98
hasyim asy’ari
Hasyim Asy’ari
Hasyim Asy’ari (Hshim b. Ashar)
(1871–1947) was considered the most
learned of the Javanese kiai (ulam) of his
generation. He founded the Tebuireng
pesantren in Jombang (East Java, Indonesia)
and was the chief religious authority of
the Nahdlatul Ulama (Nahat al-Ulam,
NU) association, from its founding in
1926 until his death.
Hasyim was born into a well-connected
family of ulam in Gedang, Jombang,
where his maternal grandfather Uthmn
led a pesantren. His father, Ashar, originally
from Demak, in Central Java, was Kiai
Uthmn’s favourite student and carefully
chosen son-in-law. Ashar established a
pesantren of his own in Keras, Jombang, as
Hasyim was later to do in Tebuireng. The
family was related by marriage to other
prominent families of ulam in the region
and claimed descent from Jaka Tingkir,
the first Javanese prince to adopt Islam,
and his son Banawa, believed to be one of
the earliest indigenous fs. Hasyim stud-
ied religious sciences in various East Java-
nese pesantren and left in 1892 for Mecca,
where he stayed, with a short interrup-
tion, for seven years, studying with the
greatest Indonesian and Arab teachers
there and teaching younger Indone-
sians. His teachers included the Javanese
Maf al-Tarmas (d. 1920), from whom
he received an ijza for al-Bukhr’s a,
and the Minangkabau scholar Amad
Khab b. Abd al-Laf, a moderate Sunn
reformist and a strong critic of f orders
(arqas), although not of fism itself.
After his return to Java, he taught
for several years in a pesantren in Kediri
and then established his own pesantren at
Tebuireng, near Jombang (1906), which
he then rarely left, except for regular
trading trips to Surabaya. Tebuireng soon
gained a reputation as one of the best
pesantren, attracting the brightest and most
ambitious students. Besides fiqh (jurispru-
dence), which was the standard fare of
the pesantren curriculum, Kiai Hasyim was
one of the first to teach also the canoni-
cal adth collections. As elsewhere, some
works of taawwuf (fism) were taught to
advanced students at Tebuireng, but Kiai
Hasyim never permitted arqa practices
there, perhaps under the influence of his
teacher, Amad Khab. By the 1920s,
Kiai Hasyim was widely considered the
most learned scholar of Java, and most of
the younger generation of kiai had been
his students, at least briefly.
It was some of these younger kiai,
notably Abdul Wahab Chasbullah (d.
1971), who first proposed establishing a
formal association to represent common
interests and, especially, to defend more
effectively the pesantren tradition, with its
strict adherence to the Shfi madhhab
(school of religious law) and devotional
practices including mawlid (ritual com-
memoration of the Prophet’s birth) and
ziyra (grave visitation), against attacks
from the better organised Muslim reform-
ists. The caliphate question and the Saudi
conquest of Mecca added urgency to the
search for a common voice empowered
by organisation. This initiative was, in
itself, an innovation in the pesantren tra-
dition, and the consent of Kiai Hasyim
Asy’ari, as the senior scholar, was essen-
tial. In early 1926, the Nahdlatul Ulama
(Nahat al-Ulam, NU) association was
established by a group of kiai and Mus-
lim traders. Kiai Hasyim presided over
the founding meeting and was chosen as
the NU’s formal leader and chief religious
authority (ras akbar), a position he held
until his death, in 1947. Kiai Hasyim
defined the purposes and basic values of
the organisation, which amounted to a
hasyim asy’ari 99
definition of the pesantren tradition, in an
Arabic introduction to the statutes (Muqad­
dimat al-qnn al-ass li-jamiyyat Nahat
al-Ulam), a document that remains in
use to this day.
Kiai Hasyim avoided direct involve-
ment in social and political affairs, but
he commanded such respect among his
colleagues in the NU that no important
decision was taken without consulting
him. This made him a force to be reck-
oned with, for the Dutch colonial govern-
ment as well as the Japanese, during the
war years (1942–5). In 1943 the Japanese
allowed the establishment of a broad front
of Muslim organisations, Masyumi (Maj-
lis Shr Muslimn Indonesia), of which
Hasyim Asy’ari, rather than one of the
reformist Muslim leaders, became the
president. A year later he was appointed
head of the Japanese Office of Religious
Affairs (Shmubu). He continued to
spend most of his time in his pesantren,
however, and left practical matters to
his son Wahid Hasyim, who acted as his
deputy. After the Japanese surrender, the
formal declaration of independence by
nationalist leaders, and the occupation of
Surabaya by British troops, Kiai Hasyim
played a role in the background of that
city’s famous uprising, issuing a fatw to
the effect that resistance to the occupa-
tion constituted jihd and was a far ayn
(duty required of individual Muslims). At
the following NU congress, in early 1946,
the organisation reiterated this fatw in a
resolution that called upon the republican
government to organise the jihd against
the former colonisers who were attempt-
ing to restore their rule.
In the debates between reformists and
traditionalists, Hasyim Asy’ari represented
a middle position. He shared many of the
reformists’ criticisms of popular devo-
tional practices and, although affirming
the madhhab and taqld (strict adherence
to its established doctrine) as the core of
the pesantren tradition, he did not hesitate
to base opinions directly on a adth or a
Qurnic verse (as he did when ruling that
it was advisable to establish an association
to defend the tradition). His writings, all
in Arabic (summarised by Khuluq), reflect
this effort to steer a middle course. On the
one hand, he wrote against certain wide-
spread beliefs and practices (munkart)
associated with mawlid recitations that
had also been the target of much reform-
ist criticism; on the other, he argued in
defence of established details of worship
that reformists had condemned as bida
(innovation). He was fiercely critical of the
exaggerated devotion to the murshid (spiri-
tual guide) and other “deviant” practices
of f orders, but his works are full of
references to such f authorities as Ab
l-Qsim al-Qushayr (d. 465/1073), Wal
Rasln al-Dimashq (d. 540/1145), and
al-Sammn (d. 1189/1775). Concerning
two other controversial issues—the beliefs
and practices surrounding death and
veneration of the Prophet—he compiled
collections of relevant adth to define the
boundaries of the permissible.
Hasyim Asy’ari was hardly represen-
tative of the organisation he led, but
he commanded universal respect and
is fondly remembered as the greatest of
Java’s kiai. His son Wahid Hasyim and
grandson Abdurrahman Wahid became
important national leaders, and his
pesantren at Tebuireng remains one of the
most prestigious centres of traditionalist
Islamic learning in the country.
Bibliography
H. Aboebakar, Sedjarah hidup K. H. A. Wahid
Hasjim dan karangan tersiar, Jakarta 1957;
100 heraklion
Akarhanaf, Kiai Hasjim Asj’ari bapak ummat
Islam Indonesia 1871–1947, Jombang 1950;
Zamakhsyari Dhofier, The pesantren tradition.
A study of the role of the kyai in the maintenance of
the traditional ideology of Islam in Java, Tempe
AZ 1999; Lathiful Khuluq, Fajar kebangunan
ulama. Biografi K. H. Hasyim Asy’ari, Yogya-
karta 2000; Muhammad Asad Syihab, Hadl-
ratussyaikh Muhammad Hasyim Asy’arie. Perintis
kemerdekaan Indonesia, Yogyakarta 1994.
Martin van Bruinessen
Heraklion
Heraklion (Gk. Chandax, Kastro,
Megalo Kastro, mod. Hrakleio; Mod.
Turk. Kandiye, Ott. Qandiye), also
known as Candia (its Venetian name) is a
town on the north coast of Crete.
When an Arab fleet conquered Crete
from the Byzantines, in 212/827–8, a
camp fortified with a ditch—Ar. khandaq,
Turk. hendek, whence the name Candia and
the Gk. Chandax—was built as the seat of
the newly founded emirate. After the Byz-
antine reconquest in 350/961, the walls of
the town were destroyed, but it continued
to be the seat of Byzantine and, later (after
1204 C.E.), Venetian rulers. Soon after
the Ottomans launched the Cretan War,
in 1055/1645, they conquered most of the
island, but Candia remained in Venetian
hands, under siege by a standing force sta-
tioned in a fortified camp known as Kale-
i Cedid (Qale-i Cedd) or nadiye, south
of the city. In 1076/1666, the siege was
intensified under the personal leadership
of the grand vizier Köprülü Fazil Ahmed
(Fıl Amed) Paa (d. 1087/1676), and
Candia surrendered in 1080/1669. The
governor of Candia, now Kandiye, was
also the governor of the eyalet (eylet,
province) of Crete (Mod. Turk. Girit, Ott.
Gird); in addition, Kandiye was the seat
of a kadı (qa), whose jurisdiction soon
covered the whole eastern part of the
island and occasionally the naiye (niye,
administrative subdistrict) of Milopotama
(Gk. Mylopotamos) between Kandiye and
Rethymno (Ott. Resmo or Retimo).
The history of the town from then until
the early nineteenth century has been
comparatively little studied, although the
archives of the Ottoman kadı court, pre-
served almost intact, are a rich source of
information. The important role played
by local and imperial troops throughout
the island was even more marked in the
capital; the imperial janissaries, in par-
ticular, often imposed their will and were
the main actors in several mutinies and
revolts: in 1099/1688 they killed the gov-
ernor, Zülfikar (Dhulfiqr) Paa. From
the mid-twelfth/eighteenth century on,
their integration into the local fabric was
strengthened, as specific battalions became
stationed there permanently and their
role in the economy and commerce of
the town increased. Adhering to the cen-
tralising policy of Mahmud (Mamd) II
(r. 1808–39), early-nineteenth-century gov-
ernors (from 1812 on) effectively suppressed
mutinous janissary leaders, in both the
town and the countryside.
In 1830, Crete was placed under the
authority of Mehmed Ali (Muammad
Al, d. 1849), the governor of Egypt,
who introduced mixed Christian-Mus-
lim assemblies in the major towns. After
Egyptian rule ended in 1840, inter-com-
munal strife (which had begun in the early
1820s) continued to produce conflict and
occasional massacres. As in other Cre-
tan towns, many Christians of Kandiye
moved to the countryside, while Mus-
lims became even more preponderant in
the town than they had been in the past.
Amidst these revolts and the intervention