f qualitative transform ation addressed by H efner. O f course, the Malagasy distinction does not imply that we anthropologists could not classify the invocations that Malagasy make to their personal ancestors or, m ore frequently, to the ancestors o f royalty as a form o f 'prayer’ m ore broadly conceived. Indeed M uslims in Mayotte refer to Islamic recitation by the same word, j ōro, that northwestern Malagasy use to describe invocation o f the ancestors. I do not know whether there are discrete features which Malagasy single out to distinguish mivavaka from mijōro , namely what it is they do when they address divinity conceived in an Islamic or a Christian idiom that differs from what it is they do when they address the ancestors together with the ancestral god (N drañ ahary). I phrase it as a matter o f idiom because this is how many Malagasy would put it; they say it is all the same G od and the m anner in which you address G od is secondary, merely a cultural form . Thus it is worth pointing out that Malagasy do not consider mivavaka to be an enorm ous leap from their own practices. Indeed it is quite com m on, at least am ong certain families o f the traditional elite, to apportion different o ffspring to the different practices. A m arried couple may designate one o f their children a Muslim, another a Catholic or Protestant, and the third free from either. This is evident, in the first instance, in nam ing practices, and names themselves

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can be polyphonic. Thus, to repeat an example I have used elsewhere (Lam bek and Walsh 1997), the current Antankarana m onarch is nam ed Isa Alexandre Tsimanamboholahy, a name which covers all the bases. This indicates, I believe, that for many Malagasy religious adherence is not a matter o f accepting an exclusive truth so much as a socio-political affiliation. This is not to imply that Malagasy have a particularly instrum ental attitude toward religion or that they are not devout. To the contrary, some o f the most devout people express their devotion by means o f an ecumenical practice. Thus a young M uslim man o f my acquaintance prays ( mikoswaly) regularly at the m osque when he is in town. But if his assignment as a policem an takes him to a rural setting without a m osque or a M uslim congregation, he is happy to make use o f a Sunday church service instead. What does it matter where or how you pray, he asks rhetorically, if G od is O n e? Som e Malagasy would expand this generalisation to include ancestral j ōro. These Malagasy may be perform ing their own rationalisations, but it should be noted that what they reject or neglect in the world religions’ are the claims to exclusivity.3 T his approach is consistent with the pattern o f cognatic kinship and the assignment o f certain children to particular grandparental social connections. A nd ju st as for some children social identity is m ore or less assigned and for others m ore or less discovered in the course o f their lives, so too for religion. Descent may influence or direct on e’ s religious affiliation but does not determ ine it or render it necessarily exclusive. Thus if Bloch (1971) has noted that the key question to ask o f the highland M erina regarding their social affiliation is where their tombs lie or where they will be b u rie d , so Astuti (1995) shows that the key means o f delim iting an otherwise performatively constituted identity for the Vezo o f the west coast o f Madagascar concerns the tomb in which they are buried. Thus too am ong the Malagasy o f the northwest, the definitive means o f deciding som eone’ s religious affiliation is to note the rite o f burial —whether Islamic, Christian, or one o f the various indigenous form s. In much o f Madagascar asc rip tio n is by death rath er th an by b irth and so conversion

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cannot be understood in the way we usually think o f it. It is not a definitive moving away from something given, a rejection, so much as a cumulative em bracing o f opportunities. Hence for Malagasy acceptance might be a m ore appropriate construct than conversion. I have been prefacing my discussion o f Mayotte, which was uniform ly M uslim, with this detour to northwest Madagascar, which was characterised by religious pluralism . The ju stification for this is the assum ption that there is something Malagasy that has shaped the reception o f Islam in both places. I cannot claim that the argum ent holds for the same reasons for those inhabitants o f Mayotte whose antecedents hailed originally from East Africa, notably Makua, since I know little about this culture, but I think there are other reasons, stemming both from Islam (Lam bek 1990a, 1993, ch. 5) and from an anthropological approach to religion developed by Rappaport (1979, in press), to suggest that acceptance may be a more suitable term than conversion, the latter being perhaps o f particular relevance to internal movement between the various sects and denom inations that constitute Christianity. Within Christianity, even 'internal’ conversion between denom inations or being 'reborn m ore or less within a given tradition seems to be constituted by the active rejection o f a sinful or ignorant past (e.g. Peacock n d ).4

T h e R e c e p tio n o f I s la m I f we de-em phasise 'conversion, how may we best describe the reception o f Islam and its relationship to what preceded it? Without for a m om ent wishing to cast aspersion on the subjective com m itm ent o f adherents to Islam and without wishing to deny what we might call m ore purely 'religious’ interests and motivations that shape individual experience, I wish to move the discussion in another direction, one that pays m ore attention to outward practice than inward experience, and one that looks m ore at the collective process. I will need here as well to distinguish the situation in Mayotte from that in northwest Madagascar.

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T he spread o f Islam is characterised most obviously and fundamentally by the transm ission o f sacred texts. The most sacred o f these texts exist virtually unchanged over time and from one part o f the Islamic world to another, and thus may be understood as the 'global’ (form erly referred to as ’universal’) dim ension o f Islam; their acceptance renders all Muslims recognisable to each other and enables us to refer to them all as M uslims. Central to the texts are a set o f sacred postulates (the term is R appaport’ s, in press) and a num ber o f explicit injunctions regarding proper goals and behaviour. These begin with the five pillars a n d , via the various legal traditions (Shafeite in the region I am discussing), diffuse into various dom ains o f life from social relations to bodily com portm ent. T he question, then, is how these global texts are locally received, how the texts and their postulates and injunctions are put into practice. To put this in a m ore explicit and forceful way, how does Islam come rapidly to engage the interests, energies, and im aginations o f people living in diverse regions and specific com m unities? How does it come to seem right and n atural? A nd how is it that com m unities retain their distinctiveness even while com m itting themselves to the global tenets o f Islam ? The most com m on way o f addressing these issues, evident in particular in the literature from the eastern end o f the Indian Ocean, has been to examine the relationship between Islamic social injunctions and customary law ( adat) and how these coexist or challenge one another.5 The im plication is one o f either penetration o f Islamic law such that local practices are transform ed, subordinated, or rationalised in its light, or that the two form s, Islam and custom, co-exist in relatively balanced opposition or perhaps in some debate with one another. In part, the Indonesian context o f discussion and the emergence o f aliran may be traced to the tradition o f religious 'pillarisation characteristic o f the N etherlands (Schrauwers 1995). Drawing not upon law but upon traditions o f knowledge, I have developed a somewhat different version o f cultural pluralism for Mayotte (Lam bek 1993, 1997a). My picture has been o f a political-econom y o f knowledge com bined with a

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polyphonous conversation in which Islam, cosmology (or astrology), and spirit possession are incom m ensurable discourses, not so much in contradiction as speaking past each other. In particular, while one line o f thinking within Islam would like to exclude spirit possession, and possibly cosmology, from the realm o f discursive practice, spirit possession responds by slyly or energetically incorporating Islam, including Islam ’ s own ambivalence towards it. The cover o f my book shows two m en in conversation: one is an ordinary villager dressed for m orning prayer at the m osque, the other a tromba spirit in the body o f a male m edium , wearing a royal Sakalava cloth and carrying a royal staff, but equally dressed as a Muslim, though in the fashion o f the last century, with a red fez perched atop his head. He is, in fact, Andriantsoly, the royal convert to Islam I m entioned earlier. Each royal spirit is a synechdochic representation o f the time at which he lived (Lam bek 1998); N dram añ avakarivo (as Andriantsoly is posthum ously known) condenses in his person both Sakalava royal ancestral power and its encapsulation by Islam. Yet if some Sakalava converted to Islam, this conversion is itself subsum ed within the system o f spirit possession that is capable o f representing it. This is polyphony o f a particular sort in which ordinary people themselves each speak in several voices and with several shades o f m eaning. The context is one in which people have to navigate am ong the various claims Islam and possession place upon them and in which they are rarely in position to make final and exclusive decisions in favour o f one or the other. Indeed their life situation is not altogether dissim ilar from that o f the ethnographer in the field (and out o f it), entailing the relatively continuous need to exercise practical ethical judgm ent (phronesis) am ong incom m ensurable discourses (Lam bek 1997a, 1997b).

T h e P e r fo r m a n c e o f I s la m I will return to an exem plification o f these points at the end o f the paper. First, however, I want to address the localisation o f Islam in quite another way. Returning to the Islamic texts, I

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take their significance to have lain, at least during the 1970’ s in Mayotte, less in their semantic or referential content (what they assert or describe) than in their perform ability.6 We may briefly distinguish three relevant qualities or kinds o f perform ance (Tambiah 1985), noting that in no case are we implying som ething that is in any way less sincere or consequential ('m ere perform ance’) than other form s o f action. Q uite the contrary. First and m ost obviously is the fact that the texts are enunciated or recited, i.e. perform ed through speech. I speak secondly about their performative quality in the more technical sense o f illocutionary force, namely in respect o f the states o f affairs they bring into being through their felicitous p erfo rmance. Irrespective o f the semantic content o f specific verses, their utterance sanctifies, blesses or curses, affirm s, protects, appeals, com m its, opens, closes, and so on. Thirdly, one can speak o f the aesthetic and sensorial qualities o f perform ance, for example the beautiful alliterative qualities o f the recited Q u r’an. While these three dim ensions o f perform ance are obviously closely interconnected, I will argue that perfor-

mance in the first sense provides a prim ary means through which Islam was localised in Mayotte, while perform ance in the second sense provides a prim ary means by which, conversely, the social order was Islam icised.7 While at first

glance it may be assum ed that I am suggesting that the reception o f Islam has been quite superficial, the thrust o f my argument is actually the reverse, namely to demonstrate how profoundly Islamic Mayotte has been. Whereas the semantic or referential content o f texts might be assum ed to subsist in some relatively abstract and timeless realm , perform ance (enunciation, recitation) is a social activity, and a tem poral one, located in irreversible, historical tim e.8 It requires attention to such matters as the recruitment o f suitable and knowledgeable perform ers, the timing, scheduling and spatial locating o f particular perform ance events, and the acknowledgment o f the social and m oral consequences o f particular acts o f enunciation or recitation conducted by some people on behalf o f themselves or others. It thus requires a shift o f attention from structure to practice, much in the

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m anner that Bourdieu (1977) has argued regarding exchange, and a shift from systems o f belief or cosm ologies viewed in the abstract to orders o f ritual practice, as argued long ago with respect to witchcraft by Evans-Pritchard (1937) and more recently with respect to religion m ore generally by Rappaport (1979).9 In moving in this direction I take my cue from the reception o f Islam in Mayotte. D uring the 1970’ s commitment to Islam was expressed in textual perform ances o f all kinds. These included the daily cycle o f prayer recital, locally called swalaa (Ar. salat), at the m osque, the weekly cycle o f Friday prayers and serm ons, and the annual cycle o f recitations at 'Id, Ramadan, and so on. They included as well the recitation o f Islamic text at and around critical m om ents o f the life cycle, including conception, birth, male circum cision, m arriage, and most im portant, death and burial. More spontaneous, yet equally pervasive, were the recitations o f dm (Ar. du’a ) to bless and protect individuals, families, and com m unities, to turn away evil-doers, to com m em orate the dead. Most spectacular o f all were frequent perform ances that included recitation, song, music and dance (Lam bek 1987). Som e o f these were Maulidas and some were derived from the Shathuly (Shadhiliyya) and Q adiry (Qjadiriyya) orders, including their respective dhikrs, but their functions were locally determ ined and independent o f Sufi mysticism or brotherhood politics. Such musical p erfo rmances occurred on a large range o f occasions — at and after a death, as fulfillm ent o f a vow, as an expression o f pleasure. The largest were sp o n so red by an entire village or set o f neighbouring villages at festivities to which everyone else on Mayotte was invited. Such perform ances could easily last all night and well into the next m orning, bringing together teams o f perform ers from several villages and including hundreds o f dancers and spectators. O f the three most popular genres (this has subsequently changed), two were perform ed by men (Daira and M ulidi) and one, the M aulida Shengy, by women (with male drum m ers and leaders). People o f both sexes form ed appreciative audiences and engaged in the provisioning activities inevitably associated with such perform ances, including the

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purchase o f meat or the offering o f a cow. D uring the dry, post-harvest season perform ances o f these essentially recitational genres were frequent. T he point is that the scheduling and enactment o f these 'global’ texts (no doubt with local stylistic differences and some local com position) were lo cal activities. Performances were linked to the projects, needs, interests, and intentions o f local individuals, kin groups, and com m unities; moreover, scheduling and participation followed local scenarios o f appropriate m oral action and rhythms o f reciprocity. Senior kinsmen would gather to bless their ju n io rs, neighbours would be called upon to address G od on each others’ behalf, whole villages would turn out to host or perform for each other. As significant form s o f m oral action these perform ances were an integral part o f what it meant to be a parent, an offspring, a neighbour, a m em ber o f the community, in sum, to be a m oral person. They were am ong the most significant activities to index the qualities o f persons and relationships, to dem onstrate who one was, and to establish the fact o f on e’ s com m itm ent to others. A nd if to be Muslim meant to look out for the welfare o f on e’ s fellows, similarly, to be a kinsman or kinswoman or a community m em ber meant to participate in perform ances o f the M uslim texts. Hence Islam was em bedded in kinship and community, and kinship and community were em bedded in Islam, in a very profoun d way. Local form s o f kinship and social action were thoroughly Islamicised; sim ultaneously, Islam was thoroughly ’socialised’ . I think I am not unjustified in speaking o f Islamic perform ances as total social facts or to describe the position o f Islam, following H efn er’ s vocabulary (1993), as 'organic’ . This em beddedness o f Islam totally belies the contrasts with other M uslim societies that are apparent when one simply com pares 'beliefs’ or 'custom s’ or even 'practices’ . The fact that certain supposedly Islamic injunctions concerning marriage, inheritance, or the seclusion o f women were not advocated or followed in Mayotte was much less im portant than the fact that people prayed together and on each other’ s behalf in socially appropriate ways. It is in this sense, admittedly one in complete

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harmony with Durkheim, that one can say that Islam has been highly localised in Mayotte. People in Mayotte simply could not imagine acting as parents, neighbours or m em bers o f a village community in the absence o f Islamic perform ance. Similarly, I think, they could not imagine an Islam that was not in part about fulfilling on e’ s obligations and responsibilities to others, not according to an abstract ethics or code o f law (though they were aware that this existed), but through the immediacy o f habitual practice and according to the ways people expected to give and receive from one another on a daily and long-term basis.10 To say this is to say both that people o f Mayotte were as highly com m itted Muslims as Muslims anywhere and that Islam was highly localised in Mayotte, and to do so without any sense o f contradiction between the two statem ents.11

A cts o f P ray e r I turn now to a few illustrations o f the socialisation o f Islam (see also Lam bek 1993, especially Ch. 4). My illustrations have to do mainly with prayers or recitations people perform ed for one another, the exchange o f acts o f blessing. To begin with, a very com m on perform ance in Mayotte has been the shijabo. This is a kind o f blessing and I will refer to it as a prayer. A shijabo was held by or on behalf o f an individual, a family, a descent line, or the entire community to provide strength and well-being, to ward o ff danger, or to celebrate change. It was perform ed both at times that recurred regularly in the calendrical and personal cycles (at the New Year, for an expectant mother, upon leaving Q u r’anic school) and at times that are a product o f unique events (following an om inous dream , to express general satisfaction). Whether held on community or family occasions, the shijabo served to delineate and intensify social ties and to reaffirm people’ s com m itm ent to one another. T he shijabo was com posed o f a selection o f dua, each recited a fixed num ber o f times. Each perform er recited part o f the total simultaneously with other perform ers’ recitation o f other parts. Thus the whole was recited collectively; individual voices

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were not distinguished but mixed together. Moreover, the sim ultaneous recital o f several dua meant that the words o f each were not readily distinguishable by those prayed over or by onlookers. The subjects o f the prayer sat clustered together on a mat, facing towards Mecca. The perform ers stood in an arc behind them, reciting in low voices, blowing into their hands, and tossing the grains o f rice held there onto the heads o f the subjects. Afterwards the perform ers were served a good meal prepared by the women o f the sponsoring household. T he shijabo marked out those who were prayed over, the subjects, from those who were excluded from the circle, thereby specifying individuals who were vulnerable or in need o f blessing, and distinguishing kin from non-kin or com m unity m em bers from outsiders. In a vertical dim ension, the shijabo also distinguished those who were prayed over, most frequently but by no means exclusively, children and women, from those who did the praying, who were always men. The m en stood above and behind the women, their posture indicating their greater strength; the whole tableau was iconic o f protection. In turn, at the end o f the prayer it was the men who sat in a circle or cluster on the mats and the women who sustained them from the outside, this time concretely with a good meal. The subjects o f the blessing were also served, though separately from the reciters. Who was called in to pray and eat, who supplied the fo od , and who cooperated in the labour o f cooking all followed patterns o f kinship, neighbourliness and community. Such dem arcations could be found at virtually every level o f the social structure. But perform ances were no mere reflections or aesthetic em broidery on m ore fundam ental relations. It was practices such as the shijabo that helped constitute the social structure through their functions o f focusing, separating, com plem enting, incorporating, reciprocating, and uniting. From the perspective o f the ordinary person the practice o f religio n was not fully distinguishable from the duties, constraints, and interests o f kinship, friendship, and citizenship. Conversely, from the perspective o f the analyst, social structure was not fully distinguishable from acts o f praying with

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and over others and being subject to prayer, and from sharing in production or consum ption o f sacrificial meals. T he dead were also com m em orated by means o f textual recitation (that is, by prayer). D epending on the circumstance they were conceptualised as the subjects o f the prayer, in a m anner analogous to the subjects o f the shijabo, as co-sponsors o f the prayer, or possibly, and m ore ambiguously, as its provisional addressees whose help was asked to help transmit the prayer to G od. These positions need not always have been clearly distinguished from one another. D uring my visits annual events were held for certain locally significant ancestors who form ed the apices o f 'ancestorfocused’ kin groups. Thus the large num ber o f people who form ed the core o f the senior adult cohort in the village o f Lom beni Kely held an annual fatiha for their deceased mother (or grandm other). While I had originally assumed that she was simply its subject, in fact the fatiha continued an annual tradition practised by the ancestress herself when she was alive. H er kin had stopped the practice after her death until she em erged ( niboka) in a dream to one o f them, instructing them to continue. A num ber o f years later they left o ff again. O ne o f her sons became sick and again som eone dreamt that the abandoned fatiha was the reason. Since then, they have continued the practice every year. The family invited the whole village to participate. In 1975 non-resident members o f the mraba ('fam ily’) were active sponsors, but they were so no longer a decade later by which time the size o f the expected contribution had tripled. Even resident m em bers o f the great-grandchild generation who had no memory o f the ancestress com plained about having to contribute the 15 French francs and 2 kilos o f rice dem anded in 1985 o f each adult descendant. O ne local great-granddaughter, who did in the end participate, argued, 'she is no kin o f mine, maybe only kin o f my kin’ . T he case shows the m anner in which the commitments that kin have to one another are enacted, confirm ed or disconfirm ed by means o f such Islamic perform ances.12 It is not clear from this material whether the greatgranddaughter’ s statement indicates the limits o f relevant

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social distance in the village social order that have been characteristic o f much o f the century or whether it indicates an alternate strategy o f saving versus disbursing cash and hence o f evaluating social capital in a context o f em erging class differentiation (cf. Solway 1990). Nevertheless, it would seem that the Islamic idiom is capable o f com prehending a range o f changing social practices and commitments. A nnual recitations were held in the same village for the form erly m ost learned and active deceased local Islamic scholars and Q u r’anic teachers. Thus the descendants and form er pupils o f a male contem porary o f the ancestress ju st m entioned held an annual perform ance o f the Maulida in his memory. They chose the M aulida because that was his favourite text and what he taught. Several other deceased elders in the adjacent village were sim ilarly h o n o u red. M ore fam ous deceased religious figures in other villages were the subject o f much larger annual perform ances that attracted visitors from virtually every village in Mayotte. However, not all com m em orative rituals were held on behalf o f those who had a high social profile. For example, one woman produced a biannual M aulida on the anniversary o f the death o f an adult daughter. O f course this event provided an occasion for the dem onstration o f solidarity on the part o f her kin with the elderly sponsor herself. In addition to these special events, the deceased were collectively rem em bered in the annual prayers o f kuitimia. M oreover, ideally each deceased person was to be the individual subject o f one m ajor commemorative perform ance held some time after his or her death. This mandeving, could com prise a M aulida, a D aira or a M ulidi. It was sponsored by close kin (norm ally the adult offspring o f the deceased) and the size o f the event was meant to be an index o f the social prestige o f the deceased. It is im portant to note that these mandeving and the other commemorative rituals described above were distinct from funerals. As G ueunier (1988) has noted regarding the arbain, such celebration enables the kinds o f invitations and exchanges previously associated with non-Islam ic funerals. The separation

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from the funeral is significant because funerals are am ong the most invariant o f M uslim rituals, a point to which I will return below. The time spans o f all these rituals were not very deep and the kin groups that organised them were correspondingly generationally quite shallow; in every kin-based ritual o f com m em oration that I observed, at least one child o f the apical ancestor was still alive. Yet the social production o f prayer can be understood as a vehicle for the reproduction and articulation o f the kin group and o f kin relations. This is so not only in the intentional sense that through prayers people wished each other health, fertility and prosperity, but that in coming together for perform ances o f prayer people re-com m itted to each other. In the preparations and enactment o f a ritual like a commemorative recitation we see not only the articulation o f a particular family grouping or village at a significant m oment o f its history, but the expression o f m ore general principles and values, notably the egalitarian, bilateral, and non-segm entary nature o f the kin group. The strong egalitarianism that ran through village society was made m ore salient by the fact that it was set o ff against hierarchical m odels characteristic o f the p recolonial and colonial periods and by the fact that villagers were often confronted by the elitism o f people who claimed to be better connected to sources o f Islamic authority. The organisation o f rituals such as the fatiha was very different from what one would expect in a lineage-based society in which certain senior kinsm en might have the responsibility for producing and presiding over the event, which would also serve to underline the dependency o f m em bers o f ju n io r generations or the m em bers o f ju n io r lines upon them. In Mayotte, m em bers o f the children s generation held the prim ary responsibility to honour their parents, but this responsibility was not thereby an authority over ju n io r generations; they were not m ediating an ongoing process o f descent (K opytoff 1971) so much as honouring their parents. O bligation declined with successive generations, though it was broadly shared. A degree o f sexual com plem entarity was also evident; although the sexual division o f labour was marked, both

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w om en and m en had the autonom y — and b ore the responsibility — to act as sponsors, and both o f them gained the respect, including self-respect, and social maturity that came with it. It is worth rem arking that female kin had the same financial obligation as male kin except that those who were tem porarily unm arried were exempt from payment. T heir money could not be used towards the fatiha because it was assum ed to derive from extramarital sexual activity, something which was within the bounds o f local morality but regarded as im pure by Islam. This is an instance where the Islamic rule and local practice were in contradiction. Local practice supervened except in particularly sacred contexts like the production o f the fatiha. However the m ore general obligation shows the cognatic basis o f kinship and the relative sexual egalitarianism. If Islam forbade women from publicly perform ing the fatiha on behalf o f others, it did not preclude them from the social prestige inherent in full and equal sponsorship o f prayers. O ne notable distinction between men and women had to do with their respective roles as reciters or cooks (though there were certain events at which men cooked as well). This in turn was linked to the ways in which they participated as guests. There were many recitations which m en attended simply on the basis o f their public M uslim persona; any man with a m odicum o f knowledge o f the requisite dua was welcome and, indeed, covillagers were expected. Women, however, often had to wait to be individually invited by the women o f the sponsoring household, kin-group, or neighbourhood, and their attendance was based on specific kinship or friendship links with the hosts. Thus, in a sense women were m ore closely linked to the local and the particular, and m en to the global, the abstract, and the universal. It was thus men who, in their roles as seafarers or traders, could jo in in any congregation across the Indian O cean and could as Bowen, drawing on Weber’ s discussion o f Am erican Protestants, remarks (1989), instantly establish relationships based on trust. Islam was indeed a religion that suited far-flu n g mercantile ties.

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T h e R e c ip r o c ity S c e n a r io Egalitarianism and complementarity are articulated and constituted by m eans o f balanced reciprocity. Although the expression o f reciprocity is transform ed from ritual to ritual, the principle was so ubiquitous on Mayotte that we can speak o f a kind o f 'reciprocity scenario’ (cf. O rtner 1989, Schieffelin 1976) characteristic o f perform ances o f recitation there, and indeed true o f non-M uslim rituals as well. The scenario can perhaps be made most explicit through examination o f the localization o f the M aulida. T he M aulida is, o f course, a lengthy poem about and in honour o f M oham m ed. It is not the most central or most sacred text o f Islam and it is subject to local poetic and musical em bellishm ents. Hence it exists in a num ber o f variants. In Mayotte the m ost popular form was the Maulida o f al Barzanji recited by m en and put to music in the Maulida Shengy, sung and danced by women, and the Qadiry M ulidi, sung and danced by men. Despite the variations, throughout East Africa the M aulida is a dom inant vehicle for the expression o f joyful participation in Islam .13 In Mayotte it would appear that devotion to the text was as significant as devotion to M oham m ed or attention to the facts o f his life which the poem recounts. Many people spent years studying, copying, and reciting the text, listening to perform ances, and themselves perform ing versions o f the M aulida. It was a treasured aesthetic form ; for most people musical perform ances were highly evocative and for some the perform ances were so charged that they experienced a kind o f religious ecstasy. However without discounting the m ore purely religious meanings or num inous and aesthetic experiences produced by perform ances o f the text, I wish to trace its significance at a m ore m undane level. Am ong the many occasions at which a Maulida was perform ed, those which could be expected on an annual basis took place during the lunar m onth o f the Prophet’ s birth. Anyone who had been b orn in this m onth was supposed to hold a Maulida. These were the only people for whom the month o f birth or the passing o f another year was marked. The perform ance was

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sponsored for children by their parents and for adults by themselves. It entailed simply inviting a few kinsmen and neighbours to recite the text and then serving them a good m eal. D urin g the m onth there were certain days on which men went from house to house to participate in these perform ances. In addition, all local com m unities held collective public M aulidas during the month. Villages (or sections o f large villages) paired o ff with one another. Village A held a Maulida to which village B was invited and later in the month the invitation was reciprocated. But the exchange was somewhat m ore com plex than this simple statement implies. For village A to host village B meant that the men o f village B would come and perform a M aulida on behalf o f village A in village A s m osque. The m en o f village A would then serve the reciters a good meal. Each household in the host village was required to provide an equal am ount o f food toward the feast; the meal was served collectively to the visiting men and the many male youngsters who had tagged along. In addition, the women o f individual households invited kinswomen and friends from village B to assist them with the cooking (which was done in each household and then collected by the men) and divided the rem aining portion with them. Visitors o f both sexes returned hom e to village B with fried cakes which were distributed to family m em bers who had not attended. To eat the cake was to partake o f the positive state generated by the perform ance. We note here distinctions between the two villages, between women and men, and between the domestic and the public sites o f production and celebration. Perform ance articulated the unity o f each village and the equivalence o f each household within it. But the event was m ore than an occasion for articulating social affiliation. M embers o f village A perform ed a pious activity in sponsoring the M aulida and were likewise the m ain beneficiaries o f its perform ance. M embers o f village B received grace in G o d ’ s eyes and social respect for having engaged in the actual recital. Thus, after the first perform ance, m em bers o f village A and B were mutually indebted to each other. Village A was indebted to village B for doing the recitation while village B was indebted for having received the

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opportunity to do so. Balance was reached and reciprocity redoubled when later in the month the roles o f the two villages were reversed and village B invited village A to come and recite a M aulida on its behalf and receive a good meal. H ere we have a general m odel o f relatively direct reciprocity that interlinks two parties perform ing reciprocal services on each other’ s behalf. This is a reciprocity scenario that was com m on in Mayotte (cf. Lam bek 1983, 1990b, 1993 — figure on p. 118). In the scenario depicted here, prayers were sent to G od by in term ediaries. In effect, each party served as interm ediary for the other; m oreover, each party enabled the perform ance o f religious duties by the other. Interm ediaries were shown respect by those on whose behalf they perform ed; those saying the prayer were tem porarily 'sen ior’ to those for whom they were saying it. Yet an egalitarian ethic prevailed in that the inter-m ediation and hence the respect was reciprocated. Although the stated purpose o f the Maulida was to honour M oham m ed and glorify G od , the social functions o f the ritual are perfectly apparent. The annual Maulida provided an occasion for the articulation o f community mem bership and the reaffirm ation and regeneration o f community sentiment and solidarity. The M aulida perform ance was also a vehicle for direct reciprocity between neighbouring com m unities, articulating their boundaries as well as their connectedness and m utual indebtedness; each community was implicated in the production o f well-being for the other. Indeed, each assisted in the reproduction o f the other; thus, they were not fully separate after all. The recitations did not merely express or signify the inter-com m unity relationship but were a primary means by which it was constituted and reproduced. The exchange did not necessarily produce harmony between the com m unities. Indeed, the annual perform ances with which I was most fam iliar were fraught with tension as each side was attentive to slights in the degree o f hospitality offered by the other. The ideal equality posited at the community level was offset by the reality o f the fact that one village was a good deal larger than the other; hence the resources to feed one village by

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the other were subject to greater strain than the reverse. But it was precisely perform ances like the M aulida that helped articulate the nature o f what community meant in Mayotte and how neighbouring com m unities ought, and in fact did, relate to one another. Conversely, perform ance o f the M aulida, and by metonymic extension, o f Islam as a whole, was rendered m eaningful in part by the ways in which it satisfied the fulfillm ent o f the reciprocity scenarios. Put another way, Islam did not merely im pose m oral standards, but was harnessed to meet local m oral concerns according to a local logic o f m oral practice.

I n s id e a n d O u ts id e th e M o sq u e At the beginning o f the paper I m entioned how people in northwest Madagascar distinguish mijōro from mivavaka. Perhaps we now have a clearer basis for understanding some critical features o f that distinction. In any case, praying for others, or on behalf o f the collective is what Malagasy do. That is the basis o f jōro. In Mayotte the recitations outside the m osque are likewise j ōro whereas the swalaa itself is not referred to in this way. Swalaa is form al prayer sent directly to G od, on on e’ s own behalf, whereas jōro is the recitation o f sacred text, usually on b ehalf o f others. Swalaa is an act o f subm ission, and a direct, unm ediated com m unication with the divine, in which all m em bers o f the congregation stand and prostrate themselves before G od equally (though one can perform it alone). jōro is an act o f supplication and one that entails the invocation o f interm ediaries, located in a hierarchical chain from client to perform er and from living humans to ancestors or saints to G od. Finally, if mivavaka or mikoswaly, by contrast to mijōro , means praying largely fo r o n eself and in regularly scheduled, automatically recurring convocations at arms length from the give and take and the pleasures and tribulations o f daily life, then it may be seen that in devoting so much attention to occasions and acts o f jōro, the villagers in Mayotte have radically socialised Islam. The swalaa is less amenable to localization than the dua, though not im m une to it eith er.14

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I do not m ean in this way to radically distinguish Islamic practice in Mayotte from Islam elsewhere; swalaa o f course rem ains im portant in Mayotte, and conversely, Islamic recitations perform ed outside the m osque can be observed in any M uslim society. Nevertheless, this local contrast between jōro and swalaa may point to something general about the distribution o f Islamic prayer that is productive o f a sort o f positive local/global tension to be recognised wherever Islam is found.

T h e I s la m ic is a t io n o f S o c ia lity I have argued that Islam was localised in Mayotte by having the perform ance o f its texts inserted into the give and take o f daily life, according to scenarios o f kinship and community. It may be that this is a prim ary form o f localization that is to be found everywhere and one which is true o f any religion that has been successful at spreading widely. If so, this suggests one o f the reasons for the relative success o f the world religions’ (H efner 1993); that is to say, that they contain both form s or practices that can be readily deployed in local social scenarios as well as those that stand, like the swalaa at arm ’ s length from them. But, we might ask, what then in this process o f localization is specific to Islam (as opposed, most obviously, to Christianity), and in what respects can we say that the local social order is specifically Islam icised as Islam is socialised? Does not the advent o f Islam also change the nature o f social groups or interaction scenarios? There are certainly examples o f the latter, both in situations o f acute missionary activity with rapid social change, and m ore slowly over the long term. Thus Topan (n .d .) has rem arked on how Swahili m atriliny gradually changed under the influence o f Islam to patriliny. Likewise am ong Malagasy speakers the practice o f virgin m arriage is specific to Muslims, albeit shaped in local ways (Lam bek 1983). The influences need not all lie in the ju ral dom ain. Indeed, as the Islamicisation o f Mayotte is virtually total, I can only make a few suggestive remarks. To begin with (and bracketing the question o f gen der), it may be that there is an affinity between Islam and egalitarian form s o f reciprocity. While, to be sure,

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Islam is also associated with diverse form s o f hierarchy across the w orld, there is in the way the swalaa is perform ed a fundamental equality, or to be m ore precise, an equivalence o f submission before G od. While relative position within the village mosques at Friday prayer in Mayotte was subject to manoeuvring such that to pray in the front was a sign that one had, or thought one had, prestige, and some people even went so far as to suggest that they did not want to prostrate themselves behind people o f lower status, such gamesmanship paled — and was made to look as trivial as it was — before the stark fact o f Islam: that everyone prostrates themselves equally. T he swalaa is indexical o f subm ission and vividly iconic o f a fundamental equivalence am ong male worshippers (and, in the w om en s chamber appended to many m osques in Mayotte, am ong fem ale worshippers). It evokes a sense o f great personal dignity. M oreover, the m osque has no form al leader, and Sunni Islam no hierarchy. In Mayotte any man could aspire to sufficient knowledge such that he might lead the prayer or recite the serm on (Lam bek 1993). Claims to descent from the Prophet aside (and in the villages o f Malagasy speakers these were largely discounted), the hierarchy that developed within local Islam was a hierarchy o f achievement, not ascription and it was at once supported and subverted by the universal prescription to transfer religious knowledge to others (cf. Gellner 1981). The swalaa did o f course im pose its own routines upon life. A m aterial barrier evident in Mayotte during the 1970’ s was having the means to purchase and keep clean appropriate dress for the m osque. The swalaa also relied upon a daily and weekly work rhythm that enabled breaks for prayer. The shift to a diversified wage economy and a capitalist time clock in the 1980’ s has underm ined this (cf. T h om pson 1967). The discipline entailed was o f course quite different from that o f Protestant Christianity (cf. C om aro ff and C om aroff 1992). Social life was thoroughly Islam icised as well insofar as each socially situated recitation o f the dua established commitments and m oral states that were legitimated by means o f Islam and indeed sanctified by it. If, as Rappaport argues (1979), perform ance o f the canon establishes the perform er’ s acceptance

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o f it, then all perform ers were continuously re-establishing their acceptance o f Islam . M oreover, if as he further establishes, a ritual perform ance brings into being a new state o f affairs, and if this state o f affairs can best be described as a m oral state, then people were repeatedly creating for one another Islamically constituted states o f blessing, protection, and sociality. Much as the relationship between spouses is constituted as one o f m arriage and the m arriage itself sanctified through pronunciation o f the correct vows in the correct m anner before legitimate authorities or witnesses (in this case by m eans o f dua and the transm ission o f the mahary [Ar. mahr]), so too were all significant social relations constituted and sanctified by and consequent to the appropriate recitation o f dua at shijabo, birth rituals, Maulidas, and the like. Islamic recitations were deemed necessary at critical moments o f the life and social cycles; their utterance produced m oral persons and relations. T hese were specifically Islam ic form s o f relationality and m oral space, that is to say, persons, relations, spaces, and com m itm ents sanctified by and infused with Islam. Islamic ethical ideals pervaded social relations; am ong these the idea that utterance o f prayer was necessary for redem ption was central. Most critical here was the final prayer — the utterance o f the shahada by the deceased when requested by the angels o f death. The funeral and burial were directed to ensuring this outcom e, hence the final prom pting at the graveside; the funeral, in turn, was the most critical ritual, the pivot o f the life cycle. I believe it to be no accident that many o f the essays that address tension over ritual perform ance in the face o f social change concern funerals (e.g. Geertz 1959, Lam bek and Breslar 1986).15 Because it anchors the Islamic life cycle an d, in effect, renders m eaningful all that is enacted before, the funeral is, I venture to hypothesise, am ong the Islamic rituals least subject to change, that is, least subject to diverse form s o f localization. The most critical part o f the funeral, which again, I suspect, is the most invariant, concerns the nature o f the interm ent and the prom pting o f the deceased. We are rem inded here o f the m ore abstract features o f R appaport’ s argum ent concerning the hierarchy o f sanctity

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which is simultaneously a hierarchy o f invariance. I grossly com press this here. Rappaport (1979) distinguishes within liturgical orders levels o f understanding that run from ultimate sacred postulates to cosm ological axioms to rules o f conduct. T he sacred postulates sanctify or certify the cosmological axioms and other lower order understandings, the cosm ological axioms logically underpin the rules, and the rules transform cosmology into conduct. This hierarchy o f con tingency is simultaneously a continuum o f increasing con creteness, social specificity, and mutability, and (going in the opposite direction) o f longevity, unquestionableness, and invariance. From the perspective o f this paper the upper levels o f this hierarchy, which provide m eta-perform atives and perform atives, are what determ ine the social order as an Islamic one. In R appaport’ s discussion, ultimate sacred postulates (while deeply m eaningful) may be relatively inform ationless. This is clearly not the case with Islam. The referential m eaning o f the shahada is quite evident an d, as Topan (n .d .) has pointed out for the Swahili, there is absolutely no com prom ise on the Oneness o f G od n or over the fact that M ohammed is his Prophet. But the shahada and dua are recited in the original Arabic, in standardised and invariant phrases whose literal meanings may be inaccessible to those who profess them. The act o f utterance takes precedence over the content o f the utterance. It is the (m eta-)perform ative act that is o f consequence. That funerals have an anchoring position within the Islamic liturgical order in Mayotte rem inds us o f what I said earlier about their significance in Madagascar as the final and most decisive markers o f religious affiliation. Further discussion o f death as a signifier o f the boundary between Islam and Sakalava tradition in Madagascar would take us too far o ff the track o f the present discussion. Suffice it to say that am ong Sakalava I have heard o f incidents in which coffins were hijacked by proponents o f one m ode o f burial from those o f another. The situation perm its o f considerable ambiguity for those who attempt to com m it to both sets o f practices and results in the distinction between certain Muslims and non-M uslim s becom ing much

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less discrete than m odels o f conversion or pictures o f Islam in other parts o f the world would su ppose.16

D u r k h e im a n d W eber In the respects described here, Islam was as fully a part o f Mayotte as any tribal religion was o f the society which it constituted and was constituted by. O ne is inconceivable without the other. In this Durkheim ian respect Islam in Mayotte (when and as I saw it) perhaps did not achieve the m ajor shift in context that H efner (1993), following a Weberian line, would ascribe to conversion to a world religion. But o f course, ju st as Durkheim ian and Weberian perspectives do not form mutually exclusive alternatives, that is not the full story o f the experience in Mayotte. Islam is a world religion and it is prevalent throughout the region. Adherence to Islam did enable the people o f Mayotte to identify themselves with their co-religionists elsewhere and to see their relations with the wider world accordingly.17 Such identity was particularly affirm ed for those able to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. When it became possible, people from Mayotte also began to attend religious perform ances elsewhere within the region, notably the annual ziara pilgrimage circuit o f northernm ost Madagascar (G ueunier 1988, Walsh 1998). Increased mobility also left Mayotte further open to the activities o f Islamic reform ers from the outside. Whereas the debates over religious reform in the 1970’ s were pretty well contained by alternatives which were not particularly disconcerting to the islanders, by the 1990’ s reform ers from South Asia were bringing ideas which were quite foreign to many and which were starting to create a wedge between generations o f the faithful. That, however, is a topic I have not been able to explore. Suffice it to say that many o f the controversies over Muslim reform are concentrated over the correct methods and conditions for conducting prayer. The larger point o f my argum ent is that there are two poles in the apprehension or affirm ation o f morality. O ne em phasises its universal qualities and does so in an intellectualising and abstracting m anner. The other sees morality as intrinsic to

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practical consciousness. Thus, on the one hand, we can emphasise the abstract universals o f the Q u r’anic and legal texts, their translocal and transhistorical qualities. O n the other hand, we can emphasise the kind o f practical know-how that inheres in the perform ance o f the texts in concrete, specific historically localised circum stances and changing contexts. My tendency has been to emphasise the latter whereas the tendency o f H efner, as o f all large-scale W eberian depictions o f history, must be to emphasise the form er. To leave this as an abstract contrast is itself to make a choice. In reality I would im agine that religion always contains a tension between the two (one that the tension between our respective theoretical inclinations reproduces). This is a tension equivalent to the one we find between adherence to rule or precedent in legal decisions and between rule and case oriented approaches in legal anthropology (cf. C om aroff and Roberts 1981), and it is to be found in the debates am ong Muslims that take place in Mayotte or anywhere else in the Islamic world. Indeed, as I have argued in Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte (Lam bek 1993), one and the same person can shift his or her stance on these issues according to the way his or her attention is drawn to the circumstances immediately at hand. It should by now be clear that to suggest that Islam was organically rooted in Mayotte is not to suggest that adherence was in any way mechanical or that people simply followed rules unthinkingly. Indeed the reverse was the case. Each time that people perform ed a dua for one another, or a dhikr, they had to think about what they were doing, what the perform ance meant, and what sort o f com m itm ent their own action entailed. People had to decide when to schedule perform ances and how to direct to them their time, interest, skill, money, and labour. At times they had to select between com peting social obligations, com peting educational investments (whether to learn the D aira or the M ulidi, or whether to put aside both for spirit possession, French schooling, or carpentry lessons), and com peting argum ents about correct Islamic practice. The point in seeing Islam socialised, then, is to emphasise that social practice is itself m oral practice. And it is m oral

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practice not in the strict following o f rules or obligation as a narrowly D urkheim ian view might have it, but, in an approach that has m ore affinity with Weber, in the continuous exercise o f m oral ju d g m e n t. Particular recitations o f dua, that we have referred to as prayers, are m oral acts, enjoined, initiated, or participated in on the basis o f m oral judgm ent and carrying m oral consequences. In sum, I have m aintained three assum ptions about practice here. First, it is always to be understood in some kind o f relationship to structure. In this case the structure comes from the social dom ain, as, for example, it is revealed in the reciprocity scenario, and it also comes from the liturgical dom ain, as it is revealed in the hierarchy o f sanctification and invariance characteristic o f Islam. Second, practice is to be understood not as abstract individuals deploying a kind o f automatic and unconscious habitus, but as the deliberate acts o f concrete persons, albeit socially and structurally located, caught up with particular interests, obligations, projects and problem s. T h ird , power is not necessarily always the most critical dim ension o f practice, nor is prestige always the prim ary goal or consequence. I share completely with H efner and the Weberian tradition the insight that m oral reasoning is a central dim ension o f practice.

P o litic s , H isto ry a n d P e r fo r m a n c e T he picture I have drawn should also not be taken to suggest that there was no room for movement or for more general reflection and repositioning. Again, there is every evidence to the contrary, from the subtle rationalisations o f Islamic understandings vis-à-vis astrology and spirit possession or from local debates about textual versus traditional authority within Islam (Lam bek 1993, Ch. 6). O ther indications may be found within certain o f the perform ances themselves. I f perform ances o f Maulidas form ed a means for the reproduction o f particular social relations according to a local reciprocity scenario, they could also be used to forge new obligations and create new links. It was perhaps because o f the

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com m itm ent expressed by perform ers to the texts themselves that they could readily do so. The women o f the Mouvement Mahorais have long used Maulidas as a means for political organising. Musical perform ance o f w om ens Maulidas, the M aulida Shengy were occasions to attract people from across the island to party congresses. At the beginning this was no doubt a means to entice people who might not have imagined coming together fo r political ends. The Maulidas were also used as a sanction: any village that did not send women to congresses or dem onstrations was threatened with having to host the next M aulida itself, and out o f turn. Thus violation o f the obligation to accept an invitation was made the basis o f having to issue one. The Maulidas also provided a degree o f sanctification o f the political deliberations to which they were contiguous. In fact, however, the party that used the Maulidas was attempting to intensify relations with France and encourage French investment in such things as education, thereby providing one o f the bases by which Islamic practice has since been underm ined. The politicisation o f such perform ances also produced the rejection or inverse o f the reciprocity scenario: members o f opposed political parties not only did not attend each others congresses and hence Maulidas, but for a time during the early 1970’ s went so far as to refuse to attend funerals sponsored by each other’ s m em bers (Lam bek and Breslar 1986). Needless to say, the result was highly disturbing to many people. In keeping with my intention throughout this paper not to prioritise a master narrative o f 'great transform ation’ I will close with an illustration o f recitational practice from Mayotte that repositioned the direction available for m oral reflection. Perform ance o f the M aulida was not only an instantiation o f the contem porary localization o f Islam, but it also served as a vehicle to docum ent the history o f the process o f Islam icisation. In the early Nineteenth Century Islam in Mayotte came face to face with the Sakalava politico-religious system in which deceased royal ancestors returned in the form o f tromba spirits and were treated with great respect by the living. This form o f spirit possession, in which the spirits are not an alternate species as Islam acknowledges to be the case for the djin, but

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rather the dead returned to the living, violates fundam ental Islamic conceptions. N ot only does it posit something not possible in view o f Islamic ideas o f the afterlife, but the Sakalava system produces tromba out o f deceased monarchs by treating their corpses in a way deeply offensive to Islamic notions o f purity and ethics. Hence there must have been a certain am ount o f controversy over the burial o f the Sakalava m onarch Andriantsoly, who had converted to Islam and sought refuge from the M erina. He was buried in Mayotte where his tomb form s a Sakalava burial place ( mahabo) and his tromba spirit, known as N dram añ avaka’ , is very much in evidence. In the 1970’ s he was the leading figure am ong the tromba spirits. Ndram añavaka’ configures in his person the conjunction o f Sakalava ancestral practices and Islam. In his case, following the m odel I rem arked upon at the outset o f the paper, Islam was accepted without the repudiation o f ancestral practices. So Ndram añavaka’ is a tromba spirit, yet he is a Muslim one. He dresses in M uslim garb and, unlike the other tromba, who drink rum and dance to traditional Malagasy rhythms, Ndramañavaka ’ has perform ed on his behalf an annual Maulida. This M aulida, held at his tom b, which is, in fact, the central place o f the tromba cult on Mayotte, evokes the sort o f com m em oration o f deceased Islamic scholars described earlier as well as the non-Islam ic rituals, the fanompoa, held at the tombs o f deceased Sakalava sovereigns in Madagascar. (Indeed Maulidas are held for Ndram añavaka’ in Madagascar as well.) Thus, every year in the month o f the Prophet’ s birth Ndram añavaka’ calls tromba from across the island to a Maulida Shengy perform ed by local women in honour o f the Prophet. Ndram añavaka’ and many o f his brethren rise to watch, while another kind o f spirit, known as the lulu ny Maulida, the spirits o f the M aulida, or as lulu Kimaore, spirits o f Mayotte, jo in the humans in the dancing. That is to say, they rise in some o f the women perform ers. These spirits o f the M aulida are Shim aorespeaking figures from the history o f Mayotte; m ore specifically, they are the C om orian Muslim rulers o f the Sultanate who welcomed Andriantsoly and his cohort o f Malagasy speakers on their arrival and settlement in Mayotte.

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T he perform ance is properly and joyfully Islamic — except that its sponsors and some o f its perform ers and audience are spirits. T he tromba spirits are in the position o f 'sponsors’ on whose behalf the ceremony is perfo rm ed , much like 'Village A ’ above. Yet as mostly non-M uslim s they cannot reciprocate by perform ing the same ceremony on behalf o f the Maulida spirits. T he reciprocity is not redoubled. Similarly, shortly after A ndriantsoly arrived in Mayotte he declared him self overlord; at least, it was with him that the French conducted the treaty in 1841 that in their eyes turned the island over to them. T he link between the two kinds o f spirits present at the M aulida replays the complex power relations o f the late precolonial period and indicates that the balance between Islam and Sakalava spirit possession rem ains a delicate one, that it is, quite literally, a dance o f power (Tehindrazanarivelo 1997). T he perform ance includes hum an perform ers, spectators, and hosts o f the spirits. All o f these people are Muslims and all the p erform ers are adepts o f the M aulida Shengy, used to perform ing it on other purely Islamic occasions. T he perform ance is, I believe, characterised by some irony. It indexes the incorporation o f Sakalava elements in a Muslim society, indeed the M uslim conversion o f the Sakalava (that is, o f those Sakalava who im m igrated to Mayotte and their descendants). Yet its representation by means o f the tromba spirits as well as the spirits o f the M aulida announces that there was som ething left over. Indeed the presence o f the spirits o f the M aulida suggests a transm ission or 'conversion in the other direction. The perform ance thus subverts the very transform ation it records. It may also be noted that the perform ance opens up the tight connection between 'society’ and 'religion described earlier, providing a partially external foothold through which it may be viewed. To be sure, this is not the foothold o f the rationalising, intellectualising observer, synthesiser, or devout follower o f a 'world’ religion, the m odernising victor o f the great transform ation, but an opening produced by local poiesis. In the end, perhaps the message provided by the p erfo rmance is not conclusive. It is not really clear which system has

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in co rporated or converted the o th e r.18 In a sense this sum m arises the uniqueness and specificity, the locality o f Mayotte — distinct from both the Islamic Swahili and C om orian world and from the Malagasy 'ancestral' polities. Finally, even the representations o f history are subject to history. It is o f interest to note in perform ances o f the women' s M aulida Shengy in villages o f Kibushy speakers the increasing appearance o f the spirits o f the M aulida, often and tellingly referred to as M ahorais spirits. These spirits speak not Kibushy, the Malagasy dialect akin to Sakalava, but Shim aore, the Bantu dialect o f C om orian spoken by the majority o f the inhabitants o f Mayotte and recognised by the French as the m ain local language. The spirits are sometimes said to be the form er sultans o f Mayotte. T heir appearance am ong Kibushy speakers enacts a new sense o f internal unity as inhabitants o f Mayotte are boun d by a com m on history and identity in their special relationship with France. In this context, the distinction between speakers o f the two languages comes to be overlooked in favour o f som ething that has becom e increasingly more salient, namely local proto-national identity vis-à-vis the all powerful O ther and chief local instigator o f the new Global order that is France. M uslim m onarchs had to devote time and energy to the spirits and to the upkeep o f royal cemeteries. Sim ilar constraints upon full Islamic practice, and hence a corresponding ambiguity regarding Islamic identity, is experienced by M uslim spirit m edium s in Mahajanga. T heir status as royal m edium s requires them to stay far away from funerals and death, whereas their status as M uslim s im pels them to participate in funerals and visit houses o f m ourning. Some m edium s, especially elderly women negotiate with their spirits for perm ission to visit houses o f m ourning and may undergo extra purification as a result. By contrast, a senior male m edium with whom I was working who considered him self a M uslim, at least in ethnic terms, would cross the street to avoid a funeral procession and would not even accept visitors who had come directly from a house o f m ourning. After visiting a m ourner I was instructed to return home, bathe and change my clothes before visiting the m edium . This m an’ s Islamic identity

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took second place to his role as a spirit m edium , no doubt because his spirit in particular was one for whom association with death was highly polluting. T he differentiation am ong Sakalava according to the division o f labour within the traditional system as well as according to the individual identity and traits o f the particular royal ancestor or ancestors with which each person is most associated, is a m ajor structural difference from Islam which universalises the status o f worshippers.

N o te s 1 The digital/analogic contrast is an essential part o f Rappaport’ s theory of ritual (Rappaport 1979) to which, as will become apparent, I am much indebted. 2 This distinction may be captured by what Weber means by rationalising and H efner by the distinction between 'traditional’ and world’ religions. Hence a theory o f conversion ought to distinguish between the shift from 'traditional’ to 'world’ religion and the shift from one 'world’ religion (or sect) to another. It is unclear whether one could usefully speak o f conversion from one 'traditional’ religion to another. 3 Indeed this may be highlighted in the word used for Christian practice, mivavaka. While vava means 'm outh’ , the relevant morpheme may be vaka, m eaning 'separating’ (E. Tehindrazanarivelo, personal communication). It is o f interest that it is precisely the religions with claims to universality that also demand exclusivity (cf. Jam es 1995). 4 I am ignorant as to how the Muslim intellectual tradition constructs the process, but it is surely the case that Islam itself has been historically constituted less as a rejection o f Christianity or Judaism so much as a means o f adding to and surpassing them. It is a matter o f accepting new knowledge rather than casting aside sin. 5 From another, comparative, point o f view, the question has been posed as that o f 'one Islam ’ or many. For a trenchant discussion o f the issues see Asad 1986. 6 This is emphatically not to separate 'belief from 'action (Abu-Zahra 1991) nor to deny that questions o f referential meaning were uppermost to some people some o f the time. In terms o f the Schutzian model elaborated in Lambek 1993 and 1997a, the perspective adopted here is that o f the 'man on the street.’ It needs to be supplemented by the perspectives o f the 'well inform ed citizen’ and the 'expert’ . 7 Performance in the third sense may be simultaneously a means to both but I cannot investigate it independently within this paper (see Lambek 1987).

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8 To be sure, reading is also a socially and historically located activity. However, insofar as silent reading may be a solitary practice its social implications are necessarily somewhat different from what is described here as perform ance. 9 A com parison o f Bourdieu and Rappaport shows the form er emphasises the improvisational and the latter the orderly execution o f acts; likewise the form er emphasises moves for personal prestige or honour and the latter collective frames for moral evaluation (Lambek nd a, b). 10 This is not to suggest that a universalistic concern for the well-being o f all humans was absent. 11 For a similar conclusion regarding an Indonesian case, see Bowen 1992. 12 It may not be irrelevant that this particular family (’ancestor-focused kindred’) traced its roots back to East Africa. Indeed the ancestress in question was said to have spoken K im rim a as well as Kibushy. Thus we may be observing African notions o f ancestorhood, mediated by Malagasy cognatic kinship, transposed and modified by an Islamic idiom. 13 El Zein (1974) describes an East African context, Lamu, in which, in sharp distinction to what I describe for Mayotte, performances o f the Maulida were used to mark hierarchy. Meneley describes performances o f mawlids among the elite o f Zabid, Yemen which 'mediate the everpresent contradiction between equality o f Muslims before God and the hierarchy o f families so evident in everyday life’ (1996: 178). For an argument that attends more to the distinctions between men’ s and women’ s performances than I can do here, see Tapper and Tapper (1987). 14 See Bowen (1989) for a striking case study from Indonesia and Lambek (1990c, 1993 Ch. 6) for Mayotte. There are also questions as to whether women pray in the mosque, the size o f the congregation, the regularity o f prayer, the conduct o f the Friday sermon, the admission o f tourists, and so on. 15 C onsider also the case o f Muslim prostitutes in Senegal who express great anxiety that because o f their profession they will not be able to receive proper burial and who go to a great deal o f effort to get around this (Renaud 1997). 16 That a Muslim might receive a non-M uslim burial surely weakened the entire nature o f Islamic adherence and supported the existence o f what one rum -drinking, fez-wearing tromba spirit described to me as a mode o f practice or form o f identity he referred to as Kusilim, in contrast to proper Muslim comportment and identity — Kisilam. The form er entails the adoption o f some o f the signifying practices o f Islam in a mimeticised form whereas the latter entails accepting Islam. 17 In a paper that is complementary to the present one (Lambek 1995), I have discussed this globalizing dimension o f Islam, using Anderson’ s argument concerning the role o f a common sacred language and literacy

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in the form ation o f what he calls a 'great transcontinental sodality’ (Anderson 1991:36). 18 Topan makes a somewhat similar point and (n .d.) notes comparable practices among Swahili speakers, notably a Ruhani possession cult in which the spirits mimic the Sufi brotherhoods, refusing alcohol, wearing white, and singing dhikiri.

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T he relativity and contestability o f interpretations o f prayer perform ance have been emphasised in previous chapters. Underlying, or at least juxtaposed to such potential for variability, however, are the canonical rules and injunctions which can therefore always be invoked by those with the influence and power to do so. T he Q u r’an, by induction, m entions the num ber o f salât to be perform ed daily by Muslims as obligatory canonical prayers (in, am ong others, verses 11:114; 17:78—79; 20:130; and 24: 58). The injunctions are elaborated and made m ore specific in the sayings, advice and deeds o f Prophet M uhammad (the hadfth); these, in turn, have been discussed in ju ral and scholarly com m entaries and treatises accompanying the hadfth down the centuries. Salât has thus featured extensively in M uslim discourse in a variety o f languages; it has served as an index o f M uslim identity and as a focus for expressions o f duty, piety and propriety in response to the message o f Islam. What emerges in such interpretations are a people’ s perceptions o f their beliefs and practices, on the one hand, and o f their relationship with other groups, on the other. This paper attempts to explore these states in relation to two Muslim com m unities in East Africa: the Sunni Swahili and the Shi'l Ism ā 'īlī .

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T h e Sw ah ili The Swahili are Sunni Muslims who, by and large, follow the sect (Swahili madhehebu; Arabic madhhab) o f Islam which bears the name o f Im am Shafī 'ī (d. 820). Shafī'ī is one o f the four jurists whose judgm ents effectively interpreted the Q u r’an and the hadīth literature for Sunni Muslims; his pupils and successors gradually codified the judgm ents into a corpus which came to be revered as a source o f Muslim law and practice. When questioned regarding on e’ s madhehebu, a Swahili would say that he/she is a 'Shafī'ī M uslim ’ and that he/she perform s the salāt 'according to [the teachings of] Sh afī'ī’ . To be sure, the differences am ong the four schools or sects are not outwardly m ajor in themselves as the sects adhere to the same broad canons regulating the prerequisites and perform ance o f the prayer: mainly the need for a worshipper to be in a state o f ritual purity attained through ablution (Sw. wudhu) ; to perform the stipulated num ber o f salât per day, and to do so with the required num ber o f units ( rakaa) within each salāt. Differences emerge in the m anner o f conducting wudhu, the gestures perform ed during the salāt, recitation o f the texts within the units, the perception o f what is and is not obligatory, and to the degree to which that is so , as various chapters in this volume illustrate. The source o f such differences, however, is the way the Prophet him self is believed to have perform ed the prayer. The m anner o f its recitation, and its other ritual accompaniments, were historically established in two phases. The first was an ordination which took place during the life o f the Prophet — particularly in the M adinan period (between 622 and 632) — when the foundational dim ensions o f the salât were consolidated. M uslim schools o f jurisprudence draw their legitimacy from this period. The second phase was interpretative: the four Sunni ju rists after whom the sects are nam ed — Abū H anīfa (d.767: the school o f H anafī), Mālik (d.796: Māliki), Shafī'ī (d.820: Shafī ī ), Ibn H anbal (d.855: Hambalī) — essentially interpreted the Islamic sources available to them in accordance with what they believed to have been the example and directives

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o f the Prophet based on accounts transm itted 'in a chain for well over a century.1 These were then elaborated by the pupils o f the ju rists, some o f whom (like 'Abd al-Wahhāb) founding their own sub-sects (e.g. the Wahhāb ī) .2 O f the four Sunni sects, the predom inant one in East Africa is the Sh afī'ī, but the H anafī also have a significant presence. Most o f the n o n -Sh ī 'ī Indians in East A frica belong to the H anafī sect (Trim ingham 1964:81); they run schools and have large well-built mosques which also conduct Friday prayers. T he m ain differences between the two Sunni sects generally reflect their respective perceptions o f the Prophet’ s hadīth. The H anafī , fo r instance, recite the basmala (the form ula bi’smi llāhi lrahmāni 1-rahīm, 'In the Nam e o f Allah, the Most Beneficient, the Most M erciful’) at the very beginning o f the salāt; the Swahili recite it at the beginning but also in between two groups o f Q u r’ānic verses in all the units o f the salāt. Another difference relates to the utterance ' āmīn (amen) recited as a response to the f ātiha, the opening chapter o f the salāt: the Sunni recite it aloud, the H anafī do not. But despite these and other such differences, it is not uncom m on for some Swahili Shafī'ī to jo in the H anafī in Friday prayers (led by a H anafī imām and conducted in accordance with H anafī practice). In doing so, the Swahili fulfil the wider aim o f the salât that began with the Prophet, that o f transcending some o f the m inor differences that arose later in history. T he actual perform ance o f salât calls for discipline and a united purpose in congregation. Discipline and unity had been two ingredients crucial to the survival o f the nascent Muslim community in M adinah where M uhammad had taken refuge in 622. If the Muslims — both the emigrés from Makkah and elsewhere and the host M adinans — had to evolve into a cohesive, well-knit community, then they had to be united by deeds and ideals that transcended difference. The Muslim profession o f faith, the shahāda , provided the basis o f unity: the oneness o f G od (tawhīd) im plied a oneness o f community (ummah). The Q u r’an itself makes this connection: 'Verily this Brotherhood o f yours is a single Brotherhood, and I am your L ord and Cherisher: therefore serve Me (and no other)’

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(21:92; Y u su f A li’ s translation, with his capitals and brackets). Service to G od was encapsulated through the 'pillars’ . The first, already expressed in the shahāda , was conceptual; the other four were practical — prayers, fasting, alms-giving ( zakāt) and pilgrim age (hajj). Each is perform ed by an individual, and yet each is m eant to contribute to the spiritual development o f the self and the community. A visible expression o f the unity o f the community manifests itself in the perform ance o f the salat in congregation in rows behind a leader (imam); the choice o f the leader gives the congregation its identity. Praying in congregation is accorded priority in Islamic theology: its rewards (Swahili thawabu) outweigh those derived from praying at hom e or even individually at the m osque. The congregational act is almost made com pulsory once a week in the Friday prayer whose structure allows for the khatibu — the lecturer/preacher — to com m unicate with the congregation on matters outside the strictly devotional. In on e’ s presence during the serm on, the khutba is a requirem ent o f the salāt . Whereas a norm al noon prayer consists o f four units ( rakaa), the Friday prayer consists o f only two. But for a worshipper to attain the full benefit o f the Friday prayer, he needs to attend the khutba from its com m encem ent. The khutba has been used in Muslim societies to expound on ethical as well as political issues. It is not unusual to hear khutba on the East A frican coast against the use o f sorcery ( uchawi), against 'im m odest dress’ but also as an appeal for unity in the community. The appeal is not ju st to M uslims: the khutba is used as a platform for com m unicating with other com m unities as well when necessary. This is facilitated in Zanzibar, for instance, by the fact that the entire Friday service, inclusive o f the khutba, is broadcast live from the m ain Friday m osque. In the im m ediate past — up to at least two decades ago, particularly on the Kenyan coast — the preacher had to be a m an o f 'high’ social status within the community. And as if to emphasise that dim ension, he was led into the main praying hall by a m an o f 'low’ status. E l-Z ein ’ s description o f the procession as it took place in Lam u is worthy o f note, though,

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nowadays, the social status o f the lecturer’ s assistant is o f no consequence as such. That person is now likely to be a student o f the preacher or a ju n io r colleague. 'O n Friday, before the prayer, a hajib, a man from the lowest stratum o f Lam u society, goes to the m osque and gets a certain staff or stick, and then goes to the khatib’ s house. When the khatib leaves the house, the hajib, carrying the stick, leads the way. He prevents anyone touching the khatib or com ing close to him. When the khatib reaches the m osque, he takes o ff his shoes and gives them to the hajib who puts them under his arm and then announces the presence o f the khatib. Everyone then has to be silent. The khatib enters, not from the m ain door, but from a special door which leads directly to the niche. He begins by perform ing a private prayer, then climbs up to the pulpit’ (El Zein 1974:14). A traditional feature o f Friday prayers has been the m ention o f the name o f the ruler o f the country or the caliph ( khalīf a ) in the serm on, a fact signifying his sovereignty over the land. In Zanzibar, prio r to the Revolution o f 1964, the name o f the reigning Sultan featured in the khutba: this has now been replaced by the name o f the incum bent President o f Zanzibar. It is worth noting here an incident in the immediate past o f the Swahili o f M ombasa which highlights the Friday prayer as an index o f protest and identity. Its background was the relationship which obtained between m em bers o f the Swahili com m unity (com prising the Twelve Tribes) on the one hand, and O m ani Arabs on the other. The British constituted the third party in the incident: their administrative overlordship o f the people o f M ombasa had com m enced in 1895 when the island (with its ten-m ile coastal strip) had been declared a Protectorate (Salim 1972: 247). British policy between the Wars accentuated the consciousness o f the coastal people as belonging to different ethnic com m unities and races. This m anifested itself mainly in the privileges accorded to the m em bers o f the com m unities, with the Europeans at the top o f the hierarchy, followed by the

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Indians, the Arabs an d, lastly, the Africans. The position o f the Swahili was am biguous, an ambiguity reflected in the adm inistration o f the Protectorate. U nder the British, the Arabs and Swahili were adm inistered by a cadre o f officials known as the Arab A dm inistration (Kindy 1972:26). The upper ranks were occupied by O m ani Arabs; the lowest by the Swahili. The head o f the A dm inistration was known as the Senior Liwali, a position occupied after the First World War by Sir Ali bin Salim , a wealthy and W estern-educated Arab. Sir Ali was a trusted ally and supporter o f the British and, perhaps by the same token, he was opposed in his activities by influential m em bers o f the Coast Arab Association, a party established in 1921 to fight for the rights o f the Arabs. This, in practical term s, meant two things: to get for the Arabs the rights and privileges enjoyed by the Indians, and — as part o f its realization — to have an Arab elected to the Legislative C ouncil. T he CAA needed the support o f the Swahili in their endeavours. The Swahili were given to understand that if they jo in ed the Association, 'they would be able to fight their com m on enemy, Sir Ali, who was preventing them from gaining their legitimate rights’ ; in other words, 'their status — political, social and econom ic —would be made equal to that o f the A rabs’ (Kindy 1972:28). By 1926, the CAA had gained the right to elect an Arab m em ber to the Legislative C ouncil. Prior to the election, however, Sir A li and the CAA effected a reconciliation. According to Kindy, the two parties agreed to exclude the Swahili from participating in any way in the election. But the Swahili were not inform ed o f this decision until the very day o f the election when the adult m em bers o f the Twelve Tribes jo in ed m em bers o f the CAA to elect the Arab representative by a show o f hands. Kindy describes graphically what then took place. When all had assem bled, Sir Ali stood up and faced the audience. He made clear to the assembly what was to him a logical point. He declared that the purpose o f the election was to elect an Arab to represent only Arab interests. The Twelve Tribes, he continued, were not Arab and therefore, had no

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right to be there; it would be better for them to leave the building. M em bers o f the Twelve Tribes who had been deluded into thinking that they and the Arabs were on equal terms were stupefied. T he house was quiet for a few minutes and then all m em bers o f the Twelve Tribes slowly left the meeting, bitterly disappointed’ (Kindy 1972:30). T he response o f the Swahili to this and other incidents deriving from it was given a year later in the Basheikh m osque after the Friday prayer. A Swahili leader — K indy’ s uncle, H am ed Matano — spoke to the congregation at length on 'how Arabs came to these shores, how they were received and treated kindly and generously. Then, in a very serious tone, he contrasted this with the way the indigenous Twelve Tribes were being treated by their erstwhile guests. . . . At the end o f his speech, he called for a complete and total boycott o f anything Arab, even praying in their m osques. The atmosphere in the m osque was tense and some people were seen shedding tears. . . . Although there were still quite a num ber o f elderly Basheikhs at that time, no one, even the Basheikhs present, dared raise a voice to object to anything that was done by the Tribes in respect o f this m osque and its wakfed property’ (Kindy 1972:32). Three points need be noted in relation to this incident. The first is the centrality o f the m osque in Swahili public affairs (in the male dom ain). T he m osque in question is the Basheikh (known also as M nara or T angana); in their survey o f Mombasa m osques, Berg and Walter cite it as founded by the Swahili, and its fo u n d atio n date as Very o ld ’ (1 9 6 8 :8 6 ). Im portan t announcem ents in M uslim societies are most often made in m osques, and usually on Fridays (the days o f peak attendance, so to speak); this would be in addition to their publication in other m edia. In the case o f the Swahili, the absence o f a centralised authority makes the m osque an even m ore appropriate place for a call to action, especially their 'own m osque in which all Swahili were m eant to participate in prayer irrespective o f their 'tribal’ affiliations. Secondly, prio r to 1927 the Swahili and the Arabs said their Friday prayers at the same m osque. This was to uphold the

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principle o f the unity o f the overall community, symbolically m anifested in praying together at one Friday m osque in town (where the size o f the population allows it). The arrangem ent was therefore for the Arabs and the Swahili to alternate the Friday prayer each week between the Swahili Basheikh mosque and the Arab Mandhry m osque; the latter, incidentally, started as an Arab Ibādī m osque when first built in 1570/1 but then becam e an Arab Sunni m osque (Berg & Walter 1968: 86). A ccording to Yahya O m ar, a veteran Mombasa scholar residing in Lon don , the Arabs tried to entice the Swahili to the Mandhry m osque by serving meals after the Friday prayer, but the Swahili still kept away (personal com m unication). O m ar quoted a Swahili proverb which, he said, reflected the deep hurt felt at the time: 'Nyoyo ni kama vigae: zikivunjika haytengezeki’ , 'hearts are like glass: once broken, they cannot be m ended’ . The third aspect is in relation to the m osque itself. Hyder refers to it as a wakf i.e. a building that is being adm inistered as a trust property. He also m entions the presence o f the descendants o f the founders o f the m osque at the event, and the fact that they had not raised a voice against 'anything that was done by the Tribes in respect o f this m osque and its wakfed property’ . What did the Tribes do against, or in respect o f the m osque which would not find favour with the 'elderly Basheikhs’ ? M atano’ s speech does not provide the answer, at least not explicitly. But if we consider the nature o f the reciprocal arrangem ent that had obtained earlier between the two com m unities, we begin to see the seriousness o f the action affecting both m osques. For it is clear that, by boycotting the Mandhry m osque, the Swahili were in effect im posing a ban on the Arabs using the Basheikh m osque. This could not be uttered publicly, as a m osque represents a space open to Muslims, and especially a m osque that was run as a wakf. Implicitly, however, the action o f praying, or not praying, together could be used as a means o f protest. Although, in this case, the protest was in relation to a political event — the election o f an Arab representative to the Legislative Council — the underlying conflict turned on the identity o f the Swahili and their exclusion from what seemed at the time to be a

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privileged group. It is ironical to reflect on the fact that it was the far ancestors o f that 'privileged’ group who had introduced the salat to the coast. Although 'im ported’ from elsewhere, the paradigm o f salaa (salat) has taken firm roots am ong the Swahili both in concept and practice. A child is taught the words, movements and gestures o f prayer from about the age o f seven; and even before then, he is allowed to accompany his father, brothers or elders to the m osque and to participate in the movements o f the prayer. G irls pray at hom e, and are taught by the female side o f the family. C hildren o f both genders receive instruction on salaa and other practices at the secular school in the m orning and at the Q u r’an schools in the afternoons. The language o f instruction in the Q u r’ān schools is Swahili. In fact, Swahili has replaced Arabic in those areas o f discourse perm itted by theological canons, as for instance in the non-form ulaic parts o f the Friday khutba. Swahili is also used in announcem ents and fund-seeking talks after the prayers. However, when we consider other form s o f prayers, the latitude for local adaptation is greater. The ceremony o f the maulidi (Arabic mawlūd) is an example. In content, the maulidi is recitation o f a poetic biography o f the Prophet, interspersed with prayers. The most popular text in Arabic is that o f Ja 'fa r b. Hasan al-Barazanjī (d.ca. 1766) which has been translated into Swahili by Sayyid Abu Bakr b. 'Abd al-R ahm an (d.ca. 1922) (Sh ariff 1991). Both texts are known in Swahili as 'maulidi y a Barazanji' . A relatively recent text by Saidi Musa (one o f Farsy’ s pupils) translates the Arabic into Swahili poetry (Musa 1982). Its recitation takes various form s: from an abridged version o f selected chapters to a longer version where each chapter is punctuated by kasida (Arabic qasida), poem s in praise o f the Prophet, recited in Swahili or A rabic. The kasida are com posed locally. The eleventh chapter o f the Barazanji text is called d u 'ā'; it is a long prayer calling on G od to shower his blessings on the Prophet, on those who have participated in the maulidi and on Ja 'fa r, the author o f the text. Alm ost every Q u r’ānic school on the coast engages in the recitation o f the maulidi either on its own, or in association with

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another school. T he ’grandest’ o f all recitations is the national one where the President o f the country is the guest o f honour. T he ceremony in Zanzibar is usually a cosm opolitan event, organised by a committee whose members are drawn from all M uslim sects o f the islands. The C hief K adhi (Ar. Qādī) gives an oration in Swahili which, usually, speaks o f the virtues o f the Prophet. A nother grand maulidi ceremony takes place annually at the Riyadah m osque in Lam u.

T h e I s m ā 'ī l ī 3 In com m on with other Muslims, the Ism ā’īlīs believe that M uham m ad was the final messenger o f G od and the Q u r’an the final message. They further believe, as do other Shī ’a, that M uham m ad appointed his cousin and son-in-law , ’Alī , as his successor. With this appointm ent, there came into existence the institution o f the imāma (im am ate), spiritual leadership, with ’A lī as the first imam or guide. Thus a distinction is made between prophethood ( nubūwa) with its long line o f prophets (com m encing with Adam and ending with M uhammad), and imamate whose line o f imams still continues. It is a central belief o f the Ism ā’īlīs that the imam is always physically present in the world to provide guidance to his followers. A n understanding o f the Ismā’īlīs perception o f salāt requires an explanation o f two features, one conceptual and the other historical, both linked to the institution o f imāma and the role o f the imām. The first com prises the twin conceptual dim ensions o f zākir, ’the m anifest/outer’ and bātin, ’the hidden/inner’ which underlie Ism ā’īlī b elief and philosophy, Indonesian examples o f which are described by Bowen and Beatty in chapters two and three o f this volume. According to this principle, every teaching and practice in Islam has its exoteric (or outer) m eaning and an esoteric (or inner) meaning. The perform ance o f the salāt , for instance, with its words and form ulae, movements and gestures, observances o f time and ritual purity, represent the outer, exoteric (zāhirī) dim ension o f the prayer. Like the Swahili, Ism ā’īlīs believe that these have been conveyed by Prophet M uhammad to Muslims as part o f

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the teachings o f the sharī 'a (law). The exoteric aspects have been interpreted differently by various Muslim communities in accordance with their understanding o f what the Prophet had said and done, or even what he had intended to say and do. Hence variations in the perform ance o f the salat by different sects o f Islam. A m inor but visible example is in relation to the position o f the hands while perform ing the salat: the Sunni place them on the abdom en, the right hand folded on top o f the left; the Shī 'a leave them stretched by their sides. Ism ā'īlīs hold that to the outer dim ension there exists a corresponding inner one whose esoteric ( bātinī) m eaning is provided by the imam o f the time. T he m ost elaborate explanation o f the esoteric m eaning o f the salat may be found today in a book written in the tenth century by an Ism ā'īlī ju rist and scholar in C airo, a l-Q ādhī al-N u 'm ān b. M uhammad (d. 974). Before discussing it, however, and as a background for understanding its ideas, it is appropriate to introduce the historical facet m entioned above. Ismā’īlīs established their rule in North Africa (Tunisia- the Maghrib) from 909, and then also in Egypt from 969. The Fatimid Em pire, as their reign was known, ruled the area until its decline and collapse in 1171 (Daftary 1990). The adm inistration o f the state was divided into two main wings which dealt, respectively, with matters related to the state ( dawla) and those related to religion (dīn). Organizations under each wing executed and im plem ented Fatimid policies related to those areas. O ne such organization in the area o f dīn was called the d a 'wa, 'the m ission (literally, 'the calling’). Its main role was to propagate in a subtle way the Ism ā'īlī interpretation o f the message o f the Q u r’ān. The members o f the d a 'wa — each called a dā'ī (the sum m oner) — were prohibited from undertaking mass proselytization. Instead, they were to approach individuals o f sound character and cultivate in them a positive intellectual response to the teachings o f the d a 'w a. In other words, although the d a 'wa operated extensively, its operations were low-key among the masses, moving cautiously and surely towards the goals they had set themselves. It was such an approach, it is said, which gained the Ismā’īlīs the territories o f North Africa (Halm 1997).

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T he activities o f the d a 'wa in respect o f the Ism ā'īlīs themselves was m ore intense and hierarchical. The initiate had to be well read, knowledgeable and ethical in conduct. As the initiate moved up the hierarchy, the learning became more esoteric and philosophical. At the top o f the hierarchy was the position o f the C h ief D ā'ī , a position once occupied by alQ adhi al-N u 'm ān (d.974). In a sense, al-N u 'm ān was unique because he was also the C hief Justice o f the state. He thus enjoyed a close relationship to the Caliph-Im am s — he served under four successive ones from 925 to 974 —in respect o f both religion and the state. He thus had the privilege o f speaking to special initiates during the 'sessions o f wisdom’ ( majālis al-hikma) on the esoteric aspects o f faith. According to Halm , 'everything the dā' ī taught in the majālis al-hikma had to be previously authorised by the im am -caliph himself, for he alone was the repository and dispenser o f "wisdom,,, (1997:28). The same applied to al-N u 'm an am ong whose num erous works is a trilogy on Islamic theology; the three books form ed the basis both o f Ism ā'īlī ju rispru den ce and the esoteric interpretation o f Islamic pillars. A l-N u 'm ān' s first book in this area is Da'ā 'im al-Islām, the pillars o f Islam. The first part o f the book deals with the seven pillars o f Islam. It is noteworthy that the Fatimid Ism ā'īlīs professed two m ore pillars to the five held by the Sunni: the additional pillars refer to walāya (devotion to imams) and tahāra (purity). Salāt is discussed in depth; its canons, texts and conditions o f perform ance are m entioned, with quotations from the Q u r’ān, the hadīth and sayings o f previous Imams quoted in support o f explanations and arguments. The same m ethod is followed in al-N u 'm ān s second book, Ta’wīl alda'ā ’im, 'the inner interpretation o f the pillars’ which, as its title suggests, puts forward the esoteric dim ension o f the pillars. I draw on it for our understanding o f the Ism ā'īlī 'in n er’ m eaning o f certain aspects o f salāt.4 Salat has been made obligatory to all Muslims as it is one o f the channels through which G od showers his bounties on hum an beings. However, according to the Q u r’an (31:20), m ankind receives G od ’ s bounties both in the realm o f the seen

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(zhir) and the unseen ( bātin). Salāt encompasses both. Its texts, gestures and even canons constitute the ’se e n . O n the other hand, the bounties in the realm o f the hidden, the esoteric and the 'unseen relate to the principles o f the Ismā’īlīs tarīqa (path) and its practices. The bounties in that realm are channelled through the institution o f the d a 'w a, an organization whose basic aim was to ’call’ or ’invite’ selected people to an understanding o f the inner m eaning o f the faith. Ju st as, on a wider level, all Muslims are called to prayer through the adhān , so, in a m ore restricted way, the da'wa calls on particular individuals and invites them to receive the esoteric knowledge o f the tarīqa . The d u 'ā' offered by Muslims immediately after the recitation o f the adhān is seen by alN u 'm ān as confirm ing this interpretation. The d u 'ā' calls upon Allah — ’L ord o f this perfect call and the established salāt’ , rabba hadhihi a l-da'wah al-tī mmah wa al-salī t al-qā'imah — to bestow his grace and blessings on M uhammad and to raise him in the H ereafter ’to a station o f praise and glory’ , maqāman mahmūdan (as m entioned in the Q u r’an, 17:79). A l-N u 'm ān focuses on the parenthetical phrases ju st quoted and, in particular, on the words a l-da'wah al-tammah , the perfect call. He explains the m eaning and nature o f the call in terms o f the exoteric and esoteric dom ains. While the call in the public dom ain is indeed the adhān sum m oning the believers to perform the most m eritorious act in their daily lives, — hence ’the perfect call’ — its corresponding m eaning at the esoteric level is the call to the message o f Islam as interpreted by the imam o f the time. The inner significance o f the salāt , then, is the ’call’ . A l-N u ’m ān gives sim ilar interpretation to other parts and aspects o f salat. The five prayers o f the day are linked to the calls, or m issions, o f five specific Prophets who possess ’azm, resolve (vide Q u r’an 46:35); these are N ūh (N oah), Ibrahim (Abraham ), Musa (M oses), ’Isā (Jesus), and M uhammad. Although Adam features in Ismā’īlīs esoteric interpretations o f other dim ensions o f religious thought, he is excluded from this list on the grounds that the Q u r’an itself m entions his lack o f firm resolve (20:115). Accordingly, a correspondence is made between the salat during the cycle o f day and night, on the one

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hand, and the chronological order o f the prophets, on the other. Surprisingly, al-N u 'm ān takes the m id-day salāt (zuhr) as the first prayer o f the day (rather than the dawn prayer, fajr ), basing his reckoning on the verse o f the Q u r’ān which states: 'Establish regular prayer at the sun’ s decline till the darkness o f the night. . . .’ (17:78); the 'decline’ refers to the sun’ s movement from its zenith at noon. Taking zuhr as the first prayer, the correspondence then is as shown below: i) zuhr, the n oon prayer: ii) 'asr, the afternoon prayer: iii) maghrib, the evening prayer: iv) 'ishā’, the late evening prayer: v) fajr, the dawn prayer:

the the the the the

call/mission (da'wa) o f N ūh m ission o f Ibrāhām m ission o f Mū sā m ission o f 'Isā m ission o f M uhammad

Having arranged the chronology o f the salât in this way, al-N u 'm ān then proceeds to show the special place o f the dawn prayer in relation to the m ission o f M uhammad. He bases his interpretation on three consecutive verses o f the Q u r’ān (17:78—80) which enable him to move not only from the exoteric to the esoteric, but also to connect that m ission to the central Shī 'ī concept o f imāma. The first verse links the salât o f fajr to the reading o f the Q u r’an, stating: '. . . the prayer and reading in the m orning carry their testimony’ (translation o f Y u su f A li); the translator further comments: 'The m orning prayer is specially singled out for separate m ention [in the Q u r’an] because the m orning is a "holy h o u r” and special spiritual influences act on the soul awakening from the night’ s rest. Special testimony is borne to the prayers o f this hour by the angelic host’ (1968: 717). While not rejecting this interpretation, al-N u 'm ān would have considered it to apply only at the exoteric level. For, to him, the witnessing o f the Q u r’an at dawn, when interpreted esoterically, refers to the m ission o f M uhammad itself. His interpretation draws on an incident at the beginning o f the prophethood o f M uhammad when G od had com m anded him to reveal his m ission to his nearest o f kin (26:214). The

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Prophet then prepared a meal and invited members o f his nearest family to partake o f it. They did so but departed soon afterwards without giving M uham m ad the opportunity o f addressing them. M uham m ad invited them again the next day when he talked to them about his m ission. He ended his address by saying that G od had com m anded him to call them unto H im . M uham m ad asked: 'Which o f you, then, will help me in this, and be my brother, mine executor and successor amongst y o u ?’ T here was silence; then 'Alī (who was then 13 years old) said: 'O Prophet o f G od , I will be Thy helper in this.' T he Prophet laid his hand on the back o f 'Alī ’ s neck and said: 'This is my brother, mine executor and my successor am ongst you. H earken unto him, and obey him ’ (Lings 1986:51). al-N u 'm ān considers this incident, at the dawn o f the Prophetic m ission, to have also been witnessed by G o d , his angels, and those with knowledge. C o n tin u in g in the same vein, al-N u 'm ān notes that M uham m ad is the only prophet to have been granted an additional prayer by G od (17:79); this is the salat o f tahajjud which was perform ed after midnight. The Q u r’an speaks o f this prayer as being nāfila to M uham m ad, i.e. an additional gift (from G od). In an esoteric sense, this additional gift is the institution o f the imāma which only became manifest during the m ission o f M uhammad. Similarly, the Prophet’ s prayer in 17:80: '. . . and grant me from Thy Presence an authority [sultān] to aid (m e)’ is interpreted as asking for the authority to establish the imāma through designation (nass) o f his executor and legatee (wasī). The final example I cite here is the interpretation o f the ritual o f ablution ( wudhū) which Muslims are required to undergo prio r to perform ing the salat. Water is the most com m on agent used in this ritual (though sand and air may also be used when water is not available). The refreshing and cleansing properties o f water are m entioned in a verse (quoted by al-N u 'm ān) whose context is a battle (o f Uhud) in which M uslim s were saved through G o d ’ s mercy. The Q u r’an explains: '. . . and He caused rain to descend on you from heaven, to clean you therewith, to remove from you the stain o f

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Satan, to strengthen your hearts and to plant your feet firmly therewith’ (8:11). al-N u'm ān makes a correspondence between water and knowledge: water is the symbol o f knowledge in the esoteric realm . Ju st as water cleans the body physically, knowledge cleanses the soul spiritually. Both are essential for hum an life, its preservation and conduct on earth. And as alN u m ān has made clear throughout his writings, by 'knowledge’ he refers to the interpretation o f Islam as given by the imam o f the time.

C o n c lu s io n T he paradigm o f prayer am ong the Swahili and the Ism ā'īlī has a single foundational base, in that the text, canons, gestures and movements o f salāt have evolved in accordance with the way the Prophet is believed to have perform ed them. Such evolving perceptions arise also from the interpretations o f the various aspects o f the salât by the ju rist Shafi’i for the Swahili and by imāms for the Sh i’a, in this case, the Ism ā'īlīs. But the salāt , as we have seen, is much m ore to Muslims than text, gestures and movements. At the level o f the individual, it is considered as an indicator o f a person’ s piety. At the com m unal level, salât has served as a potent index o f identity both inside and outside the m osque. T he Swahili refusal to pray at the 'Arab’ m osque was not only a protest but simultaneously also an assertion o f identity. The Ism ā'īlī emphasis on the esoteric interpretation o f the salât serves the same purpose. T heir identity is upheld through the assertion and reinforcem ent o f the central and pivotal principle o f the im am ate. For, in the final analysis, it is the imām and the institution o f the imāma which invests Ismā'īlīs with their identity. The canonical paradigm o f Islamic prayer is thus attuned to various political and social changes and conditions. Yet, as the next two chapters show, this very generative adaptability allows for possible conflicts o f understanding and thence subversion.

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N o te s 1 Salāt has also featured extensively in popular Muslim lore. Particularly significant is the story, narrated in relation to the Prophet’ s celestial journey (the mi'rāj) , on how the number o f prayers came to be established. The initial requirement was that Muslims should pray fifty times a day. When, on his way down from the seventh heaven, Muhammad met Moses, the latter advised Muhammad to seek a reduction. Muhammad then did so repeatedly until only five remained (Lings 1983:103). 2 The East African coast has produced an impressive cadre o f Shafī ’ī scholars whose contributions have been amply recorded (Martin 1971, Pouwels 1987). O ne such scholar was Abdalla Saleh al-Farsy (d. 1982), among whose works is a biographical anthology o f Shafī'ī scholars o f East Africa (1944, reprinted 1972; translated by Pouwels 1989). 3 I am grateful to Saū ruddin Fattoum and Bashir Ladha for their help in the preparation o f this part o f the paper. 4 I refer to Volume I (o f II) edited by Muhammad Hasan al-A'zamī , Cairo, 1967, pp.72ff. and pp. 176ff. a l-N u 'm ā n ’ s third book is Asās a l-ta ’wīl, 'the foundation o f the interpretation’ .

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In tro d u ction Though charisma is a personal gift, it exists in the minds of other people.

(C onstantin 1988:76) D urin g the course o f my fieldwork in Zanzibar I met a man nam ed Seyyid Silim a M uhammad who was known locally for his exceptional devotion to G od. It was through Seyyid Silim a that I came to understand piety as a most complex response to living in the world. While piety is a personal attribute that is em bodied in an individual like Seyyid Silim a, the significance it comes to have for others as well as for Silim a him self cannot be separated from the social relations through which it is com m unicated and reproduced. As I explore below, karama, baraka, and thawabu are all concepts which imply that the 'effects’ o f piety, as conveyed through prayer, move well beyond the individual. At another level, piety also constitutes a means for navigating the political through the personal, the past through the present. This portrait, then, explores the dynamics o f Seyyid Silim a’ s characterisation — not simply as a keenly devout, G od-fearing M uslim, but as a person whose identity as such has evolved out o f his ongoing involvement in social relations based largely on the perform ance o f prayer. These relationships are m ediated, on the one hand, by the personal beliefs that Silim a’ s visitors

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b ring to them, and, on the other, by a tension between historically politicized notions o f difference and identity in Zanzibar that have shaped those beliefs. Finally, this portrait also explores the question, how m ight prayer come to constitute a danger, a transgression, a subversive act? In this vein, I examine how the imaginative and social aspects o f popular Islamic prayer and recitation may be confounding the efforts o f 'essentialist’ Muslim preachers in their attempts to renew and reform Islamic practice in Zanzibar today.

Seyyid S ilim a Asking is the means. Knowing how to ask is the first knowledge. And language, to he exact, is the most ancient method of action. (Alain

1934:35) The poetic word, like the tone, is absolute presence. (M cClain

1981:115) For generations, Zanzibar has been the meeting ground for Muslims from throughout the western Indian Ocean, most notably the Hadramawt (Yem en), Som alia and other regions o f the East A frican coast and m ainland, South Asia, Shiraz, O m an, Madagascar and the C om oro Islands. Indeed, Islamic culture in Zanzibari society today reflects this diverse heritage as Swahili speaking M uslims, the majority population on the island, continue to draw in various ways on these multiple identities. While Sunnis o f the Shafi school predom inate, Ibadhi, Shia, and m ore recently, reform ist approaches to Islam also shape the M uslim cultural landscape. Seyyid Silim a was born in Ngazija, the C om oro Islands, to a family who traces their descent from the Prophet Muhammad; indeed, the term 'seyyid’ is not simply honorific but signals Silim a’ s identity as a sharifi a descendant o f the Prophet. Now in his early seventies, Silima moved to Zanzibar when he was twenty-five. Once a tailor by vocation, Silima later devoted all o f his time to studying the Q u r’an and became more intensively involved with the activities o f the Alawiyya tarika — one o f the Sufi

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or mystical orders o f Islam — a responsibility which he inherited from his family. Marriage interested him litde, and by his mid forties his family decided they had better arrange a liaison for him. 'They had grown impatient with m e!’ Silima laughed in recollection, so they selected his cousin Fatuma as a prospective wife. She consented, and they have stayed married to this day. Today, Silima, his wife and children live in an N g’ambo neighborhood just o ff Creek Road near the centre o f Zanzibar Town. Even though Silim a had engaged in advanced Islamic study, is known as a spiritual leader o f the Alawiyya tarika and has also received ijaza (authorization) for the Qadiriyya, Shadiliyya, and Dundawiyya Sufi orders, it was his character and, for many, his pedigree, and not his scholarship or credentials that captured the im agination o f his many callers. I first heard about Seyyid Silim a from a Kenyan colleague o f mine who had been living in Zanzibar for many years. Nasir recalled that several years back he had fallen into a deep depression and felt he was being unfairly blam ed for mishaps at work. He decided to confide in an elderly friend o f his, a Malagasy m an nam ed Mzee Shela. Shela had known Seyyid Silim a for a long time; in conversation, he often referred to him with a mixture o f affection and deference as 'the S h a r if'. C oncerned about the well-being o f his frien d, Mzee Shela took it upon him self to relate N asir’ s condition to Silim a. N ot only was Silim a a gifted man, thought Shela, but he was also wellversed in falaki, Arabic astrology, and might be able to determ ine the cause o f N asir’ s affliction. As the story goes, eventually Seyyid Silim a did call on N asir, telling him it was likely that som eone had cast a spell over him. He prayed for N asir there at his hom e, and soon after he recovered his sense o f well-being. Seyyid Silim a had left quite an im pression on N asir; so after many hours o f conversation about life in Zanzibar and my research interests in Islamic expertise, Nasir told me his story about Silim a, and urged that I try to see him. At first, Silim a eluded our m eetings, 'forgetting’ an appointm ent or being suddenly pulled away by a needy friend. This only intensified the discom fort I had been feeling about the intrusiveness o f fieldwork, so it was with some relief that I

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decided to end my 'pursuit’ o f Seyyid Silim a. T hen one m orn ing while walking with Mzee Shela in town, we came upon Seyyid Silim a amidst the crowd o f shoppers on D arajani Street. In a flurry o f greetings and mutual apologies, Silim a conceded to a m eeting at his home the following day. When I arrived, Silim a’ s nephew, Abdallah, a tall man in his m id forties, met us at the door. Silim a was inform ed o f our arrival and soon em erged from the back room . In an exchange o f greetings Silim a’ s wife Fatuma was also called into the sitting room and introduced. She soon returned to her work in the back, leaving Silim a, Abdallah, and myself to visit. Silim a would not allow our discussions to be tape-recorded. To tape his words, he later explained to me after we had becom e m ore fam iliar, would be like sealing them in tim e’ . With this he clenched his fist and made the m otion o f a stamp com ing down on a docum ent — an official fixing o f words in unam biguous and im m utable form — the very antithesis o f the power o f the spoken word. Silim a was a humble but also cautious man. While forth com ing in discussions about Islam, the tarika, even (surprisingly) in disclosing the problem s that some o f his visitors brought to him, he was adept at deflecting questions which concerned most aspects o f his own life — even when I was unaware that I was asking them. For instance, when I asked Seyyid Silima about karama, what it was that this term described in a person, he smiled and averted his eyes. 'Ni kitu kama Mungu anakujaliwa , he said — 'It’ s like something that comes from G od ’ s taking care o f you’ . At this point he excused him self to receive another caller at the back door. 'He has it, you know,’ said Abdallah, his eyes following his uncle as he left the room . 'Does he recite dua for people?’ I asked. 'Not ju st that’ Abdallah replied, 'other things too, I don’t know what’ . I then understood the especially evasive modesty Silima had displayed during the course o f our first visit. He had karama, everyone knew, but o f course he couldn’t say so himself; this was something I was supposed to have learned on my own. In deed, karama was a quality or power that was attributed to him by others, a 'gift’ from G od that took on meaning and consequence within the context o f social relations.

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Seyyid Silim a received a continuous stream o f visitors at his hom e, m ost with a problem or difficulty in which Silim a, they believed, could somehow intervene. Invariably, this intervention took the form o f dm (Ar. du’a) — supplicatory prayer — the spontaneous, creative recitation o f aesthetically powerful tonal images im bued with the grace o f G od. Even walking in the street, Silim a was met with deferential appeals. 'Please, may I confide in you’ , im plored my elderly neighbour after kissing Silim a’ s hand and pressing it to his cheek in greeting. I was present on a num ber o f occasions when Silim a consulted with visitors in his sitting room . O ne afternoon a young man who was moving his hom e from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam asked for Silim a’ s blessings. A fter discussing the move for several m inutes, the young man spread out the prayer mat which he brought with him and knelt down on it. Silim a’ s wife emerged from the back room with a clay incense burner, the sweet smoke o f the ubani (frankincense) trailing behind her. She placed it down on the mat where Silim a knelt with the youth; Silim a began to recite in Arabic, his eyes closed, and his palms turned upwards in supplication. Unlike most ordinary Zanzibaris, whose first language is Kiswahili, Silim a was proficient in Arabic, and his dm were highly regarded for their beauty and the presum ed spontaneity o f their com position. Another time Silim a was called upon by several wealthy O m ani m en who had ju st bought a new house in Zanzibar. They asked Silim a to recite (from the Q u r’an and his own dm) in the house before they moved into it so that they would be protected from mashetani (spirits) and thieves. There was also a neighbour with a sick child in the hospital for whom Silim a was asked to make an amulet for the child to wear. A fourth case involved two boys who were accused o f stealing a large sum o f money. They denied both the accusation as well as the outcome o f a lie detecting procedure used by waganga (local healers) which determ ined that the boys were guilty. Silim a was visibly upset by the boys’ appeal to use his favour with G od to help them prove their innocence. He chided them and asserted that the only way to G od would be to confess their guilt. In the end, the boys left angry and disappointed.

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A final example involved my neighbour, Bi Mchecha, a woman in her early twenties whose husband had taken a mistress. Mchecha had heard o f Seyyid Silim a and knew that I had becom e acquainted with him . She asked to jo in me on one o f my visits so that she could be introduced to him. Mchecha explained that she could not simply arrive at Silim a’ s home one day and appeal to him for help without being properly introduced first. After all, she explained, he was not ju st a 'fundi (nonspecific term for a local healer, and for artisans generally). H er hope was that Silim a’ s prayers would induce her estranged husband to leave his lover and to return to her and their small child.

K aram a From these b rie f sketches we can see that it was not so much advice per se that people sought in Seyyid Silim a; it was his very person they were after. Silim a was known as a person 'mwenye karama', som eone who is so loved by G od that his prayers are heard and answered directly; as such, he is a vehicle o f G od ’ s grace ( baraka). 'In this house we don’t know about magic — we are only M uslim s’ , Abdallah assured me, in English, lest I m isconstrue the nature o f Seyyid Silim a’ s karama, or spiritual power. The distinction Abdallah deliberately draws on my behalf is an im portant one. Karama is different from magic (sihiri, uchawi), and this matters. Karama is a sublime power that derives from G o d ’ s recognition o f an individual’ s exceptional piety. Thus a M uslim ’ s b elief in the power o f karama cannot be dismissed as mere 'su perstition , that is, a naive reliance on the mysterious m anipulation o f unseen forces; karama is a known, albeit rare, gift bestowed by G od , and Silim a is am ong the few living individuals in Zanzibar who is thought to embody it. Indeed, stories o f the power o f karama m ore typically revolve around the renowned sheikhs o f the past. Two 'true’ stories about Sheikh Ahmad bin Sumayt (1861— 1925)1 and his son O m ar convey vivid im pressions o f their karama. These stories were told to me in a discussion with

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Sheikh Rashid Azziz, a Sufi leader in Zanzibar, on the subject o f dua (supplicatory prayer) and tawasali (cf. tawasul, intercession, praying through the baraka or divine grace o f another person or event) — two activities Seyyid Silim a typically perform ed for his visitors. In the first story Azziz recounts, a lone man prays late into the night, and invokes Sheikh Ahmad Sumayt’ s name in his appeal to G od. Bending over the small clay vessel o f burning incense, the m an im plores, 'By the baraka o f the great Sheikh Sumayt, I beg you, L o rd , to hear my prayers’ . The next day, the m an sees Sumayt in the marketplace. Sumayt says to him, somewhat vexed, 'Why is it that you bother me at two o ’clock in the m orn in g?! Allah has accepted your prayers.’ 'Now that’ s karama!' Sheikh Azziz exclaims, finishing the story. His next story centred on Sumayt’ s son, O m ar, '. . . who would wake up even in the m iddle o f the night to pray! You can’t have karama or be a saint if you ju st sleep at night. But O m ar’ s father, Ahmad Sumayt, was worried that his son was becom ing fatigued. So one night he crept into O m ar’ s room and extinguished the lamp by which he prayed. "You must sleep!” he scolded his son. O m ar looked up, and quietly lifted his finger. His nur (spiritual light) em anated from his finger, illum inating the room as would a candle. "Excuse me, son, I will leave you to pray” , Sumayt said, leaving his son’ s room in w onder.’ While both o f these stories delight in the m iraculous powers o f karama, the second also describes a quality o f being, an intensity o f piety that karama, in a sense, requires. In somewhat less fantastic terms, Sheikh Hakim at the M adrasatil-N ur school in Stone Town described the qualities that to him signal the presence o f karama in a person. As his reference, he used the late Abdallah Bakathir, a renowned H adram i Islamic scholar o f Zanzibar’ s past. 'He was a man o f profoun d knowledge and wrote many books on Islam. These are the things that elevate a person — to write, together with something called ' takwa, religious purity. Abdallah Bakathir had very great ' takwa, he was a true mcha Mungu, a G od-fearin g man. From m orning to night, he served G od. Most people are unable to wake in the middle o f the night to pray. But those like Bakathir, G od exalts them

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for their knowledge, for their devotion to following His com m ands, and for the purity o f their actions and intentions. His dem eanor bore an inner beauty o f countenance ( haiba) . . . When he prayed dua, he put his hands together and G od answered h im .’ As for Silim a, an intriguing com bination o f familiarity and distance surrounds him . He is a gentle, approachable man, and yet what makes him so attractive, even necessary to others, is a depth o f piety that makes him seem almost unreachable; it is a quality that signalled exceptional devotion to G od and the esoteric knowledge and power with which such devotion is believed to be rewarded. Seyyid Silim a’ s personal appearance and attire characterized this quality, and gave it continuity over time: he wore his long white kanzu with a dark blue suit jacket covered with a shawl, and prayer beads usually occupied his hands or hung about his neck. This style also marked his status as a khalifa (spiritual leader) am ong the tarika or Sufi orders. Ju st underneath his kofia (em broidered cap) his forehead bore the mark o f true piety — a small darkened spot left by the countless times he was touched his face to the ground in prostration to G od. In conversation, his praises to G od — alhamduliallahi’ — were continuous yet unobtrusive, and were sometimes accom panied by a subtle upward turn o f his palms. His acquaintances said that Seyyid Silim a’ s face shone with his nur, the ligh t o f understanding’ which comes from spiritual peace at heart. It was his almost palpable modesty that held people’ s attention but also kept them at a workable distance, even when the problem s and predicam ents his callers brought to him were especially intimate in nature. Silim a’ s construction o f self is also played out in the relations o f reciprocity that his visitors establish with him. These relations reflect on and grant agency not only to Silima, but to his visitors as well. Gifts o f gratitude are always extended to Silim a in return for his prayer. For his part, Silim a would never indicate he expected anything in return fo r his 'assistance’ . Thus the gift typically reflects the social and financial position o f the visitor. It might be cash, presented to Silim a in closed hands so that the am ount cannot be seen; or,

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since Silim a and his family lived quite modestly and had little incom e o f their own, the gift might be expensive or hard to get food items such as wheat flour, sugar, tea, dates, or rice. And yet reciprocity with Seyyid Silim a is always ’incom plete’ . How, after all, does one repay the gift o f prayer? These relationships thus constitute a kind o f perennial social indebtedness to Silim a that could rem ain attached to him indefinitely. In a sense, the deference that his visitors continue to show Silim a is a product o f this ’inability’ to conclude or close o ff the relationship with him. While to m ost people Silim a already enjoyed a special status in the eyes o f G o d , his modesty in this regard was expressed in his continual efforts to please H im —a preoccupation for which he received thawabu in return. Thawabu are divine rewards that a person can receive for pious behaviour, but also for perform ing good deeds in general. In m ore transcendental terms, these rewards are thought to enhance on e’ s condition on the Day o f Ju d gem en t.2 Silim a used the concept o f thawabu to explain the underlying spiritual im portance o f ijaza — the recognition a pupil receives from his/her sheikh which brings him /her into the silsilah, the great chain o f learning as defined by a tarika. With ijaza, ’you will get m ore thawabu than if you pray alone, because now, you are part o f the silsilah; when you pray alone, it doesn’t have as much power; but when you pray with your com panions, when you pray through the silsilah, you get m ore thawabu. Thus in Silim a’ s view, even the mwenye karama — through whom others seek baraka (divine grace) — needs to accrue thawabu from G o d .3 Silim a’ s appeal was strong despite the absence o f consensus on whether or not he actually was a gifted man, and despite his lack o f involvement in the m ore form al trappings often associated with Islamic authority: he was not a teacher and had no students, he did not preach like an imamu, nor did he give fatwa or legal judgm ents as a hakimu, kadhi, or mufti would. Instead, Seyyid Silim a’ s character, his karama, was constructed in a space between the public view o f religious authority and the rem oteness o f an almost ascetic piety, a space which many others —his various visitors, supplicants, colleagues, and family

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m em bers — participated in defining. This 'space’ can be understood as the social dim ension o f Silim a’ s piety. This served him well, since the notice he received from others reaffirm ed his own conviction that he lived because o f and for the love o f G od — the personal dim ension o f his piety. In turn, that conviction, expressed as it was in his presentation o f self, called attention to his person. This attention had to be negotiated and channelled in the proper directions, to the appropriate ends, so that the space o f 'free’ piety — that is, dialogically constructed yet unattached to or undeterm ined by authority and its restrictions or obligations — could be preserved. In this way, not only was Seyyid Silim a free to pursue his 'transcendent project’ (Asad 1993:13), but other individuals were brought in (even required) to collaborate in the creation o f that space which was defined, for the moment, by their own life circumstances, as well as by the beliefs they held about the power o f Islamic faith to act on those circumstances. François C onstantin wrote o f the charisma o f the Sufi sheikhs in East Africa at the turn o f the last century. Seyyid Silim a’ s power, his charisma, 'exists in the minds o f other p eople’ (1988:76). What his identity im plied for others — as a mwenye karama, a sharif, or an expert in falaki — is contingent in part upon the nature o f the beliefs through which personal faith and its fluctuations are expressed. This is significant because beliefs about the power o f Islamic faith in Zanzibar are expressed in a range o f cultural form s and discourses, not all o f which are viewed by Zanzibaris as equally effective or even acceptable as Islamic practices. For instance, karama (divine power or 'gift’), elimu (textually-based Islamic knowledge), mashetani (spirits), and dua (supplicatory prayer) are all con structs that derive aspects o f their m eaning from a single paradigm ('Islam ’), yet people use them to interpret, refer to or treat that paradigm in different ways. Analytically speaking, then, what and how an individual believes is not simply a reflection o f personal faith. It is a window into how Islamic references are brought into the m ediation o f social relations, and how, in turn, these social relations —and the personae they

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help to create — sustain a lively tension between the form and content o f Islamic belief.

P e r fo r m a n c e a n d th e e s s e n tia lis t c r itiq u e : th e s o u n d o f d a n g e r In addition to circumstances o f personal faith and belief, the m eaning o f Silim a’ s identity — in particular, as a sharif, or descendant o f the Prophet — is also shaped by the ways in which Zanzibaris variously interpret the historical past and have experienced m ore recent changes in the social, political and econom ic conditions o f the island. These are changes which have had an impact, albeit indirectly, on the local perception, position, even relevance o f contem porary Muslim personalities in Zanzibar. As Anthony Blasi writes: The individual who has charisma is not only a person but a personage, a public character in a public dram a who receives and im parts legitimacy. That public dram a is a process . . . It not only takes a processual form such as narrative, lending itself to reenactment, im itation, and recitation, but also is a process in the sense o f itself having to be constituted and reconstituted in history (1991:5). Two contexts o f 'public dram a’ which have shaped the social construction o f sharifs in Zanzibar over time include, on the one h a n d , the historical dism antling o f the elitism that once protected the prestige o f religious pedigree, and on the other, the emergence o f several 'essentialist’ cohorts whose discourse calls for the recovery o f an original, essential Islam, unadulterated by Swahili cultural beliefs, practices, and 'innovations’ . In Zanzibar today, individuals who continue to be identified by their putative descent from the Prophet4 are regarded with some ambivalence because o f their presum ed affinity with a once exclusive and 'foreign Arab elite — an affinity which became ideologically untenable to valorise, especially since the revolution in 1964. T he revolution was a truly pivotal episode in Zanzibar’ s history which aim ed to rid Zanzibar o f all vestiges o f foreign rule (British colonialism and the O m ani Sultanate)

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and to end elite ownership and control o f the island’ s wealth. Indeed, the deliberate expulsion o f the majority o f 'foreign Arab and South Asian Zanzibaris that followed from the revolution was a palpable signal to islanders that class distinctions linking Arab prestige with social privilege were to be a thing o f Zanzibar’ s past; the idea was that in the end, Zanzibar had been reclaim ed for 'Africa’ .5 And yet, while being a descendant from the Prophet necessarily implies that Seyyid Silim a has 'fo re ig n , Arab origins, it is in this very 'foreignness’ — in the divine grace and eru ditio n im plied by such genealogical connections to distant lives and places — that the physical and spiritual well-being o f the community o f believers is, so to speak, brought hom e. Significantly, it is through the perform ance o f prayer — especially dua (supplication) and tawasul (intercession) — that this connection is accom plished, and that Seyyid Silim a’ s image as a sharif is renewed. Thus the image o f Seyyid Silim a is at once suspect and desired, since he bears the weight o f a fallen elite who nevertheless continues to be pulled into, and recreated through, the social relations o f Islamic piety and perform ance. In a sense, then, Silim a’ s prayer mediates the past and the present, the political and the mythical, and in doing so, continues to excite the Muslim religious im agination. For the essentialist cohorts, however, the draw o f such personas and the practices associated with them is p ro o f that Islam in Zanzibar 'has becom e but a stranger am ong M uslim s’ , and that the time has come to lead Muslims back to the Truth. In their efforts towards renewal and reform , the essentialists stress that the quality o f a M uslim ’ s piety and knowledge are not contingent upon pedigree or descent, but rather upon his or her own intention, resolve, innerm ost conscience. In lieu o f a paradigm o f descent, the essentialist groups have constructed their authority by creating a particular image or critique o f Islam in Zanzibar against which they can situate and authenticate themselves. This had to be an image that was fam iliar enough so that Zanzibaris could relate to it, but one which also indicates that there is a need for Islamic reappraisal and reform . In this image, then, Islam in Zanzibar is portrayed

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as an im perfect product o f hum an 'innovation, a bricolage o f paradoxical beliefs and choices which 'unenlightened’ Muslims continue to make in the reproduction o f their social worlds. Indeed, these sheikhs and their cohorts are referred to locally as the watu wa bidaa, the bidaa people. 'What is this bidaa?’ I asked Sheikh K ham isi Ja far, one o f the most charismatic o f the essentialist leaders. K ham isi explained that bidaa refers to his coh ort’ s disapproval o f a range o f Islamic practices perform ed regularly not only by Seyyid Silim a but by most Swahili M uslims in Zanzibar which he defines as 'innovations’ — bidaa (Ar. bid a) — that is, devotional practices which were popularised after the death o f the Prophet M uhammad and as such, do not constitute authentic, allowable practices for M uslims to perform . These include maulidi and kasida (texts recited in fixed and free poetic form respectively that praise the Prophet M uhammad or the founding sheikh o f a Sufi order); tawasul (prayer as intercession); khitima (reciting the Q u r’an at funerals), and ykiri (protracted chanting in which the name o f G od is repetitively intoned). Sheikh K ham isi explained that they also adm onish their own 'traditional’ , 'local’ (these words he deliberately spoke to me in English) Q u r’an teachers for having allowed such practices and other Swahili cultural ideas (about spirits, healing, magic) to vitiate the 'correct’ u n d erstanding and practice o f Islam in Zanzibar. Indeed, K ham isi’ s (and other essentialist sheikhs’) authority is based largely on constructing an image o f Islam that is in danger o f demise. In many ways, essentialist discourse in Zanzibar represents what Abdulkader Tayob calls the 'm odern Islamic paradigm o f knowledge’ , which focuses on reproducin g the rational, egalitarian, 'sociopolitical dim ensions o f the Prophetic ideal’ (Tayob 1995:160) rather than the mystical, transcendent dim ension o f the revelatory experience6 — the dim ension which is epitom ised in the perform ance o f these forbidden oral/aural genres. While it is beyond the scope o f this study to examine the discourse and political agenda o f the essentialist groups in detail,7 there is one point I would like to make concerning their critique o f the various form s o f Islamic prayer and recitation

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that are so popular in Zanzibar. The essentialists do provide an ideological explanation for their prohibition —the practices are defined as innovations and are thus forbidden on a num ber o f grounds — a position consistent with other 'm odernist’ and neo-W ahabi critiques throughout the Islamic world, particularly o f Su fism .8 However, is there also something about the actual perform ance o f these practices that poses a potential threat to the essentialists’ authority? For instance, it is interesting that the essentialist position on dua (supplicatory prayer) is rather ambiguous. While supplicatory prayer is not forbidden per se — Sheikh Kham isi does pray on behalf o f others — it is the context, intention, the mystery behind the dua that must be patrolled. Dua that are used in spirit possession rituals, or that are sought from sharif or healers because o f their alleged favour with or knowledge o f G o d , are fo rbidden .9 Moreover, as Vincent Crapanzano has pointed o u t,10 unlike obligatory prayer, dua are largely spontaneous, conditional, and at root, about desire; as such they produce a counterfactual world which, as Michael Gilsenan writes o f the miracle, 'is always potentially dangerous. Anything that confounds our ordinary expectations and that, by definition, is not controlled but comes from an external, nonhum an, transcendent source is in essence subversive’ (G ilsenan 1982:77). While dua and miracles do not exist in the world in the same ways, so to speak, they both generate a sense o f possibility and awe that is '. . . distinct from the law, the texts, the given and received authority, the suppositions on which the society is based’ (ibid). As such, they defy the literalism and rationality that authenticate the essentialist project. Perhaps, too, the subversive aspect o f maulidi, likiri (cf. dhikr), tawasuli, unrestricted dua, and khitima stems from their ability, as I m ention above, to create an intimate and immediate connection between an authentic Islamic past, the word, and the person. That is, the perform ance o f such aesthetically compelling forms o f prayer links the transcendent with the present —a vital step in the construction and experience o f Islamic authority. T his is significant because the essentialist project pivots on and must engage these very issues: not only must their

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discourse redirect attention to 'correct’ Islamic knowledge and practice; it must also establish their authority as the 'new M uslim s’ — but without the aid of, indeed, almost in spite of, these identity-conferring practices. By lim iting the range o f Islam ic practices which their followers are perm itted to perform as Muslims, the essentialist sheikhs are effectively distancing or isolating their followers from the Islamic culture that surrounds them, thereby intensifying their followers’ attachment to themselves.11 Thus their authority hinges on a critique or dismissal o f those Islamic prayer genres which in effect grant agency and spiritual autonomy to participants: the perform ance o f maulidi, khitima, or zikiri imbue ordinary, domestic space with grace, link the transcendent with the here and now, and allow Muslims — especially women who do not pray regularly in the m osque — to create their own socio-religious venues where dem onstrations o f exceptional recitational skill are recognised as socially, even politically m eaningful.12 In the en d, the essentialists’ urgency about the correctness o f practice — and their certainty that it is they who know what constitutes 'correct’ — both reifies and elevates Islam as som ething above and separate from the vast majority o f (in their view) unin form ed, 'tradition -bou n d’ Zanzibari Muslims. Paradoxically, given their critique o f the elitism o f religious pedigree, the essentialist sheikhs’ intolerance o f Islam as it is practiced in Zanzibar today points to their prom otion o f a new consciousness or measure o f distinction that is based on the recognition o f not ju st diverse, but now incom patible, unequal ways o f being M uslim. In contrast, Seyyid Silim a is not concerned with guarding Islam against the vitiating influences o f Swahili cultural practices; after all, it is the range or free play o f b elief that, in part, makes his prestige possible, and makes it som ething in which other people, his supplicants, can participate. Thus Silim a’ s involvement in, and reluctance to pass judgem ent on the various ways in which Zanzibaris believe, cope with, and express their identity as Muslims signals an im portant contrast with the essentialist preachers — a contrast that contains some interesting contradictions that pivot around political issues as much as they do religious ones.

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T he D ialectic o f Memory and Identity For instance, when I asked Seyyid Silim a whether sharif had karama by virtue o f their descent from the Prophet, he waved his hand and shook his head. '. . . They may have the blood o f the Prophet, but it is a person ’ s dem eanor, or character . . . that’ s what really m atters.’ This does not mean, however, that being a sharif was not im portant to Silim a. G ranted he did not brandish a 'pedigree card’ like the one proudly shown to me by a relative o f his; this was a kind o f certificate printed in Indonesia authenticating his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad. Instead, Silim a indicated his concern about being a sharif by telling me how exasperated he got with people who contested his identity as a sharif because he was mweusi, 'black’ .13 'When our ancestors came h ere’ , he explained to me, 'they m arried Africans, their children, and their children’ s children did the same . . .’ Then he used an example o f a popular healer in town with whom I was also acquainted. 'After all’ , he said, 'Bwana Zuri is an Arab from O m an — his elders are O m ani. They m arried Africans. H e was b orn here, so he is Zanzibari’ . In other words, Bwana Zuri is black, he is Arab, he is African, he is Zanzibari. The simultaneity o f his identities — typical o f most Zanzibaris — has not proven to be a liability for him ; why then should they be for Seyyid Silim a? Significantly, the sensitivity Silim a showed towards such racial remarks concerned m ore than his identity as a sharif; it also reflected his memory o f the ethnic antagonisms that led up to the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, when, as an 'Arab’ C om orian — one o f the most populous ethnic groups among the educated, professional class during the colonial period — his entitlem ent to Zanzibari citizenship was severely contested. A nd yet at the same time, to others, being 'black’ betrayed a less illustrious heritage and suggested that his descent from the Prophet was a fabrication, or tinged at best. T hus for Silim a, the legitimacy, in a sense, o f his identity had been charged from 'both sides’ . When I asked him about the revolution, if he thought it had any sort o f impact on Islam in Zanzibar during that time, he sighed, 'Mambo ya mapinduzj ni

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wazimu' — 'The stuff o f revolution is the stuff o f

madness . . . Many sheikhs were detained by the governm ent’ (for allegedly organising clandestine, politically subversive gatherings). It was a 'tyranny o f g re e d ,’ he continued. 'They confiscated plantations, m ansions, everything was taken for nothing. G od will never forgive such acts o f violence.’ Seyyid Silim a him self was detained by the revolutionary government in 1964 fo r several m onths.14 But this I had learned from som eone else; and, although im passioned, what I was told was quite vague, almost as though ju st the idea o f Silim a’ s being in prison was enough to conjure my indignation on his behalf. Characteristically, Silim a never spoke o f this or anything else political beyond these few despondent words. But for Silima, being a sharif — a 'black’ sharif— was in itself a politicised identity, since, as he experienced it historically, it simultaneously em bodied (or evoked in others) both the privilege o f elitism and the debasement o f im pure descent. What is interesting is that today, when the issues o f ethnicity and class may be finding expression again in multiparty politics, Silim a seems to mediate these incongruous images through his prayer — or, as discussed above, in the social dim ension or 'space’ that his piety creates. A nd in that space, the relations through which Silim a’ s character is shaped and reproduced involve him in a recovery o f him self. In this way, his piety constitutes a political act — albeit a very personal one.

C o n c lu d in g T h o u g h ts: P ray e r, Piety, a n d K n o w led ge In virtually all Islamic societies, the form and content o f Islamic prayer is multivalent, and the relationships prayer establishes —with G o d , with others, with an authentic, Islamic past — are at once intimate and form al, personal and political. As I have tried to show in this portrait o f Seyyid Silim a, prayer is an act that engenders possibility: it can construct identity, confer authority, define autonomy, and convey the grace o f G od. Indeed, as I suggested in the case o f the essentialist preachers, this generative dim ension o f prayer could pose a threat to the consolidation o f their authority. This is not to say

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that the essentialists and individuals such as Seyyid Silim a necessarily stand in opposition to each other, nor should they be taken to represent the ends o f some kind o f religious ’spectrum ’ ranging from the imaginative to the literalist. But the differences in their approach to Islamic prayer and recitation are im portant to explore because they impact significantly on how these figures relate to and are perceived by Zanzibari M uslims at large. T his b rie f portrait o f Seyyid Silim a also illustrates the close connection between Islamic knowledge, prayer, and piety, where religious knowledge is understood and conveyed not only as unam biguous and literal discourse, but can also be associated with or em bodied and signified in the practices, behaviour and countenance o f individuals. As we have seen, an exceptionally pious individual — the mcha Mungu (one who fears G od), the mwenye karama — cannot declare him /herself as such, but instead must deflect any praise o f personal endeavour or expertise to G od , to His will. Thus while Silim a’ s expertise is dem onstrated especially through the perform ance o f supplicatory prayer, spontaneous and creative, reflecting, am ong other things, intimate knowledge o f the Q u r’an and G od, this talent for prayer is considered a virtue o f exceptional devotion, and as such epitom ises Islamic knowledge as divine blessing. In this form , knowledge is not thought o f as something external, to be acquired; it is knowledge that is personified, com m unicated, and, in its com m unication, experienced by others.

N o te s 1 One o f the great scholars o f Hadram i descent who contributed to Zanzibar's fame as a centre o f Islamic learning in the late nineteenth century. 2 Dhambi is its converse, meaning divine retribution, demerit, penalty, or punishment. 'Utapata dhambi!' is the conventional usage, meaning, ’You will receive punishment or penalties [for something].' 3 Thus while a supplicant can access, benefit from , or participate in another person’ s baraka (since it is understood as grace from God), one cannot benefit from another person’ s thawabu. Thawabu is associated with an individual’ s own actions and relationship with God. Karama , a power

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em bodied in an individual that comes from being in G od’ s favour, brings both baraka and thawabu. All o f these are constituted and communicated through the performance o f prayer. O r from the H adram i clans o f Zanzibar’ s past known for their great Islamic learning. In the period ju st before and including the revolution, 'foreign (interloper/usurper) and 'native’ (authentic/indigenous to Zanzibar) became reified and opposed categories that dominated the language through which political parties challenged the legitimacy o f their opponents and authenticated their own claims to inherit the independent Zanzibari state. See Michael Lofchie (1965), Anthony Clayton (1981), and Abdulrahman Babu (1991) for analyses o f the politics o f the late colonial period and the revolution. As William Graham points out in a discussion o f tajwid, 'chanting the Q u r’an is a reenactment o f the revelatory act itself, and how the Q u r’an is vocally rendered not only matters, but matters ultimately’ (Graham 1987:101). Som e o f the essentialist cohorts have also preached against the defiling effects o f the tourist boom and the impiety o f Western capital, and have accused the 'government sheikhs’ o f complying with rather than protesting the state’ s policies on tourism and foreign investment. For a discussion o f the wider political implications o f this discourse, see Purpura, (1997) unpublished dissertation. In deed, one cohort leader explained to me that he is beginning to teach aspects o f Hanbali jurisprudence in his madrasa classes. The vast majority o f Zanzibari Muslims follow the Shafi school o f Islam. These distinctions concerning the form s and contexts o f dua were drawn out in discussion with Farouk Topan and Jo h n Bowen at the workshop for which this paper was originally prepared. Many thanks to them for their insightful comments. Personal communication, April 1998. It is important to note that though didactic in aim, the appeal o f Sheikh K ham isi’ s message stems largeley from his talent for image-provoking oratry and his ability to 'bring the Q u r’an to life .’ For discussion o f women Islamic experts and women’ s prayer and study groups in Zanzibar see Purpura (1997) unpublished dissertation. No one set o f physical features can be said to characterise Zanzibaris. Terms such as mwekundu (brown/red), mweusi (black), mweupe (light/white) may be used casually to describe a person’ s complexion, but beyond this, the meanings that phenotype — a n d , more broadly speaking, ethnicity — might come to have are highly contingent on, and shift with, social and political context. Seyyid Silima was a member o f the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, which was overthrown by the A fro-Shirazi Party in the 1964 revolution. Many o f the

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Gom orians — and Sufis — were members o f the ZNP; thus for several years following the revolution, any religious gatherings for ykiri, to make tiara, perform maulidis, and the like either required a perm it from the Government or were prohibited altogether.

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In tro d u ction This chapter continues the theme o f the communicative power o f prayer as offering the opportunity for imaginative engagement with divinity and thence influencing this-worldly concerns. Mauss (1968: 357) is justly cited for having seen the wide variety o f communicative form s, intentions and consequences in prayer as a social phenom enon: 'here it is brutal dem and, there an order, elsewhere a contract, an act o f faith, a confession, a supplication, a com m endation, an hosanna’ (translated by and cited in M etcalf 1989:1). All that is absent from M auss’ s list o f roles perform ed by prayer is that it may also be the communicative route to self-absorption in the power and som etim es body o f divinity. Apart from this absence, M auss’ s attributes can be separated into demands, contracts and supplications on the one hand and o f acts o f faith, confession, com m endation and hosannas on the other. They can be used to suggest a bipolarity o f negotiated request and unquestioning respect, making his work on prayer o f continuing relevance. We might at first contrast this with the fate o f Malinowski’ s claim that a fundam ental function o f religion is to provide hum an reassurance. For it is true that this claim has inevitably been eclipsed by num erous other explanations for religious belief, ran gin g fro m the in tellectualist, expressive and

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classificatory. Dem ands for reassurance, however, arise from hum an uncertainties, some o f which are dealt with by humans themselves who thereby rise above dependency on divinity. In deed, hum ans are often poised between solutions which emphasise such dependency and those which transcend it. Prayer, as a form o f invocation, reflects this ambiguity: a worshipper initiates the act and so to that extent is the responsible agent, to be blam ed if s/he fails in their religious duty to pray; but, in making them self over to divinity, the worshipper cedes that very agency with which s/he began. Are there circumstances when the worshipper retains that agency? Putting this another way, is there a difference between prayer as p erso n al sacrifice, in the sense o f giving on eself over completely to divinity, and prayer as gift-giving in which divinity is expected to reciprocate devotion? I argue in this chapter that prayer both highlights this ambiguity and, paradoxically, is sustained by it: for it is precisely when hum ans convert devotion into bargaining that accusations o f heresy arise and thence debates concerning hum an and divine power, and faith and self-help. My examples are taken from two areas: Zanzibar town, capital o f the republic o f the same name, which consists o f two islands o ff the coast o f m ainland Tanzania; and a rural fishing village north o f M ombasa, the m ajor port o f Kenya. The town and islands o f Zanzibar are almost exclusively Muslim, while the Kenyan fishing village is M uslim but part o f a region increasingly populated by non-M uslim s from up-country Kenya. Despite these differences, there is much public debate in both locales o f the role and future o f Islam, which is part o f a spectrum o f such concerns am ong the Swahili-speaking peoples along the entire East A frican coast.

P ray e r as s a la a (A r. s a l ā t) a n d d u a ( d u ’a): th e case o f Z a n z ib a r Let me first provide the example o f Zanzibar. Faith and selfhelp jostle in Zanzibar as alternative means o f resolution or escape from troubles, as perhaps in all societies o f heightened

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politico-religious tension. The two islands making up Zanzibar, with a com bined population o f less than a m illion, have since the early 1960’ s seen a series o f catastrophes, crises and m ajor changes. These include a marxist revolution in 1964, accom panied by a massacre o f an allegedly ’A rab’ minority o f landlords; repression o f full religious expression am ong the Sun ni/Ibadi M uslim majority (including people o f O m ani an d, to a lesser extent, H adhram i Sh arif origin); a failed policy o f de-ethnicisation; unsustained attempts at provision o f free education and health care; econom ic and some political liberalisation from the m id-eighties onwards; a partial 'rearabisation’ o f interests and identities from about 1992; some radical Islamic protest against the introduction o f package tou rism ; IM F-encouraged m ulti-party elections in 1995, followed by wrongful harrassm ent o f supporters o f one party (C U F ) by the ruling one (C C M ); and a cholera epidemic in D ecem ber 1997. It cannot o f course consistently be argued that m ajor sociopolitical and econom ic transform ations either increase or decrease dependency on prayer or on human self-reliance. Som etim es this seems to be the case, while at other times not. But such problem s, perceived as such by an afflicted population, may constitute background conditions against which prayer beliefs and practices may be chronicled and understood as form s o f divine invocation, and which people themselves see as providing succour in times o f need or, alternatively, as 'mystifying’ their problem s. A key to understanding such transformative possibilities is that invocation can cover either address or reference to G od. He is referred to by His many names and attributes, and through devotional acts and gestures, as a means o f affirm ing belief in His existence, omnipotence and om niscience. But He may sometimes be addressed as by a supplicant seeking divine help. These affirmatory and supplicatory dim ensions to prayer may both be used, conservatively, to m aintain an existing state o f affairs. Supplication alone contains within it the possibility o f asking for a change in this state o f affairs. The change sought may be between people themselves, or in the very relationship between G od and people.

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To suggest that hum ans should dare to seek to re-define the terms o f their relationship with G od touches on heresy. Yet, given the sometimes blurred line between devotional prom ise and an expectation o f reciprocated divine providence, implicit bargaining with Divinity may occur under the pressure o f hum an crises. In English the term , invocation, might normally be regarded as covering m ore than that which would translate as prayer in Islam. But it can conveniently be used to refer to a range o f prayer-m odes in M uslim Zanzibar, including salaa (swalaa in M om basa and Mayotte, and ku-sali, the verb), dua, zikiri (dhikri), tawasali, (tawasul), kasida (qasida) and ku-omba (the latter the only Bantu word). Although I do not focus on them in this chapter, kasida (divine praise poetry), zikiri and tawasali ('a kind o f d u a ), fall within the sphere o f invocation by virtue o f being addressed to G od. Kasida is also intended to be heard and appreciated by the hum an congregation, tawasali is sometimes seen as a means o f 'talking away people’ s sickness’ , and dhikri is the most obvious process o f self-transform ative identification with, or absorption into, divinity. T he range o f m eanings contained by these senses o f invocation has at one pole affirm ation o f the existence o f G od (i.e. 'b e lie f in G od). This may be captured by the verb kusali, alongside which there is a term which has secular as well as divine objects o f affirm ation, namely ku-kiri. This means to believe in the sense o f to acknowledge, admit, accept, confess, as in law or indebtedness, for example ku-kiri deni, to admit a debt (see A bdulrahm an 1975). At the other pole is the idea o f asking for things and doing things/acting upon the world, as in ku-omba dua, m eaning to ask (through) supplicatory prayer. While these two may regarded as polar meanings in the abstract, it is better to regard divine affirm ation and supplication as mutually involved tendencies within the same act or acts o f invocation. Both are underlain by the variable degrees to which worshippers may regard themselves as, so to speak, absorbed in G od. A bsorption may happen not only in Sufi worship but in such cerem onies as maulidi and, for any one individual, in the course o f personal prayer. However, asking G od for something

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seems m ore likely to curb such processes o f absorption, since it requires a notion o f calculated, rational detachment on the part o f the worshipper, while persistent affirm ation o f G od ’ s existence without specific requests in m ind (for example, through rhythmic and chanted repetition o f His many names) seems m ore likely to provide for divine identification. That said, this is a static separation and it is also im portant to know how affirm ation becom es supplication. A Eurocentric view is often to ask about individual as against community responsibilities, sentiments and conflicts concerning prayer. For instance, Headley (1996:9) raises the question: if or when (Islamic) religious discourse privileges community over an individual’ s faith, how and under what conditions may the individual invest in that faith; and what are the linguistic means at his/her disposal? What are the means and contexts allowing direct individual com m unication with a Suprem e G od? I would extend this to my question, introduced above, o f how much the purely affirmative in prayer may relate to the negotiable: can pledging oneself to faith in G od ’ s existence, om nipotence and om niscience carry with it the possibilities o f expecting beneficence in return and even o f bargaining for it? Stripped o f its Euro-enlightenm ent historical context, one cannot claim that a dichotomy akin to that o f individual versus society is totally absent am ong Zanzibar Muslims, but it does not appear to be directly expressed as tension or conflict. After all, even though m osque prayer is form ally prescribed, individuals may enter a m osque at any time, may linger and engage in deep personal prayer outside the prescribed five daily prayer times and without reference to an Imam. Conversely, zikiri processions and kasida cerem onies may occur outside the m osque and are suprem e examples o f collective enthusiasm. Nevertheless, the way in which salaa and dua are contrasted in madarasa teaching and by Imams, and the broad contrast in their practice, do suggest a significant difference o f tendency between the highly form ulaic and the increasingly less form al. Salaa (with its etymological origin in the idea o f ’bowing’ , i.e. from a standing position) is prescribed gesturally as well as

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verbally: the rakaa (Ar. rak’a ) positions, stages and actions must be followed precisely (and repeated if they are not) and the accompanying salaa prayers must be in Arabic. As my principle Im am inform ant (Sheikh Saidi Saalum o f the Mabulu Msikiti or ’Blue M osque’ in Zanzibar) told me, 'If you try to translate the Arabic, it is endless and you lose the authentic purity ( twahara) o f these, G o d ’ s words’ . Everyone should learn the A rabic salaa in madarasa or chuo, which is thus a recitational use o f language working in harm ony with the precisely ordered (kutungamisha) bodily actions o f the rakaa . T he local description and practice o f salaa conform to a widespread Islamic pattern. Thus, a rakaa consists o f named stages o f a single bodily movement, separated by silence and holding the body still (ku-itadili), beginning from a standing position to holding the knees while leaning forward, to prostration (ku-sijidi) with seven limbs touching the ground, namely feet, knees, hands and head, and then returning to the standing position. After every two rakaaf the worshipper must utter the Attahiyyaatu, which, spoken in Arabic, praises G od and affirm s b elief in him . The worshipper has also to greet worshippers on either side o f him, seen as bringing G od ’ s blessing upon on e’ s comrades. D ifferent prayer times during the day require different num bers o f rakaa. While dua may be prayed at any time and anywhere and is not accom panied by specific bodily actions, salaa must conform to the appropriate time o f the day and, though it may be held outside the m osque, as is sometimes necessary, must include the prescribed rakaa actions. T he prescribed positional use o f the body in the rakaa making up the salaa , ideally in the m osque, is reflected in the prescriptive nature o f m osque architecture and spatial usage. To take a significant example, while in rural mosques, women pray outside and m en inside, urban ones are (nowadays at least) built to accom m odate both genders, although in different sections, allowing for different times o f entry and exit. Taking the example o f the newly built K ilim ani mosque, the mihrab points towards Mecca (roughly north from Zanzibar) and women pray in a special projecting section at the south-western

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corner. They enter from their own south-facing door, but, being silent or almost silent themselves, 'receive the sound and voices o f the m en from a door facing east from their section. M en enter from either their own south-facing or east-facing door. In m osques lacking these gender-specific doors, care must be taken to prevent men and women entering and leaving at the same tim e. In these ways, prescription is both positional and verbal in the salaa , allowing little or no possibility for visible or audible deviation or elaboration. To reinforce, then, a point made earlier, salaa is an affirm ation o f G o d ’ s existence and a pledge to acknowledge this fact o f G o d ’ s existence. Like salaa, many dua are also set out in texts or are taken from the Q u r’an and other holy books, or are encom passed within m osque-based salaa and so are expressed in A rabic. But many are normally or at least often regarded as optional, are not accom panied by rakaa, can be com posed by the person praying, and may be in Swahili (or any language) rather than Arabic. Moreover the full expression in Swahili is ku-omba dua (to ask for dua, cf. also ku-kunuti). That is to say, ku-omba, the norm al Bantu verb for requesting objects or favours, is used for prayer as well as in ordinary, everyday speech. Dua thus shade into the illocutionary category o f m ands. Moreover, as will be shown in a later case study, a person asks spirits, both good and bad, for favours through use o f the term ku-omba. Spirits, known by various names such as rohani, pepo and shetani, each indicating by degrees their worthy or evil character (see Giles 1995, Larsen 1998), stand at the edge o f 'orthodox’ claims to Islamic purity. They provide the limiting contrasts by which Islam defines itself. But they are also ambivalently inscribed in Islam through mention o f their existence in the Q u r’an: i.e. if they are m entioned in the Holy Book, whether favourably as in the case o f rohani or negatively as in the case o f shetani, then their existence and influence cannot be disputed, even if acknowledging and beseeching them is sometimes problem atic and sinful. Possessory spirits, i.e. those which enter humans and take control o f them, thus reverse human agency and themselves demand things or favours o f their human hosts.

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Given the com plem entarity o f ku-sali and ku-omba dua and the shading from ku-omba dua to ku-omba rohani/pepo/shetani, we are clearly dealing with a single cluster o f sometimes overlapping activities and m eanings falling under what we might translate as invocation. In deed, it is the overlap o f different invocational activities within the cluster that heightens clerical anxieties o f transgressions am ounting to polytheistic worship or ushirikina (Ar. shirk). T here are even dua which enable som eone to avenge them self o f an enemy, nothing less than witchcraft, while in one Swahili text with English translations, dua is rendered as 'curse’ (see S .S . Farsi 1958), by which is meant the laying o f a curse to harm som eone. Similarly, the dictionary, Kamusi j a Kiswahili Sanifu (1981:48) provides negative as well as positive connotations o f dua. T hus, on the one hand, dua means 'requests which only G od is asked fo r’ ( maombi anayoombwa Mwenyezi Mungu tu); on the other hand, the expression ku-pigwa dua is given as 'to be asked bad things’ , or to curse or dam n ( ku-apiza; ku-laani). It is as if dua contains within its connotations the hum an potential to seek either grace and goodwill or personal profit and vengeance, qualified by whether or not it is made to G od, spirits or humanly harm ful forces. Which o f these two directions is taken is open to individual hum an choice.

P h y sic a l d is p o s itio n a n d v e r b a l p r o p o s itio n Let me here say then that the contrast between salaa as highly form ulaic, both verbally and gesturally, and dua as shading into the less form ulaic and m ore negotiable, represents a contrast that may be expected o f anyone who spends time praying in the m osque as well as outside it. Som etim es a worshipper follows a routine but at other times becom es m ore personally im m ersed in the activity o f salaa. M oreover, the contrast o f salaa as o f ideally inside the m osque, and ku-omba dua as an optional addition to salaa and therefore m ore easily conducted outside the mosque, also points up the different orientations available to a worshipper. That is to say, the individual worshipper carries, so to speak,

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within him or her, the spatial and definitional contrast contained within an idealised representation o f salaa and dua. T his suggestion hopefully takes us away from the cruder dichotomy o f individual and community, while recognising this latter as an aspect o f a m ore general opposition. In other words, individual versus community (society) is no m ore than a syntagmatic reading o f the paradigm atic contrast between salaa and ku-omba dua. What I find interesting is that this contrast appears m ore obviously represen ted, perhaps roo ted , in a distinction between what I will call physical disposition against verbal p roposition. That is to say, salaa is, to quote the imams who instructed me, most importantly and even essentially to do with 'actions’ ( vitendo). The imams claim that the words are anyway uttered by themselves as prayer leaders ( viongozi), with individual m em bers o f the congregation playing a part in the responses. Imams insist, m oreover, that m en and women should pray silently at the midday ( adhuhuri) and afternoon ( alasiri) salaa , and that, while at the m orning ( alfajiri), evening ( magharibi) and night ( ishani) prayers, m en could speak at full voice, women s voices should be almost inaudible. However, because they are so visible, the onus is especially on the worshipper to carry out correctly the quite complicated set o f carefully enum erated bodily movements, and to go over them again should one make a mistake. Salaa also prescribes an extremely complex set o f rules o f purification ( ku-tawadhaa, udhu) which must be followed before praying salaa . O ne has to wash on e’ s body ( ku-jitahirisha) for different reasons and in different ways, elim inating all impurity or dirt associated with urinating, defecating ( najisi, hadathi) sexual intercourse (janaba ), and one is prohibited from salaa during m enstruation ( heydhi) or if still 'tainted’ by the blood o f parturition ( nifasi). Even the water used for washing is prescribed as being one o f seven kinds: rain, sea, river, well, spring, ice and dew, with the use o f sand or stone perm itted in the absence o f water ( kutayammamu) . M osque entry, exit and positioning are also all prescrib ed , as I have m en tion ed, especially in keeping men and women apart in and around the m osque and out o f sight o f

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each other (especially urban m osques). Such potential states o f im purity and. dirtiness centring on bodily orifices and sexuality are said to interest or attract Satan, and there are at least two dua in the m osque service which are spoken to seek protection from G od against Satan' s empowerment through dirt. A range o f bodily concerns with cleansing, disposition or orientation, rakaa action, and gender separation are thus here central to salaa which, while com bining verbal with gestural dim ensions, has the verbal as an utterance rather than contestable prop osition . Ku-omba dua , while also concerned that the worshipper be in a state o f bodily and mental purity, allows for the possibility o f converting physical disposition into contestable proposition, the clearest example being the negotiated pleas that may be m ade to G od or, at the edge, to spirits. There are reversed echoes here o f Lévi-Strauss’ s distinction between ritual as debased physicality and myth as verbal ratiocination and therefore superior (Lévi-Strauss 1977:66; Parkin 1992). Thus, in the Zanzibari definition, salaa , one o f the pillars o f Islam, prioritises an individual's actions over his words, and so comes across as closer to Lévi-Strauss’ s definition o f ritual than myth, while ku-omba dua allows for situational and negotiated verbal com m unication with divinity and spirit: myth and ratiocination are, then, enunciated at the (for some) ill-reputed edge o f Islam. At one level, this is obviously compatible with religious hierarchy: the closer to its centre, the greater the conformity, the less the talk and the m ore the bodily control; the further from the centre, the less the constraints on either body or talk. T he tendencies contained in the contrast between salaa and dua are thus captured by this presence or absence o f religious hierarchy, This is most obvious in the communicative and gestural largesse o f certain religious orders or brotherhoods, or even through zikiri recitational repetitiveness and rhythmic bodily movement. This is, however, a static m odel and we need to know what may happen at times o f social change, for, as outlined at the beginning o f this paper, Zanzibar has undergone politico-

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econom ic revolution and a kind o f counter-revolution in recent decades, with its master-slave past always likely to be re expressed interpersonally. Distinct M uslim com m unities are sometimes identified by their different styles o f prayer, as in arm and hand positioning. Thus, the m ajority Sunni, mainly o f the Sha’afi school, hold their right hand over their left in front o f the chest. The Ibadi, who claim to originate in O m an, hold theirs straight at the side o f the body. It is sometimes claimed that Ibadi tend to figure most am ong M uslims opposed to such post-Prophet innovations ( bidaa; A r. bid’a ) as tom b glorification and maulidi cerem onies, but in fact the division is not that clear-cut and it is likely to be only those am ong them who have been educated to Wahabi ideas in Saudi Arabia who are critical. M ore often in Zanzibar, it is Islamic sectarian similarity rather than difference that is currently expressed. Increasing covergence, or at least some dim inution o f difference, is evident in the fact that a new so-called Ibadi m osque, built in (about) 1996, has a norm al Sunni mihrab, that is to say one which projects out from the m osque, instead o f the customary Ibadi one built into the m osque wall and not projecting out. The Ibadi form er preference for a non-projecting, built-in mihrab was based on their dislike o f specially appointed imams or prayer leaders being placed in a prom inent position as am ong Sunni. Ibadi have traditionally claimed that any worshipper was capable o f and entitled to lead prayers. The recent case, however, o f an Ibadi shift to Sunni m osque architecture appears to carry with it the im plication that Ibadi, or some o f them, accept in Zanzibar the Sunni expectation that Imams should be specially chosen for the role, so creating some lim ited hierarchy in the organisation o f salaa prayer. M oreover, the m ain Friday m osques, though sometimes designated Sunni or Ibadi, commonly have mixed congregations at the Friday n oon prayer, with M alindi 'sen ior’ to Forodhoni m osque but both the venue on different occasions o f Zanzibar radio broadcasts o f the midday prayer ( adhuhuri). The affirm atory and discursive mark each other off, for many people appreciatively listen to the Friday noon prayer serm ons

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(hotuba) which intersperse prayers and are delivered at one o f the m ain m osques and broadcast on radio. T heir serm ons preach about youth morality, m en-women relations, keeping the peace and the need to attend m osque and pray as a means o f resolving problem s and preventing new ones. As an instance, in Zanzibar in early Decem ber 1997 there was an outbreak o f a serious cholera epidem ic in which hundreds died. The C hief K adh i o f Zanzibar, and some sheikhs and imams speaking from m osques, urged people not ju st to engage in salaa but also to ask G od for relief by praying dua m ore often. A n analytical parallel might be that between the chronic and the acute. Salaa is for the normality o f death as an on-going chronic feature o f the hum an condition, well brought out in the w all-poster urging people to ’pray before you yourself are prayed-for in your last prayer’ (Sali k ab laja hujasaliwa sa la a ja k o ja mwisho). By contrast dua can accompany salaa but may also be specifically addressed to acute, sudden or random problem s. These may turn on personal loss, grief or vengeance, or aspiration and am bition. H ealers ( waganga) may on request and for a fee say dua to alleviate the suffering o f a family or individual, or to help them to good fortune. D uring fieldwork in Zanzibar over August and Septem ber 1993, one such healer spontaneously rem arked on the very high num ber o f such requests he was having to deal with and which he ascribed to difficult times and the prevalence o f malaria am ong children (though it also seemed to me partly the result o f a scramble for new money suddenly injected into the islands following an upsurge in tourism ). People may also participate in ad hoc collective dua as M osque-based sheikhs and imams respond to such acute conditions or crises as epidemics, the threat o f political uprisings or massacres or other fears. For example, at the nation’ s politically tense first m ulti-party elections in 1995, mosque serm ons included appeals for the umma and requested public dua for peace. D uring an earlier period leading up to the election, people said dua to protect themselves against the so-called Popobawa spirit affliction on the Pemba island o f Zanzibar, which was partially associated with election uncertainties

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(Parkin forthcom ing). They prayed dua alongside the use o f such other protective devices as kafara Q u r’anic readings, wearing hiriy 'charm s’ , taking kombe liquid and, as will be shown, making sadaka offerings or 'sacrifices’ . Whereas salaa follows prescribed form s o f content and address to G o d , dua may, especially in its most private form , address G od in fam iliar, even kinship terms, e.g. Mungu Baba (Father G od), Mungu Mwana (C hild G od), Mungu Roho Takatifii (G o d , Holy Spirit, the three together suggesting a Muslim holy trinity) rather than the range o f set honorifics (e.g. the M erciful, the Almighty, etc), names which, in the context o f zjkiri and the tarika, curiously becom e collectively personalised and self-transform ative through co-substantiation with G od. Salaa allows for either distant worship o f G od (affirm ation o f G o d ’ s existence) or close personal identification, with the latter always less likely the m ore collectivist the occasion, but salaa does not allow for direct request and negotiation as does dua. Let me here now turn to the case o f the Kenyan fishing village for detailed case material illustrating the extraordinary m anner in which dua becom es redefined as offering and even sacrifice to spirits, extending far beyond the m osque and into areas o f activity involving supplication and negotiation whose Islamic acceptability may be strongly contested.

W h en p r a y e r b e c o m e s o ff e r in g a n d s a c r ific e : th e case o f a f is h in g v illa g e T he people o f the fishing village, called Mtwapa (a little north o f M ombasa) are in fact o f relatively recent conversion to Islam and to speaking Swahili as their first and, in many cases, only language. They sometimes call themselves Digo, so acknowledging some origins and contacts in Digoland to the south o f M ombasa in the Kwale district o f Kenya and in Tanzania, but now living north o f M ombasa in small settlements along the coast, interspersed with those o f other Swahili-speakers and o f non-M uslim peoples from different parts o f Kenya. The group described here live in Mtwapa. I have elsewhere called them 'interm ediary’ Swahili, because I wanted to make the point that

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they are conscious o f their non-Swahili and non-M uslim origins and are constantly urged by their religious leaders to renounce them in favour o f Islamic piety and Swahili-Arab life-style and language use. The clerics, or maalims, argue that without such m oral and behavioural vigilance the un-Islam ic practices and beliefs associated with these pre-Islam ic origins may easily return (1985; 1994). A m ong these people, then, unlike those o f Zanzibar town, there is a quite explicit sense o f a threat to their continuity as an Islamic, Swahili-speaking grouping: they create a sharp boundary between themselves and non-M uslim s by disallowing inter-m arriage with any other than Muslims and prohibit the dress, fo o d , life-style, vernaculars and even the so-called 'standard’ kind o f Swahili language used by many nonM uslims. At the same time, they aspire, equally explicitly, to the higher status which they regard other, longer established Swahili-speakers as having, sometimes aim ing to marry a daughter or granddaughter up into a locally renowned SwahiliArab family. They commonly appeal to textually based Islamic precepts as proper guides to conduct and are no less exacting in their dem ands than other Muslim peoples along the coast, including those o f Zanzibar. But there is a significant area o f rule prescription which throws up ambiguities and touches precisely on questions o f what is or is not proper Islamic practice. This is the issue o f sadaka, which in English I provisionally translate as offering-shading-into-sacrifice but which is part o f a wider field o f invocatory transactions and reciprocities which, by definition, span far beyond any single community, Muslim or non-M uslim . M iddleton (1992—180—81) describes well the range o f senses covered by the term sadaka. He first distinguishes a large num ber o f Swahili terms for 'sacrifice’ , including tambiko, kafara, dhahibu, fidya, akika and sadaka itself. The latter is by far the most comprehensive and refers to the giving o f ritual alms (and so merges with zaka); a gift for children’ s prayers which, owing to their innocence, reach G od m ore directly; food offered at mosques on the occasion o f maulidi readings; and the distribution

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o f the cooked meat o f a ritually slaughtered animal, whether for curative, purificatory or protective purposes. To this we may add the expectation during Ram adhan that those able to afford it should each day provide cash or rice to the poor and needy. T he idea here is that the deprivation undergone in fasting should be accom panied by further m aterial deprivation through the offerings o f cash and food. Lavish funerals, called hitima, are also sometimes referred to as a kind o f sadaka, but are much condem ned by Islamic radicals. Sadaka prestations are com m only characterised as com prising voluntary acts o f giving and so contrasted with the obligatory nature o f zaka, but, in practice, often becom e socially compulsory. It is in this sense that sadaka refers to both occasional offering and what we may call ritually prescribed sacrifice. Let me here try and capture the sense o f sacrifice entailed by sadaka. O n the one hand, there are Islamic rules (or at least clerics claim that there are) which specify the occasions and methods o f anim al sacrifice. Such Islamically acceptable sacrifice occurs at Idd al Haji or Haji al Ulha (in Ki-Sw ahili, Idi el Haji or Idi Kubwa) and may also be made by a man thanking G od for the safe birth o f a child. O n the other hand, sadaka is, I argue, much m ore significant in the Mtwapa fishing community, not as animal sacrifice but as indirect hum an sacrifice. Thus, when a new fishing dug-out boat is launched and before the start o f the m ajor fishing season, elaborate offerings o f cooked food are made to the sea spirits, but it is feared, indeed assum ed, that a hum an life may also later be taken out at sea by the spirits. The notion o f sacrifice is here com plicated. For, while individual fishing groups make offerings in an attempt to protect their own m em bers, they also accept that som eone somewhere will have to pay with his life. The expression ku-toa kikoa, to take turns in providing (and 'eating’) a sacrificial relative, refers to the alleged activities o f witches, but may be used to connote som ething o f the idea o f collective sacrifice to the sea spirits. Religious leaders claim that this latter idea o f sadaka is not covered by Islamic rulings, and is even unacceptable to Islam. Such leaders may, however, sometimes accept an invitation to

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intercede in prayers to G od and the spirits on behalf o f the fisherm en. Despite the recognised differences in the nature o f these two kinds o f event, the Islamic and non-Islam ic, the term sadaka does not differentiate between them.

I s la m ic r u le s c o n c e r n in g sad ak a I shall go on to describe these two kinds o f event in m ore detail. For the m om ent let me outline some background assumptions regarding Islam and anim al sacrifice. In much o f the Middle East, as in form al H anbali law emanating from Saudi Arabi and the Em irates, it is ordained that all slaughter o f animals, whether or not it involves form al sacrifice to G o d , requires that the anim al be healthy, and that the sacrificer give the animal water, face it towards Mecca, say Bismillah, and use a sharp knife in order to m inim ise the anim al’ s suffering in a single cut. Although recognized as sacrifice, the slaughter o f an animal made on the birth o f a child does not require any additional rules to these. Sacrifice at Idd al Haji, however, demands also that the sacrificer not cut his nails or comb his hair for ten days before. In Mtwapa, also, Idd al Haji and a child’ s birth are form al sacrificial events, the first carried out by a whole community and involving the sacrifice o f scores o f goats. The rules are that the anim al should be healthy and should be pointed towards Mecca and Bism illah said over it as its throat is cut. I met no requirem ent concerning nails or hair. However, much is also made in Mtwapa o f the fact that the blood must be allowed to flow freely onto and mingle with the earth, and that, as I was to ld , 'the anim al must be allowed to die on its own, according to G o d ’ s w ill.’ This requirem ent is made o f all form s o f animal slaughter, whether at Idd al Haji or any other time. Whether or not it is contained within the Q u r’an or other holy texts, this dem and is the most spoken about. The insistence that the anim al 'die on its own, according to G o d ’ s will’ transfers the agency o f death away from the hum an sacrificer and sacrifier and onto G od. It is thus G od and not m an who is responsible for the death an d, through

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H is m ysterious ways, fo r where, when and how it should take place. A second im portant requirem ent in Mtwapa is that, at Idd al H aji , the animals must not be sacrificed until worshippers have finished their evening prayers and returned from the mosque. This means that the sacrifice should not begin until 8pm. (Interestingly, this tim ing is a reversal o f that expected for the N orth A frican ritual o f L'ayd el-kebir, involving the slaughter o f a sheep, where m orning sacrifice is urged and evening sacrifice prohibited (see A nne-M arie Brisebarre 1993:10 or 1992:42f]). Such requirements are woven into the sermons given by maalims and imams. These religious leaders say, for instance, that one must persuade all members o f the Muslim community to pray, and that to pray collectively in a mosque is much more beneficial than praying alone. Those who wish to sacrifice are urged therefore to attend evening mosque on the day o f sacrifice along with everyone else. It is assumed that they will not be in a position to sacrifice the goats before evening prayers have finished. Indeed, for this to happen would highlight the fact that some Muslims attend mosque while others don’t. The sermon therefore appeals to fellowMuslims to eliminate any distinction between sacrificers who do not attend mosque and pious worshippers who do attend but who have no direct part in the sacrifice. T his appeal by religious leaders has two effects. It subordinates the act o f anim al sacrifice to the greater importance o f m osque attendance and prayer. It is also stresses what the leaders see as a need for greater collective harmony am ong M uslims. This is hardly surprising in an area, the Kenya coast, in which M uslim interests have come under various threats in recent generations, as I outline elsewhere (1989). An Islamic appeal to collective worship was famously described by Abner C ohen (1969) as an efficient response am ong the Hausa o f northern N igeria, when their ethnic solidarity and trading d iaspora were threatened at the approach o f N ig eria’ s independence in the late nineteen fifties. T hrough their religious collectivisation, the Hausa were able to continue in trade requiring their ethnic solidarity, despite a loss o f political privileges in newly independent Nigeria.

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Returning to the first effect, we may ask whether there are particular reasons for wishing to subordinate the ceremony o f anim al sacrifice to collective worship. I would argue that the attempt is part o f a num ber o f religious acts which seek to control the influence o f non-M uslim beliefs and practices. In this case, the sacrifice, or sadaka, can be made unambiguously dependent on the com pletion o f m osque worship at Idd al Haji. T hrough such subordination, there is no danger o f the sadaka incorporating non-M uslim elements, as religious leaders see it, as in the sadaka made to sea-spirits on the occasion o f a boat launch or new fishing season. Such non-Islam ic 'contam ination is, after all, possible, given that the term is the same for both kinds o f activities. There is, in other words, the potential for a conceptual blurring o f Islamic and non-Islam ic features under the cover o f the same term. In any event, the local people themselves talk o f sadaka as in the first instance an occasion for offerings to powerful, supra-hum an beings, whether G od or sea-spirits. This is its paradigmatic sense. Thereafter they can qualify it as occurring at either Idd al Haji, the birth o f a child, a boat launch, or a new fishing season. Sadaka is therefore am biguous in a way that the five main obligations o f Islam are not. Most Muslims in Mtwapa are able readily to present these, in KiSwahili, as com prising: shahada, the witnessed ritual by which a person becomes a Muslim; s(w )alaa , prayer five times a day, preferably at the m osque; saumu, fasting at Ram adhan; zaka, making alms to the poor and needy; and hija, going on pilgrim age if and when one is in a position to do so. The last two obligations are recognised as dependent on financial means, so much so that I have heard it said, with regard to the latter, that som eone who can afford to go to Mecca but neglects to do so loses immense value in the eyes o f G od. Sadaka , like dua, lacks this form ulaic, obligatory precision and is able therefore to act as a bridge between allegedly Islamic and n on-Islam ic beliefs and practices. It both facilitates this straddling o f the two worlds o f Islam and anim ism and is at the same time seen, therefore, as a possible source o f the contam ination o f Islam. It is partly in order to combat such

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im purity that a maalim or imam may sometimes justify praying at the sadaka given when a boat is launched. I have no reco rd , however, o f a maalim or imam being present at the sadaka given to greet the opening o f a fishing season. T here is thus a continuum . The collective sadaka made at Idd al Haji should be secondary to m osque activities held on the same day; the sadaka given by a man to thank G od for a child rem ains a private affair, to which a local, and usually cognatically related, maalim will be invited to give prayers; the sadaka at a boat launching may also, though not always, have a maalim present who prays, although the same and other maalims may at other times condem n the practice and beliefs behind it; but the sadaka welcoming the new fishing season lacks any involvement on the part o f Muslim religious leaders.

A c o n tin u u m o f M u s lim in v o lv e m e n t in sad ak a T he poles o f this continuum covered by the concept o f sadaka thus denote 'high’ and 'low’ Islamic involvement. Let me now present som e b rie f descriptions from Mtwapa o f sadaka cerem onies along the continuum . I begin with that o f the Idd al H aji , taking the description directly from my field notes. 1 Sa d a k a

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'This is a small Idd al Haji sadaka lim ited to the village-based community o f fisherm en and their families in Mwando way Panya, in Mtwapa, where I live. We are a cognatic group o f mainly Digo descent, headed by our maalim, Maalim Hassan, but our kinship ties extend far beyond Mwando wa Panya. We have our own small m osque, built o f perm anent materials, which, because our village is on shoreland, is also used by visiting fisherm en, who come this way from Pemba island in Tanzania. O ther sadaka held elsewhere, such as at the m ajor m osques o f M ajengo and Shim o-la-Tew a, are much larger and m ore lavish. We shall be sacrificing only a few goats, although people claim

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that in the past many m ore were sacrificed. The date is 22 Novem ber 1977, the third day o f Idd al Haji. We first make our way to the m osque. We are 15 men, including myself, and twelve boys, ranging from seven to fifteen years o f age. We all wear white kanzus and kofias, except fo r two boys and one young man. We enter the m osque at ju st after 7.30pm . We sit cross-legged and chant the prayer for the occasion. Two m en lead, first one and then the other. After about fifteen m inutes, there is a dramatic entry made by Ali K hator, a m an regarded as o f higher Swahili descent than the rest o f us. He owns a m ajor shop nearby and his family originate from Lam u, being Gunya (Bajuni) people. Ali, wearing a distinctive white silk stole around his shoulders, is preceded by a man who lives in the m aalim ’ s com pound and who will later lead prayers in the mhirabu (which points towards M ecca). A li sings the same prayer as ourselves as he enters, moving slowly in front o f us. We all move closer to the front, still sitting cross-legged, and making up three lines of, from the front, elders with the young mwalimu, younger men and boys. A fter the mhirabu prayers in Swahili, the maalim prays in Arabic, and then continues in Swahili with a long serm on. This is followed by a few prayer incantations, after which the service ends by us all rising to line up and shake hands, the seniors first and the ju n io rs last. O utside, on the steps o f the m osque, we are given spiced ginger "coffee” and halwa ("turkish delight”) by the village secular leader (Mzee A thm ani). At this time the goats are sacrificed and we make our way to the village leader’ s house where we are served tea and, eventually, a meal o f goat meat and ric e.’ Apart from illustrating som ething o f the blend o f cultural and ethnic hierarchy and kinship-based community organization, this account conveys the relatively m inor im portance o f the actual sacrifice in the proceedings. Much m ore im portant is the well organized service in the m osque, which I found impressively stylized. By contrast, the sacrifice o f the goats and the profferin g o f food at points thereafter were relatively casual affairs. Indeed, some m em bers o f the community left the

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gathering before the cooked goat meat was available for distribution. Larger Idd al Haji sadaka are also much m ore notable for their huge m osque attendances and elaborate procedures than for the sacrifices that take place afterwards, which are relatively unrem arked events, even when many animals are killed. Similarly, at the birth o f a child, it is the m aalim ’ s prayers at the child’ s hom e which figure m ore significantly than the actual sacrifice. We might well conclude from this that animal sacrifice generally does not greatly occupy peoples’ ritual attention, not even at M uslim festivals, including the maulidi, when prayer, serm ons, and processions appear as central activities. This is all the m ore the case with regard to the sadaka which are carried out to appease the sea spirits, for no animals are nowadays normally killed. Instead, food consisting o f rice, various cakes and bread, and fruit, are offered. By contrast, am ong the neighbouring non-M uslim M ijikenda, a meal at any ceremony is unthinkable without the meat o f anim als slaughtered and sacrificially dedicated to the ancestors. Such cerem onies include all those marking rites o f passage, from birth to death, and include also purification and rain-m aking rites. Yet, the Mijikenda non-M uslim s living near the Kenya coast do not have m ore livestock than the neighbouring M uslims. We cannot claim therefore that it is because the Muslims lack animals that they do not include meat in their M uslim sadaka marking the launch o f a boat or the start o f a new fishing season. In fact the family nearest to me, and consisting o f a man and his three m arried sons and their families, had well over fifty goats. This family o f fishing folk could well afford to supply at least one goat for what they regard as the very im portant rites o f supplication with sea-spirits. I would rather suggest that it is precisely because the nonM uslim M ijikenda do sacrifice so many animals to their ancestral spirits that the M uslim fisherm en do not do so in their com parable rites to sea-spirits. The Muslims appear to engage in an act o f opposition, so m arking o ff their complete and utter distinctiveness from the people from whom they

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originate. It is perhaps the very similarity o f the rites am ong the two peoples, one to ancestral spirits, and the other to seaspirits, that prom pts the need to express difference. To do otherwise would be to merge the rites as o f the same kind a n d , so, once again, to run the risk o f having Islam contaminated by non-Islam ic spirits. My argum ent is as follows. Rites which are regarded by persons in religious authority and by many ordinary worshippers as unam biguously Islamic, by having m osque-based prayer and other activities as their core, can afford to tolerate animal sacrifice without running the risk o f any spiritual confusion with non -M uslim sacrificial rites. They are so distinct that M uslims are distant from thinking, so to speak, in non-M uslim term s. T his is all the m ore case given the tendency for animal sacrifice to be down-played in m ajor Islamic religious festivals generally. Its significance appears less than that am ong the surrounding non-M uslim s. But, with regard to the rites carried out for sea-spirits, there is sufficient similarity with the world o f non-M uslim spirits that all form s o f resemblance must be expunged. T herefore, animal sacrifice is not included and, although the rites still go under the name o f sadaka, it is raw fruit and cooked foods without meat that are offered. 2 Sa

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Let me know return to the continuum o f sadaka that I outlined. I first describe, again from my field notes, that o f the boat launching, and then that welcoming the new fishing season. We see how, in the boat-launching sadaka, the presence o f a maalim to some extent legitimizes the occasion as, if not falling within the purview o f Islam, at least drawing on Islam ’ s power to be m erciful an d, hopefully, to spare the lives o f the fisherm en who will use the boat. 'Two dug-outs were delivered on a truck at about 8.30pm on Tuesday 14 February 1978, when it was already dark. The owner o f one o f them, Kibwana Athmani, calls them mashua but others call them madau. They were brought to the edge o f the sea. Kibwana is regarded as the leader o f Mtwapa fisherm en. He

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plays a prom inent role also in the other kind o f sadaka to the sea-spirits, (and will be described in that role in due course). Kibwana and the owner o f the other boat, Fumo Bakari, spend the next day supervising the fitting o f struts and the mastholder, and rubbing smooth and waxing the hull with shark fat. The sadaka was held the following day, Thursday. Kibwana arrived at the spot where the boats were placed at about 10.00am accom panied by Maalim O m ari, a much respected local Digo religious leader o f great learning, who spent some years on a M iddle Eastern scholarship studying at the Islamic M osque College in Lam u. He reads and can speak textual Arabic. A part from myself, there were ju st the two o f them and two other fisherm en, the other boat owner and his son, a young m an. M aalim O m ari prayed for ten minutes. He explained that he did not need to have the Q u r’an with him on this occasion and could rem em ber the appropriate prayer in the Holy Book. H is work then done, he went his way, apparently to conduct a service at a private family maulidi in Mtwapa. The two boat owners and the son then carried out the sadaka proper, which consisted o f burn ing incense, praying to the sea spirits and offering them tea and cakes. By this time another half a dozen older fisherm en had gathered and took part in the proceedings. T he prayers im plored the sea-spirits not to take any o f their fisherm en, claim ing that none was worthy o f the attention o f the spirits. The boats were then pushed into the sea, which was almost at full tide. I note that, while Maalim O m ari appears prepared to give his legitimacy to the occasion, by praying to G od rather than to the sea-spirits, he has on previous occasions condem ned what he firmly calls the irreligious nature o f these sadaka, which he sees as worshipping sea spirits, or sea jin n s as they are called, (majini j a bahari), rather than G od (Mungu).’ M aalim O m ari’ s tacit com prom ise between the demands o f customary sacrifice and strict Islamic law is based on the recognition by him self and all others in the area, clerics and lay people alike, that jin n s, whether o f the land or sea, are referred to in the Q u r’an, and therefore have legitimate existence. They are not to be dism issed by Muslims as pretence, as are the non-

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M uslim ancestral, possessory and nature spirits (respectively called fcoma, pepo or nyama, and mizimu). Yet, while it is conceded that jin n s exist because the Q u r’an refers to them, it is by no means clear how much their apparent capriciousness and independence should be tolerated in Islam. After all, there is only one G od and he is om nipotent and om nipresent. Given the capacity o f sea jin n s to take people by causing them to drown or in some other way perish at sea, it appears to be difficult for religious leaders to accept that this is the work o f a m erciful G od m anifesting H im self in the jin n s. Such a theory would require that the hum an victims had sinned in order to have deserved their fate, and this would be difficult to sustain in the context o f local community relations. More than this, however, there is little doubt that it is the suggestion in the sadaka that the fisherm en are worshipping many 'gods’ rather than the O ne that persuades religious leaders to wish to regard such sadaka as m ore outside Islam than within it. The resemblance in this respect to the ushirikina (Ar. shirk) or pantheistic practices and beliefs o f the nearby non-M uslim Mijikenda is too close. It is understandable that there are genuine fears o f the sea jin n s, in view o f the steady loss o f life am ong fisherm en who fish at night as well as during the day and are often engulfed by sudden storm s. N or need the deaths occur only at sea. Shortly after the sacrificial launching o f two boats on a previous occasion to the one ju st described, a man in his m id-thirties collapsed and fainted while pushing out one o f the boats with other men. He had done this before. He was immediately carried to his m other’ s house, where he lived. The first thing the m iddle-aged boat owner said to reassure the m other was, 'It is not jin n s, it is only a fit o f fainting.’ , a statement that summarises well the anxieties that one can witness am ong fisherm en in the weeks and m onths following a boat launching. The m ore time elapses between a launching and a death, the less the blam e can be attributed to that particular launching, and the m ore the sadaka held for it can be regarded as successful. T he sea jin n s operate both at sea and along the shoreland. D ifferent Islamic jin n s, or land spirits, operate inland from

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the sea. T he natural habitat o f sea jin n s are coastal caves, especially those difficult to reach except by boat. Here, the jin n s rest, conduct their lives, reproduce and lead family lives, leaving their homes to work’ in the sea, as do fisherm en. The sadaka carried out to supplicate or appease the sea jin n s at the beginning o f a new fishing season, is therefore carried out in such caves known to harbour such spirits. These sadaka are much m ore elaborate affairs than those for launching a boat. They would require detailed description to show their extraordinary ritual complexity and richness. In this chapter, however, I give only an outline. The shoreline where boats are launched is an acceptable area in which a maalim, like Maalim O m ari, may be prepared to say Q u r ’anic prayers on behalf o f local Muslim fisherm en. But he regards the spirit caves where the seasonal sadaka are held as too unholy for a m aalim to pray, as is the occasion itself. After all, at this kind o f sadaka, a large group o f fisherm en meet the spirits on their home groun d, in effect deferring to them on their own term s. Unlike the rapid boat- launching rite, the cave sadaka is a day-long affair and requires a large am ount o f food to be brought, with great difficulty, to offer to the spirits. It is much larger in scale and expense, and is much more explicit in its acknowledgement o f the existence o f sea jin n s, who are visited as if they occupy a shrine. N o maalim o f my acquaintance would contemplate praying to G od under these circumstances. The cave sadaka therefore receives no such Islamic blessing. I provide an example. 'The idea that this kind o f cave sadaka includes prayer that supersedes Islamic prayer came out quite accidentally. I was early on speaking to Kibwana (referred to above) in KiSwahili about the sadaka. A word o f G iriam a, one o f the non-M uslim M ijikenda dialects, slipped into my speech. Kibwana laughed and said, "Yes, this is a sad ak aja ku-vojera bahari” , using a phrase that non-M uslim s use to supplicate their own non-Islam ic spirits. He then referred to it by the Swahili phrase, sadakaj a kuombea bahari. Both phrases include the verb "to pray” in the two languages. I was thrown by Kibwana’ s evident, if hitherto well concealed, knowledge o f Giriam a, but also made aware that the

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participants fully recognized that they were engaging in an activity that came close to ushirikina. For, in this cave rite, it is clear that it is not G od but the sea jin n s who are being prayed to. It is also clear that the various offerings o f food and decorations are made to the spirits and not to G od. At the same time, I am also told with great insistence that this is a sacrifice to the "g o o d ” Islamically pious jin n s and not to devils ( mashetani). The jin n s are described as potentially beneficial but the devils are only ever evil. Throughout the rite, the men joke and tell stories and, for most o f the time, the atmosphere is relaxed, despite, for me, the eerie presence o f several dead snakes scattered around the cave, and the restless flying o f num erous bats’ . The event begins at 10.30am with the arrival o f five fisherm en at the foot o f the cliff containing the cave. They have come by boat from across the Mtwapa creek. I and some others have already arrived at the cliff base. Yet others come later from different directions. We shall climb up to the cave later. For the m om ent, we sit down and set about our various tasks, as the different materials which have been brought for the event are distributed. First, we spike fresh flowers onto the stems o f the leaves o f coconut trees. Then, we make small red and white flags which are later to be placed all round the cave. Next, small bottles are filled with sweet red sherbet liquid, while a few other small bottles are filled with rose-water ( marashi). Pieces o f frankincense, aloe and an aromatic gum called uvumba, are placed in three brown paper bags, and two sticks o f sugar cane are cut into three pieces each. Various other sweet edible items were also displayed. This activity takes us until nearly 1pm. It is said that we must wait until after people will have finished the midday prayer in the m osques before we can begin our ascent to the cave and make our offerings. At ten minutes past one, we remove our shoes and climb up the cliff to the cave, following a remarkably well hidden path. I note that no one from the beach could ever perceive it. As we climb, the senior fisherm an, Shaibu, leads the way, crying to a pantheon o f spirits, only some o f whom are the sea jin n s. The rest are mostly so-called Islamic possessory

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spirits, which are nam ed after other Muslim peoples o f the region. They are called 'Som ali’ , 'Arab’ , 'Pem ba’ , 'G alla’ , and others. Collectively they are referred to as 'good jin n s’ or Rohani, which is a category allegedly referred to in the Q u r’an. Such jin n s are 'good’ because they are religiously pious, and any hum an calling to them who has sinned against G od will him self suffer. T he senior fisherm en also calls to the spirit representing the non-M uslim s, for, as it was explained to me, 'These people, called Wanyika, were the original inhabitants o f this country’ . After entering the cave, a large metal plate is placed on the floor. T he senior fisherm an draws on it in charcoal two concentric circles intersected by two lines at right angles to each other. T h en the pieces o f arom atic wood are burned in a half coconut shell. T he metal plate is cerem oniously moved three times over the burning substance, across and turning. A huge cake (2’ by 2 ’) made o f rice, sugar and spices ( mkate wa siniya) is placed on the plate, having been removed from the banana leaves in which it was wrapped while carried in a basket. Flags and spiked flowers are placed in the rice cake. N um erous other decorations and foods, including hard-boiled eggs, dates and sweet-stuffs, are placed or poured around the cake. N um erous separate prayers are said individually by the senior fisherm an and by a succession o f others. For instance, the senior fisherm an asks in a mixture o f Swahili and Arabic recitations from the Q u r’an, 'Let us have good luck during the season o f sardines (simu), o f tafi (another fish which comes in large shoals), and other fish, . . . and also let us have safety for the fisherm en, so that they leave the sea and return home safely with good harvests, making them and their families happy. Let there be fewer accidents, like stepping on stone-fish and lionfish. We want our equipm ent (m entions each item firmly, from nets to lines and baskets) to catch many fish, . . . and so on’ . Many o f the prayers reflect this appeal, although one goes further and beseeches the sea spirits to urge young people to follow their elders in the fishing trade instead o f abandoning it. Next, there is a dramatic offering to the spirits as we carry the cake deep into the cave, with the senior-m ost going even

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deeper ahead o f us, talking all the time to the spirits in an apparent m ixture o f Swahili and Arabic. He m entions the names also o f dead fisherm en, and o f ancient and now long deceased Arab notables. As he speaks he sprays rosewater and sets o ff incense, and at the same time breaks the eggs. He places the upturned coconut shell o f burning wood down ahead o f him , and as he does so, the wind from deep in the cave blows the smoke back at him and us. He tells the spirits not to be so forceful. T he burning wood crackles, causing som eone to rem ark hum orously that it should be left there, since the spirits, or 'people’ (watu) as they are now called, are eating their food. But the senior fisherm an retrieves the cake, which is then cut into pieces for all to eat, with one returned to deep in the cave together with much other food. There are some further stages in the ceremony, but these are included in our retreat and descent from the cave, and the ritual peak has passed. Som e 70—80 fisherm en in the area have contributed to the costs o f this sacrifice. I am asked by one boy if I am Muslim, so indicating that in his m ind the event is Islamic. M ore privately I have been told that the appeal to the spirits to yield up their harvests o f fish presupposes an exchange o f a hum an life through drowning or some other means. The offerings o f food to the spirits may not be enough and they seek hum an life as well. It is this aspect, in addition to the absence o f any explicit appeal to G od in the prayers, that causes Muslim religious leaders to condem n this sadaka and to have nothing to do with it. From the viewpoint o f the Muslim fisherm en, however, it is taken deadly seriously, despite the jocular asides. It is their own attempt to control forces which they see as more immediately present in their work at sea. G od sanctions m oral behaviour but, in their view, the sea spirits control the oceans. The claim borders on a kind o f heresy, for it hints that G od is less powerful than the spirits in such matters. O f course, no fisherm an is likely to state matters in quite these terms. But their statements, actions and beliefs surrounding the sadaka o f the cave, indicate that they leave nothing to chance.

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C o n c lu sio n . I first described some differences o f tendency between salaa and dua as practised and spoken about in Zanzibar town. Salaa is to do with unam biguously carried out actions, at set times and occasions an d, ideally, in a set place, the m osque. Salaa is intensely preoccupied with purification procedures and the avoidance o f contam ination. It can only be expressed in Arabic and follows set form s, and yet enjoins ordinary worshippers, women m ore than men, to relative silence or lesser audibility before the im am as prayer-leader. The prescriptive quality o f salaa is paradigmatically given over to an overall segregation between m en and women which receives heightened puritanical significance. It thus affirm s divine order and belief. By contrast, dua is not confined to set times, places or bodily actions, n or is it inscribed within highly regularised purificatory practices. It can be spoken in Swahili, or any language o f the w orshipper’ s choice, rather than recitational or form ulaic A rabic. It is oriented to supplication and request, shading into expectations o f reciprocal treatment with G od and spirits, and embraces voice and noise in some situations. If dua threatens, so to speak, to escape the constraints o f salaa, the emphasis on pre-prayer purification both exalts salaa and tries to capture and contain dua within it. This struggle is expressed in clerical hierarchy, with imams occupying an ambivalent position. They are chosen by their congregation and do indeed lead prayers but are often regarded as less expert in Islam and medicine than certain sheikhs and healers. An old Pemba healer in his eighties called Sheikh Ali Madawa, who had studied in Riyad and genuinely knew Arabic, said that salaa in mosque was not by itself enough to ward o ff sickness. You need herbal medicines and invocation, and the wisdom that creates and cares for an environment ( mazingira) that cannot harbour the malaria which kills so many children and others. According to him, learning, goodness and piety provide the basis o f the power, grace and blessing o f rehma or baraka, and these can only be achieved through human’ s own efforts. We could gloss this as a basic prem ise. Godliness and the prayer o f salaa are necessary but not sufficient for humanity’ s

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well-being. For com pleteness, hum an initiative is needed, part o f which is available through the possibilities offered by dua as a m ode o f request. I suspect that the complementarity o f salaa and dua is less about individual initiative against com m unal constraint, or even about the danger o f Islam becom ing polytheistic, but is m ore to do with overcoming religious 'orthodoxy’ which tends to see G od as so unquestionably om nipotent that peoples’ lives are already pre-determ ined by G od. O ne way o f seem ing to escape pre-determ ination is to partake o f G o d ’ s absolute power by, in a sense, becom ing part o f G o d ’ s existence and therefore o f His agency, as is sometimes possible in Islamic movements or brotherhoods which em phasise ontological oneness with G od (see Bousefield 1985; and Parkin (introduction), Beatty and Headley this volum e). This chapter suggests an alternative, which is for the worshipper to see them self as self-determ ining but to avoid the im plied heresy o f questioning G o d ’ s om nipotence and omniscience by rem aining separate but within His field o f divinity, continuing to affirm His existence but shading dua from supplication into negotiation. The example o f sadaka, a kind o f invocatory offering shading into sacrifice, illustrates most poignantly the extent to which prayer may extend beyond the m osque, as evident in the case o f a Kenyan fishing village, whose population are part o f the M uslim , Sw ahili-speaking diaspora o f East A frica linked through inter-m arriage, trade and religious involvement. In public religious serm ons a m aalim or imam may refer to what they see as a contradiction between two senses o f sadaka. The two senses are paradigm atic o f that between salaa and dua, the one conform ing to unam biguously form ulaic Islamic pronouncem ents that can be confirm ed by reference to the Q u r’an, and the other ambivalently straddling the form ulaic and the negotiably inventive. Sadaka devoted to the celebration o f such Islamic occasions as Idd al Haji can be accommodated easily to his pronouncem ents on Islamic purity, however much he and other clerics may sometimes disagree on any form al Q u r’anic rulings on anim al sacrifice. The sacrifice and the

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ceremony as a whole is subordinated to m osque prayer and ritual. But that kind o f sadaka devoted to what is regarded as worship o f cave-dwelling sea spirits, is seen by religious leaders as being in direct confrontation with Islamic rulings. At this theological level, we can indeed accept that there is a contradiction in tendencies between, on the one hand, the pantheism in spirit cave veneration and appeal, and, on the other, the subordination o f offerings to the rules and prayers o f m osque attendance. At another level, however, the propensity to offer, and to expect som ething in return for that offer, is paradigm atic o f a wider sense o f sadaka as that o f a principle and practice o f exchange based on varying relations o f unequal power. Ju st as G od is greater than men, so are the sea jin n s. Both, evidently, have the power o f life and death over humans. N o M uslim would regard the sea jin n s as m ore powerful than G od. But there are some fisherm en who regard the jin n s as, like m ankind, a part o f G od. For them, this justifies their veneration o f the jin n s. Why, then, don’t the maalims share the same view? I have occasionally heard maalims veering to this viewpoint, but, m ore often than not, denying it. It is obviously an am biguous theological point. I suggest that the ambiguity hides the issue o f power behind that o f purity. The Idd al Haji sadaka tends to reinforce the power o f religious leaders through its association with, and subordination to, the m osque. The sadaka to the sea jin n s and other spirits involves the m aalims only peripherally and sometimes not at all. For a local maalim to be too closely involved would surely cause him to lose religious credibility in the eyes o f other religious leaders, especially those o f senior status, who occasionally visit the Mtwapa m osques and preach there. I therefore interpret the sadaka to the sea and other spirits as an attempt by fisherm en to control their own destinies. They do not neglect their worship o f G od , but regard the control that the sea spirits exercise over the oceans in which they work as a force to be appeased, lest one o f themselves be taken in sacrifice. While not rejecting Islam they act within the concept

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o f sadaka as workers attempting to ameliorate the conditions o f their workplace. A sense o f practical necessity in the end com plem ents the dem ands o f religious piety, creating a kind o f tolerance in the midst o f burgeoning radicalism . It is what one might expect o f a po or community for whom such paradoxes seem to them to offer the best hope o f continuity and survival, a hope that does not stand up well to the m ore radical changes in the fishing industry in which foreign, large deep-sea fishing vessels have reduced the catch available to traditional shallowsea boats. U nder these conditions o f rapidly transform ing technology and economy, salaa and sadaka pull in opposite directions, the first inspired by textual reference and the second by practical necessity, with dua m ediating between, but also drawing upon, these two poles o f invocation. If, within the short period o f time covered by this chapter, such exam ples o f change and adaptation are so readily apparent, how much greater are they within a longer historical fram e? T he next chapter traces developm ents from the sixteenth century to present time, revealing again the paradox o f prayer: that it retains canonical features over the longue durée yet has extraordinary potential for performative persuasiveness over a range o f different social circumstances.

8 S e m b a h /S a l a t : T P

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D eparture, the sixteenth century When Islamic prayer entered Java, it was subject to Javanese influence. The Javanese are noted for the ease with which they adapt and incorporate foreign beliefs and practices from outside the archipelago. They provide a case study o f adaptation. Syncretism is not the first word which comes to m ind in describing Islam. Nonetheless Islamic prayer practice could not have taken root in Javanese soil without some 'adaptations’ undertaken by the Javanese. This article is a case study o f such acculturation. The Islamic rectifications o f these adaptations took place repeatedly over the centuries. There was a tide-like process o f ebb and flow o f what was still a m arginal orthodoxy. T he Javanese were in a way colonised theologically by their selfdefence o f their own traditions. The object o f this paper is to give a series o f examples from over four centuries o f how Islamic prayer took root in Javanese soil. Perhaps the real test for the progress o f Islam isation is the awareness o f the content o f Islamic doctrine. This can be seen in the instances o f inculturation presented below. Examples com ing from old texts are 'thin descriptions and cannot rival the 'thickness’ o f contem porary socio-linguistic analyses. N or do they make any pretence at balancing evidence from all the currents in Javanese Islam. Such a selection would require a full book and not ju st an article. I am not in any way

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questioning the extent to which Java has becom e Muslim. That question should find any and all answers from the mouths o f the Javanese themselves. In any case the massive impact o f Islam on Javanese culture is everywhere present. The acceptance by the Javanese o f a new form o f prayer, the five daily salat (Ar. salāt) and the religious law (sharia) that accom panies it, started up during the fifteenth century along the north coast (pasisir) o f Java. It did not mean that older form s o f prayer with deep cultural roots in the countryside and in the aristocratic houses were to disappear. The 'conversion process, Java’ s adherence to a theistic m onotheism , with links to India and the M iddle East, can be seen as another layer o f acculturation o f an already diversified Indonesian religious landscape. The stam ping out o f polytheism (shirk) or unbelief (kupur) was early to the forefront o f Muslim preoccupations, but not totally successful despite their obsession with it. In the sixteenth century one can distinguish three inseparable form s o f religious praxis in Java: the peasant ancestral traditions (agama luri or agama jawi), Javanese Siwaite yoga (agama buda) and Islam. Generally speaking, agama luri existed in the countryside and continued to flourish during and after the widespread acceptance o f Islam. Indeed there are ample witnesses to its vitality today in rural regions o f Java. The agama buda, practised in the princely urban centres, yielded ground more readily to Islamic influences except in one important sphere: the interface between court and traditional village praxis. Although this is not our subject here (cf. Stange 1992: 537—539), suffice it to say that the Javanese kings held onto those traditional beliefs concerning cosmology which provided the shared structure on which the apanage and state organisation was based. Java’ s political and social morphology favoured the continuation o f the village urban/princely religious links (agama luri-agama budi) which articulated the entailed kinship tier necessary for the taxcollecting mechanism. The right to income from tax-bearing lands was granted to members o f the extended royal family. The accompanying rites for the protection o f the realm and their corresponding rituals for the w ell-being o f villages and individual households were intimately related in this system o f

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provision and remained largely outside the grasp o f the Muslim framework.

A n E a r ly J a v a n e s e C o d e o f M u s lim E th ic s T he point o f view o f an unnam ed author o f an Islamic ethical tract from the fifteen hundreds1 reflects that o f Muslims from the north coast o f Java. It is clearly that o f an apologist describing a newly-introduced and still m arginal belief system. R em inding us o f the cosm opolitan com m ercial port cities in the In dian O cean and elsewhere, this strict M uslim is encouraged to rem ain inside his presumably coastal city (at hom e or in the m osque) and to avoid associating with his slacker or pagan Javanese brothers (Text II § la, 2b, 9b; Drewes 1978). M uslims are confronted with a sceptical majority o f the indigenous Javanese population for whom the superiority o f Islam was hardly a given. They ask, 'Which religion is better, Islam or the religion o f the Javan ese?’ (Drewes 1978:36—37; §12a). T he same text claims that agama luri still has its temples with their statues, offerings ( banten), and own law courts ( kerta). Agama luri addresses the 'foetus siblings’ o f Ego: amniotic fluid, placenta, b lo od , and vernix caseosa. These interior 'spirit’ siblings were/are im portant to the Javanese because they accompany Ego throughout his life and can work to help or hinder him . Text II, cites one o f these key social templates, It is unbelief to say that am ong that which is born into the w orld together with you, namely, b lo o d , 'younger b r o t h e r ’ (p lac e n ta) an d am n io tic flu id . (D rew es 19 7 8 :3 8 -9 ; s 13b). An insignificant peasant is protected by his 'personal’ invisible siblings. These constitute the link between the m icrocosm o f his own 'private’ life and the greater surrounding cosmos. That is why he makes offerings and prayers to them when necessary or appropriate. The king’ s link with the m acrocosm perm itted him to ritually deploy his own siblings, both invisible kin and real kin, so as to protect the boundaries o f his kingdom as well as collect taxes.

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Agama luri associated the m acrocosm ic elements o f fire, air,

water, and earth with the four invisible birth kin o f placenta, b lo od , am niotic fluid and vernix caseosa. Many tables and charts from the fifteenth century onwards diagram the traditional associations o f these elements. Such prim ordial physiological and m acrocosm ic conceptions as the fou r m acrocosm ic (pancamahabhuta) elements associated with the four 'foetus sibling’ o f Ego (the fifth and central element) were not easily dislodged from their place in society. This conception o f the person survived the following four centuries and is still found in Java today. Text I (Drewes 1978) showed the influence o f these Javanese representations. It even correlated the moments o f the salat with these prim ordial elements, attesting to the strength o f the Javanese mentality. The 'u n b elief associated with this traditional Javanese notion concerning the 'foetus’ sibling and denounced in verse 13b o f Text II o f An Early Code of Javanese Ethics is paradoxically re-incorporated and adapted in another context. Here the four m acrocosm ic correspondents o f the foetus’ four siblings, fire, air, water and earth (Ar. muthallatht2) are matched with postures o f prayer in the m osque: To stand is because o f fire; to bow is because o f air; to prostrate is because o f water; to sit, because o f earth. Fire represents O m nipotence; air his Majesty: water his Beauty; earth his Perfection. (Drewes 1978:50—51; §4a) The 'polytheistic’ cults o f agama luri began to die out with the complete abolition o f royal rule, the intense 'm odernisation o f the Javanese countryside due to econom ic pressures (green revolution, industrialisation, com m ercialisation o f agriculture, etc.), the advent o f M uslim influence in the education system and the civil ethos o f 'Pancasila’ government. Prior to that, Islam was only one expression o f the body social. Both the great Java war (1825—30), which was conducted in justification o f Islam, and later the beginning o f the twentieth century, the Sarekat Islam which prim ed the nascent nationalist movement, only led to greater suspicion o f Islam on the part o f the colonial authorities. Prior to the 1980’ s, Islam had a weak institutional hold on Javanese society. Its own institutions

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( ulama courts,3 pesantren, mesjid, madrasah) were im portant, but not pivots o f social reproduction .4 O u r evidence o f Javanese/Islam ic systems o f belief are old songs, poem s, theological treatises, essays etc. O ne o f the most interesting continuing themes in this survey is the opposition between the Javanese preoccupation with cosmology and the Sem itic, G reco-M uslim abiding concern with ontology, the exclusive claim o f Allah to be the only Being. Prayer outside the m osque continued to follow its deep non-M uslim river beds, often adequately expressing the relation between man and his cosm os (jagad alit/gedhé).

T h e a sc e tic la n d sc a p e o f p ra y e r i n the se v e n te e n th ce n tu ry Ju st as myths are told against a mythological landscape (M. Leenhardt, Do Kamo , 1947), prayers are expected to mediate a given cosm ological space. It is in this social space that one tries to involve the Deity as an interlocutor. To the Javanese this was a local cosmology. For a peasant to leave his village used to m ean that he was virtually unable to pray to the protecting spirit (dhanyang dhusun) once his hamlet was out o f sight. To some extent the hierarchy o f the pantheon tried to compensate for this by including deities venerated in other places. But the only real exception to this constraint was the high religion o f Saivism (agama buda) where one confronted the forces o f chaos with offerings in the great temple complexes or by deliberately entering the jungle to meditate alone. It is in such a landscape o f prayer that the earliest M uslim-Javanese poetry sets out descriptions o f canonical salat.

K id u n g C a n d h in i For Behrend5 this poem is fundamentally a story o f unnatural separations and searches follow ing the sack o f Sokaraja (unidentifiable toponym ). Am ongraga, the wandering son o f the deposed ruler, is separated from his wife Tambangraras (Silabrangta) who goes o ff in search o f him. Names are often

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allegorical in etymology: the three siblings are called: A m ongraga (seeker o f body), Rasakapti (feeling desire) and Jayèngastra (victorious in letters). Although the m ain topic is religion, Behrend is struck by the anti-textual nature o f authority here. Islam is normally expressed rationally by reference to canon law (fiqh) and to the shari’a. Here however, the m ain figure is a worker o f miracles; the arguments used in theological discussion are not logical ones; and, unlike the 1814 Centhini which has long lists o f K oranic references,6 the Kidung Candhini has no citations o f textual authorities. It is just this stress on asceticism (fasting, m editation in m ountain caves) that appears in the following description o f salat. In practice salat involves ten different postures o f which six are repeated two times each. They are accom panied by the sotto voce repetition o f short prayers in Arabic. The successive prayers and postures7 used for each salat at the m osque employ a certain num ber o f obligatory, optional or supererogatory elements (fard, sunan and naff). T heir presence or absence gives a distinctive shape to the prayer, inaccessible to anyone who does not know the standard order by heart, ju st as in the monastic hours in the Benedictine m onasteries. Each posture bears its own nam e. For example one begins with the determ ining o f intention ( niat), then the upright posture (qiyam), a bowing (ruku), and a prostration (sujud). The whole sequence composes a rak’ah.8 Résumé of K idu n g

C andhini canto III:9 Woken in the afternoon by a b ird ’ s call, Silabrangta (=Tambangraras) is rem inded o f her nostalgia for her L ord (Tuhan). Preceded by her servant, Silabrangta does her ritual ablutions (asambyangan or wudu). The L ord had already touched the veil placed in the place o f prayer; they had already said the iqāma (kamat or call to prayer). Having concentrated her thoughts and her eyes toward the kiblat, her heart is filled by the return o f the com m and for the servant to worship by sembah [wus rumangsajen kinen amba amuji sembahira wangsula]. With the words Allahu Akbar she weaves together tightly her intention and conviction and the law

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( shari'a ). H er com m union ( munajat) veils all that is spoken, as her prayer is internalised. This is called tungadil (=?), i.e. sembah or worship wherein through G od ’ s love one disappears as the m oon does at dawn when the sun rises. Silabrangta next says the Iltitah and the al Fatilah and the names o f the G enerous and Loving one: Praise be to Allah who loves the world and the faithful therein. He is K ing at the day o f Judgem en t to forgive m e n 's sins. Follow the way o f the N abi and Wali. The 'Praise be to . . .’ (Alhamdu) is said by Silabrangta according to adat, bowing her hands to her knees. Standing upright she says, 'G o d , if possible, listen to the words o f your servant.’ Like water descending from the m ountains to the sea, all bow in the seven ways to the L ord. Sitting, Silabrangta m agnifies the L o rd , then prostrates twice as before and stands for the next unit o f prayers ( raka ). After that she says the greeting (tahyat sunnah). T he third and fourth raka conclude the third or late afternoon prayer (asar salat). T hen is the initial greeting ( tahyat awal). I f one misses the three kinds o f works o f p roper conduct (sunnah a f 'al), they can be replaced by the 'forgotten' (i.e. replacem ent or sahwī) sujud. Silabrangta finishes the salat and begins to use her prayer rope, taking her heart beats for its rhythm. This is the highest worship (sembah). The apostle o f G od says that when we pray we should not shout, but m urm ur in the heart. C andhini [the servant] for her part is always bothered by her five senses. She has to calm them again and again to obtain sincere faith (usalli). This clarifying o f her heart’ s intention coincides with the falling o f a single aksara (letter). This is too fast and is classified as m iddling worship (sembah). Another kind o f worship follows the voice and that without com prehending. Many people do this useless worship. Silabrangta m ortifies her self-will and along with C andhini enters the great forest, submitting herself to the Almighty. Having done her puja (adoration), she sees a

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deep ravine and a great stone barring the stream making the water foam up over it. The im patient flowers, ferns and black bam boo lay scattered around its banks. Gesing trees grow out into the stream. Pandanus flower petals fall on its rocks. In the shelter o f the praba trees, tender young ferns sprout. Sanggahasa flowers blossom in brilliant colours. High above all this in the banyan trees the monkeys clam our while eating their fruit. They alert their com panions at the approach o f humans. C andhini smiled to herself seeing the animals watching them. The two women rested in a cave. They neither slept nor ate, purifying their bodies and restraining their desires. T h eir bodies became like corpses. As an ascension ( miraj) or a sublime m using ( tapakur ing luhung) she traverses the four worlds (alam ). In the world o f humanity ( nasut), behaviour is called shana. In the second world o f angels ( malakūt) the feeling o f holding oneself in the presence o f G od is centered in the heart. In the third world o f power (jabarūt), the high spirits adore unceasingly. The fourth world o f divine essence (lahut) takes on this form only after death; the adoration o f worship o f the body and the soul are all perfectly destroyed. There is nothing left to be said. What can be seen is no longer twofold but exists in purba (=? the beginning). T he body’ s passions are already exhausted and it resem bles a corpse. Only the heartbeat subsists. C andhini weeps over the corporeal m ortification o f her mistress. Silabrangta, surprised by the weeping, gently tells Bibi C andhini not to cry for this was her intention since she left hom e. C andhini says 'I am like a person trying to salt the ocean as I ask for my mistress to return. My destiny is to meditate in the hustle o f the world, to dissimulate myself in the world, but nonetheless to observe the taboos ( batal haram). Fatimah is the m odel for women. It is their fate to be abandoned by m e n . Nyi Silabrangta replies gently to Candhini telling her to return to Wanamarta and report her death to her family.

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H enceforth she is to be freed from her domestic service. Silabrangta asks C an dhini’ s forgiveness and in turn forgives her any offence. C andhini’ s answer is mixed with sobs as she is unable to accept her dismissal. C andhini expresses in her own passionate, confusing way that she must rem ain faithful according to the teaching o f a single aksara . Thus Silabranta, prom ising herself a short life, continues to practice severe corporeal m ortification. While Silabrangta stays in the cave, Candhini enters the thick jungle, sitting alone. She wanders on miserably. {C anto 4} C andhini next comes upon a newly-felled and well-planted clearing ( babadan) with tobacco etc. Nearby is a well-kept mesjid (mosque). There Syeh Mangunarsa, his santri students and two servants are praying in their m osque. O nce they have left, one o f the santri, M ontel, comes to greet Candhini in the field and a new episode starts . . . T his canto requires little comment. The fruits o f canonical prayer are quickly transposed to a classical countryside fam iliar to O ld Javanese pre-Islam ic religious poetry (cf. Zoetm ulder 1974: 173—185). H ere ascetic endeavour occurs in the isolation o f a cave in the depths o f the jungle. The clearing in the forest, the ancient form o f 'slash and burn agriculture, an encounter with M uslim santri occurs at the end o f the episode and the community established there is already provided with a m osque. This historically speaking is unlikely. Until the late twentieth century most m ountain villages still had no mesjid. What it does reflect o f course, is the desire o f the poet to have Islam to go and meet the lively tradition o f agama buda ascetic endeavour on its own ground. Later texts are full o f stories o f Muslim friends o f Allah ( wali) converting 'Buddhist’ monks and ascetics. T he early sixteenth century ethical treatise discussed in section one was m ore 'orthodox’ in its prescriptions and advice, reflecting a newly arrived Islam. The Kidung Candhini, early forerunner o f the m ajor 1814 Kadipaten Centhini, reflects an indigenous Javanese Islamic world. The Kidung Candhini is less sophisticated in its appreciation o f the doctrine o f the unicity

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(tawhīd) o f the Godhead than its descendant, the nineteenth

century Centhini (cf. §3.3). T h is supposedly 'seventeenth century’ kidung is directly interested in the fruits o f salat prayer interpreted in terms o f the union with the absolute. The merit o f obeying a religious law pales by com parison with the rapture obtained by intimacy with Allah. Such a Javanese notion o f the different levels o f worship (sembah) reappears continuously down to the nineteenth century Wédhatama, a poem analysed below.

S it i J e n a r a n d th e h e rita g e o f R a d ic a l M o n is m The poem , Serat Siti Jenar , presents a council o f nine wali discussing the unicity o f the Godhead ( tawhid) in the kingdom o f G iri.10 At this council, Siti Je n ar conducted a flamboyant polem ic against the notion o f a personal G od (Allah). He defended the existence o f a universal soul where man was portrayed as the coarse envelope, a physical body which must be shed to becom e one with the Invisible ( Suksma). This world is death and the hereafter is life. For having said 'I ( ingsun) am the suprem e Reality’ , Siti Je n a r was put to death, his b lo od, spilt on the ground and changing colour to proclaim in dhikr style11 the exclusive Godhead. The date o f this text is too complex a problem to be dealt with here. Here is the scene described by the Serat Siti Jenar. ( Canto V, kinanthi meter12):

5.7 — Sire Siti Je n ar, once / he was sum m oned to G iri, / having arrived there / followed by seven com panions, / kept shaking his head persistently, / not changing (his attitude?), as in the past. 5.8 — Sunan K alijaga hurriedly / signalled to Sunan G iri / (who) quickly drew a sword. / At the same time saying sweetly / 'E, K i Sanak (relative) this way.’ / Sire Siti Je n a r said, 5.9 — It is called secret, / certainly it will. / He departed (this life) by A llah’ s grace and mercy. / When he was struck dead, / he immediately went to heaven, / the conclusion was the 'fin al’ world.

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5.10 —The noise was loudly shouted out, / its jo in t is an authentic secret. / Now it will all at once / be perfectly pure, / known everywhere in the world / (?as) the disguised destination. 5.11 — The sword once made to drop / on Sire Siti K uning, / once his neck was broken, / bled glittering blood / m om entarily appearing red. / Sunan Kalijaga said, half smiling, 5.12 — O h, this is the colour / which forcefully speaks o f death. / This is only norm al. / His blood is not white. / His corpse keeps its original / form as can still be seen. 5.13 — T hen blood shortly / changed colour to white. / which the dying corpse soon / emitted a little at a time. / m om entarily visible / (to) the A ll-Seeing L ord o f the world who knows. 5.14 — When the sword had been withdrawn, / there rem ained to be seen its glint, / four-coloured: / red, black, yellow, white. 5.15 — Shortly after it let lose / a flash o f five-coloured light. / At first a purple beam , / (then) secondly a blue beam , / thirdly a green beam, / (and) fourthly a light-red one. 5.16 — The m aroon five-fold light / shortly died again. / Thus the shining ray, / with its awesomeness brilliance, / like a kind o f ivory, / shortly thereafter was hidden. 5.17 — (O nce) its existence was ended, / the white blood / at once appeared as letters. / They were read by the wali (= friends o f Allah). / T he letters said (?o u t loud), / 'La illaha illullahi’ .

5.18 — O nce this blood / dispersed without a trace, / K i Sunan K alijaga / said fiercely, / 'That was like the death o f a devil, / (for) the corpse disappeared without a trace.’ ( tentative translation: S. C. Headley)

Siti has been called the Javanese al-H allāj because he withdrew the veil ( miyak warana) o f the shari’a. It had protected the profoundest experiences o f worship from being construed as pantheism . Zoetm ulder writes that (1994:297—300; 308) Siti

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Je n a r and al-H allāj are not practising the same religion. The free thinker Siti Je n a r is an unam biguous m onist o f the Indian tradition, while al-H allāj was only accused o f revealing the divine secrets ( ifsā al-asrār) and is an orthodox Muslim, albeit a sufi. So far we have loosely referred to pre-M uslim 'Indian or 'H in du ’ religious beliefs. But clearly there was no 'H induism ’ in Java, only a Javanese religion that drew on Indian religious praxis and mixed it with local ones. What were the pre-Islam ic, Javanese sources o f our heretical figure? Siti Je n ar did, in fact, rem ain faithful to the pre-Islam ic notions expressed in the Bhuwanakosa (H arun 1967: 9 , 45), but changed the terminology and used that o f Islam. For pre-Islam ic agama buda the reality o f soul (purushatattwa) arises from the Absolute and is the Absolute itself. T he Bhuwanakosa no longer refers to the yogic axis o f six cakras and the network o f veins ( nādi) (H arun 1967:48—49). A fuller description o f that is found in an earlier Javanese text, the Wrhaspatitattwa. There the seven worlds o f the macrocosm are found in the body o f man; the three lowest in the navel; the four upper worlds in the stomach, heart, chest and neck (H arun 1967:50). But in the Bhuwanakosa (H arun 1967:61) a single dhyana (m editation) has replaced the Wrhaspatitattwa s more complete and traditional six-part (sadanga) yoga. What is clearly absent in all these experiences o f the yogin is the Islamic notion that the C reator’ s image is reflected in an analogy o f being in the humans he creates. This difference makes worship in yoga, that is to say the m anifestation o f the suksma (immateriality o f the Universal Soul) in oneself, very different from prayer in Islam. In the Serat Cabolek (Soebardi 1975: 104; §6 .5), written two centuries later, one sees how much ground orthodox Islam has gained. This text recalls Siti Je n ar and then goes on to say that other and later councils o f ulama in each subsequent kingdom have all known a 'Siti Je n a r ’ and how all have ended branded as heretics. This ostracism is not totally successful because Siti Je n a r ’ s magical powers surpass those o f a banal ulama. Despite the m arginalisation o f heretics, these Javanese un-orthodox figures retain an aura and fame. O n a literary level and in everyday life the Javanese continue to turn towards corporeal

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ascetical practices to control the physical world around them. Both kings and peasants believed that the spirit world could be controlled by m ortification and m antra. Adherence to Muslim beliefs has never m eant autom atic abandonm ent o f this Javanese praxis.

T h e A n a lo g y o f B e in g i n th e e ig h te e n th ce n tu ry By the eighteenth century, theological discussion is sufficiently evolved that one can speak o f a veritable spectrum o f doctrinal convictions. At opposite ends o f the spectrum one finds Javanese agama luri with its 'peasant’ cosmic pantheism and radical m onism o f the Indian non-dualistic ( advaita) sort. In between and nearer to the m onism end, one finds orthodox (not radical) m onism which claims that there is an analogy o f being linking the C reator to his creation, but in no way rendering H im dependent on it. In Hellenistic philosophy this was a com m onplace notion and was borrowed by Muslim philosophers to express the relationship o f Allah and man. The basic idea that the creator leaves an ontological relationship with him self in the hum ans He creates can be unpacked in many ways. In Java the understanding o f this analogy was given a different cultural spectrum. Pantheism Creator identifiable with energies Found in Cosm os (agama luri) by Tables o f regular correspondence between the m icrocosm and the m acrocosm .

Radical M onism Islam affirm s a The creation dim inishing does not exist analogy o f being (Saїvite maya or as being emanates illu sio n ); downward from all being is in Allah toward the Godhead, created world.

In this simplistic diagram it becom es apparent that the Sivaїte and M uslim visions o f creation are closer to each other than they are to the Javanese peasant’ s cosmology. O f course such a schoolbook presentation is not to be found. But the different protagonists and authors are beginning to understand each other’ s position.

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Zoetm ulder has made a useful distinction between two Javanese literary genres, the suluk o f the eighteenth century and the later nineteenth century primbon. In norm al Javanese speech these designate respectively mystical poetry and almanac-like com pendia, diverse enum erations o f wisdom o f all sorts. Zoetm ulder (1994: 144, note 21) characterises them as follows: '. . . we m ean by primbon those M odern Javanese writings in which the subject matter, especially religion is systemised and assem bled without a great understanding o f its exact m eaning, and by suluk a discussion o f religion (mostly mystic and esoteric) doctrines in tembang form , showing a deeper understanding.’ So, it is to the eighteenth century suluk which we must turn to find an intellectual inter-face between earlier Javanese Sivaite (agama buda) notions o f worship and the Muslim vision o f m an’ s return to his C reator through worship. They are indeed very different visions, but M uslims occasionally use the same term inology as Javanese Saїvism. For instance diverse u n d erstandings o f the worship o f the 'v oid’ exist. The term 'empty’ here captures succinctly the differences between Javanese Saivite and M uslim worship. It can designate the ineffable for both M uslims and Javanese. Zoetm ulder (1994: 273) separates these different Javanese visions o f the 'empty godhead’ by analysing the m irror analogies found in Muslim (and ultimately N eo-Platonic) philosophy. For example, the sufi Ibn al'Arabi contrasts an 'im age’ o f Allah found in created Being with the absolute Being, itself. The two, man, the creature, and his C reator, bear an analogy to each other. O ne Javanese suluk (Leiden Codex 1796) also provides a clear expression o f th is:13 '(19) His body is like a m irror. The true Immaterial, which governs all, sees His own (m irrored) image. That image (wayang) is an indication o f relative Being ( wujud ilapi). In reality it is the attribute (sipat/sifa) o f the Most High. Now that attribute is really the essence, not to be distinguished from the essence o f G od , and in truth they are o n e .’

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In the following section we will see that the m onism o f Islam, described by Ibn A rabi, situates the created attributes o f Allah in A llah’ s essence. This is different from the Javanese who while using the same Arabic term inology are preoccupied to identify the m icrocosm ic T with the macrocosm ic I ( ingsun) which is im m aterial and whose eternity is often expressed by the terms empty or void.

S e h B a r i ’ s b a s ic p r in c ip le s o f m y stic ism : o n P r im o r d ia l V o id How could such divergent views o f worship be expressed in the same term inology? The well-known eighteenth century figure, wali Sunan Bonang, now known as Seh Bari, will illustrate the Javanese capacity for accom m odation. Seh Bari does not present a general doctrine o f being, but uses the term Void’ to describe the m onodic existence o f Allah before the creation o f the A postle. While seeking to present an orthodox doctrine, Seh Bari can claim in this sense Allah is a kind o f void. H ere is Seh B ari’ s treatment o f the prim ordial void ( liwung sadya): . . . (§7) The Prim ordial Void is the dhátu 'llāh, the Essence o f the A dored L o rd , but this Divine Nothingness, this Divine Void is not empty, (. . .) but before the creation o f M uham m ad the Apostle, the only one in existence was the L ord and he alone without any servant . . . This is the m eaning o f the Essence o f Allah being the V oid, the N othingness as such. . . . i.e. there was no one to know H is Self, no one to worship His Being; only his Attributes worshipped His Essence which means that before. (§8) He had created the Apostle o f Allah, there was no one beside H im , and He was com parable to Nothing. The Essence o f Allah as the Void was like that.14 So by the word void, Seh Bari has expressed the total independence and isolation o f the Being o f Allah. Seh Bari uses the term n on -being or void in a second way however. To becom e one with Allah is not only to participate in his attributes o f love, but also to be lo st in the sea o f [one’ s own]

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n on -bein g (ma'dūm)'. This second non -being is not to be confused with a third non-being, that o f things before they come into existence, ' adam mumkin. Thus by strict logic, if the essence o f polytheism (shirk) is to ascribe partners to G od, one should see in created being nothing but G od. D escribing what happens in ecstasy when one is overwhelmed (kandheh) and replaced (kaganten) by G od , Seh Bari says that the soul in worship becom es utterly passive before G od, like a walking corpse (batang lumampah).15 Seh Bari affirm s emphatically that the divine names, Allah’ s attributes, are one with his essence. Here to participate in G od, to com m une with Allah in worship is in no way analogous to the proportional aligning o f m acro and m icrocosm ic correspondences teased out by Javanese peasants’ rituals. Seh Bari repeatedly states that it is G od who sees and who is seen. So on the level o f worship, during the five daily salat, it is said that it is G od who uses m an’ s tongue to praise Him self. U sing the mystery o f m an’ s soul (sirr), the act o f worship rem ains totally Allah-centric. Allah does not 'depend’ on man for praise. This is close to the form ulation of, but not identical in content with, the union o f self (ingsun) and universal soul (Suksma) o f Siti Je n ar. Obviously this can quickly be turned arou n d, as the Javanese often did, to envisage creation pantheistically. Zoetm ulder (1995:85) aptly calls this Javanese 'deviation, cosmic m onism .

K ita b P a tu h u lr a h m a n : th e te rm in o lo g y f o r a n I s la m ic co sm o lo gy D uring the eighteenth century, the debates over 'heretical position s’ contributed to the clarification o f the expression o f the unity o f Allah (tawhi’d). The Javanese were colonised by their technique o f self-defence. An example o f this is the early eighteenth century Kitab Patuhulrahman from C irebon on the north coast o f central Ja v a .16 A ccording to Drewes (1977: vii— viii) this treatise was written to counter the influence o f the doctrine o f the seven grades o f being (wuju’diyya), the emanationist Islamic cosmology, introduced into the archipelago

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circa 1590 by M uham m ad ibn Fadlall’ah al-B u rh an ipu ri’ s work the 'G ift addressed to the Prophet’ ( al-Tuhfa . . .; Jo h n s 1965). The doctrine o f the Tuhfa was already known in Sum atra by the 1610—20’ s. It was ju st this em anationist doctrine o f creation which had proved so useful in introducing the categories o f 'being’ and 'attribute’ used by all participants in the debates about the status o f the m onad, Allah. What is striking in this eighteenth century Javanese poem , Kitab Patuhulrahman, is its au th o r’ s use o f truly Javanese m etaphors rather than Arabic ones. At the same time the poet translates and strives for an O rthodox cosmology. He feels free to adopt truly local similes from Javanese culture. The author uses indigenous images in his search for precise term inology to paraphrase Arabic M uslim theological vocabulary. He clearly expresses worship in terms o f ontology. C reation is not to be divided into m acrocosm and m icrocosm whose energies are retrievable by classificatory cosmology. Q uotes from the third canto will dem onstrate this: '. . . essence, attributes and works ( dat sipat apengalipun) are com parable to a wayang play / they are not self-subsistent (wujud tan adheweki) ’ [III.4] '. . . but are leaning on the L ord / Being o f limited existence (ananing wujud mukayad) / is in conformity with Real Being . . . This is indeed the essential o f real tawhid.’ [ III. 5] 'It is nam ed ''perm anent prayer” (salat da'imat) / perm anent hom age and praise . . .’ [III.6] 'G od said / When desirous / o f meeting Me, / you intend to do that / this intention springs from Me. Do not fancy / that it is your own. This is what is meant by 'return hom age’ (sembah wangsulan)\ [III.8] '. . . the outward is the being o f "things” (creation; asya) / the inward are their intelligible form s ( dalem ilmī). [III. 13] '. . . All things / are in fact the Reality (jatining ehak) . . . T here is no difference between the inward and the outward; . . .’ [III.14] (translation Drewes 1977:53—57).

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By assigning a pejorative status to creation, that o f limited Being fading away from Allah, he places man in the position o f a creature who only lives if he is turned towards Allah. Man’ s worship binds him to the undividable m onad, the unity o f the G odhead (tawhid). Javanese cosm ological orientations are totally excluded here and worship, prayer, has become the conduit for what the Javanese would call the reabsorption o f the cosmos into the G od h ead , only here it has becom e the annihilation o f the self.

T h e I s la m ic A n a lo g y o f B e in g a n d Ja v a n e s e M o n is m T he term analogy o f being has been widely used in Aristotelian philosophy, Christianised Platonism and later medieval Latin scholasticism. Its Christian variant derives ultimately from the description in the first book o f the Torah where it is said that m an is created in the image and resemblance o f G od (Genesis 1:26—27). It designates the fact that man is created by G od and that his creatureliness reflects both the mark and the distance o f his maker. Islam also stresses that this link is only an analogical one and that ontological chasm which separates their two kinds o f being is unbridgeable. At the end o f the eighteenth century in certain unorthodox cantos o f the Centhini, the analogy o f Being between C reator and created mankind is completely obliterated as the two are fused. For instance here is Ragayuni’ s threefold teachings to the two brothers Jayengresm i and layèngraga concerning true worship and prayer: ( Centhini, Canto 1 5 5 :7 -8 ; 12-15) '(7) To reach the true secret, one must know the true shalat, the shalāt which consists in three parts, which are the exalted ways o f worshipping G od. It is like water which flows down from a m ountain to the sea. (8) Many stand before the river mouth, but the true shalāt is located in the m iddle (o f the sea). There are only a few who penetrate so far. . . . (12) A nd furtherm ore one must know the light and its transform ation into darkness. T hen it is sufficient. We who once had much which we feared have now become

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brave and unfrightened, defying all difficulties, for we know the truth o f all uncertainties. We do not see our bodies as G od (13) nor the empty firm am ent ( tawangtawung), n or the written table, nor a sound or word, not Being or N on -B eing. We do not see knowing as G od, nor the multiplicity o f separate things, n or the coarse or fine. (14) We do not have as L ord the Im m aterial, n or prophets or walis, n or teachers or kings, nor our fellow humans, n or our own selves, nor created things, nor bustle or solitude. (15) There is only the disappearance o f (all, including) the depths o f the heart, so that not the least trace rem ains . . .’ (translation %petmulder/Rickleffs 1995: 211 — 215) Deep worship involves the disappearance o f all conceptual content. In this radical m onism , 'Ingsuri' (Allah as self) speculations, the perfect man becom es all that exists: G od, heaven and all that is on earth. Here the m otif o f the perfect m an (insan kamil), the perfect realisation o f mankind on earth, is detached from the M uslim doctrine o f the seven emanations o f the cosm os. Detached also from any distinction o f inner and outer relation such is found in the Q u r’an surat 28.88; for in a rapture o f praise, Allah speaks with humanity’ s tongue by a transposition o f (shath) o f roles. Exam ining Canto 155 o f the Centhini where Ragayuni in the silence o f the night com m unicates the third and last stage o f such prayer, Zoetm ulder (1995:219) concludes that, '. . . there is little evident connection with Islam. A hint o f Islam glim m ered only in the division o f essence, attributes, works and names and the Arabic terms for these.’ Note that the Kitab Patuhlrahmaris orthodox Muslim expression o f worship (sembah) in no way m onopolised centre stage during the course o f the eighteenth century. N um erous eighteenth century recensions o f the Serat Centhini prolonged other pre-Islam ic doctrinal positions ju st as Siti Je n ar had some two centuries earlier. In its encyclopaedic character the com pendia called Serat Centhini could embrace both orthodox Islamic discussions and many un-orthodox ones. For the authors o f the Centhini, Islam is in Java and Java is in Islam!

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Worship and S e lf in the nineteenth century W o rs h ip in t h e

We d h a t a m a

It is not the final phase o f consolidation o f Islamisation, the late twentieth century, which is the subject o f this paper, but rather the ebb and flow o f Javanisation o f worship between sembah and salat from the sixteenth down till the second half o f the nineteenth century. The interest o f such a rapid sketch o f this period, about which we still know litde, is to give the reader not familiar with Java some feeling o f how thoroughly salat took root in Java and conversely how completely Javanism was able to absorb Islam .17 Indeed by the beginning o f the nineteenth century the m ajor 1814 Kadipaten Centhini18 talks about the merging (literally marriage; dhaup) o f Islam and Javanism (agama buda) . 19 The Wedhatama (the Highest W isdom) was written in the nineteenth century. It is traditionally attributed to Mangkunagara IV o f Surakarta although it was most likely written by a Javanese court poet. It is considered a classic piwulang or didactic essay in poetry. Dating from the 1870’ s, it provides us with a window on the progressive acculturation o f Islam and the persistence o f other kinds o f invocations. It is widely used even today in central Javanese high schools. This poem is still usually sung,20 not read. T he Wedhatama illustrates how typically Javanese notions o f self, o f personh ood, have persisted in the practice o f prayer. When Javanese pray at the mosque, nearly nothing they do differs in its exterior from what is done in m osques throughout the M iddle East. The Wedhatama I.1021 points out that prayer obeys rules, presumably the same rules as elsewhere in the M uslim w orld. T h e tran slation used here is R o b so n ’ s (1 9 9 0 :3 9 -4 7 ). '.. . There are also the rules and principles o f kingship / and all that pertains to worship / which are to be observed by day and night /. . .’22 As a means for attaining union with the Absolute, the prolongation o f the five daily salat in m antra-like dhikr is

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com m on to M uslim practices worldwide. But here when the author describes this prolongation, one begins to hear som ething distinctly Javanese. The author designates worship not as salat, but by the m ore general label o f sembah (worship). Spiritual power derives from regular observance o f prayer and that force that overpowers all other kinds o f power ( wisésa ), as verse 14 o f canto I claims: ’Truly such a m an / Has been granted grace by G od; / He has returned to the realm o f the Void /. . .What had the quality o f power has itself been overpowered . . .'23 As we have seen repeatedly above, the notion o f the void is an ancient one and the poet is expressing a very Javanese nostalgia for that m ore Javanese style o f prayer and notion o f self. The levels o f interiority, going into oneself, are m ore explicitly described in canto (pupuh) IV. The poet speaks o f the four kinds o f worship (sembah): body, conceptual, soul and inner. These are levels o f self, hierarchically arranged. The first and lowest kind o f worship, the bodily one, designates the five daily prayers at the local prayer house ( langgar) or m osque. T rad itional M uslim wisdom does not classify prayer in this way. T he extract o f the fourth canto o f the Wedhatama mentions in passing these rules in verses two and six below. Wedhatama, canto IV (m eter gambuh)

1) Now I shall teach / the four kinds o f worship ( sembah) so that you may acquire them: / firstly, that o f the body ( raga), then thought (cipta), the soul ( jiwa ) and the essence (rasa), my boy; / T he acquisition o f these / is a sign o f favour from the A ll-Seeing (nugrahaning Manon). 2) Worship with the body / is the work o f an apprentice; / Its ablution (susucine) is made with water, / and the usual custom is five times; / this has the nature o f an established rule. 3) In form er times secret teaching (wulang) / were not made public, / but now the punctilious make a show o f their fabrications, / in order to let their cleverness be seen / their precepts are most strange.

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4) It is rather like the adherents o f the Agama Dul (=? kidul), / as I recall, like the santri birai o f the south, / A long

the Pacitan coast. / There are thousands who believe them / whenever they start talking gibberish. 5) They are in a hurry to see / the divine light (cahya lyang) that they imagine they know well; they look forward to its glow in order to throw themselves upon it;24 They do not understand that such a life / has its brains in the wrong place . . . 7) As for Islamic law (syari’at or sharī'a ), / it can be called a discipline: / firstly it calls for regularity, and in the second place for diligence. / Its use, my son, is to keep refreshing the body in order to improve it. 8) For when the body is refreshed, / muscles, flesh, skin, bones, and marrow, this passes on into the b lood, causing peace o f m ind. / The peace o f m ind becomes focused / and banishes inner confusion . . . 11) Now the worship o f the heart, / if it is sustained can also be a way o f practising asceticism; / it is a grand way, such as befits a king. / It is precisely the certainty o f knowledge / that leads us to acknowledge Providence . . . 14) When the path has been embarked upon / the means is calmness in everything we do; / it is reached by inner stillness, clarity and m indfulness. / Feeling then dies away / and there we find the rightness ( adding) o f the A ll-Seeing (hyang Manon) . . . 16) What is taught now / is the third kind o f worship, which verily is offered / to G od; absorb yourself in it day by day, / take care to master it, / this worship o f the soul ( jiwa ), my son! . . . 18) O ne prepares for it by aim ing to bring together, / b ind up and tightly tie the three worlds; being gathered up / the m acrocosm (jagad agung) is mastered by the m icrocosm (jagad alii). / Believe with your whole heart, my boy, / that you will catch a glim pse o f the world yonder. 19) To sink in it, brings forgetfulness, / and barely conscious one is swept into the universe; . . .

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20) It is sought through a fading o f the wakeful state: complete calm, and any means o f inspiring rapture (panganyut) . . . 22) That is the heart opening, / the revelation o f what contains and is contained. / Its whole content is contained within you, But you yourself too are contained / by what was com pared to a glittering star. 23) Now I shall teach you / in its turn the fourth kind o f worship, / the worship o f the essence (rasa), which is felt to be the core o f creation (wosing dumadi). How it happens cannot be pointed out, / only that it is achieved by inner firm ness. (Trans. Robson) O f course reflections on the ever deepening levels o f salat are found in many forms in Islam, but not employing such Javanese expressions. In canto IV .8 o f the Wédhatama, the poet claims that worship by the body ( raga), and the discipline o f Islamic law (sarengat or sharia ) that regulates it, is refreshing. Peace o f mind follows on the purification o f interior confusions (angruwat ruweding hatos). That is exacdy what the Javanese dhalang claims to do during ritual exorcism using the Javanese creation myth o f the Birth o f Kala (Murwa Kala )! Language here betrays other ways o f thinking, not because o f any deliberate syncretism underlying Javanese peasant religion (agama luri) and Islam, but because the poet is using the same words to describe different processes. The verb purify (ruwat) means to render powerless an evil influence, here a distraction and dispersal ( ruwed) o f concentration. Whereas in Islam this is accomplished by the physical act o f worship five times a day o f Allah, in a Javanese exorcism 'dirt’ (reged) is annihilated by the dhalang (the delegate o f Siwa) when he 'writes’ the letters o f the form ula (rajah) o f the mantra on the body o f Kala. This dirt is in fact the fallen seed o f Siwa described in the creation myth as a shower o f jewels which turns into the parasites o f rice and illnesses that attack humanity, and which Kala epitomises. As a transition figure between the two, between the ritual o f exorcistic purification and the ritual o f purification in the mosque by five daily salat, we find the body praying (mintaraga) by ever interiorised sembah.25

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R itualised Cosmology: T he Birth of K ala: a physical body is described in myth as the victim o f an attack by an ogre (K ala).T h e person and his body are freed from dirt and father’ s seed by writing the creation o f the world on the victim ’ s head.

Subm ission to the Monotheos, A llah and his Prophet: In the Wedhatama: Sembah is described in terms o f four levels o f increasingly interior worship. Liberation is achieved by self 'being swept into the universe’ and enraptured (pangaryut) by what is contained within one.

O rthodox Islam: the use o f the body and words to publicly acknowledge Allah and his prophet in the m osque every day both by postures and words.

R e c e n t D is c u s s io n The p ro o f that this analysis o f salat in the Wedhatama poses a problem is that two scholars in the contemporary Islamic Institutes (IAIN) felt they had to explain its non-conventional approach. Without making rapprochements between non-M uslim and M uslim prayer styles, by presenting four progressive kinds o f worship, the Wedhatama has opened up the question o f the value o f different kinds o f worship. A doctoral thesis by M oham m ad A rdani in the Islamic university o f Yogyakarta will serve to illustrate these questions.26 In his chapter (1988: 66—163) on Wedhatama' s teaching concerning worship (sembah), A rdani is at pains to distinguish between the gesture o f sembah (i.e. the Indian anjali) and what he calls (1988: 72, 79) taharah (tahāra, purity). This he situates in the perspective on health care legislated by the shari'a A rdani equates holiness and bodily freshness (segaran jasmani) which refer to desirable coolness to be obtained by traditional Javanese m editation techniques (tapas semedhi) and the undesirable heat associated with sickness and passions. A rdani

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associates purification in the Wedhatama (canto IV.8 angruwat ruweting batos) with that o f the Surat al-Baqarah, ayat 222 in the Q u r’an: 'Truly G od loves those who repent, and He loves those who cleanse themselves.’ The author is deliberately seeking to prove that sembah in the Wedhatama corresponds to what is to be found in certain sections o f the Q u r’an under the name o f taharah and ibadat (prayer). The very fact that Ardani feels the need to reinterpret in this way a great nineteenth century poet belies a malaise. If one reads the Wedhatama through it is not hard to locate the origin o f this malaise. In canto II we read (Robson trans. 1990: 30—3 3 ):28 10) If you insist on imitating / The example o f the Prophet / O h my dear, you overreach yourself: / . . . Seeing that you are Javanese / Ju st a little will be enough . . . 13) . . . That as the son o f an official, / I f I should strive to be a Kaum [=strict Muslim] I would degrade myself— Why is the poet insisting that Javanese are so different? What could have been the literary poetic sources out o f which the author o f the Wédhatama, drew his understanding o f this word for worship, sembah? Most probably his understanding came from what he had read/heard sung in late eighteenth-century suluk and selections o f the Genthini. The m anuscript library o f the M angkunagaran palace contains an abundant selection o f these poem s. We can presum e that these were collected and copied for the benefit o f its residents. If the suluk are not always the product o f orthodox Islam, any m ore than certain teachings found throughout the Centhini (Drewes 1992: 22—30), nor are they blatantly sectarian. Two examples o f the use o f the word worship taken from Z oetm ulder’ s study o f suluk literature will illustrate where the Wedhatama might have derived its vocabulary. T h eir religious universe has not necessarily been effaced as the following extract shows. This is not to say that we have here direct or faithful traces o f Saiva-siddhanta.29 1. Know well: in death the true sadat (oneness of essence) is the same as in life. For one no longer has on e’ s own doings, but acts according to the will o f G od.

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2. The true sadat is as much worship (sembah) as it is the state o f death. It is the disappearance o f on e’ s own doing. But they who wish to (see) that it is one, that which does (all) acts.30 As Zoetm ulder says (1995: 174), '. . . we should see in pati (death) a description o f Allah in His utterly undifferentiated stage. . . . so also in contrast to the plurality o f m anifested Being (Rasul and M uham mad) stands the absolute oneness o f G od (Allah), only describable by saying what it is not (stanza 226), unknowable and yet encom passing all existence, o f which it is the origin and simultaneously the final destination into which everything vanishes and finds perfection.’ It is com m on in the suluk literature to find sim plified versions o f the 'N eo Platonist’ em anation cosmology used to focus on the path o f m an’ s return and the identification with Allah. This process may be called sadat. This word com bines the concept o f the M uslim confession o f faith ( shahāda) with that o f true salat (shalātf), i.e. sadat one (sa-) in essence (- dat), thus the union o f G od and Man. This ancient Javanese religious theme is here readily expressed in Javanese by these authors whose mystical lexicon has becom e entirely Arabic in origin. Sanskrit, which represented fully fifty percent o f the O ld Javanese vocabulary, had been left behind. As for the superiority o f certain kinds o f worship over others described by the Wédhatama, such a hierarchy appears clearly in the following passage from an eighteenth century suluk collection. It’ s choice o f words and m odes o f thinking rem ind us o f the passage from the nineteenth century Wedhatama above. 15. He who praises (G od) must not share with pleasure in (com m on) praise and tribute. To have true insight into life and death is the divine worship (sembah) o f the superior one.

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17. The divine worship ( sembah) o f such (a superior one) is perfect. To him who has true insight there remains no praise (sembah) o f G o d , in his words he departs from the norm al path.31 From the last verse one gathers that everyday worship, or salat is com posed o f words which seem incom patible with the state o f 'death’ , that 'the disappearance o f o n e’ s own doing’ m entioned in verse two (p. 194). So the use o f the word worship has several m eanings in verses fifteen and seventeen (p. 194—195). Claim ing that there is a higher ( utama) worship that is no worship, the poet admits that this is a departure from the 'n orm al’ path.

J a v a n is e d I s la m : th e W irid H id a y a t J a t i o f R an g g aw arsita A figure who died at the time when the Wedhatama was being written, Ranggawarsita provides us with an 'archaic’ i.e. older Javanese understanding o f worship. If the Wedhatama gives o ff four levels o f ever interiorized worship, the Wirid o f Ranggawarsita reverts to a cosm ological form at. He takes the em anation o f the cosmos as it is described in Arabic Islamic terms and, by em phasising re-absorption over emanation, uses this borrowed term inology to express the return o f the hum an soul to the G odhead at death. The result is highly idiosyncratic. Ranggawarsita is also intriguing because, being the pujangga o f the elder palace o f the Susuhunan o f Surakarta, and being widely known in the younger palace o f the Mangkunagaran, today he is considered by Javanese like Sim uh and Ardani as a m iddlem an between Islam and Javanese religion. In 1983 at the same LAIN 'Sunan K alijaga’ in Yogyakarta where A rdani was later to present his thesis on the Wedhatama, Sim uh defended a doctoral thesis on the 'Islamic Javanism ’ and the mysticism o f Ranggawarsita.32 T he basic position o f his thesis was that the Wirid Hidayat Ja ti , although not directly consonant with the doctrines o f the Q u r’an, provided a useful introduction to

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M uslim ethics and teaching. He labelled Ranggawarsita’ s teaching a literary revelation (wahyu kapujanggan) . If A rjani took a M uslim perspective on the Wedhatama, Sim uh had already enlarged the perspective on the Javanese experience o f Islam further by not ju dgin g the Wirid Hidayat Jati to be un-Islam ic as had H arun Hadiwijono (1967: 150—151). How can we situate Ranggawarsita in the theological evolution we have been describing? Teachings which concern the seven grades o f creation ( martabat), are always delicate for an Islamic m onistic doctrine o f creation to handle. Pantheism is a very small step away for a doctrine o f creation where the universe exists only to reflect the greatness o f Allah. The ultimate protection against pantheism in Islam is to claim that Allah is so independent as to not be conscious o f the existence o f what he had created. It is man that turns towards Allah in worship and not the reverse. This should be the sole source for any and all worship, the only reason for m a n 's existence. The Javanese here have understood that the Islamic theory o f em anation (the seven martabat) is not really a cosmogony in the mythological sense, but they have the possibility o f 'perverting’ its doctrine o f the creation o f man, defining new possible contents o f hum an prayer. Let us see how. For earlier seventeenth-century Sum atran Muslim writers, the divine creative fiat ( kunfayakun) was m anifested in the descent o f the exterior, outgoing realities from the 'spirit o f relation’ (ruh idhāf i )33 The third stage shows a devolution into four successive worlds. The fact that the undifferentiated absolute Being o f Allah descends, differentiates ( tanazzul) or manifests its essence and then returns or ascends ( taraqqī) conflates the dim ensions o f cosmology with m an’ s return to Allah through worship. H arun H adiw ijono rem arked that the Javanese presentation o f these seventeenth century em anationist theories had been harm onised (?unconsciously) with a sim ilar devolution in Javanese Sivism. Set into tabular form the Javanese Sivaite tripartite division o f the cosmos has been made to match the presentation in three phases o f the seven stages o f em anation in an Islamic cosmogony.

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19 7

Sum atran Islam

1- La T a'ayyun ( =Ahadiyya or first differentiation; the sea) 2- Sakala -Niskala 2- Wahda (also called the Light or (Dividable & undividable) Reality o f M ohammad and the stirring o f the waves o f the sea) & Wàhidÿya (also called roh ilapi / rūh idhā fī , or spirit o f relation) [ The Divine fiat: kunfa j a k ūnu = 'Be and it is!’ (i.e. Q u r’an 23:82)] 3- Sakala (the three-faced 3- A'j ān Khārija ( = outgoing godhead or Trim urti) realities): - a' lam arwāh (world o f souls) - a' lam mithāl (world o f similitudes) - ' alam ajsām (corporeal world) - 'alam insān (world o f man) -

Niçkala (Undividable)

Assent to Allah may begin even before death. Ranggawarsita, like the later Javanese prim bon authors will give a detailed description o f the process o f m a n s 'death’ .34 In the sixth stage preceding death Ranggawarsita writes in his Serat Wirid: 'Sixthly, when on e’ s own colour is visible, that is the sign that fifteen days rem ain, that is the time for worship (pamuja), for inquiring after the will o f the Almighty, in this way, that every time he is going to sleep he has to say the following: "T here is the one whom I worship, his Essence is also my Essence, his attributes are also my attributes, his name is my name, his works are also my works; I worship him in united meeting; . . . ” then on e’ s thought should be concentrated on one object o f worship, as for instance: the parents, the ancestors, the family, grandchildren and so on. What is concentrated in the thought is that they may be united (with him) in the hereafter’ .35 These prayers for extended family recall almost word for word those o f the protective songs36 also addressed to the four foetus siblings o f Ego m entioned above. Ranggawarsita has simply

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introduced extracts into his Wind. This can be seen when the liberation o f the 'ascending perfect man cannot take place without the purification o f the 'foetus sibling’ (am niotic fluid, placenta, blood and vernix caseosa) found in the late sixteenth century text above. Ranggawarsita’ s speculations here are but the reflection o f a social reality that was am bient in his time, although it has probably largely disappeared today. A ritual relating the transient m icrocosm ic self to their eternal m acrocosm ic constituent elements is attested elsewhere.37 Certain verses Ranggawarsita uses for liberating the four foetus siblings (that came into the m icrocosm at the m om ent o f on e’ s birth) are again taken from a kidung, still used today, the Jiwawedha:38 'I release ( angruwat) my "fou r relations (with) five centres” ( kadangingsun papat lima pancer) which are my own body, i.e. elder brother (amniotic fluid) , younger brother afterbirth, b lo o d , navel, all my relations which come forth through motherly (ina) ways, and which do not come forth in dishonourable ways, and my relations which are born simultaneously with me, that they all are perfect, stainless, restored in the real existence, by my pow er.’ Serat Wirid39 Other correspondences between man and macrocosm o f the kind contained in these four relations with five centres are less personal. The in-dwelling o f the absolute in man is referred to by Ranggawarsita referring to the parts o f Adam ’ s body as pervaded by these five mudah (essence o f the servant) from the fontanel down. Thus the tripartite division or the coming into existence o f the prototype o f man is as follows (Harun 1967: 133—4): — the house o f liveliness (bait al-mamur) concerns the head, the brain, the pupil, the body, the inclination ( napsu), the suksma and the rahsa. — the forbidden house (bait al-muhāram) concerns the chest, the liver, the heart, the m in d, thought, suksma (soul) and rahsa or atma. — the sacred house (bait al-muqaddas) concerns the scrotum, the

testicles, the semen (mani), the essence o f seed (or madi), the

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essence o f madi ( =wadi), the essence o f wadi (manikem) and rahsa or the essence o f atma. Several scholars40 rem ark that this triadic division o f the body has been made to parallel the triadic division o f cosmology. They note that the Javanese consider their own bodies as a m icrocosm . Now for Muslims the sacred house ( bait muqaddas) is literally the temple in Jerusalem , but an author like Ranggawarsita re-situates it not in the heart o f man as Islam had it, but in his scrotum . The influence o f Siwaite lingga worship and its use o f the six cakra axis (scrotum to fontanel) is at work here. In fact Ranggawarsita is m ore interested in adapting the Islamic doctrine o f the creation o f man to Javanese notions o f yoga. T he meagre concepts he finds in Islamic cosmology hardly retain his attention. A nd as the Wirid (H arun 1967: 124) proves, expressions o f popular Islamic em anation ( martapat) theory are presented only to be reused in an original m anner. T here are also occasional traits rem iniscent o f Javanese Manikmaya cosm ology.41

V o id 1- T he lime tree on the boundary (shajarat al-y aqīn) manifests the undifferentiated world (' ālam ahadiyya). 2- T he Light (N ur M uham m ad, like a peacock in a white jewel according to the hadith) radiated by the concealed point (nukat gaib), revealing the first differentiation, the 'ālam wahda. 3- T he m irror o f shame (Mirat al-hayāi, according to the hadith, it faces the Light o f M uhammad above) revealing the second differentiation, the 'alam wāhidiyya. A 'yā n K h ārija (= outgoing realities) T he spirit o f relation ( roh idā īf ) manifests: 4- the a' lam arwāh (world o f souls) 5- the lamp without fire (qandīl) 'hanging without a hook’42 a' lam mithāl (world o f similitudes) 6- ' alam ajsām (corporeal world) 7- 'alam insān (world o f man)

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T he seventh and lowest reality, the world o f man, is for the M uslims usually the furtherm ost point from the Essence ( dhat) o f the A bsolute. Yet for Ranggawarsita at the m om ent o f death one identifies this level where one existed with the first and highest stage, that o f ahadiyya or non-differentiation. This void is where the T ( ingsun) awakens to the revelation that 'There is no L ord except M e.' (Q u r’an 20:14). Here is his description o f death: 'The secret revelation o f the existence o f the Essence ( Dāt): In reality nothing existed, because when there was void (awang-uwung) , when nothing existed, the first that existed was Ingsun "I ” . There is no L ord except Me, the true m ost holy Essence, em bracing my attributes, participating in my names, m anifesting myself in my works’ .43 Ranggawarsita has managed to present Islamic worship in this treatise as if the m anifestation o f Allah was the m anifestation o f man. Loosely-speaking Siti Je n a r ’ s radical m onism is hiding in Arabic religious terminology, or to use H arun H adijon o’ s (1967:150) Javanese m etaphor, 'It is, according to the Javanese expression, as a frog that is tucked in by its hole (kodok kinemulan ing Tèngé). G od is in m an because m an is in reality G od him self.’

I s la m is a t io n tr e a te d a s h isto ry T he persistence o f divergent concepts and visions o f this mystical reality down to the end o f the nineteenth century is well attested. I f Ranggawarsita reintroduced the sexual centres o f energy found in yoga into an unorthodox soteriology using much Islamic terminology, others have openly challenged the identities o f the prophets. For instance, in the nineteenth century Serat Gatothloca, after the final destruction o f self with its sense-perception, in short after a kind o f death, the final destination o f man is accom plished through oneness o f the Godhead:

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'O n e must prostrate oneself before N abi Adam, but this is not the prophet A dam ; rather "adam” signifies empty nonbeing ( suwung wungwang) whose being is eternal.’44 T his recalls the prim ordial void o f some two centuries earlier. Related to the same literary genre as the Serat Gatoloco is the Derma Gandhul. The opening o f a new school for the sons o f native chiefs in Panaraga (east Java) in 1878 was the occasion for an author to rework a local history, the Babad Kedhiri into a brand new poem the Derma Gandhul. In it he prophesied that the foreign religion o f Islam would eventually be replaced by indigenous Javanese ancestral belief, agama luri, and the cult o f reason ( budi; Drewes 1966:327-331). The author, reflecting local traditions from Kedhiri (east Java) concerning the fall o f Majapahit, explains the confusion in the Javanese books on history and religion. These derived from the seventeenth century Demak Muslims’ burning o f these older books after the sack o f the non-M uslim kingdom o f Majapahit. When finally the kings o f Mataram in later centuries tried to rewrite these books on the basis o f those few copies that survived mouldy with age in the villages, their language was obscure and each o f the king’ s scribes produced a different version*. 'What was written by them was not the same / (since) every one o f them / had found som ething different; / therefore, the Javanese history — books / do not conform to one rule; / there are two or three versions’ ( Drewes 1966:327). The author apparently regrets the loss o f a m ono-vocal history, a loss which he attributes implicitly to the introduction o f Islamic religion. In the beginning o f canto IV (Drewes 1966: 337) D erm a Gandhul asks why his ancestors abandoned their native religion to becom e Muslims. This is explained in terms o f the consequences o f Brawijaya’ s (the last king o f Majapahitto to reign in the beginning o f the sixteenth century) m arriage with a Cham M uslim princess and the arrival o f Islamic preachers who later followed her to Java’ s north coast. In Canto V describing the missionary campaigns o f Sunan Bonang, a local titulary dem on, Buta Locaya, exclaims:

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'People should keep to this book (Derma Gandhul) instead o f believing all kinds o f stories about Arabia which escape their judgem ent . . . for I am well acquainted with the situation in A rabia. Its inhabitants are an uncleanly crowd; they hold their fellow-men as slaves and have sexual in tercourse with their fem ale slaves without marrying them; there is little water and almost no rain; the soil is stony, the vegetation scanty and the temperature exceedingly hot. In the opinion o f sensible people it is an unlucky country, cursed by G od. O n the other hand, the K edh iri region is a blessed country; its climate (Drewes summary 1966:339—342). A fter Raden Patah had overthrown his father, king o f Majapahit and has him self becom e sultan o f Demak, he repents o f his harsh treatment o f his father, Brawijaya. The poet tells us how the new king sends the Muslim missionary Sunan Kalijaga out to bring his father to N gam pel so that he can beg his forgiveness, and asks him to return to his throne. Drewes (1966:352) sum m arises the king’ s answer as follows: 'Taken aback Brawijaya first wants to reconsider the offer delivered by Sunan K alijdaga. What he dreads most is that at his return to M ajapahit he will be ill-treated by Raden Patah, (his son), be castrated and vigorously scrubbed in a pond (circum cision and ritual ablution!), so that all the same he will be forced to embrace Islam. Sunan K alidjaga eases his m ind by replying that in the Islamic religion the confession o f faith is m ore im portant than the regular practicing o f ritual prayer. However intent a man may be upon perform ing his prayers, if he does not understand the m eaning o f the shahada (Javanese sahadat) he will rem ain an infidel. Now the first phrase o f the sahadat means: "to acknowledge the Spirit and the Essence o f G od (as the active principles in creation; 'ngesahken roh lan dat ing Hyang’) ” . Man is instrum ental in the operation o f these principles by propagating the hum an race and, therefore, what the com m on confession o f the

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faith ( sahadat sarengat) really means is sexual union. The same with ritual prayer; the place to perform this masjid al-haram (forbidden m osque in Mecca) is woman. G oing on in the same strain Sunan K alijdaga gives phallic interpretations o f various Islamic and other terms, in such a way that sexual intercourse is the pivot on which everything tu rn s.' Many m ore quotes o f this Rabelais-like satirical history could be quoted, but the m ain point should already be clear. By the latter part o f the nineteenth century, a well-read aristocrat from East Java, could so totally distance him self from the am bient Islam isation that he could write a satirical-prophetic poem about M uslim dakwah (proselytism). He could make use o f Javanese yoga’ s sexual m etaphors to recom m end the five-daily prayers in the m osque in terms o f sexual postures. The Derma Gandhul rem ains popu lar today. T he work relativises the centrality o f salat, ridiculing it by word play, reducing Arabic form ula to Javanese terms for coitus and all that accompanies it. The author avoids Islam by localising his society in history and returning with a vision every bit as cosm opolitan as that o f the network o f ulama beginning in the seventeenth century which linked Java to G ujarat and the holy pilgrim age cities o f the A rabian peninsula (Azra 1994). His literary flare is in the finest Javanese tradition, one which he knows well. When the servants o f their now M uslim king, Brawijaya, are given names (Sabdapalon and Nayagenggong; Canto X IX ; Drewes 1966: 359), these nam es’ etymologies are slipped into the text (cf. underlined sections below) to give credence to their prophecies that the new M uslim faith will decline. Indeed, as in Javanese wayang, these servants are only disguises for the ancestral great gods o f the land. ’Sabdapalon’ s words are utterly reliable and Nayagenggong is the eternal and unchanging face o f Java. . . . In reality he (Sabdapalon) is Manikmaya, otherwise called Sem ar, the elder brother o f Sang Hyang G uru and the real builder on the hell on top o f M ount M eru. He too

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equilibrated Java, which island in form er times lay reeling in the ocean, by his mighty flatus which blew the tops o ff m ountains and brought about the craters o f the volcanoes so that the subterranean fire found vent and the m otion ceased.’

C o n c lu s io n : C o sm o g o n y V e rsu s O n to lo gy : O r ie n t a t io n s o f P ray e r T he very notion o f prayer seems to be quasi-universal. This seems strange because the im plied dialogical dim ension o f most prayers is thwarted by the status o f their addressee (the divinities) who are bereft o f any words humans could hear in reply. Let us give an example (K ittel vol. Ill, 1965: 67—73). In ancient Greece the word theos designated the cosmic righteousness, that regularity o f being to whom prayer appeals. T his was the word later used in the New Testament to translate the Sem itic Tetragam m on ( Yahweh). If the Greek pantheon o f anthropom orphic théoi, with their eternal youth lacking m oral seriousness, are ju st as much victims o f moīra (fate) as we are, then they do not stand in relation to the created world as C reator to creature. They are at best the achievement o f an order, an intrinsic m eaning. The théoi perm it man to solemnly objectify reality, but in no way to set up an immediate 'I-T h o u ’ relationship, which under the influence o f Ju deo-C h ristian tradition we have come to associate with the m onotheistic concept o f a prayer. So if classical Greek religion could not have created 'dialogic’ revolution, what about Islam on its arrival in Java? For a m useum o f earlier Javanese prayer practices one can turn to Bali which received many o f the Javanese pre-M uslim M ajapahit cultural heirloom s when this Javanese kingdom finally fell (1527 A. D .). The kind o f anthology o f stuti and stava (praise and hymns) which Hooykaas and G oudrian published in 1971 on the basis o f Balinese Bauddha, Saiva, and Vaisnava m aterials displays an inextricable mixture o f worship ( puja), i.e. offerings, hymns and praises o f the divinities on the one hand

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and form ulaic bija m antra syllables on the other. The use and possession o f the latter must have been mostly restricted to the specific groups o f priests. It is in this sense that the advent o f Islam would have revolutionised the oral rites to which the populus was accustom ed. H enceforth, every Muslim had access to the same prayers. Certainly one o f the reasons Muslim prayers have retained their vitality down to the present day is this democratic universal property o f the five daily salat invocations. A nd this was achieved in the very foreign tongue o f Arabic. In the mouths o f their new adepts, the words o f prayer had to be kept pure o f local traditions and their peasant connotations. Yet the earlier invocations, som e o f which were known to the population at large, were ju st as form ulaic as the Arabic M uslim prayers and sometimes ju st as obscure. But they were controlled by private needs and political integration o f the landscape o f Javanese kingdom s. Islam ic prayer, rigidly imitative o f the Prophet’ s own tongue and style, was everywhere ju st as it had been. O n e’ s personal religion was not on e’ s ru ler’ s religion. But it was not ju st a question o f overthrowing peasant practices. The very Javanese notion o f the dom ination o f the world by asceticism and the help from the spirit world was central to Javanese notions o f kingship, as was said in the introduction. In the Wédhatama II: 3—5, we see rulership over the spirits exercised by Senapati, founder o f the second M ataram in the early seventeenth century. Rem em ber that this poem was written in the M angkunagaran court after the Java war (1825—30) once Dutch dom ination was complete. The nostalgia for an earlier grandeur was pervasive. '. . . A nd there on the shore o f the ocean / In the midst o f his austerities he was visited by an inward sign: He (Senapati) surveyed the circum ference o f the sea / R oundabout, and having swept it with his eye, / He entered it into is heart by magic, / Where he held it, no bigger than a fistful; So that he might take dom inion over it, / A nd verily the Q ueen o f the South Sea / arose soaring

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into the sky, / and came before him beseeching / her majesty as an in ferior to the Great Man o f Mataram. Earnestly she begged / to be allied to him as com panion. / In the realm s o f the invisible / whenever he frequented lonely places, / she took upon herself to undertake / whatever he might determ ine as his wish. / H er intention was merely to beg / blessing from his austerities H ere the ultimate titular deity, that o f the kingdom itself, serves the king’ s dom inion both political and spiritual. In this sense the king’ s pretended dom inion over the cults o f protecting spirits paved the way for another and m ore universal religion, Islam. T he king m arginalised the m ore parochial village protective spirits by worshipping their 'generals’ , Durga and the Q ueen o f the southern seas. The Muslim prayers came with a new religious landscape, a m osque, oriented towards Mecca. In short, a m ore cosm opolitan landscape was created to show their larger community. A self-conscious uniform ity was introduced. In Javanese traditions, diverse invocations existed for each locality. For instance, those to request the perm ission to cut down certain trees and to take them away out the forest. O n the other hand, Islam in the sixteenth century arrived in Java labelling the cult o f 'foetus sibling’ heathen. More generally the ulama defined the very notion o f who prays to whom. Village ancestral religion did not convey any such theolinguistics. The written traditions dealing with the ascetic means for union with the Siwa lying in the heart o f the yogin was attacked as pantheism . What were the alternatives? O ne could pray at one’ s local village shrine following the cosmic cyclical calendar, or one could follow Islam which enlarged using new oral rites which made prayer possible anywhere and at any time. The Javanese never forgot their nostalgia for a m ore intimate cosmos. The monotheistic ontology proved universal if only by its philosophical rigour. But the adequation the Javanese sought between being a Javanese person living on their ancestral lands and their collective experience o f its reproduction in that limited space and time was frustrated. To them 'here’ was not one o f many islands

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in the midst o f the South China seas, but their whole world. Why abandon a self nestled in a protecting cosmology when one could try to better understand the new religion, Islam, by analogies and metaphors taken from the old? The twentieth century would complicate this simple picture considerably. Islam was instrumental in the nascent nationalist movements in the early decades o f the twentieth century. However by the time independence was achieved, Islam was overwhelmed by its separatist puritan movements. They proved more sectarian than the archipelago’ s diverse ethnic groups and the new republic could tolerate. Their armed rebellions were temporarily contained. The final and complete fall o f the old aristocratic system led to the spread o f com m oner lineages (trah). Traditional Javanism took refuge in new religions, kabatinan or 'interiority’ sects. Christianity spread, with its Western schools and hospitals. Only secularism did not thrive. It was not till the 1970’ s that a renascent non-political Islam would revive itself. The articulating axis o f prayer remained as strong as ever, but the unanimity o f Javanese tradition was lost forever. World history had becom e a conscious category, relativising com m itm ents, obliging M uslim scholars to go abroad not only to Mecca, but also to Europe to better know their own traditions and to learn from the sciences that would allow them to contextualise such religious diversity. A whole sociology o f religious in stitutions had grown up and needed to be adm inistered. The extent to which Pancasila’ s civil religion, as an official ideology, was not a secularised faith but a political use o f religious diversity in the interest o f stabilising a complex polity lies beyond the scope o f this paper. But clearly a conflictual 'sociology o f theology’ had existed for centuries in Java and little unanimity had been achieved around the orthodox norm s o f Islamic faith. Prayer, for the Javanese, has rem ained an intensely personal concern.

N o te s 1 This pair o f texts, written on palm leaf manuscripts, were edited and translated by G.W .J. Drewes (1978). Text II is a tract on ethics. Drewes

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estimates that this second and more important text 'could well date back to a period still earlier than the end o f the sixteenth century; though the MS. must be o f more recent date (1978:4)’ . In Muslim astrological tables these are made to correspond to their com panions: Lord o f the day, Lord o f the night, signs o f the Zodiac, etc. D r. Muhamad Hisyam is currently researching these courts. Gf. INIS Newsletter, vol. XIV, 1997: 9—12. Stange (1992: 536—537) stresses the millenarian and magical strands o f revolt in the twentieth century which resulted in the Darul Islam revolts in Java and elsewhere. Cf. Robert H efner’ s up-com ing book, Civil Islam: Muslim Democrats and State Violence in Indonesia, chapters 1—5. Behrend (1987) is the only one to have studied this kidung. According to Behrend (1977), this is the earliest version (recension A) o f the Serat Centhini. Sudibyo says it was adapted ( tinedhak) from an earlier version in 1616 A .D ., but, as Behrend Civil Islam: Muslim Democrats and State Violence in Indonesias points out, that date (1538 A. J .) falls ten years before the introduction o f the Muslim lunar calendar by Sultan Agung o f Mataram so the question o f its date is still awaiting confirmation. The manuscript used was a May 1832 copy o f the original and even this is temporally lost. Com posed entirely in dandhanggula meter, it is nonetheless divided into seventeen separate cantos whereas usually cantos serve to introduce new meters. Serat Centhini 1991, vol. 12 canto 708 ff. This lengthy encyclopaedic (12 vols.) text contains a multitude o f theological perspectives. Cf. for a detailed description, cf. Juynboll 1925: 59—63; Wensink 1934: 99—109; the Javanese vocabulary o f this is explained in such pamphlets as Hadiwiyata tenth edition, Sala 1974; D ja’far Amir, Yogya, no date. S. C. Headley, 1996: 195—234 in 'Trois styles de p rière à Java: écriture sur le front; offrandes et purification du coeur,’ gives a description o f the sequences o f words and gestures in any given rak’a. or rakaat from the Arabic ra k 'a . 1983: Javanese text pp. 178—189; Indonesian translation pp. 13—24. In East Java, during the sixteenth and much o f the seventeenth century an important port city state, Cf. Pigeaud and de G raaf 1976:14—15; 1974: 137-155. O n the general background to dhikr cf. Encyclopaedia o f Islam 1977, vol. II: 230-3. Boekoe Siti Djenar ingkang toelen , fifth canto, pp. 25—6 (second edition, Tan K hoen Swie, K ediri, 1931) 144, 1913. Translation Zoetmulder 1995:144—146; 'Sarirané anglir p éndah carmin / Hyang Jati Suksma ingkang amurba / andulu wawayangané / wayangan puniku / upamane wujud ilapi / jatiné iku sipat / ing Hyang Mahaluhur / sipat ik u jèstu edat / tan apisah saking ing dat ing Hyang Widi / jatiné iku tunggal. ’

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14 Drewes 1969: 42—45; '. . . kang liwung sadya iku, iya iku dhātu 'llāh, sab(e)nerb(e)nere Pangeran kang sinembah . . . tatapi ta nafining Allah, liwunging Allah iku norajan suwunga . . . tatapi sadurunging andadeken nabi Muhammad . . . aning sira Pangeran kang ana dhewek tanpa rowang, norana kawula sawijia, . . . iya iku t(e)gesing liwung nafi dhātu llāh, nora ing dheweke, . . . norana i(ng)kang angawikana, ing dhewekira, norana (ingkang) amujia ing anane, (§8) anging sifate amuji ing dhate, iku sadurung(ing) andadeken ra/ sulullah, norana sakutunira, nora kaya apa, kaya iku liwung nafi dhātu 'illāh.’

15 cf. Zoetm ulder 1995: 83—86. 16 The Javanese poet, author o f the Kitab Patuhulrahman, him self belonged to the older school o f spirituality represented by al-Junaid (died in 910). His knowledge o f this master came to him via Zakariyyā’ al-Ansārī 's Kitab Fath al-Rahmān, itself a commentary on an earlier work by Walī Raslān al-D im ashqī (A. D. 1145—6). 17 O f course, contemporary 'orthodox’ Muslim scholars are uneasy with these very Javanese literary traditions o f the nineteenth century, cf. discussion at the end o f this section. 18 Canto IX: 299 quoted in Zoetmulder 1995: 217, note 6: '. . . dhaupé kadi punendi / lawan élmi sarak land agama Buda

19 A proper anthropological study o f conversion should have abundant comparative material. This is beginning to (1991, 1993) appear for Western Indonesia. For instance for the work (1984, 1996) o f Bowen on the Gayo (Sumatra) and the work o f Pelras on the Bugis (Sulawesi). Space will not allow us to give the Indonesian comparative backdrop o f Javanese islamisation in this paper. 20 For instance, the Sem arang musician K i Nartosabdho 'dipersembahkari, offered with veneration, the Wédhatama in a 1983 double cassette recording by his group Panguyuban Karawitan Jawi 'C ondong Raos’ at Lokanata. The text o f the poem was printed on the fold-out inside the jacket. 21 Available in a 1990 English translation with accompanying Javanese text and notes by Stuart Robson (K .I.L .T .V . Working Papers no. 4, KITLV Press, Leiden); cf. also for a selection o f his other works, Karangan Pilihan KGPAA Mangkunagara IV (Yayasan Genthini, Yogyakarta, 1992) compiled by Kamajaya. Pigeaud’ s 1928 Java Institute edition in four volumes o f M. N. IV’ s complete works was reissued in 1953, again in Surakarta by the Mangkunagaran Palace. 22 Robson 1990: 24 \ . . ./ Ana uga angger-ugering kaprabon / abon-aboningpanembah / kang kambah ing siyang ratri / . . . ’

23 Robson 1990: 24 'Sejatiné kang mangkana / Wus kakenan nugrahaning Hyang Widhi / Bali alaming asuwung / . . . Ingkang sipat wisésa winisésa wus 24 This seems to recall the passage from the Serat Centhini (vol. 8, 1989: 119, canto 446) where they actually throw themselves into the fire. 25 Gf. my 'Trois styles de prière à Java: écriture sur le front; offrandes et purification du coeu r.’ 1996:195—234. 26 I have not been able to consult the published version o f this thesis.

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27 'Suci dan bersih adalah dosar dan sendi segala peraturan agama Islam.’ Ardani cites as his authority for this the 1968 study o f Dr. Med. Ahmad Ramali, Peraturan-peraturan untuk Memelihara Kesehatan dalam Hukum Syar'lslam, third edition Baiai Pustaka, Jakarta. 28 '10) Lamun sira paksa nulad / Tuladaning Kangjeng Nabi / 0 nggèr kadohan panjankah . . . / Rèhné ta sira Jawi / Sathithik baé wis cukup . . . 13) . . . Rèhné ta suta priyayi / yen muriha dadi kaum temah nistha.’ 29 Which is not to say that we have here direct or faithful traces o f Saivasiddhanta, cf. Zoetm ulder’ s comments (1995: 174) on the term death (pati) as a name o f Siva. 30 (Leiden Oriental Codex no. 1795, pp. 198—206; translation Zoetmulder/ Rickleffs 1994:19 &151) 1) 'Kawruhana ing pati sadat sajati / tan béda ngegesang / pan ana polahnèki / polah saking karsanign Hyang. 2) Sasatjati iya sembah iya pati / simané kang polah / anging kang sedya ngrawuhi / tunggal kang adarbé polah’.

31 Leiden O riental Codex 1795, pp. 164—5; translation Zoetmulder/ Rickleffs 1995: 185: 15) Wong amuji sampun kesengsen ingpuji / sembah sanalika / kang awas ing urip mati / sembahé ingkang utama. 11) Kang mengkana sampuma ing sembahèki / ingkang sampun awas / sembahé tan ana kari / sebdané amurang dalan. ’

32 Mistik Islam Kejawen: Raden Ngabehi Ranggawarsita. Suatu studi terhadap Serat Wirid Hidayat J a ti , published in 1988 by the University o f Indonesia Press. 33 Stage 2—3 in diagram below adapted from H arun 1967: 101. 34 H arun Hadiwijono (1967: 140, note 4) remarks that Goris (1926: 124) has also found this in connection with a discusson o f liberation (kamoksan) from duality (Rwa Bhineda or the ’two differentiated’). 35 Simuh 1988: 190; H arun 1967: 141: 'Inkang kaping nem, j èn sampun katingal warninipun pijambak, tanda kirang setengah wulan. Ana pudjaningsun sawidji, daté ija datingsun, sipaté ija sipatingsun, asmané ija asmaningsun, pangalé uja pangalingsun, ingsun pudja ing patemon tunggal. . . . ingriku tjiniptaa ingkang pinudja satunggal, kadosta: bapabijung, kaki-nini, garwa putra

36 cf. Wirid text transliterated by Simuh 1988: 191; for the kidungan rumeksa ing wengi; cf. Bernard A rps’ extensive article in Headley 1996: 47—113. 37 Serat Memulé Sadherek Sakawan Wasiyat Saking Sultan Mangkubumi, 102 Ra in the Sasana Pustaka (Surakarta Palace Library): 7 pp. 38 The darkened words show up in the third stanza o f the 'Song o f Soul Knowledge’ (Kidung Jiwawedha) in the Kitab Primbon Atassadhur Adammakna (1979:106) translated in Headley 1987: 145. 39 H arun' s translation 1967: 144; Sim uh’ s transcription 1988: 191: 'Ingsun angruwat kadangingsun papat lima pancer, dumunung ana in badaningsun dhéwé, kakang kawah adhi ari-ari, getih, puser, sakèhing kadangingsun kang metu ing marga ina, lan kang metu saka ing marga ina, sarta kadangingsun kang metu bareng sadina, kabèh padha sampumaa, nirmala waluja ing kahanan jati kalawan kodratingsun .

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40 K raem er (1921: 98); van Akkeren (1951: 36—7) and Harun (1967: 139). 41 Gf. Stephen G. Headley, 'Com piling Javanese & Muslim creation myths: Manikmaya: canto 1—19’ , 36 p p.; European Science Foundation Sem inar ’Encompassing Knowledge’ Leiden 8—10.X II.97. 42 'gumantung tanpa canthélari commonly describes the primeval bell found in the cosmologies o f the Manikmaya texts. 43 Translation H arun 1967: 104; transliteration Simuh (1988: 174): 'Wisikan ananing dat. Sajatiné ora ana apa-apa, awit duk maksih awang -uwung durung ana sawiji-wiji, kang ana dhingin iku Ingsun. ora ana Pangéran amung Ingsun, sajantining dat kang amaha suci, anglimputi ing sipatingsun, anartani ing asmaningsun, amratandhani ing apanglingsun.’

44 Zoetm ulder/Rickleffs’ translation 1994: 175; 'kinèn sujed nabi Adam / iku dudu Adam nabi / adam iku suwung wungwang / ingkang langgeng kahanane.’ Serat Gatoloco edition Tan K hoen Swie, K ediri 1913: 51.

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In other terms, no com m unication value can be ascribed to any proposition until it is established in a field o f reciprocal im plication, where the first person, ontologically as well as grammatically, becom es the capacity o f the second (the capacity o f assuming mentally but always with the help o f some physical mimesis process — the other fellow’ s point o f view) and vice-versa. Man thus meets m an, but not after a tautological pattern, as their com m on access is to a collective, sociological reality, the exact kind and level o f 'reality’ that happens to exist then and there as a repository o f the synthetic judgem ents on which is built a civilisation. Man, in such a concrete setting is not to man a metaphysical answer but a historical answer, and, by that very standard, the adequate answer. (A. W. M acdonald’ s preface to Paul Mus, Barabudur, Sketch of a History of Buddhism 1935/1998: xxvii)

S a la t a s a m i r r o r o f A lla h ’ s society In pious M uslim tradition, prayer in the mosque cleans the soul, as if it were a m irror ( mir'ah), allowing it to reflect the divinity o f Allah. H is umma or religious community is also reflected in the accom plishm ent o f this oral rite. Muslim m onotheism creates an ethos dem anding that society at large

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follows its shari’a 1 leading towards a polity structured by the M uslim fiqh. N one o f the societies around the Indian O cean have yet reached the situation found in parts o f the Arabian peninsula where national frontiers are ideologically covered an d b o u n d e d as i f by the r o o f o f one great m o sq u e .2 Everywhere else, even if salat has the upper hand amongst all other form s o f congregational worship, different communities o f worship have persisted. Even in that most famous form o f a society in which Islam is completely dom inant, the caliphate, the dhimmitude (Bat Ye’or 1996), the ’tolerated’ monotheistic m inorities, were envisioned. T he chapters o f this volume show, through em pirical description, that the theolinguistics o f the mosque rem ain only one kind o f religious com m unication. The spectrum o f societies studied here vary. In some areas along the coast o f Eastern Africa, on the ocean islands between it and Western India, and in insular Southeast Asia, Islam has a near m onopoly on the forces reshaping political and social life. In other areas, it represents only a Puritanism that concerns salat and the Friday noon prayer. In all these societies other oral rites persist, however discreetly. Short o f making Muslim norm s the obligatory centre o f attention by a djihad or a dakwah ( da'wa) campaign (Peletz 1997), Islam everywhere reflects the disparities o f the social actors who enter the m osque. Their heterogeneity is a potential for social and political disruption so great that controlling Islam ’ s impact on the life o f the polity has been at the centre o f the pre-occupation o f nation-states throughout the twentieth century. Recently m inistries o f religion, in Indonesia for instance, have 'entered the m osque’ . They have devised strategies to make Islam a civil religion.3 Meanwhile, individuals everywhere have continued their own discreet and private bricolage o f oral rituals. Religious inventiveness has not been stamped out. The double dim ension o f the public and the private being implicated in worship is reproduced in the very nature o f invocation. As a conversation with an invisible partner, namely a deity, prayer is a prima facie paradox. It does resemble everyday conversation. When one is praying, one usually tells a deity

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what He is presum ed to know already. Invocation, like many conversations, is designed only to make or prolong contact and not to inform or direct (Tannen 1989; Jacques 1988). So prayers are said in order to manifest that one is present before the divinity in front o f the local community. Its psychological 'salience’ (Bouyer 1990) derives from the cont(r)act made between the first two parties before the third party, the community. How do we know what people believe when they pray? Prayer, all by itself, is a credo, a gift o f credit to the divinity as the etymology o f the word creed (cred-do) suggests. The way m en put into practice their faith in prayer is in conformity with the contents o f their faith, otherwise faith would disappear. This is reflected in an adage o f fourth century M editerranean Christianity: lex orandi, lex credendi. This can be paraphrased: (tell me) how you pray (and I will tell you) what you believe. Muslims also often claim that one is only really a Muslimin when one is praying. So to turn your face in public to the invisible O ther is a gesture o f defining significance. It defines the person, vis-à-vis the umma, the M uslim community. Usually conversion takes place during a group movement towards recognition o f a new divinity. Individual creation o f a new religion is rare (M acdonald 1981). Naturally these collective credit networks, these religions (from re-ligo, to bind; Lewis and Short 1962: 1556), are o f many kinds. Such networks o f religious credit were examined by Pulleyn (1998 ch.2) on the basis o f classical Latin and Greek rhetorical m odels o f reciprocity and favour (xápis). He found that in classical Greece the relationship o f a host to a guest, or that between friends characterised the link between the orant and his deity. By chapter nine o f his study however, Pulleyn is brought to wonder why the gods crave honour and recognition, an inconvenient question. In the case o f Islam honour is clearly related to worship. Salat is technically speaking not prayer, which is du’a. Salat is worship, a canonically ritualised invocation. The term salat is borrow ed from the Aram aic. In its root form , it means to b en d , i.e. to bow; salat as a verbal noun means to bow in prayer.

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As A. J . Wensinck (1934:99—100) pointed out, the salat created by M oham m ed resembles historically-speaking the contem porary seventh century m odels found in Jewish and Christian ritualised prayer. Already in the Meccan period (surat 17.50 and 84.21) salat is linked to the recitation o f the Q u r’an and the recitation o f the Q u r’an is linked to the prostrations. The word q u r’an means recitation. In Muslim term inology bowing is called ruku’ and prostrations, sujud. The postures that accompany this m em orised recitation are possibly its most personal feature. They are the corporeal signature o f the orant that he is making the words o f the salat his own. Do the postures which are so basic to the execution o f this canonical prayer help us to understand this apparent similarity o f prayer with conversation? The fact that everyone perform s the successive postures together and acknowledges each others’ participation during its course, makes salat a congregational form o f invocation. The identity o f the individual members o f the community umma, possibly jeopardised by segregating men from women, is reinforced on the socio-linguistic level, by the uniform ity o f body language employed. No one stands before Allah as a husband or a wife, let alone a family. A nthropologists, basically concerned with the way that societies com m unicate with deities, don’t usually investigate how individuals are taught to pray personally. But, in salat, the im plied reciprocity o f invocations, their 'credit structure’ , does underline the fact that the exchange is tripartite, between the community, the orant and the deity. The overwhelmingly oral nature o f the M uslim praxis o f public prayer in the m osque encourages the use o f conversational m odélisations. As Paul Mus tried to show m ore than fifty years ago, the 'adequation that perm its com m unication between partners in the same society passes through their com m on reference to the same sociological reality. There are few hermits and even fewer prophets who com m unicate with G od alone. Canonical salat still uses today the social construct o f the seventh century Meccan community, while the personal and private dua (Ar. du a) participates in more contemporary social linguistic repertories. Dua is, in this sense, an innovation (bid ah;

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Ar. bid a) and potentially heretical. Heresy (shirk) was traditionally defined as placing a com panion next to Allah, i.e. instituting polytheistic dialogue with idols reflecting the constitution o f the created world. Since Islam claims that ultimately only the being o f the m onad Allah, exists, shirk dissipates the being that is Allah’ s. Com bating heresy occupies a very different slot in the social horizon than we might imagine coming from Europe. Nihilism and other extreme form s o f atheism are rare around the Indian Ocean. Salat’ s centrality to community worship presupposes, as a backdrop, an even more traditional polytheism. The sophisticated nihilism o f contemporary European secularisation jeopardises the place o f Friday noon prayer in European mosques in a very different way than polytheism does, say in India. This is clear if we examine the specific selfconsciousness Muslims implanted in Europe have had to develop in order to accumulate an Islamic identity which these Western secularised societies withhold from them (Metcalf 1996). The difference between salat and dua reflects their role in society. T he supplications for a specific answer or aid in dua, are o f a m ore private and personal nature. As general prayers o f praise and adoration o f the deity o f the society, salat refers to Allah as the all-M erciful creator and sustainer o f the world. Which world, whose w orld? Dua deals with this issue. The world at large is not always my society, the one to which I belong, but only the one in which I try to function. A second dim ension arises everywhere. What is the defin ition o f the social boundaries o f the umma, the praying com m unity? From the ethnic group, the kingdom , and most clearly from the nation state, com peting dem ands on the definition o f the umma are ram pant (H efner and Horvatich 1997). The recent pressure for the creation o f Islamic states should not disguise the fact that the very definition o f such a theocratic state may also be challenged as idolatrous by Muslims like the Indonesian N urcholish M ajid (1987). The sociological form o f the congregational prayer o f the umma im plies that Allah assists the regeneration o f society, guaranteeing theodicy, the justice o f the deity. Without opening the immense historical issues o f the roles o f the imams and the

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caliphate (Levy 1957: Ch. 7), it is certain, politically speaking, that oral rites create social solidarity. Attracted to this sui-generis nexus o f power, a variety o f parties, not all o f them religious, but each possessing sm aller or larger clienteles, covet the social forces tapped in oral rites o f invocation. The m ore public the worship, the m ore the solidarity its generates is coveted by selfproclaim ed orthodoxies. Given this com petition, it is significant that adherence to the one G od as a criterion fo r belonging to the political community (as in Saudi Arabia) has not been im posed in large areas o f the Indian Ocean s periphery (M etcalf 1997:309— 319). In areas like Indonesia, negotiated pluralism has even been considered, by some, as the hallmark o f Islam (H efner 1996). In Pakistan, a nation created for Muslims, the ethnic differences between the various groups and regions have been identified by their political parties, inter alia, with otherwise m inute differences in the way salat is executed.4 These phenom ena show that the identity o f Islam is woven together in different ways by different groups. In this volume that question has been posed repeatedly in a another way. Why is prayer outside the m osque, which responds so well to the network o f credit and debt that links members o f a given society amongst each other and to local deities, the object o f such suspicion on the part o f those inside the m osque? Why not salat and dua? In a word, why do those inside the m osque crave the honour rendered to spiritual form s outside the m osque? The usual reason given for monotheistic intolerance o f what is such a clearly dem onstrated social need, is that dm eventually involves the honouring o f the full variety o f local spirit relations within the indigenous mythological geography. At the same time, if Islam claims to offer everyone access to the same prayers (P ark in s Introduction p. 3), M uslims are obliged to limit and restrict the variety and m odalities o f prayer to those which partake o f their m on otheistic presuppositions. Dogmatically, this translates as: one should pray as M oham m ed was taught to, full stop. Salat defends m ore than the needs o f the individual Muslimin to be heard by Allah when he bows in m onophonic praise o f his

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m erciful creator. O n the basis o f the articles in this volume, the distinctions reciprocal/non-reciprocal/ indirect and re flexive cited by Parkin in his Introduction help us to capture the social dim ensions o f prayer inside and outside the m osque. But they are only operative if one uses them in a comparative study o f a ll the oral rites a given society employs. The distinctions concerning the reciprocal dim ensions o f prayer are confirm ed by the contributions in this volume each time that salat is envisaged as a fait social total, implicating m ore than two parties (orant and deity), that is to say including the community. Variations on reciprocity allow us to account for the different social responses to this oral rite. For instance, Lam bek in his chapter on Mayotte claims that certain oral rites outside the m osque weave a social structure. In Mayotte during the shijabo, a collection o f prayers ( dua) is recited as a blessing, which as Lam bek notes, is a praxis that cannot be completely distinguished from the 'duties, constraints, and interests o f kinship, friendship, and citizenship.’ (p. 8) Is this also true o f salat?

If these localities with their own cultures refuse Allah his 'exclusivity’ , a second cosm ological map o f a society’ s ritual relations comes into focus like a palimpseste revealing the earlier text underneath. To the sustaining forces o f the cosmos, everywhere im portant for family health, abundance o f crops, the harvest o f the seas and trading surpluses, sacrifices need to be made. T he setting aside o f such a polytheist cosmology in favour o f M uslim ontology described by Headley’ s article on Java, does not automatically introduce these philosophical categories into people’ s oral rites. O n the other hand the 'creator’ often possesses a m onadic quality as the sustainer o f an entire yearly cycle in the high state-sponsored form s o f religion. T he pressure against divisions in divine functions, hence potentially for the unity o f divinity exists for instance in the H indu trinity (creatorsustainer and destroyer). At the folk level the well-known Indian phenom ena o f prayers around mutually venerated H indu and M uslim saints creates a convergence which although not m onotheist had a harm onising effect locally at least before

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com m unalism (Assayag 1995: C h .4). A third instance is stateinduced m onotheism . The Balinese, who had refused Islam for centuries, were even led to eventually devise creeds for their polytheism to bring it in line with the Indonesian government insistence on 'Pancasila’ m onotheism . In the pluralist societies o f the Indian Ocean, participation in m osque-based prayer may not show to which 'religion one belongs. In Parkin s understanding o f salat (p. 6) the praxis o f canonical prayer is constitutive o f the person s public persona. Clearly, ju st as the execution o f salat can define the orant’ s relation to his C reator, it also can be the criterion for judging others’ perform ance o f invocations. What Parkin calls the templates o f procedure invoked by daily prayer are strengthened, or weakened, by being a Muslim majority or minority in an overwhelmingly atheist, H indu or Christian society (M etcalf 1996). T he social spectrum is redefined in each cultural area (Europe, the M iddle East, the Indian subcontinent, insular Southeast A sia).5 Sharia can be m ore or less limited in its practical application to m arriage and inheritance law, or at the other end o f the social spectrum, the practice o f the faith can also make one a citizen o f a nation state. When M uslim s’ cultural and econom ic occupations bring them into contact with infidels on a daily basis, these are to be regulated or avoided on a predeterm ined basis. These segregating forces extend well beyond the m osque.

S a la t a s s o c ia l r e p r o d u c tio n Societies, 'm odernised’ by the forces o f the nation state, although lacking strong atheistic currents, have often seen Islam tem porarily m arginalised away from the centres o f power in their capitals (Feillard 1995: Ch. 9). Can we nonetheless find instances where Muslim rituals contribute to the rep roduction o f the society at large? Stepping o ff from M arcel M auss’ s interrogations, M. G odelier recently (1996) re-exam ined the enigma o f the unrepayable vertically descending gifts. What deities give to the societies are myths, revelations and their presence to those who

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address them. Can a social m orphology be in any way subsum ed, and represented in these oral rites for Allah as a al-nizam al-islami, a complete social order, as an Islamic fait social total? In fundam ental terms, does one im plore Allah, the prim e mover, to preserve on e’ s society? Congregational prayer has several cycles (daily, weekly, yearly). Starting with the daily cycle, when one says salat five times a day individually and once a week congregationally, does the saying o f these prayers accomplish m ore than instilling what Geoffrey Leenhardt called mental and m oral dispositions in the believers? Does the community address specific oral rites to Allah, the source o f all life, in an effort to perpetuate the AllM ercifuTs earlier act o f creation by social renewal, a m oral rearm am ent? C onsidered as a way o f m aintaining the well-being o f society, does such tribute recognise A llah’ s role and im portance in the disposition o f Muslim society? D uring the prayers one denies that society hold its being from any other source than Allah. Polytheism ’ s networks are vigorously denied. Ultimately it is as if one returned the creation to the creator (surat 2:152; 33:35 & 24:37), under the pretence that so great was the creator’ s om nipotence that true creation never leaves H im and only serves to reflect His existence. Such an ontology does seem to capture the spirit o f salat . 'L ord I turn my face towards the C reator o f the heavens and the earth. I have nothing in com m on with those who give H im com panions. My prayer, my sacrifices, my life and my death, I consecrate to Allah, the L ord o f the universe.’ (prayer at the beginning o f the first rak’a.) But salat , if it rem ains m oralistic in tone on the weekly Friday prayer, at the end o f the fast for ' aid al-Fitr becom es distinctly social. This is the pinnacle o f yearly prayer. It involves a total reconciliation o f the m em bers o f families and villages through a celebration o f the greatness o f A llah.6 The general forgiveness, the complete reconciliation, between all members o f society obtained by the m onth-long fast and the m agnification o f the greatness o f Allah in the late night tarwih (Arabic salat tuttsarawi) , is an effort at social rejuvenation. The breaking o f

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the fast can be a m om ent o f an immense release o f good feeling through m utual forgiveness and the social regeneration village wide. D uring the preceding night, teams o f men have manned the local m osque prayer sessions such that without interruption the name o f Allah has been proclaim ed for ten hours. At dawn when every one prays, whole fields are requisitioned in order to accom m odate the thousands present. The breaking o f the fast is the occasion for im m ediate neighbour and distant family reunions; in their local village a nexus o f extended kinship is rejuvenated. There is a real eruption o f joy! This feast reveals the potential o f social transform ation through m osque-based prayer. Dyadic linguistic models o f reciprocity bearing the marks o f com m unication theory would prove to be o f lim ited value for understanding it unless a third party, the community, is included. These Muslimin orants are inspired by the vision o f a hierarchy o f creation where Allah at the top is invoked in such a way as to (re-) cast society through a ritual forgiveness. T h eir Creator, in response to their prayers, is going to purify their whole community. Only by using words o f special Ram adhan prayers and salat can one correspond with Allah. Food offerings, used to appease the deities outside the m osque, are irrelevant and forbidden. Inside the m osque space points away towards Mecca and from Mecca to the heaven to which the prophet rose (mi raj) (surat 2.144; 17.1). We should reconsider the place salat is seen to occupy in society, in the light o f their m ain feast. It would no longer be that o f a m onotheistic godhead jealous for recognition o f his benevolent role in giving life to his creatures, but a p ertin en t’ recognition on the part o f mankind o f the role that Allah plays in m aintaining the well-being o f their specific com m unities. The m eaning o f 'pertinent’ or 'salient’ here shifts according to the social and political fram ing o f the invariant theolinguistic m odel o f salat . Obviously, community-wide prayer is defined not only by the texts o f salvation descended from Allah found in the Q u r’an, but also by the links woven between Islam and the nation state. Religious production usually follows the pattern: event, text, community. This chain

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requires constant renewal. For example: in the 1970s in Indonesia, a n eo-m odernist M uslim political program m e began prom oting an inclusivistic social pluralism (the event). This variety o f modernity was defined as ’renewal’ (pembaruan) and opposed to the unadulterated 'enrichm ent’ (pembangunan) style o f developm ent. In Indonesia beginning in 1970, N urcholish M adjid first used the term 'secularisation (Barton 1966:6) to describe the absence o f any obligatory social blueprint for society taken from the Q u r’an or Sunna. M oham m ed Abduh affirm ed the need for rationality and contextualised ijtihad (interpretation, judgem ent; cf. Abdullah Saeed 1996). In Indonesia the usefulness o f the sacred as the basis for a political program m e was being challenged. It is im portant to note here that salat was not m arginalised nor was society in any way 'disenchanted’ . The movement o f what H efner (1996:3) has called, 'civil pluralist’ Muslim values, was part o f a genuine revival o f Islam itself. N . M ajid claimed that secularisation was the realisation o f the absolute oneness o f G od ( tauhid) by the desacralising o f what was never to be found in the Q u r’an or the Sunna, i.e. the obligation and prescriptions for an Islamic state. I f the usefulness o f the sacred as the basis for a political program m e is challenged, then what is left o f the social project o f Islam ? What spiritual and social initiatives can reinforce Islam outside the m osque? In the conclusion to his chapter on sala and dua in Zanzibar, Parkin suggests: I suspect that the complementarity o f sala and dua is less about individual initiative against com m unal constraint, or even about the danger o f Islam becom ing polytheistic, but is m ore to do with overcoming religious orthodoxy which tends to see G od as so unquestionably om nipotent that p eople’ s lives are already pre-determ ined by G od. If this were found to be the case, Bowen’ s remarks about the periphery o f the Islamic world being a question o f secularisation and not o f geography, would have to be understood in a new light. For Bowen, debates about salat, as illustrated by his Gayo m aterial from Sum atra (1993: Ch. 13—14), are social

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debates deciding in a land-locked social setting to which public and private spheres one belongs. T herein lies no intention to com m unicate propositions, but the indexing o f an unchanging form , a G od-given convention which an Islamic group adheres to. Bowen s picture o f the Batak is inverted by Beatty’ s material from East Java where there exists a stress on sincerity and not on com pliance to the canonical norm o f salat amongst the kabathinan groups he studied. Perhaps, the puzzle may be explained by the fact that the notions o f intent ( niat) and belief are gaining in im portance. In the past, salat was an indexical claim for the existence o f Allah and ’o u r’ belonging to Him, dem onstrated by our perform ances o f these invocations. The semantically unchangeable was stressed. In East Java, after four hundred years o f Islam isation, attitude or niat has become im portant. This is again illustrated, and partially explained, by the situation described in Mayotte by Lambek, where the umma, the community, extends well beyond the Muslims. In East Java the n on -orth odox Muslims described by Beatty, go so far as to adopt and subvert the vocabulary o f salat in the name o f sincerity. Orthodoxy always implies heterodoxy. Displays o f public piety in salat may well be judged as purifying the faith. Nonetheless, such pluralism is potentially fraught with contradictions. When everyone knows the form o f salat, as in Java, one begins to need to find new ways o f purifying the faith, as these m osque-based prayers are taken not to have not only theological meanings but also social meanings. The relation o f the sounds to their semantic context is ambiguous. Kabathinan groups, as Beatty shows, reinterpret the meaning o f these prayers in a pantheistic m anner. For example, once one is alone before Allah, one is free to claim that his nam e (Allah) really means true consciousness. Kabathinan doesn’t even claim to be a religion but an ethos and hygiene. Kabathinan is post-Islamic. In Zanzibar Purpura found prayer vehicled a set o f social relations that reproduced piety, but also included a certain heterogeneity. As she explains, the paradigm o f knowledge is a social construction whose definition includes some diversity. Yet at the same time, Purpura points out that there could be no

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heterogeneity without closure. Lam bek form ulated this in a different way when, opposing the core set o f unchanged m osque-based rituals with the m ore flexible acculturated dua, he claimed that the m oral space in which these global texts are m obilising local praxis is nonetheless inherently Islamic. In other words, a religion is universal when it becomes exclusive. T his universality unilaterally cuts its links with any one ethnic or political group. If Islam were to have constantly been transform ed as it progressed across the Indian Ocean, its m onotheism would have not been much o f an ally to polities claim ing universal rule within the boundaries o f sultanates. T he com m on etymological root o f the Arabic terms da’wa (propagation and im pregnation o f Islam) and dua (calling out in personal supplication) seems to belie the claim o f several authors in this volume (Beatty, Headley, Parkin and Purpura) that M uslim prayers can be subversive. The hortative, contrafactual, oblique discourse with intentionalities ('may it be that . . . ’) constantly used by dua expresses desire, evoking possibilities for changing realities. This was not always used for creating conservative orthodoxies. The Wahhabi conquest o f Mecca in 1803 produced a reform ist fervour that released an anti-colonial potential. This led in Indonesia, to the Java War (1825—30), the Minangkabau Padri War (1821—1838) and the Aceh resistance (1873—1903). In the last two conflicts, the Dutch found it expedient to support the adat (customary law) leaders against the 'fanatical’ ulama reform ists. If the form ulaic also contains a certain flexibility in the selection o f prayer form ula, the m ore personal dua , as autonom ous action, extends the field for Islam isation into areas o f local hegemony. Self-styled orthodox Muslims in central Javanese villages are aware o f this periphery. Clearly hybrid form s o f Islam are the price not only o f tolerance and respect fo r o n e’ s elders, but also o f gradual on -go in g Islam isation. So niat (intention) also embraces confidence in a certain politics o f b elief and praxis. In a way, Wahhabi reform ists in their struggle against acculturation were making a claim for the separation o f religion from the local exercise o f political networks.

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O ne way to capture the religious dim ensions o f the morphology o f the communities lying around the Indian Ocean, not in their cultural uniqueness, but in their social dynamics, would be to compare them to more recent im m igrations elsewhere. In Western Europe, these communities have no possibility o f dom inating religious life, let alone society at large. At first glance, those European Muslim communities bear no resemblance to their Indian Ocean precedents. At the end o f the twentieth century, these post-m odern pluralists are linked to more than one country at a time. The contours o f these communities o f Western European overseas Muslims are more fluid than the boundaries o f their newly adopted nation-states, says M etcalf (1996:22). What this author describes as the tools o f cultural displacement, their negotiations o f hybridity and authenticity, led them to redefine and re-appropriate the whole notion o f hijra (emigration from a land where one could not practice on e’ s Muslim faith). These new solidarities created by political experience and transnational networks, provoke an objectification o f self (Eickelman 1989) and even an Islamisation o f self (W. Schiffauer cited in Metcalf 1996:7). Is this trait a monopoly o f Muslim immigrants to Western E urope? N aipaul has suggested (1998: pt. I) that even in the Indonesian archipelago every Muslim who leaves his village for a neighbouring city has had to deal with a painful disengagement and an equally complex social re-integration. C ertain groups, with a tradition o f em igration like the Batak and Minangkabau, were better prepared. But not even the groups traditionally involved in inter-island trading claimed it was an easy transition. Having m ultiple alliances over a religiously diverse and culturally mixed population did not occur for the first time after World War II in Western Europe. For M uslim populations in many areas o f the Indian Ocean, for instance, linguistic diversity during the serm on ( khotbah) was a com m on experience in the coastal sultanates. Likewise local dakwah in some areas encourages objectification o f self in order to achieve Islam isation (for Malaysia cf. Shamsul 1995). As Farouk Topan shows in his chapter, prayer is always the expression both o f self and community. The Swahili Sunni

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Shaft’i M uslims are influenced by the practices o f Ism aili tariqah with whom they share a com m on salat. Avoiding religious assim ilation, when one shares the same social space, heightens self-consciousness. The marginality o f im m igrant groups is no exception to this rule. Yet at the same time, for the immigrants to Western Europe, practice o f salat in ethnically mixed umma has broadened certain horizons to include other im m igrant nationals (M etcalf 1996:10—11). Given the extreme mobility o f the Muslim cult, some observers, especially practising Muslims, expect that the abd , the servants o f Allah, would submit themselves everywhere in the same devotions. In that case, there would be no difference between the inside o f a m osque in B radford, England and on the north coast o f Bali. Since the whole point o f our workshop was to understand how the world outside the m osque was refracted in the praxis inside the m osque and vice-versa, which models, for these diversified networks can be used? Traditional polities around the Indian O cean had limited local control, little outreach to the grassroots level. Muslim networks (Azra 1994) were often vast and m ulti-faceted (com m ercial, political and religious). A fter the colonial regimes, contem porary nation states had many ways to reduce, fragm ent and eliminate these earlier autonom ous Muslim organisations. This is not to say that such states are om n ipotent. Indonesia has recently shown this. Beginning in the 1980’ s, the M uslim parties, Nahdatul Ulam a and M uhammadiyah, were forced out o f the political arena. A nd yet they were subsequently able to increase their influence and prestige. Ten years later the state had to catch up with this upsurge in Muslim fervour. The then vice-president Try Sutrisno, in a cover story o f the weekly Panji Masyarakat (no. 750; July 1993), defended the state’ s u nsuccessful m an ipu latio n o f Islam saying that, 'Religion was not (to be used) for political legitim isation.’ The state had been unable to keep up with the redefinition o f the place that Islam occupied in the m odern life by the form er parties’ shrewd practice o f civil pluralism . H efner has analysed the weakness o f this realignm ent, noticing that it included a 'soft’ secularisation.

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'In attacking guardian spirits, belittling the spiritual efficacy o f ancestors, and contesting the morality o f magic, M uslim reform ers have desacralised domains that previously fell under the spell o f magical and spiritist technique, and relocated divinity to a higher and abstract plane . . . By conceiving o f G od in less m anipulable, more abstract terms, this softly secularised religious experience can resonate with m ore generalised ethical appeals and m ore em pirical vehicles o f explanation and control. As this resonance deepens we should not be surprised to hear believers explain local m oral issues in terms o f universalistic ethical ideas, such as the interests o f the community o f M uslim believers (ummat)’ (H efner 1996:14—15). In a volume she edited on the pursuit o f certainty, Wendy Jam es (1995:3), in her introduction points to the phenom ena 'o f the provocation o f autonom ous local self knowledge by global interaction and global m ed ia/ Clearly everywhere around the Indian O cean, the creation in 1973 o f O PEC changed econom ic policies and financially favoured Islam isation . T h e alarm aroused by the Iranian revolution o f K hom eini (1979) barely slowed this down. As W. Jam es wrote: 'N ot only do the new certainties seem to be able to spread like strong currencies into weak econom ies: they spread with the actual power o f strong currencies. Exchanges o f 'knowledge’ used to be m ultiple, provisional, partial, set within a context o f social relations; it was rare for the tokens o f ideological exchange to correspond to the whole o f a person ’ s being, a com m itm ent dem anded by some o f the new merchants o f faith’ (1995:5). The chapters subm itted to the reader in this volume do not confirm what Jam es later suggests (1995:12) that 'from the periphery the market place o f certainties on offer is less open than it might be represented at the centre.’ Perhaps the periphery in landlocked areas should be viewed as different from the peripheries o f the Indian O cean where, as Vasco da Gam a was to discover during the closing years o f the fifteenth

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century (Subrahm anyam 1997: Ch. 3), pragmatism was day to day strategy for survival in the com m ercial and cosm opolitan world o f South Asian and A frican trading ports. Few were pushing their long-term ideological commitments, and p h ilosophical purity was a weak coinage in mediating a world o f trade and diverse com m ercial partners, even if 'M oors’ were eventually to be found throughout the region. When Vasco da Gam a arrived in Calicut, Islam and Christianity did not make hostile trade wars with one another. If anything their com m on M editerranean culture gave them a com m on language (Sub rahmanyam 1997:129). This is not to deny that the principal o f the freedom o f the seas was taken captive as soon as an empire created by the O ttom ans, the Portuguese, the English or the Dutch was strong enough to do so (Lom bard and Aubin 1988). Inside these networks the cosm opolitan character o f their port cities was not be so easily erased.

I n t o n a t io n a n d In v o c a tio n : S ile n c e a n d S a tu r a tio n After considering salat as a reflection o f society and as an effort at social reproduction, in this final section, salat will be discussed on the level o f natural languages, as oral rite. The human voice used for prayer involves both unconsciously and consciously m odified behaviour. The supposition here is that in the sociolinguistic spectrum o f speech events and oral rites, men will be able to situate any 'art o f the voice’ used for invocations in a slot o f 'prayer’ . O ne does not have to be a Muslim to recognise that salat is prayer. O ne rarely separates oneself from the prosody and intonation with which one has learnt to speak. However, when one learns to invoke the spirits or Allah, one often adopts 'artificial’ intonation and a coded saturation o f the message which precludes interpretation o f the media as anything other than a certain kind o f prayer. This is certainly the case o f salat. But is occasional participation in such a salat, in and o f itself, sufficient for being a M uslim ? The Muslim answer is yes. But the occasional Muslims don’t feel constrained by their periodic politeness towards Allah. This is not only a question o f sociolinguistics, for as Lambek has written in his chapter above,

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’I prefer to speak about "active participation” , or even better, about "acceptance” o f Islam rather than about "conversion” to it . . . in so far as it privileges a private, subjective experience over a collective process; and in so far as it privileges rationalised "beliefs” over ritual orders . . . [conversion would] address the globalisation o f Mayotte via Islam rather than the localisation o f Islam within Mayotte. "C onversion” understood as societal transform ation p erhaps overlooks some o f the complexities inherent in the social reception o f a new order. Indeed, it may overlook some o f the very dimensions o f moral agency that both H efner and I would consider central.’ (p. 65) What the inhabitants o f Mayotte consider generically Muslim, says Lambek, is prayer. In that sense, they would consider their ancestral practices as belonging to a much broader complex than this abstract notion o f religion. Am ongst the Gayo, Bowen reports that salat’ s form is considered not a natural but a conventional one. What is m ore, the convention is Allah’ s not that o f hum ans. Otherwise, they say, who would have changed the direction o f prayer from facing Jerusalem to facing M ecca? Since this oral rite is not communicative, but ordained, what is im portant are A llah’ s instructions to M ohammed on how to pray, to be in conform ity to the m odel. In this sense Muslims 'have, or owe’ prayer or salat. For the Javanese this 'having a ritual work to accom plish’ (dhuwé gawé) does not yet distinguish salat from any other ritual activity, such as com m unal slametan meals. T he fact that it is in Arabic would make it all the m ore a commodity for those who recite the prayers without u n d erstanding or listening to the m eaning o f their words. Lambek reports that some Malagasy families have children belonging to all the available 'religious’ options. The same is true o f Java. This reflects the idea that one is accepting new knowledge and not casting aside sinful practices. For Lambek this has led on Mayotte to a cultural pluralism . 'My picture has been o f a political economy o f knowledge com bined with a polyphonous conversation in which

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Islam, cosmology (or astrology), and spirit possession are incom m ensurable discourses, not so much in contradiction with one another, as speaking past one another. Yet, if some o f the Sakalava converted to Islam, this conversion is itself subsum ed within the system o f spirit possession that is capable o f representing it. This is polyphony o f a particular sort in which ordinary people themselves each speak in several voices and with several shades o f m ean in g.’ (pp. 4—5) Lam bek goes on (p. 70) to show how the performative qualities o f a M uslim recitation can operate differently at different levels. I f on the one hand, perform ance through speech localises Islam on Mayotte, on the other hand, the felicitous perform ance o f a M uslim text has an illocutionary force, in blessing, protecting, cursing, appealing to and Islam ising the social order. So, enactment o f global (i.e. Muslim texts) in local activities indexes persons and relationships in significant m oral action (p. 73). It stands to reason that in a given society performatively indexed intentions in oral rites are going to be socially em bedded. At least part o f the local social structure must be subsum ed in the rite, otherwise there is nothing to hang the indexing on other than individuality. Thus, salat reinforces social solidarity when it does not splinter it through intolerance. Still, what was the superficially obvious, if one com pared salat in the m osque and dua outside the m osque, is the uniform ity o f the perform ance o f the form er and the diversity o f execution o f the latter. It is less obvious that these two form s o f discourse result from separate but related social constructions o f knowledge. D oes this contrast, in and o f itself, justify our use o f the opposition o f the m osque’ s exclusively sacred space and the open-ended one outside the m osque? O ne cannot see any a priori reasons why the sociolinguistic spectrum o f oral rites should not be im agined to stretch from one end right through to the other. T he m osque ('the place where one kneels’ , sajada) need not be defined by what is 'n o n -m o sq u e .7 It is sui-generis. The gamut o f traditional discourse in a given society simply

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adds salat along with other form ulaic rites at one end o f its spectrum. The Kidung Candhini, examined by Headley in his chapter on Javanese salat, showed that at least in the sixteenth century, salat was considered a preliminary to the deeper, monologistic prayer o f dhikr. This sort o f meditation and contemplation was portrayed in the traditional setting o f Javanese Saivite hermitages. If one were to make a detailed enquiry into the specifics o f these oral performances, the characteristics o f salat realised by the subsequent dm may belong, in some cases, to a different slot in their sociolinguistic repertory. They are perform ed very differently, but ascetically speaking one prolongs the other. To put the question another way, aren’t the same icons embedded in the authority o f salat, sometimes only re-fram ed in the world outside the mosque during dua? To answer this question, we must return to Bouyer’ s notion o f salience in traditional discourse. In a given society, what is the context for the statements produced by any interaction for them to be considered as true? The answer to that question will outline their criterion for truth. O ne feature o f traditional discourse, defined by Bouyer, is literalism . The result o f an invocation is considered to have been produced by the link made between the entities invoked and the statements made about them. This form o f interaction is held to be the criterion o f causality and production, not a m ode o f com m unication. Associate object 'x' and form ula 'y ' and 'z' will occur. That 'tradition may later be held to be exclusive, i.e. the only way to get 'z'. As Bouyer says from the outset, traditions, as he defines them, need to be: 1 the products o f social interaction; 2 repeated, which fulfils the criterion o f recognition; 3 psychologically salient. The third characteristic perm its us to exclude the existence o f a hypothetical m odel which guarantees conformity to the 'tradition and to rely only on the attention-dem anding aspect o f each perform ance to achieve salience. Bouyer’ s theory is a convenient way to address the issue o f how one learns and continues to perform salat and dua .

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We have been arguing here in three different ways that fram ing salat inside the m osque is partially dependent on the fram es which discourse in the outside world provide. When accom plished with purity o f body and heart, the form ula o f salat (including its postures) projects the confidence one can have in their orthodoxy, their politics o f belief. This is known to be the case before one even enters the m osque. T heir autonom ous action is usually considered higher than any o f the collective oral rites used during dua outside the m osque (cf. Parkin and Purpura). A long the East A frican coast, dua is considered morally neutral, while salat is always considered m eritorious. That idiom is a framework shaped by local experience. If the praxis is always local by definition, how are these universal, global texts m obilising it? Purpura claimed that, in Zanzibar, piety could becom e a means o f negotiating the political through the personal. Let us examine this proposition on the basis o f the salat text. In its simplest form , it is obvious that by displaying piety one is assured o f gaining social acceptance, at least inside the m osque. But that simplicity belies a need for sincerity. When entering the m osque to pray, one is responding to the call to prayer (aland an), but to begin to pray one must repeat, facing the qibla, another prayer ( a l-Iq 'ama) which, except for the repetitions, is exactly the same as the form er one. This testifies to the insistence on personal im plication. N ot only is the orientation towards Mecca an icon locating authority (H ill and Irvene 1992:10), but the constant specification o f intention, person ally achieved and perform ed with on e’ s body, should guarantee that the m eanings o f the form ulae are grasped. And one might add, left as they were, not reinterpreted by any one individual. Yet, Beatty’ s chapter showed that the role o f local u n derstandings o f perform ance can underm ine the most closely guarded rites like salat . The fram ing from the society at large is dom inant in certain areas o f East Java. If religious rituals are deliberate m is-statem ents o f the reality o f political economy, as M. Bloch (1989:43 quoted by Beatty p. 40) suggests, it is also because by com m unicating with the deity the individual feels that he/she has escaped the constraints o f the present society

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(Beatty p. 40). T he fact o f diversity, whether it concerns personal destinies or religious affiliations, is constantly recalled by the existence o f a m osque. Everywhere around the Indian O cean, in the chapters above, salat was considered a way o f verifying, proving on e’ s faith. But if in certain cultures such as in Java, the external spoken word is viewed as crude and the unspoken, internally contem plated sound, as refined and spiritually powerful, the heterodox Javanese, for a long time to come, will continue to consider that, as Beatty wrote, '[Muslim] O rthodoxy . . . is flawed by an incorrect use o f language.’ Finally, four hundred years after the arrival o f Islam in Java, the local kabathinan tradition o f intonation still opposes the M iddle Eastern one. It is still so vibrant that it does not hesitate to say that the proclam ations o f the salatt ju st because they are said out lo u d, are doom ed to go without response. Such judgem ents could also be applied to recitations taking place outside the m osque. This is surprising given the special popularity o f the Q u r’an reciting com petitions in Malaysia and Indonesia generally, and the obvious aesthetic pleasure it gives. Singing, as praying and rehearsal, as a reflection on the m eaning o f the text, may now exist for some Muslims, but not yet for all. So what happens during these readings? During the recitation o f the sacred text o f the Q u r’an outside the mosque, in order to achieve good health, purification or pardon o f sins, etc., a close adaptation o f the recitative to the movement o f the words need not be preserved. This is all the more likely if one can read Arabic, but not understand it. That is detachment from the pragmatic present, through repeating what becomes formulaic speech. O ne is left with a figurative language dealing in some general way with how Allah was revealed to Mohammed. This may not be what the text says, but is ultimately what it is about. That is not to say that no one opens the Q u r’an in translation and tries to read it cover to cover. During Ramadhan, the popularity o f public exegesis lessons in Javanese on the m osques’ porch before the breaking o f the fact, attests to the contrary. O ther illocutionary features o f salat and dua will show sim ilarities. For instance, the role o f 'quotes’ in creation o f an

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im personal authority (cf. Du Bois 1987), which shifts responsibility away from the person, when somewhere outside the m osque, som eone has been asked to pray. This does not differ form ally from the quotes from the Q u r’an (sura al-Ikhlas, alAsar, A n-N asar, etc.) used at the beginning o f the salat . The authority o f revelation is what is being invoked. Almost any selection from the Q u r’an will do, as long as one knows it by heart. T his makes the accom plishm ent o f salat and dua the acquiescence to the revelation o f Allah. Interpretation here is not that o f a private m eaning, but o f the fact that the Q u r’an has descended to earth and been revealed to M ohammed. Acknowledgement is a public act in both cases. A diviner, as Du Bois (1987) showed, creates signs in response to a dialogue, signs which are authoritative precisely because they are not intent on the dialogue but are emitted by reality itself. Given the slippage between white magic and black magic in many societies, and the violence to which the latter can be subjected, this may be done as a protective measure by some diviners. Ritual prayer is often an icon o f authority. In D uranti’ s anti-personalist critique describing Sam oan ethnopragmatics (1992), interpretation is described not as the creation o f private meanings, but as public control o f social relationships. T his could be said to be a dim ension both o f salat and o f the way diviners perform . As in D uranti’ s analysis o f prom ise in Sam oa, am ongst the Ilongot the value o f a word is what it does to reality and not the som ething that exists in certain people’ s m inds. Writing on Ilongot com m ands (tuydek), M. Rosaldo (1980:72—76) indexes a hierarchy o f hum an relationships. T urn ing towards Allah as a public visible act has social consequences which private prayer does not. This raises the issue o f the freedom o f expression possible in completely private dua. It certainly exists in practice, ju st as private fasting and m editation are encountered, but how are they fram ed socially? Is this the last refuge for personal spiritual quests in an increasingly invasive outside w orld? G lobalisation is not an altogether new phenom enon. There have already existed total interpretative frameworks integrating cosmology, psychology and law (dharma) to structure the

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u nderstanding o f m a n s place in society since the first m illennium B C . in South Asia. For instance in Java, the early Buddhist (late eighth century) Sailendra kingdom constructed out o f stone an interpretative grid no less exhaustive than the salat. As a m onum ent it has to be read as a ritual for the culture that created it. Paul Mus wrote, 'The Barabudur is a concentration o f Dharm a in the centre o f the kingdom , itself image o f the world; and it signals the passage o f the kingdom, mystic equivalent o f the world, under the dharma.’ (1998: xxvi) What poses a problem for the anthropologist is not the total interpretative pretension o f salat, but the need to find tools to understand the diverse ways it is heard and understood in the widely different societies that exist on the three sides o f the Indian O cean. The construction o f a field for com parison is also problem atic. In Southeast Asia between 1450—1680 half the population converted to a m onotheist (Islamic and Christian) religion. The period o f these conversions matches closely the in tensification o f in ternational com m erce (thirteenth to fifteenth century). The rise o f the coastal sultanates (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) follows closely on it heels (Reid 1993 vol. II: Ch. 3; Lom bard 1990, vol. 2: C h .l). But the Southeast Asian networks were quite recent com pared to those o f the Southwest Asian coasts. How far down the East African coast and up the Red Sea or the Persian G u lf should one go to get an adequate comparative field? Shouldn’t the South China Sea be included since Islam isation took place along much o f the China coast (Lom bard 1990, vol. 3, figure 3 2)? Clearly the area to be covered could have been extended and the absence o f the Indian sub-continent alone would justify a second volume. The area included in this volume is ad hoc and partially based on the networks o f traditional trading partners. But an even greater difficulty comes from our inexperience in listening to Muslim prayers in the polyphonic, plurivocal ways they are heard in the area examined. Hopefully, this volume will have dem onstrated the need for such a sophisticated listening and some o f the tools that make that possible. The

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social production o f prayer has a multitude o f purposes. This statement should be seen as offensive to no one. It is simply a fact. Societies seize on oral rites, be they monotheist or polytheist. That the conventionalised salat is, at the same time, highly socialised by forces both inside and outside the mosque, is amply dem onstrated by the studies above.

N o te s 1 Literally the path that leads to the water trough, hence the clear path for the faithful to follow, the canon o f Allah’ s commandments (in the singular, a hukum). For a comparison o f the impetus to world empire between Christianity and Islam, cf. G. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, consequences o f monotheism in late antiquity, 1993. 2 This explains why Saudi Arabia has not been included in this volume. On the other hand it would have been useful to make space for four or five articles concerning India and Pakistan whose experience Islam is considerably longer than that o f most o f the societies covered by this volume. 3 David Szanton at the Social Science Research Council in New York initiated a whole series o f studies on the relation o f the sacred and the secular in Muslim societies in the late 1980’ s. Several o f these volumes have already appeared edited by W.R. Rolff, G. Keppel and Y. Richard, B. D. Metcalf and J . Piscatori. 4 Personal communciation, Dr. Muhammad Saleem, St. Antony’ s College Oxford. 5 By way o f comparison, the appearance o f hindutva, H indu Indian identity, is m ore than a rage against Islam. The difficulties o f ascribing and agreeing on the causes o f communalism in India are described in Ludden 1996:1—26. 6 For a Javanese example cf. Headley’ s film 'La Prière à Java: trois styles: sur le corps, avec des offrandes et dans la mosquée'. 50 minutes. Go-production C N R S/ O R ST O M , 1989. 7 But on man’ s situation once inside the mosque, cf. P. Nwiya 1970:135. '. . . the faithful divests him self o f all profane acts such as speaking, seeing, walking, eating, drinking . . .’ (translation SC H ).

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Abduh, Mohamm ed, 223 ablution, 17, 100, acceptance o f Islam, 3, 4, 65, 68, 69, 86; see also conversion acculturation, 170, 193; see also adaptation Aceh resistance, 225 adaptation, 169; see also acculturation Ahmadiya brotherhood, 7 Ali, 108, 113 amulets, 2 ancestor worship, 15, 66, 67, 76, 78, 83, 91, 95 Anderson, B ., 53 Andriantsoly, K ing, 66, 71, 92, 93 animal sacrifice, 18 animism, 154 Arab Administration, 104 Arabic, 4, 14 Ardani, M ., 192 A ristotelian philosophy, 186 asceticism, 16 astrology, 90, 119 atheism, 217 attribution, 41, authorship, 7, 10 Babad Kedhiri, 201

Bali, 227

Baisi, A ., 127 baraka, 7, 10, 117, 122-125, 134, 135, 165 al-Barazanji, Hasan, 107 Batak, 226 Bayuwangi, 48 Beatty, A ., 2, 3, 7, 9-12, ch 3, 108, 224, 225, 233 beauty pageants, 16 Behreand, T ., 173, 174, 223 Berawan prayer, 44 Bidda, 129 Blake, W., 46 blasphemy, 8, 9, 14, 27 Bloch, M ., 233 body language, 16—19, 145, 216; discomforts, 18; movements, 18; purification of, 18; role o f the body in prayer, 16; use o f body in prayer, 15 Bonang, Saint, 55 Bourdieu, P., 72, 95 Bouyer, P., 232 Bowen, J . , 8, 9, 14, ch 2, 42, 79, 95, 96, 108, 223, 230 Bradford, 227 al-Burhanipuri, Muhammad ibn Fadlall’ah, 185

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Cartesian epistemology, 17 Catholic, 15, 66 Christianised Platonism, 186 Christianity, 15, 29, 31, 43, 65—68, 84, 85, 95, 222 Coast Arab Association, 104 Cohen, A ., 153 collective worship, 153, 154 communal cohesion, 18 Com oro Islands, 64, 94, 118 Constantin, F., 126 contamination, 154, 165 contestability, 20, conversion, 3, 63, 65, 67—70, 88, 93, 95, 170, 224, 230, 231; also acceptance conviction, 9 see also sincerity cosmology, 66, 70, 87 Crapanzano, V ., 130 da’wa, 109, 110, 112, 123, 126, 128,

130, 135, 214, 225 Derma Gandhul, 201, 203

deviation, 26, 27, devotional columns, 16 devotional intention, 9, 42, 54, 59 diaspora, 3 D orpm ueller, S., 2, 3 dhikr, 4, 7, 14, 18, 130, 141, 146, 232 dhijad, 214 Drewes, 185 dm , 4 - 7 , 10-14, 18-21, 72, 74, 75, 79, 83, 85-90, 107, 111, 120-124, 126, 128, 130, 135, 137, 138, 140-151, 154, 162-167, 215-219, 223, 225, 231-235 Du Bois, C ., 235 Duranti, A ., 235 Durkheim, Emile, 74, 88, 90 East Africa, 2, 6, 11, 14, 15, 18, 64, 68, 80, 95, 99-102, 115 ecstasy, 17, 54, 82,

d ex

Egypt, 3 Emirates, 152 English, 229 European Muslim communities, 226 Evans-Pritchard, E .E ., 72 fatiha, 4, 8, 9, 14, 18, 20, 27-37, 101

Fatimid Em pire, 109, 110 fiqh, 174

France, 91, 94 Friday mosque, 106, 147 Friday prayer, 45, 72, 85, 96, 101-106, 147, 214, 217 Gill, S., 44 Gilsenan, M., 130 Giriama, 161 globalisation, 235 globalism, 3 Godelier, M., 220 Gueunier, N ., 77 Gujerat, 2, Hadhrami, 2, 15, 139, 152

H adijono, H ., 215 hadüh, 25, 99, 100, 101, 110 Hadiwijono, H ., 205, 225 Hagar, 27 hajj, 49, 102 Hanbal, Ibn, 100, 152 Hanifa, Abu, 100, 101 al-H aram , M., 49 Harmako, Haji Ahmad, 28—37 Hasan Basri, K .H ., 32, 33 Hausa, 153 Headley, S., 3, 5, 9, 14, 16, 17, 42, 141, 146, 165, ch 8, ch 9 H efner, R., 63, 65, 66, 73, 84, 88-90, 95, 223, 227, 230 Hellenistic philosophy, 181 heresy, 140, 217 hijra, 226 Hinduism , 23, 180

In

Humphrey, C ., 23—25 Hunwick, J . , 6 Ibadi, 118, 139, 147

mosques, 15 Idd-ul-Fitr, 19, 221

idolatry, 45 Imam, 9 -11, 19, 32, 100, 110, 114, 141, 142, 145, 147, 148, 155, 164, 165 im am ate, 108 impiety, 8 impurity, 125, 126, 155 India, 2, 3, 5 indigenous knowledge, 13 Indonesia, 2, 3, 8, 16, ch.2, 227, 227 insincerity, 8, 10 Ithnasheri, 15 interpretation, 39, 41—43, 47, 55, invocation, 4, 5, 11, 20, 44, 83, 137-140, 144, 155, 167, 188, 205, 214-220, 224, 229, 232 definitions of, 5; levels o f dialogue, 5—8; indigenous form s, 13; Javanese form s, 41, 193, 206, 220, 221; Malagasy form s, 66; physical/ bodily form s, 8—11; terminological distinctions in Islam, 4; textual form s of, 8—11 ; see also dua, prayer, salat Iranian Revolution, 228 Islam dimensions of, 69; dualism, 18; pillars o f , 6, 20, 69, 102, 110, 154; localisation of, 1, 4 , 15, ch 4; reception of, 68, 71, 72; spread of, 64, 69 Islamic authority, 78; consciousness, 2; essentialists, 127, 128; expansion, 13; funerals, 77, 78, 86, 87, 91, 94; holy texts, 3,

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69; law, 4, 69, see also sharia and law; ritual knowledge, 25; prayer in East Java, 41; textual performances, 63, 71—74, 76; videos, 3 Islamisation o f Javanese payer, 169, 188; o f society, 3, 4, 16, 63, 71, 73, 84-88, 91 Ismaili, 14, 15, 108-114, 227 Iran, 3 Jain , 23, 24 Ja in epistemology o f ritual, 25 Jam es, W., 228 Java, 9, 28, 34, 37, ch 3, ch 8 War, 172 Javanese courtly literature, 42; creation myth, 191; language, 52; metaphysics, 49; mysticism, 4 1 -4 , 46, 48, 50-52, 54, 56, 60-, orthodoxy, 41, 42, 45—48, 51; pantheism, 45; peasant ancestral traditions, 170, 186, 189, 196; prayer form s, 41; Sivism, 197, 205, 232; texts, 46; understandings o f perfomativity, 57 Javanisation o f Islamic prayer, 169, 188 Javanism, 193, 204, 222 Jerusalem , 26, Jin n s, 159—163 Kadipaten Centhini, 188 Karama, 117, 120, 122-128, 132, 134 karma , 57, 59, 60

Kenya, 138, 19, 153, 157, 166 khatibu, 102 khutba, 102, 103 Kibushy people, 3, 64, 94, 95 Kidung Candhini, 173—178, 232 Kitab Patuhubrahmen, 54, 185, 187

254

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Kripke, S., 25 Kuch, 2, Laidlaw, J . , 23—25 Lambek, M ., 2—4, 14, 15, 18, ch 4, 219, 224, 225, 229-231 Lamu, 102, 103, 108 law, customary, 69; Islamic, 4, 69, 170, 178; see also sharia legal anthropology, 89 Lévi-Strauss, G., 146 Leenhardt, G ., 221 Lienhardt, P., 19 Madagascar, 2, 3, 64—65, 67, 68, 87, 88, 92, 118 M ajid, N ., 217, 223 Malagasy peoples, 3, 67 ancestral practices, 66; thought, 66 Malinowski, B ., 137 Matano, H am ed, 105 Maulidi (a), 4, 72, 77, 90-94, 107, 108, 140, 147, 150, 157, 159 localisation of, 80—83; Mauss, M ., 137, 220 Mayotte, 2—4, 14, 15, 18, ch 4, 140, 219, 224, 230, 231 Mecca, 9, 12, 14, 18, 20, 26, 28, 35, 75, 88, 101, 142, 152, 15, 156 Medina, 26, 101 Metcalf, B ., 5, 8, 44, Metcalf, S.D ., 217-220, 226, 227, 237 Middle East, 2, 152, 170, 193 M iddleton, J . , 150 Mijikenda, 157, 160, 161 Minangkabau Padri War, 225 Mombasa, 103, 105, 106, 138, 140, 149 monism , cosmic, 184, 189; Javanese, 191; orthodox, 181; radical, 178, 181, 183, 192, 215

d ex

monotheism, 13, 213, 220, 225 mosque, 1, 2, 5, 9, 11—20, 41—48, 53, 61, 101-103, 105-107, 114, 141-149, 153-161, 166, ch 9 positions in village mosques, 85; women, 143 Mouride, 20 Mtwapa, 149, 151-163, 167 Mus, P., 217 Musa, Saidi, 107 Muslims categories of, 4; orthodox, 7, 11, 12, 17; mystics, 7, 10-11, 14 mystical knowledge, 46 Netherlands, 69 Nigeria, 153 Nihilism, 217 al-Num an, Qudhi, 110—113 numerology, 45, 47 Oman, 15, 118, 121, 127, 132, 139, 147 Om ani Arabs, 103, 104 Om ari, Maalim, 159 ontological monists, 12, 17, 18 ontological dualists, 12, 17 OPEG, 228 orthopraxy, 27 Ottomans, 229 Pakistan, 3, 218 Parkin, D ., ch. 1, ch 7, 219-223, 225 Pemba Island, 148, 155 piety, 1, 2, 40, 99, 114, 117, 128, 133-135, 224, 233 pilgrimage, 45, 88 Piscatori, J.P ., 19 pluralism, civil, 223, 227; cultural, 69, 230—231; religious, 65—68, 218; social, 218, 223

In

Polkam, M ., 35 polyphony, 65 polytheism, 13, 21, 14, 165, 170, 184, 189, 217, 220, 221 Portugues, 229 prayer see also dua, invocation, salat dimensions o f dialogue/prayer, 219: esoteric; 108—114; exoteric; indirect, 7; n on reciprocal, 5, 6; recriprocal, 5, 6; reflexive, 7, 8, 108—112; social, 219; generic practices o f praye, 13; position o f hands, 43, 109; prayer postures, 9, 12, 16, 20, 172, 174, 216; prayer as protest, 103, 106 pronunciation, 8 prophethood, 108 Protestant, 15, 29, 31, 65, 66, 79, 85 Pulleyn, S. J . , 215 purification, 16, 18, 145, 157, 165, 224 purity, 99, 108, 110, 114 Purpura, A ., 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 14, ch 5, 224, 233 Prophet Mohamm ed, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 24, 26, 27, 33, 36, 80, 82, 87, 99-101, 107-114, 118, 127-129, 132, 218 Qadiriya, 7, 18, 72 qasida, 4, 14, 16, 107, 140, 141

Q u r’an, 2, 27—26, 99—102, 107-113, 143, 152, 159, 162, 165, 216 women, 16 Q u r’anic schools, 107 ra’kat , 9, 12, 14, 20, 43, 100, 175, Ramadhan, 18, 152, 154 Ranggawarsita, 204, 205, 213—216, 225 Rappaport, R ., 68, 69, 72, 85—87, 95

255

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reciprocity, 80, 125 Greek rhetorical models, 215; reciprocity scenario, 80—84, 90-93, recitation, 49, 50, 54, 100, 107, 108,

111

reformists, 4, 11, 14, 12, 18; see also Wahabi

religious inventiveness, 214 Reunion, 64 Riddell, P., 16 ritual as communication, 23, 24; epistemology, 26; genealogy, 24, 25; ritual purity, 24; ritual speech, 577—60; ritual studies, 23; ritual validity, 27 Rosaldo, M. 235 sadaka , 137, 149-152, 15-167

Sailendra Kingdom , 236 sakalava , 70, 87, 91—95 salat (salaa), 7-20, 23-26, 29, 31-33,

35, 37, 43-45, 47, 54-56, 60, 99-102, 107-115, 137-149, 164-167, 167, 170, 172-178, 189, 193-196, 202-204, 218, 220, ch 9 dimension o f (bodily and textual), 9—11; as oral rite, 229 Salem, 38 Salim, Sir Ali bin, 104 Sangkan Paran Sect, 48, 49, 56 Sapta Dharma sect, 56 Saudi Arabia, 147, 214 Sembah, 169, 174, 175, 178, 190, 192-196, 201-204, 224, 225 Serat Cabolek, 46, 180 Serat Centhini, 46, 192, 202, 223, 224 Serat Dermagandhul, 42 Serat Gatothlocaf 200 Serat Siti Jenar, 178—181 Seyyid Silima, 7, ch 5

In

256

Shafi’i, Imam, 100, 101, 114, 115, 118, 135, shahada, 4, 6, 20, 101, 102 shariah, 44, 170, 174-179, 195, 196, 202, 214, 220 She Bari, 183, 184 Shathuly, 72 Shi’a, 14, 15, 114, 118 shijabo, 18, 74—76, 86 shirk , 18, 170, 184, see also polytheism sincerity, 7—10, 14, 28, 29, 224, 233; see also conviction social solidarity, 231 Soedarm an, Soesilo, 35 Som alia, 7, 118 speech act theory , 40, 48, 51—53, 55, 57, 61 spirits, 134, 14, 146, 19, 151—156 spirit possession, 14, 17, 18, 70, 89-93 Sri Lanka, 2 Sudom o, Admiral, 28, 29, 36, 37 Sufism , 43, 46, 50, 72, 97, 118, 119, 129, 130, 136, 140 Sumatra, 185, 223 Sumatran Islam, 197 sunna, 24, 33, 43, 223 Sunni Jurists, 100; mosques, 15; Muslims, 13, 85, 118, 139, 147, 227 supplication, 5, 6, 8, 17, 21, 44, 83, 121, 123, 126, 128, 130, 131, 134, 137, 139-141, 149, 157, 164-166, 193, 220, 221, 225; see also dua, salat

d ex

tariqa , 111, 118 tawasul, 4, 7, 13, 20, 130, 140 tawhid , 178, 186

templates o f procedures, 11, 220 thawabu, 117, 125, 128,

theolinguistics o f the mosque, 214 Topan, F., 3, 13, 14, 84, 87, 97, ch 5, 226 tolerance, co-religious, 14 traditionalists, 14 transformations o f self, 46, 47, 51 transnationalism, 3, 64 Twelve tribes, 103, 105 ummah, 40, 101, 148, 213, 215-217,

224, 227 uncleanliness, 18; see also contamination Vasco de Gama, 228. 229 verbal efficacy, 53, 58, 60 Wahabi, 7, 11, 14, 101, 147, 225; see also reformists Weber, M., 65, 79, 88-90, 95 Wedhatama, 178, 193, 194, 201-205 Wensinck, A .J., 216 Wieringa, E ., 2, 3 witchcraft, 38, 144 worship, see dua, salat wudhu, 100

Yahya, O ., 106 Yani, Ahmad, 35 Yemen, 2, 118 yoga, 42, 51, 56 Yogyakarta, 195

subversion, 117 Swahili, 6, 7, 13, 14, 19, 99-108, Zanzibar, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9-11, 16, 102, 114, 118, 121, 127, 129, 131, 103, 108, ch 5, 138-150, 165 138, 143, 14, 19-151, 15, 156, Revolution, 15, 103, 127, 132, 161-165 139 Zoetmulder, P.J., 51, 52, 177, 179, swalaa, 83—86, 187, 189, 192, 202, 203, Tambiah, S., 40, 59, 61 223-226