Published online 13 May 2014

Journal of Islamic Studies 25:3 (2014) pp. 298–324 doi:10.1093/jis/etu037

PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION

IN TWO CONTEMPORARY B2 6ALAWĪ
EAWL IN CENTRAL JAVA

I S M A I L FA J R I E A L ATA S
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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The period following the independence of Indonesia brought about a
heightened political atmosphere, marked by the strengthening of the
state and the materialization of Indonesian nationhood.1 Minorities with
foreign backgrounds, such as the Arabs and the Chinese, were viewed
with suspicion, compelling them to adapt to the changing political
realities. At the same time, modern Islamic reformism increasingly came
to define public expressions of Islam, shaking the foundations of
traditional forms of religious authority.2 This article examines the B:
6Alaw;—an ethnically Arab group acknowledged as the descendants of
the Prophet, who for long had migrated to Indonesia from Ea@ramawt,
Yemen. The B: 6Alaw; brought their Sufi path, the Far;qa 6Alawiyya, and
had succeeded in maintaining eminence among local populations.3 The
consolidation of nationhood and modern Islamic reformism thus posed
a double challenge to the B: 6Alaw;, both for being a minority ethnic
group defined by genealogical distinction as well as for their religious
tradition.
Following independence, the newly formed state opted for passive
recognition of the citizenship of those previously considered under the
colonial era as ‘foreign orientals’ (vremdee osterlingen), such as the

1
Author’s note: I am immensely grateful to Michael Feener, Engseng Ho,
Nico Kaptein, Merle Ricklefs, Ali Hussein, Chiara Formichi, and James
Hoesterey, as well as the anonymous referees, for their comments on an earlier
version of the manuscript. Any errors and shortcomings, however, are my own.
2
R. Michael Feener, Muslim Legal Thought in Modern Indonesia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), ch. 1; John R. Bowen,
Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
3
See: Ismail Fajrie Alatas, ‘[al-]6Al:wiyya (in Ea@ramawt)’, in EI3 (Leiden:
Brill, 2010); Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across
the Indian Ocean (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006).

ß The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oxford Centre for Islamic
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 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 299
Chinese and the Arabs.4 The citizenship bill of 1946 declares that
people of Arab, Chinese, and European descent who were born in the
territory of the republic were accepted as citizens except those who
actively reject Indonesian citizenship.5 Despite the seemingly smooth
legal recognition of those of foreign descent, various forms of injustices
were still felt. Many Arabs and Chinese were discriminated against by
local governmental authorities, while those who were in Ea@ramawt
could not return to Indonesia.6 One reason for the delay in the settlement
of the citizenship status is the issue of holding a dual citizenship.7 This

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compelled the Islamic political party Masjumi to organize a special
congress in 1955 addressing the Arab problem and urging the govern-
ment to settle it speedily.8 However, as late as the 1970s, Indonesians of
Arab descent still experienced racial profiling and discrimination despite
their secured legal status as articulated in the Citizenship Act no. 62 of
1958.9
Against this backdrop, this article examines one attempt by the B:
6Alaw; to address the changing political constellation. It focuses on the
Aawl (haul in Indonesian), an annual commemoration of the death of a
revered person, usually a scholar and/or saint. While today the Aawl is
observed by different groups of Muslims in Indonesia, the scope of this
article is limited to those practised and organized by the B: 6Alaw;. Here
I look at the two most well-attended Aawls in Java: the Aawl of AAmad b.
6Abdull:h al-6A33:s (d. 1346/1927), commemorated every 14 Sha6b:n in

4
For the historical origins of the Ea@ram;s’ gradual exclusion from the
national imagination during the colonial era see: Michael F. Laffan, Islamic
Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma below the Winds (London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 189–95; Natalie Mobini-Kesheh, The Ea@ram;
Awakening: Community and Identity in the Netherlands East Indies, 1900–
1942 (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1999); Sumit K. Mandal, ‘Forging
a Modern Arab Identity in Java in the Early Twentieth Century’ in Huub de
Jonge and Nico Kaptein (eds.), Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and
Islam in Southeast Asia (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), 163–84.
5
The full citizenship bill is available in the last two pages of the Surakartan
newspaper Laskjar, 17 February 1946. I thank Kevin Fogg for pointing me to this
important article as well as several articles from the periodical Suara Masjumi.
6
‘Soal-soal Warganegara Keturunan Arab’, Suara Masjumi, 10 September
1955.
7
‘Bangsa Indonesia Keturunan Arab’, Suara Masjumi, 10 August 1955.
8
A. R. Baswedan, ‘Masjumi dan Masalah W.N. Keturunan Arab’, Suara
Masjumi, 20 February 1955.
9
Muhd. Harharah, ‘Warganegara keturunan Arab bukan non pribumi’,
Pelita (21 February 1976), 4; A. R. Baswedan ‘Perjoangan Pemuda Indonesia
Keturunan Arab’, ibid.
300 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
Pekalongan, and that of 6Al; b. MuAammad al-Eabash; (d. 1330/1912),
held every 20 Rab;6 II in Solo.10
This article examines the transformation of both Aawls from a
diasporic Arab gathering into an Indonesian public expression of Islam.
I argue that in the post-colonial period, when the identification of the
Eadram;s as an integral part of the nation was far from being settled, the
Aawls have allowed the recasting of the B: 6Alaw; as an integral part of
the nation while maintaining their genealogical distinction. The Aawls
enabled and sustained the construction of networks connecting B: 6Alaw;

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scholars to local Muslim scholars—commonly referred to as the kyais—
and their followers.11 This in turn provided the B: 6Alaw; with cultural
ties that secure their distinction while anchoring them to wider Muslim
publics.
Examining the B: 6Alaw; Aawl underlines the importance of rituals in
the creation and maintenance of informal Muslim networks. Despite
recent scholarly emphasis on the significance of informal ties in creating
vital public spheres, many works on Islam in post-colonial Indonesia pay
only scant attention to informal networks.12 This stands in contrast to
the importance placed on scholarly networks in studies of Islam in

10
This article is based on my attendance of the Aawl in Solo on 7–9 May 2007
and the Aawl in Pekalongan on 26–7 August 2007 as well as subsequent
attendance in 2011 and 2012. One key difference between the Aawls in
Pekalongan and Solo is the location of the tomb of the commemorated saint.
While the tomb of al-6A33:s is in Pekalongan, the tomb of al-Eabash; is in Seiyun,
Ea@ramawt. The tomb visited during the Aawl in Solo is actually the tomb of the
saint’s son, 6Alaw; b. 6Al; al-Eabash; (d. 1373/1954) who first instituted the Aawl
in Solo. This shows that it is actually possible to organize a Aawl despite being
physically distant from the tomb. The Ea@ram; entrepreneur, Ab< Bakr b. 6Al;
Shih:budd;n, describes in his travelogue the Aawl in Solo that he attended in June
1937, led by 6Alaw; b. 6Al; al-Eabash;, see: Sayyid Abubakar bin Ali bin
Abubakar Shahabuddin, Rihlatul Asfar: otobiografi Sayyid Abubakar . . .
(Jakarta: privately printed, 2000) [Ab< Bakr b. 6Al; Shih:budd;n, RiAlat
al-asf:r], 192.
11
While the title kyai is usually used as an honorific for local Muslim scholars,
it is not commonly used to refer to an ethnically Arab scholar. However, in areas
like Kuningan and Cirebon, West Java, the title kyai is also used to call a learned
B: 6Alaw; individual and to differentiate him from other B: 6Alaw; who are
addressed as ayip. Otherwise, most B: 6Alaw; are referred to by the honorific
Aab;b (pl. Aab:8ib).
12
Dale F. Eickelman and Armando Salvatore, ‘Muslim Publics’ in Armando
Salvatore and Dale F. Eickelman (eds.) Public Islam and the Common Good
(Leiden: Brill, 2004), 10.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 301
the colonial era.13 Consequently, a contemporary Indonesian historian
laments the excessive focus on institutions, organizations, and their elites
in the historiography of post-colonial Indonesia.14
Furthermore, while the study of Islam in Indonesia has resulted in
numerous publications, those that closely examine rituals are relatively
few in number. These include among others, Clifford Geertz’ study of the
slametan, Nico Kaptein’s explication of the berdiri mawlid practice,
Bernard Arps’ examination of the recitation of lontar Yusup in
Banyuwangi, and Julian Millie’s ethnography of the ritual reading of

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man:qib in West Java.15 By examining the Aawl, this article draws
attention to the role of rituals in maintaining vibrant Muslim networks.
It connects the study of ritual to the examination of network formation.

13
The work of Azyumardi Azra on the transmission of Islamic reformism
from the Middle East to the Indonesian Archipelago in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries marked the beginning of a renewed interest in the study of
Muslim scholarly networks, see: Azyumardi Azra, The Origins of Islamic
Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks of Malay-Indonesian and Middle
Eastern 6Ulam:8 in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Crows Nest, NSW:
Asian Studies Association of Australia in association with Allen & Unwin;
University of Hawaii Press, 2004). Following Azra, Michael F. Laffan traces the
origin of Islamic nationhood to the experience of alterity grounded against
foreign Muslims and European colonizers, which is created and sustained by
Islamic scholarly networks and reinforced through the pilgrimage to Makka, see:
Laffan, Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia. In his most recent work,
Laffan also demonstrates how the entwining of Dutch colonial scholarship with
the Islamic scholarly networks that linked the Indonesian Archipelago to the
Middle East played a crucial role in the remaking of Indonesia’s Islamic past, see:
Michael Laffan, The Makings of Indonesian Islam: Orientalism and the
Narration of a Sufi Past (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). In an
older work, Deliar Noer describes the emergence and decline of Islamic
modernist movements that originated in the scholarly networks, which he
credited as being the precursor of Indonesian nationalism, see: Deliar Noer, The
Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia 1900–1942 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford
University Press, 1973).
14
Bambang Purwanto, Gagalnya Historiografi Indonesiasentris?!
(Yogyakarta: Ombak, 2006), 28.
15
Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1960); Nico Kaptein, ‘The Berdiri Mawlid Issue among Indonesian
Muslims in the Period from circa 1875 to 1930’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en
Volkenkunde, 149/1 (1993): 124–53; Bernard Arps, ‘Singing the Life of Joseph:
an All-Night Reading of the Lontar Yusup in Banyuwangi, East Java’, Indonesia
Circle, 53 (November 1990): 34–58; Julian Patrick Millie, Splashed by the Saint:
Ritual Reading and Islamic Sanctity in West Java (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2009).
302 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
Such a correspondence allowed the practical integration of a group
previously considered an ethnic minority into the larger public.

THE B2 6ALAWĪ AND THE EAWL

B: 6Alaw; (children of 6Alaw;) is a term used to denote the descendants of

the Prophet MuAammad (s:da, sing. sayyid) who settled in the

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Ea@ramawt valley of Southern Yemen.16 In the thirteenth century a B:
6Alaw; scholar, MuAammad b. 6Al; (d. 652/1255), instituted a Sufi 3ar;qa
which became known as the Far;qa 6Alaw;yya (the B: 6Alaw; path) and
was adhered to by the B: 6Alaw;s and their followers. Instead of a fully
established and organized fraternity, however, the Far;qa 6Alaw;yya is
more fruitfully perceived as a loose genealogical and scholarly network
sustained by the proliferation of tomb complexes and rituals.17
There are several B: 6Alaw; saints’ tombs in Java that gradually
became objects of pilgrimages. These tombs are carefully maintained by
the saint’s descendants who act as caretakers (al-q:8im<n bi-l-maq:m),
thereby establishing a regional centre of the 3ar;qa, where rituals are
consistently performed. The hereditary caretakers have maintained
working relationships with local kyais, and together, they form the
local spiritual leadership of the community. Through the commemor-
ation of the annual Aawl, however, these regional centres enable and
maintain the existence of an extensive B: 6Alaw; network. During his
lifetime, the eminent B: 6Alaw; scholar 6Al; b. 6Abd al-RaAm:n al-
Eabash; (d. 1968) frequently brought his indigenous students from
Jakarta to attend annual Aawls in Java, establishing connections between
them and these hereditary caretakers.18 After the death of al-Eabash;, his
students—who gradually became authoritative scholars with their own
followings—continued the annual visits. This resulted in the expansion
of the B: 6Alaw; network, reinforcing B: 6Alaw; religious authority
among the broader population and consolidating their prominence
among the wider Indonesian public.
The Aawl involves collective visits to the saint’s tomb, praying for the
saint and other rituals which fuse B: 6Alaw; texts, spaces and ideas into
an integrative event of commemoration. The origin of the Aawl, however,

16
See for instance: R. B. Serjeant, The Saiyids of Ea@ramawt (London: SOAS,
1957); Engseng Ho, Graves of Tarim, 27–62.
17
Ibid, 41–7.
18
Ismail Fajrie Alatas, ‘Becoming Indonesians: The B: 6Alaw; in the Interstices
of the Nation’, Die Welt des Islams, 51/1 (2011):45–108, at 62.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 303
lies in pre-Islamic Arabia where it served a particular social function in
the tribal politics.19 In Ea@ramawt, the B: 6Alaw;s have for a long time
organized Aawls, using the commemoration to negotiate peace settle-
ments between warring tribes. In Java, the first B: 6Alaw; Aawl was
instituted at the turn of the twentieth century by the scholar MuAammad
b. 6Aydar<s al-Eabash; (d. 1332/1914) in Tegal, Central Java, following
the death of the itinerant saint MuAammad b. F:hir al-Eadd:d (d. 1316/
1899).20 Al-Eabash; organized the commemoration in order to preserve
the memory of the saint and to establish a collective annual gathering of

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the B: 6Alaw;s and other Ea@ram;s in Java. Nevertheless, annual
pilgrimages to the tomb of Muslim saints and scholars has a long
established historical precedent among Indonesian Muslims. The annual
rituals held at the tomb of Shaykh Burhanuddin in Ulakan, West Sumatra
and at the tomb of Sunan Gunung Jati in Cirebon, West Java—to name a
few—are examples of long established public commemorations.21 It
remains unclear however, if they were described as a Aawl or whether
they even had the same ritual structures as the contemporary non-B:
6Alaw; Aawls that are usually organized to commemorate the founder of
a particular pesantren (Islamic boarding school). It is perhaps safer to
position the B: 6Alaw; Aawls that emerged in the early twentieth century
as a practice imported from Ea@ramawt by Arab scholars that gradually
attracted the participation of the broader Muslim population precisely
because it fits into a ritual pattern that has long been recognized by
Indonesian Muslims.
The B: 6Alaw; network discussed here consists of a group of people
who revolve around a shared set of texts, litanies, and assumptions of a
genealogical and spiritual hierarchy. The question then becomes how
such a network emerges and what enables it to expand and proliferate?
In what follows, I suggest comprehending the Aawls as sites that enabled
the extension of the network to reach a broader audience. Subsequently,
I analyse how the rituals staged during the Aawl generate social bonds
that strengthen the network and reinforce the assumption of a genea-
logical and spiritual hierarchy. Such an expansion was facilitated by the

19
R. B. Serjeant, ‘Haram and Hawtah, the Sacred Enclave of Arabia’ in F. E.
Peters (ed.) The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam (Aldershot: Ashgate,
1998), 167–84.
20
6Al; b. Eusayn Al-6A33:s, T:j al-a6r:s 6al: man:qib al-Aab;b al-qu3b 4:liA b.
6Abd All:h al-6A33:s (Kudus: Menara Kudus, 2 vols., 1979) ii. 340.
21
Ph. S. van Ronkel, ‘Het Heiligdom te Oelakan’, Tijdschrift voor Indische
Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 56 (1914): 281–316; A. G. Muhaimin, The Islamic
Traditions of Cirebon: Ibadat and Adat among Javanese Muslims (Canberra:
Australian National University Press, 2006), ch. 6.
304 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
reconfiguration of what used to be a set of elite and esoteric B: 6Alaw;
Sufi rituals into practices that conform to prevalent public articulations
of Islam. Speeches and ideas transmitted during the Aawl have been
reshaped to suit public discourses framed by dominant ideas of modern
Islamic reformism and Indonesian nationalism. I contend that these
processes have enabled the maintenance and expansion of B: 6Alaw;–kyai
networks. Crucial to such transformation is the role of the hereditary
caretakers in managing rituals and regulating messages transmitted during
the event. As interpretive authorities, they extended the boundary of the

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B: 6Alaw; networks to include kyais and their followers. Due to their role
as ‘mediating-shaykhs’, the Aawl is able to anchor the B: 6Alaw; with
larger Muslim publics, allowing their integration into the nation without
excising their genealogical distinction.22

EXPANDING THE NETWORK

As a Sufi network, the Far;qa 6Alawiyya is transmitted through a

community of teachers and students who interact with a canonical set of
B: 6Alaw; texts and rites. Such ties are especially strong in Jakarta where
the prestige of the B: 6Alaw; scholars has been tightly secured among the
indigenous inhabitants. Famous B: 6Alaw; learning centres like Kwitang
in Jakarta operate as a hub for B: 6Alaw;s from around Java to meet local
kyais.23 These centres also facilitated meetings between the hereditary
caretakers of B: 6Alaw; saints’ tombs and local students. During their
frequent travels around Java, B: 6Alaw; scholars often brought
their students to visit the mausoleums of B: 6Alaw; saints. Such a
process forged ties between kyais and B: 6Alaw; scholars from different
places.

22
I have borrowed the term from Arthur Buehler’s study of the Indian
Naqshabandi. Buehler argues that selecting the son of a Sufi Shaykh as his
successor rather than someone from those who were his closest spiritual disciples
marked the transformation from directing shaykh to mediating shaykh. See
Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshabandiyya and the
Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1998), 189. The role of the mediating shaykh in the context of the present article
will become clearer towards the end.
23
This is especially the case during the annual celebration of the birth of the
Prophet (mawlid) organized by the scholar 6Al; b. 6Abd al-RaAm:n al-Eabash;
(d.1968), attended by B: 6Alaw; scholars and their followers from different parts
of the country. See Ismail Fajrie Alatas, ‘Becoming Indonesians’, 58.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 305
For example, a popular Muslim preacher from Jakarta, KH. Abdul
Eayyie Na’im recalled how his father brought him to Gresik to meet
with several B: 6Alaw; scholars there.24 Shaugi, the son and successor of
the eminent Jakartan scholar and founder of one of the most established
pesantren KH. Fahir Rahilii, explained how his father always visited the
tombs of scholars he had read and heard about from his B: 6Alaw;
teachers.25 Knowledge of the regional centres was not exclusive to the
kyais but also percolated to their students. Abdul Rasyid, the son of the
founder of the biggest pesantren in Jakarta KH. Abdullah Syafi’i,

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recounted how his father was accustomed to informing his students
about the B: 6Alaw; saints in Indonesia, their miracles, and their shrines
during public lectures and personal conversations.26 Shaugi Tohir further
described how kyais in the villages were in the habit of telling their
students about B: 6Alaw; saints.27 Hence the Arabic-literate kyais like
Rahilii and Syafi’i, who enjoyed great authority over the local population
and had access to the B: 6Alaw; texts, disseminated hagiographical
anecdotes to their students. Dissemination of anecdotes resulted in the
popular recognition of B: 6Alaw; sanctity and their genealogical
distinction. They further enticed ordinary Muslims to visit the tombs,
attracting greater participation in the Aawls, which transformed the
commemorations from diasporic Arab gatherings into congregations
numerically dominated by non-B: 6Alaw; attendees.
Such popular recognition of B: 6Alaw; sanctity and genealogical
distinction was reinforced by the ornate calligraphic texts that adorned
the venues of the Aawl. In Pekalongan, the rituals were held in two
places. The first is the salon where the saint, AAmad al-6A33:s used to
teach. The wall of the salon facing the entrance is decorated by several
texts presenting the religious and genealogical authority of the B: 6Alaw;.
Among them is al-6A33:s’ genealogical tree connecting him to the
Prophet. Next to it is a chain of Sufi initiation connecting him to his
scholarly predecessors. Adjoining the two charts is a panegyric verse
praising al-6A33:s. Finally, there is a poem composed by Eusayn, the
Prophet’s grandson, extolling the virtues of the Prophet’s family. During
the ritual, senior B: 6Alaw; scholars sit solemnly against the wall facing
the audience flanked by these textual projections of their genealogical
and scholarly distinctions.

24
Abdul Eayyie Na’im, interview, Jakarta, 22 January 2008.
25
Shaugi Fahir Rahilii, interview, Jakarta, 26 October 2007.
26
Abdul Rasyid Abdullah Syafi’i, interview, Jakarta, 28 October 2007.
27
Shaugi Fahir Rahilii, interview, Jakarta, 26 October 2007.
306 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
The other location is the mausoleum, which houses the tomb of al-
6A33:s and his immediate family. Al-6A33:s’ tombstone is adorned with
Arabic calligraphy announcing his spiritual prominence:
This is the tomb of the reviver of the Sunna and the follower of the Bountiful, the
flowing sea and the brilliant moon, the wayfarer with the Truth who overcame
the darkness of the perplexed and repelled with its proofs the whispers of the
erroneous. The sublime prelate, the Imam who exhorted his soul, and the sea that
expressed the All-Knowing. The emanation of the great emanation, the legitimate

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and the prominent who was listened to . . . the marrow of the holy lineage, the
sayyid and shar;f, the mystic, the beloved AAmad b. 6Abdall:h b. F:lib al-6A33:s,
the 6Alaw;, the Eusayn;, the Ea@ram; . . .
Similar to the texts found in the salon, the tomb’s epigraph
projects genealogical distinction, sanctity, and scholarly authority.
Another text inside the qubba (domed mausoleum) is a poem dating
its construction:28
O luminous qubba,
Worthy of praise.
Thou containest the grave of the pious one
Whose similitude the eyes never witnessed.
Truly he was the best in austerity and piety,
Who has traversed the best life story.
He, the son of F:lib al-6A33:s,
A pure and clean soul.
AAmad the reviver of the path
Of the Prophet, a real treasure.
Say to those who visit this tomb:
You are the best flock.
I relate [the date] and praise a beloved,
Whose qubba truly shines. [=1348 ah]
Nearby is a mosque, whose virtue,

28
Chronogram, or dating with poetry is a well-known tradition in both
Arabic and Javanese literature. This is enabled by the fact that in the Arabic
language every letter of the alphabet has a numerical value. Thus in a
chronogram, usually the last line of the poem is written such that when the
numerical values of each letter are added, the result will be the year. In the poem
above, the year is not located in the final sentence. The poet, however, hints at the
line where the date is to be found by saying ‘I relate and praise a beloved, Whose
qubba truly shines’. Thus the addition of the numerical values of all the
characters that form the sentence ‘whose qubba truly shines’ gives the year 1348
ah (1929) . The same procedure can be applied to date the adjacent mosque, the
date being found in the phrase ‘overflows abundantly’.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 307
Overflows abundantly. [=1348 ah]
Felicitous are those who visit it
To honour the rising of the light.
From the beam of the aiding sun,
May God bestow blessings upon him,
As well as his family, the best of all lineages.
The poem, written by the Ea@ram; jurist MuAammad b. 6Awa@ B:
Fa@l, impresses upon the visitors who are able to read that they are

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within a sacred enclave pervaded by Prophetic light shining through the
mediation of al-6A33:s. Texts that adorn both the salon and the tomb,
therefore, reinforce the notion of sanctity and authority already
disseminated by the B: 6Alaw;s and the kyais.
A similar textual projection of authority is also observable in Solo.
There, the Aawl took place in the mosque built by 6Alaw; al-Eabash;,
where he was buried in 1955. 6Alaw;’s tomb is situated in the verandah of
the mosque facing the minaret. After praising God as the only eternal
being, the tombstone inscription reads:
On the eve of Friday 20 Rab;6 I 1373 [1954], returned to the realm of his God
and His mercy, the forgiven one, the sayyid, the shar;f and the lofty scholar,
the beloved and the mystic, 6Alaw; the son of our master the Imam,
6Al; b. MuAammad b. Eusayn al-Eabash; in the city of Palembang, East
Sumatra and was transported on the wish of the Shar;f to Solo to be buried
outside al-Riy:@ mosque. May God forgive him and his forefathers [and may He]
provide to his family and those who love him, a replacement with the best
successors.

Similar to that of the tombstone in Pekalongan, this inscription

extols the status of 6Alaw; al-Eabash; as a descendant of the Prophet
as well as a scholar and mystic. It affirms the filial relation
between 6Alaw; and the saint 6Al; b. MuAammad al-Eabash; (d. 1330/
1912). Opposite the tomb stands the minaret. Its base is adorned with a
poem commemorating the mosque’s construction. The poetic inscription
faces the gate of the mosque confronting those entering the complex.
It reads,
This is the garden (riy:@) and these are its rivers,
Flowing, bounteous to those who sip the water.
Those who settle [inside], acquire their objectives,
Those who visit obtain their wishes.
This mosque was built on a foundation of truth
Thus, [it] clearly shows the result
This is the mosque, [it] softens with knowledge
And deeds, releasing its radiance. [1355 ah/1936]
308 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
According to the hereditary caretaker, ‘the garden’ in the first line
alludes to Madina, where the Prophet is buried, while the rivers that flow
from the garden refer to the mosque in Solo. This poem portrays a
relationship between the mosque, the saint, knowledge, and ultimately
the Prophet, in a linkage embodying spiritual authority.
Throughout my conversations with numerous pilgrims, I was repeat-
edly told that the venues of the Aawl are sites where divine blessings
(baraka) descend, and where prayers are believed to be efficacious.
The pilgrims reflect a degree of understanding that is consonant

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with what is projected by the Arabic texts found in the venues.
Despite lacking the ability to access the meaning of these texts, many of
the pilgrims I talked to nevertheless understood the authority conveyed
by them.
In explaining this phenomenon, I found Irene Bierman’s conceptual-
ization of what she terms ‘contextual literacy’ in her study of the
Fatimids’ public texts useful.29 She defines contextual literacy as a
reading practice whereby meaning is not completely contained in the
writing itself but emerges in a ‘web of contextual relationships’, formed
between the texts, those who construct the texts, the range of beholders,
and the context in which the writing was placed. Such texts thus have a
‘referential function’, insofar as they refer to networks of meaning
derived from the evocational base of the writing, including the oral and
written traditions of the group.30 Contextual literacy evokes a relation-
ship between beliefs and ideas conveyed in the texts and social structures
that maintain those beliefs. Someone familiar with the evocational base
of the texts does not have to comprehend the meaning of all the words
in them to understand them since ‘the context [makes] the content
expected’.31
Indonesian pilgrims to the Aawl venues understood the texts without
necessarily understanding the Arabic language because they were
familiar with the limited evocational base from which the texts emerged.
Of course Bierman is referring to Egypt where people are able to access
the Arabic language and script, while in Indonesia this form of
contextual literacy is impossible on account of the fact that most
people do not comprehend Arabic. Nevertheless, most Indonesian
Muslims—especially those who come to the Aawl—are able to read
Arabic script, owing to the Qur8:nic education they have received.
Reading Arabic script, a skill that most Indonesian Muslims are
29
Irene A. Bierman, Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1998).
30
Ibid, 15–18.
31
Ibid, 27.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 309
increasingly competent in, is the minimum requirement that enables
contextual literacy to work. The task of reading is made easier by the fact
that the texts found in the venue of the Aawl are written in vocalized
Arabic, therefore reading these texts is not very difficult for those who
are used to reading the Qur8:n. Once they are able to read the text, they
are able to pick up words that they have previously heard, without
having to comprehend the whole sentence. The B: 6Alaw;–kyai network
and the oral dissemination of hagiographical anecdotes thus functioned
as apparatuses familiarizing pilgrims with the B: 6Alaw; evocational

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base. In addition, among many Indonesian Muslims, the foreignness of
the Arabic language has been granted a degree of authority despite the
inability to understand the language. That is, the foreignness of the
language itself lent another form of authority to the B: 6Alaw; who
actively used the language in their sacred places and rituals. The
experience of being in the sites of pilgrimage, together with the ability to
access the texts, serves to reinforce the notion of a B: 6Alaw; authority
learnt from previous encounters with the scholars.
The texts found in the Aawl venues became more efficacious during the
Aawl. These rituals animate the texts as living performatives. With B:
6Alaw; scholars in full scholarly garb facing the audience while odes
praising the Prophet’s family were sung, the message of authority was
further amplified. Although the rituals discussed above were mainly
conducted in Arabic, this did not prevent pilgrims who do not speak
Arabic from participating. Here J. N. Baker’s distinction of ‘apprehen-
sion’ (in contrast to comprehension) is useful. Baker defines apprehen-
sion as ‘an activity, inherent in the practice of communicating—and thus
also in reading, in which one confronts and takes hold of what there is to
know and remember’.32
While comprehension relates to the private process of reasoning
through what has been written, apprehension is concerned more with the
situated practice of reading such as ritual recitation, where one can grasp
what there is to know without necessarily knowing how to subject it to
predications. According to Baker, apprehension has more to do with
substantive nouns than with verbs and thus, the foreignness of the
language does not obstruct apprehension of words such as proper names
as they are ‘outside of the semantic conventions of a synchronically
structured language’.33 During the rituals of the Aawl, texts and odes
recited were replete with proper names and honorifics of B: 6Alaw;
32
J. N. Baker, ‘The Presence of the Name: Reading Scripture in an Indonesian
Village’ in Jonathan Boyarin (ed.), The Ethnography of Reading (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1993), 108.
33
Ibid, 113.
310 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
saints. Such names apprehended by the non-Arabic literate pilgrims
reminded them of the evocational base previously learnt. Thus appre-
hension allows previously learnt knowledge to be incorporated into the
ritual of reading.34 During the rituals, many pilgrims were able to relate
to their knowledge when proper names were recited, enabling them to
apprehend the recitation without knowing the language. Marmo, a
pilgrim from Purwodadi who has learnt the story of Eab;b Ab< Bakr al-
6A33:s (the teacher of the commemorated saint in Solo) from a local kyai,
told me that he was able to recognize his name during the Arabic

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recitation.35 This illustrates the apprehension of the recited texts enabled
by the permeation of stories into the wider imagination; a process
facilitated by the B: 6Alaw;–kyai network. This in turn enabled Javanese
pilgrims actively to construct meaning through the rituals despite
language barriers.
As a site that allows contextual literacy, the Aawl provides the context
whereby the notion of a B: 6Alaw; authority could emerge and be
apprehended. As such, it enabled the expansion of the B: 6Alaw; network
to include a large number of non-Arab Indonesians within its reach. This
points to the gradual shift of the Aawl from a diasporic Arab gathering
into an Indonesian public expression of Islam. The enlarged network in
turn provides the social anchor that facilitates the B: 6Alaw;’s practical
integration into the wider Indonesian nation.

CEMENTING SOCIAL BONDS, REINFORCING

HIERARCHY

The rituals during the Aawl serve as arenas where the kyais and broader
Muslim public engage in performative interactions with the B: 6Alaw;s,
resulting in a strengthening of the social bonds, without abandoning
hierarchical imaginations. Victor Turner argues that pilgrimage involves
a state of liminality, ‘which represents at once a negation of many,
though not all, of the features of preliminal social structure and an
affirmation of another order of things and relations’.36 Pilgrims leave
their social structures behind to immerse themselves in a space where an
anti-structure temporarily emerges in the form of a communitas. Far
from demolishing structures, however, liminality reinforces social

34
Ibid, 133.
35
Marmo, interview, Solo, 8 May 2007.
36
Victor W. Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in
Human Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), 196.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 311
structures by transforming them into a better-appreciated form whereby
‘the sting of their divisiveness is removed so that fine articulation
of their parts in a complex heterogeneous unity can be better
appreciated’.37 Communitas facilitates the harmonization of a highly-
structured constellation within a symbolically meaningful interaction.
Turner’s framework of communitas is useful to think with in looking at
the ways in which hierarchy is reinforced through the maintenance of
affective bonds. Having this in mind, the remainder of this article
discusses the five constitutive rituals of Aawl in both Pekalongan and

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Solo: tawassul, rawAa, zaf;n, ziy:ra, and mawlid.

TAWASSUL
Each ritual of the Aawl commences with a tawassul, a supplication
invoking deceased B: 6Alaw; saints. In his recent study of Sufi liturgies in
West Java, Julian Millie argues that tawassul functions to name an elite
group of was;la (intercessors), which enables the mapping out of the
sacred geography marked by their graves.38 Such an understanding is
useful in illustrating the function of tawassul in projecting an imagined
elite and sacred geography. Before each ritual, a B: 6Alaw; scholar was
asked by the hereditary caretaker to lead the tawassul, naming saints
from the B: 6Alaw; lineage beginning with the Prophet all the way to
those buried in Indonesia. He then prayed for their souls while asking
God to grant blessings to the congregation through the saints’ interces-
sion. The tawassul was concluded by a collective reading of the opening
chapter of the Qur8:n. By narrowly including only B: 6Alaw; saints, the
tawassul collated sanctity with genealogy. Naming only those saints who
are genealogically B: 6Alaw; served to embed sanctity in a genealogical
frame, excluding direct participation by those outside the Ea@ram;
sayyid lineage. In addition, the fact that tawassul is replete with
proper names served well the apprehension of listeners who could not
comprehend Arabic.
At the same time, the B: 6Alaw; tawassul serves a geographical
function, insofar as the mention of every deceased saint is invariably
accompanied by that of his burial place. Thus, when mentioning a B:
6Alaw; saint Ab< Bakr b. MuAammad al-Saqq:f (d. 1957) the scholar
leading the tawassul affixes to his name the phrase ‘mawla Gresik’ (the
master of Gresik), referring to a town in East Java where the saint is
buried. Such a strategy underlined the localism of the B: 6Alaw; while
simultaneously enunciating their elite status as part of a broader network
37
Ibid. 208.
38
Julian Millie, Splashed by the Saint, 101–9.
312 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
that transcends Java. Thus, when asked where he was from, Syahri, a
pilgrim from East Java, told me that he was from Pasuruan, ‘near the
tomb of Eab;b Ja6far al-Saqq:f’.39 Usep, a pilgrim from Bogor confided
that he came to know the Aawl in Pekalongan by studying under the
hereditary caretaker of the tomb of the B: 6Alaw; saint of Bogor,
6Abdall:h b. MuAsin al-6A33:s (d. 1351/1933).40 Fadel Muhammad, the
then governor of Gorontalo, explained during his speech in the Aawl in
Pekalongan that the reason that he had travelled all the way from
Sulawesi to attend is because he is continuing the tradition of the eminent

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B: 6Alaw; scholar/saint of Sulawesi, Idrus al-Jufri (6Aydar<s b. S:lim
al-Jufr;) (d. 1969), who used to attend the annual gathering during his
lifetime.41
Most pilgrims who attended the Aawl in Solo and Pekalongan were
already connected to the B: 6Alaw; scholars or to the kyais who are
associated with the B: 6Alaw;s in their respective localities. Most of them
have participated in rituals held at their local B: 6Alaw; saints’ tombs.
From such engagements they learnt of other B: 6Alaw; Aawls. During the
tawassul, pilgrims are able to apprehend the name of their local B:
6Alaw; saint together with other saints from various places. This provides
a geographical frame of the B: 6Alaw; that goes beyond the respective
localities of the pilgrims, generating a map of B: 6Alaw; scholarly
networks that cover substantial parts of Indonesia. The tawassul linked
each locality through a succession of names, forming a regional map.
Such a discursive map was brought to life during the Aawl as pilgrims
from various localities linked each local connection to form a larger
assemblage. The co-presence of pilgrims from various places bears
witness to the geographical imagination projected in the tawassul. As
such, the Aawl helps to materialize an informal network that includes
various actors from different localities who are simultaneously able to
transcend their localities. The geographic span of the B: 6Alaw; network
that emerged discursively and materially during the Aawl covers a
significant part of Indonesia, thereby strengthening the image of the B:
6Alaw; as an integral part of the nation.

39
Syahri, interview, Solo, 8 May 2007.
40
Usep, interview, Pekalongan, 26 August 2007.
41
Idrus b. Salim al-Jufri was the founder of the Al-Khairat Foundation, an
organization based in Central Sulawesi that founded and managed 1,268 schools
throughout the eastern parts of Indonesia. See: Azyumardi Azra, ‘Ulama
Hadrami II: Sayyid Idrus Al-Jufrie’ in Islam Nusantara: Jaringan Global dan
Lokal (Bandung: Mizan, 2002), 165–79.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 313
RAWEA
Stemming from the root r–w–A which means to go or rest in the
afternoon, rawAa (rohah as it is pronounced by Indonesians) is the term
used in Ea@ramawt to denote a gathering that takes place in the late
afternoon. Traditionally the rawAa consists of recitation of excerpts from
B: 6Alaw; religious texts and the singing of Sufi poems. During the
session, attendees sipped coffee served in small cups while inhaling the
sweet scent of burnt incense (usually aloe wood). In some rawAas, the

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poems are sung to the accompaniment of drums. In Ea@ramawt as well
as in Indonesia, people attend rawAa dressed in a white shirt, sarong, and
white cap. Movables such as coffee, incense, musical instruments, texts,
poems, and costume are what Engseng Ho has described as mobile
paraphernalia of ritual events in Ea@ramawt ‘that can be reconstituted in
modular fashion and performed elsewhere’.42 This paraphernalia recre-
ates the Ea@ram; atmosphere of the rawAa in Indonesia.
Such a conscious reconstruction of Ha@ram; gatherings in Java is
understandable precisely because the rawAa and B: 6Alaw; Aawl in
Indonesia were initially instituted as diasporic gatherings. But as the
demographic of the pilgrims began to shift, the rawA: took on another
function, that of acquainting Indonesian pilgrims with an imported
ritual. While the Aawl has generally been reconstituted to fit into an
Indonesian pattern, rituals such as the rawAa also inversely accustomed
Indonesian pilgrims to a Ea@ram; setting. While it may sound paradox-
ical, the two dynamics actually reinforce each other since accustoming
Indonesian pilgrims to a Ea@ram; ambiance actually facilitates
incorporating this ‘foreign’ setting into the Indonesian Islamic culture.
Already there are several Aawls of local kyais that I observed— such as
the Aawl of Kyai Tohir of Pekalongan, Kyai Said of Giren, Tegal, and
Kyai Asrori al-Ishaqi of Surabaya— that assimilate Ea@ram; parapher-
nalia into their ritual structure. While one might argue that this points to
the increasing ‘Arabization’ of Islam in Indonesia, it could also be argued
that such a dynamic is inherent in the process of cultural translation and
adaptation itself. The adaptation of the B: 6Alaw; rituals to an
Indonesian context does not operate one way, but also involves a certain
reconstitution and reconfiguration of what is considered as Indonesian
Islam.
In both Pekalongan and Solo, the rawAa consists of the recitation of
various texts composed by B: 6Alaw; scholars, including treatises, letters,
and ij:za (license of knowledge narrations). Following the recitation of a
text, a person sings a B: 6Alaw; poem individually or collectively to the

42
Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim, 90.
314 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
accompaniment of drums. The rawAa projects B: 6Alaw; eminence while
anchoring the gathering in Pekalongan and Solo to those held in the
Ea@ramawt. The mobile paraphernalia recreates Ea@ram; gatherings in
Java that are then experienced by Indonesian pilgrims. Such an
experience is important in building sociability and amicability between
the B: 6Alaw;s and the Indonesians. Slamet, a Javanese newcomer to the
Aawl in Solo, related to me that during the rawAa he felt peace and
serenity he had never experienced before.43 Edi, a pilgrim from Jakarta
also attested that ‘sitting in the rawA: is like being in Ea@ramawt’.44

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Such sociability is crucial to the maintenance of the expanded B: 6Alaw;
network that in turn expedites their integration into the wider public.

ZAFĪN
Zaf;n or zafn means to dance or to move one’s legs forward and
backward in dancing. The term appears in a Aad;th, in which the Prophet
said to his wife 628ishah, ‘would you like to look at the Abyssinian
‘‘kicking out’’ (zafn)?’ When commenting on this Aad;th, the theologian
al-Ghaz:l; (d. 1111) explains that zafn is dancing that takes place on
account of pleasure or a yearning.45 Zaf;n (known by various names in
the Archipelago such as japin/jipin/jepin/dana) has been traditionally
performed across the Malay world, often incorporating the singing of
pantun (Malay verse form), to celebrate events associated with
weddings, circumcisions and the Prophet’s birthday. It took root
among the Malay–Islamic communities and gradually spread all over
insular Southeast Asia.46 Thus during her field research, Birgit Berg
witnessed the performance of a regional Gorontalo variant, which she
then compares with the Arab zaf;n.47 While the zaf;n I witnessed in Solo
and Pekalongan are closer to those I observed in the Ea@ramawt, it
nevertheless fits into a long established musical performance pattern in

43
Slamet, interview, Solo, 7 May 2007.
44
Edi, interview, Pekalongan, 26 August 2007.
45
Ab< E:mid al-Ghaz:l;, IAy:8 6ul<m al-d;n (Semarang: Toha Putra, n.d.) ii.,
300.
46
Mohd. Anis Md Nor, ‘Malay-Islamic Zapin: Dance and Soundscapes from
the Straits of Malacca’ in Birgit Abels (ed.), Austronesian Soundscapes:
Performing Arts in Oceania and Southeast Asia (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2011), 72.
47
Birgit Berg, ‘ ‘‘Authentic’’ Islamic Sound? Orkes Gambus Music, the Arab
Idiom, and Sonic Symbols in Indonesian Islamic Musical Arts’ in David D.
Harnish and Anne K. Rasmussen (eds.), Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in
Indonesia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 209.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 315
Indonesia. This in turn eases its reception among the non-Ea@ram;
participants of the Aawl.
In Solo and Pekalongan, the zaf;n session involved other forms of
Ea@ram; dances such as the sharah and the zahefe. The music of sharah
is in triple meter and involves fast dancing in pairs. The zahefe also has a
fast tempo but involves three dancers who perform in a two-against-one
playful dance in which the movements are reflected by the ‘two’ and the
‘one’.48 In the two sessions I observed, the dance only involved men. The
women witnessed the dance from behind curtains or windows. In both

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places, the zaf;n involved drums (haj;r mar:w;s), flutes, and in Solo, also
a lute. The familiarity to non-Ea@ram; participants of regional variants
of the Arabic zaf;n helped to form a shared cheerful atmosphere that
aided the sociality between the B: 6Alaw;s and the indigenous
Indonesians. It is no surprise that during the zaf;n, B: 6Alaw;s and
non-Arab pilgrims danced together. In contrast to the formal rawAa,
zaf;n sessions were relaxed and festive.
Throughout the session, young B: 6Alaw;s sat together with indigenous
pilgrims in a less-differentiated seating arrangement. They sang, clapped
and danced together. The melody was echoed in the attendees’ voices
singing famous poems from the B: 6Alaw; corpus. Most of them were
carrying the mass-produced compilations of B: 6Alaw; poems, consisting
largely of praises of the Prophet’s family and the B: 6Alaw; saints. Thus,
in a poem sung together during the zaf;n in Solo, many raised their hands
as they sang,
O family of the Chosen One [MuAammad],
O people of generosity and fidelity
Help this weary slave who has stumbled
Submissively in the place of worship.

And another poem sung in Solo:

With six persons extinguishing
The fire of hell is doused
al-MuB3af: [the Prophet] and al-Mur3a@: [6Al;]
And their two sons [Easan and Eusayn] and F:3ima
And our master 6Al; al-Eabash;.
Similar poems were also recited in Pekalongan.
The poems sung during the zaf;n were taken from the B: 6Alaw; Sufi
corpus. Birgit Berg, in her study of Arabic music in Indonesia has noted a
certain ambivalence in the adoption of Arabic music (orkes gambus) as
an art form for Indonesian Muslims in general. She noted how the

48
For further description of these dances, see ibid.
316 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
Indonesian Muslims are divided into those who think that Arabic music
ought to be considered as a form of popular Islamic expression, and
those who think of it as mere entertainment.49 The zaf;n I witnessed
during the Aawl, however, does not lend itself to the ambiguity that Berg
highlights. These sessions were highly regulated. Any form of impro-
visation in the musical instrument and dance movement—such as an
excessive moving of the hips—is not allowed. In Solo, those who were
not wearing sarongs were actively discouraged from taking part in the
dance. Through such regulative measures, the zaf;n sessions closely

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reflect what Berg identifies as the traditional sholawat (Balaw:t) (praise
of the Prophet) forms of Arabic music.50
The zaf;n functions as a liminal site where the seriousness of the rawAa
dissipates and is replaced by what Millie termed ‘ludic recombination
of symbolic elements’, marked by relaxation in the operations of the
prevailing social structure.51 Within the ludic arena, the seating
arrangement was relaxed and emotions were released in singing and
dancing. Within the playful atmosphere, however, the message of
hierarchy was continually reinforced, facilitating further internalization
and appreciation. The efficacy of the ritual was described by Nizar, a
school teacher from Probolinggo who told me that he liked following
the B: 6Alaw;s because it is cheerful (seneng-seneng) and easygoing
(gampang).52 The rituals therefore served as a site where social bonds
were established and hierarchy reinforced. This marked a significant
departure from their previous diasporic functions. The crucial role of the
hereditary caretakers in enabling such a process will be further discussed
in the next section that examines the remaining rituals of the Aawl: the
ziy:ra and the mawlid.

COMMUNICATING WITH PUBLIC ISLAM

Several scholars have demonstrated that in post-colonial

Indonesia Islam has increasingly been articulated in a modern reformist

49
Ibid, 235.
50
Berg (ibid) argues that the ambivalent position of Arabic music in Indonesia
is ‘becoming resolved by the adoption of new genres that more closely reflect the
traditional sholawat forms of orkes gambus as performed by the late Segaf
Assegaf’. It is no coincidence that the late Segaf Assegaf and his ensemble are the
only musical group allowed to perform during the zaf;n in Solo. Following
Assegaf’s death, his children continue the tradition.
51
Julian Millie, Splashed by the Saint, 120.
52
Nizar, interview, Solo, 7 May 2007.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 317
fashion.53 Sufi rituals, including the Aawl, have been censured as
superstitious or as an idolatrous sanctification of human beings. This
development posed a considerable challenge to the B: 6Alaw;s compelling
them to reconfigure their authority in ways that correspond to the
prevalent Islamic discourses. Here one can surmise the role of the
hereditary caretakers as mediating shaykhs in rearranging the rituals
from what used to be elite and esoteric practices into a commemoration
more commensurable with public discourses of Islam. Such efforts can be
seen clearly in the numerous speeches delivered during the Aawl, which

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are geared to provide scriptural bases for the rituals.
An example can be seen during the rawAa in Solo. Following the
recitation of B: 6Alaw; hagiographies, one scholar commented during his
sermon that these stories are not mere amusement. Rather, they present
paragons of virtue that ought to be emulated. Stressing the pedagogical
function of the Aawl, he noted that people should develop good
intentions before coming to the Aawl and actualize them practically upon
their return. This betrays a marked departure from hagiography’s former
function as admiranda, a concept used in medieval Europe to describe
the actions of a saint who is to be marvelled at but not imitated, into
imitanda, or behavioural exemplars.54 Such shifts underline the regula-
tory attempt of the mediating shaykh to establish congruence between
saint veneration and modern reformist thought. After all, speakers
during the Aawl were personally selected and regulated by the hereditary
caretakers. Consequently, they are able to underline the continuing
relevance of the Aawl to individual and public life. This section examines
such dynamics in the two remaining rituals of the Aawl.

ZIY2RA
In both Pekalongan and Solo, the second day of the Aawl marked the
culmination of the rituals in the form of ziy:ra or public visitation to the
tomb of the saint. In Pekalongan, pilgrims flocked to the mausoleum of
al-6A33:s, patiently waiting for the arrival of the B: 6Alaw; entourage led
by the hereditary caretaker. In Solo, the absence of the saint’s tomb
meant that the ziy:ra is held in the salon of 6Alaw; al-Eabash;. In both
cases, the arrival of the Ba 6Alaw; entourage heralded by beating of

53
For an extensive discussion of this transformation, see Bowen, Muslims
through Discourse, 39–73; R. Michael Feener, Muslim Legal Thought in Modern
Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 24–80.
54
Vincent J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan
Sufism (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1998), 80.
318 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
drums and singing of praises to the Prophet marked the beginning of the
ziy:ra.55
Following their arrival, the hereditary caretaker leads the collective
recitation of the Qur8:n, followed by a recitation of poems in praise of
the saint. Thereafter the caretaker stood up and began reciting the
man:qib (hagiography) of the saint. Man:qib recitation (known in Java
as manaqiban) is a well-established practice in Indonesia. The
hagiographies most often recited for manaqiban include those of the
Iraqi saint 6Abd al-Q:dir al-J;l:n; (d. 561/1116), and the Madinan

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MuAammad b. 6Abd al-Kar;m al-Samm:n (d. 1189/1775).56 Most
Indonesian pilgrims coming to the Aawl were already familiar with
man:qib recitation. Despite the similarity, however, the man:qib
recitation in the B: 6Alaw; Aawl is not done liturgically like the
man:qib of al-J;l:n;. The language used is more referential and austere
than liturgical and symbolic, as if the hereditary caretaker is just reading
a conventional biographical text. The pilgrims were only expected to
listen through the recitation and did not take part in any form of refrains
or responses, as is usually done in a manaqiban. Also, the recitation of
the man:qib in Solo and Pekalongan took less than half an hour.
The role of the hereditary caretakers in regulating messages
transmitted during the Aawl is evident in the man:qib recitation.
Around twenty years ago, the mediating shaykh in Pekalongan shortened
the extensive original Arabic man:qib of al-6A33:s to cover only the
saint’s date and place of birth, his travel to Makka to study under
unnamed scholars there, his travel to Java and his quest to uphold the
sacred law and disseminate knowledge by teaching. The new version
underscores al-6A33:s’ active role in the propagation of scripturalist
Islam and in the establishment of Islamic educational institutions in
Pekalongan. The original man:qib, however, was a long piece of rhymed
prose, deploying Sufi metaphysical concepts and miracles attributed to

55
The ritualized entry (madkhal) of the B: 6Alaw; scholars, is a long
established practice in Ea@ramawt. In Ea@ramawt it began as a formal entry of
the B: 6Alaw; into the territory of a particular tribe where the tomb is situated,
and as such, they had to wait for permission from the tribal chief to proceed. The
chief then came and greeted the entourage, and together they took part in a
procession. Ultimately, however, the ritualized entrance is an emulation of
the Prophet’s entrance into Madina at the time of the Hijra. See: 6Al; b. Eusayn
al-6A33:s, T:j al-a6r:s, ii. 732–40. In 1998 the hereditary caretaker in Solo decided
to discontinue the madkhal as the number of pilgrims who flocked to the mosque
complex and its surroundings made continuance of the rite impossible.
56
For a comprehensive study of the ritual of man:qib recitation in West Java,
see Julian Millie, Splashed by the Saint, 87–124.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 319
the saint.57 The abridged man:qib illustrates the active role of the
mediating shaykh in reconfiguring the projected image of the saint to suit
the changing make-up of the pilgrims and the prevalent modern
reformist public articulations of Islam. Recently I asked the current
hereditary caretaker, Abdullah Bagir, about his father’s decision to
abridge the man:qib. Bagir responded that the decision was made in
light of the changing make-up of pilgrims:
In the olden days, most attendants were Ea@ram;s who knew Arabic well,

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equipped with knowledge (dibekali dengan ilmu) and could appreciate the poetic
composition of the man:qib. Today, however, most pilgrims could not even
understand Arabic and can only pick up words here and there. So, what is the
point of making them sit through a long recitation? Also, the Sufi concepts in the
old man:qib can generate misunderstanding (dapat mengundang kesalah-
pahaman) if they are not properly understood.58
The abridgement of the man:qib marked an important transformation
of the Aawl to suit its changing demographics and the reformist bent of
Islam among the wider public.
In Solo, both the Arabic and Indonesian man:qib were recited. While
the former was quite short, highlighting al-Eabash;’s life, teachers and
contributions, the Indonesian version was extensive. The Arabic version
was replete with metaphysical and mystical concepts different from
the Indonesian version, which was more modern in its orientation,
describing al-Eabash;’s social, educational and intellectual roles. In
discussing al-Eabash;’s devotion, for instance, the man:qib kept
comparing his devotions to our own, positioning him as an exemplar.
At times, the man:qib affirmed al-Eabash;’s spiritual connection to the
Prophet. The projection of al-Eabash; as more reformer than saint
indicates how the mediating shaykh designed the new constructed image
of al-Eabash; to communicate with the scripturalist articulations of
Islam. Certain traits of al-Eabash; were reinforced and retained while
others were blurred and forgotten. Discussions on al-Eabash; as the
perfect and universal human (al-ins:n al-k:mil) who acts as the theatre
(maChar) for the manifestations of Divine Names and Attributes (al-
asm:8 al-Ausn: wa-l-Bif:t al-6ulya) drawn from classical Sufi metaphysical
treatises are present in the Arabic man:qib; yet they are not found in the
Indonesian translation. In contrast, the Indonesian version stresses al-
Eabash; as the founder of the first Islamic boarding school in
57
MuAsin b. MuAammad al-6A33:s, ‘Man:qib al-Aab;b AAmad b. 6Abd All:h
al-6A33:s’ in AAmad b. 6Umar al-6A33:s, Mawrid al-3:lib fi man:qib al-Aab;b
AAmad b. 6Abd All:h b. F:lib (Hajrayn: privately printed, n.d.), 13–28.
58
Abdullah Bagir, interview, Pekalongan, 7 September 2012.
320 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
Ea@ramawt, which produced numerous students who became scholars
in their own right. Such a transformation attested to the ways in which
the concept and image of sanctity is ‘continually being remodeled
according to the expectations of the saint’s audience’.59 The new
man:qib was certainly effective. Several pilgrims noted how they learnt
about the saint during the Aawl. One Chinese convert noted that after
hearing the man:qib he became inspired to buy books on al-Eabash; to
deepen his knowledge.60 These new representations of the saint serve to
lay the ground for a new ‘appreciation of sainthood’ that is markedly

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different from the more traditional forms of veneration informed by
elaborate Sufi metaphysical theories.61
The Indonesian man:qib recited in Solo also attempts to forge another
form of connection between 6Al; al-Eabash; and Java other than the
known fact that his son 6Alaw; was buried in Solo. Although 6Al; al-
Eabash; had never been to Southeast Asia, the Indonesian man:qib tells
the story of a Javanese saint, illiterate in Arabic, who had visited al-
Eabash; in the Ea@ramawt by means of spiritual travel. The man:qib
also claims that most B: 6Alaw; and indigenous scholars in Java had
intellectual connections to al-Eabash;. This story is striking as it invents
connections between al-Eabash; and Indonesia. Such linkages are
important in the construction of an image of al-Eabash; with which
Indonesians could readily identify.
The imperative to relate the Aawl with reformist articulations of Islam
can be observed from the speeches delivered by guest scholars. In both
Aawl, sermons consist mostly of scriptural justifications of the rituals. In
Pekalongan, one speaker discussed the religious injunction to develop
spiritual relationship with the pious, the importance of grave visitation
and the virtues of reciting the Qur8:n when visiting cemeteries. In Solo,
one preacher discussed the importance of knowing the history of the B:
6Alaw; predecessors and emulating them, affirming the pedagogical
nature of the Aawl. Citing Qur8:nic verses and Prophetic traditions to
justify that the Aawl was needed to defend the commemoration in light of
the reformists’ criticism. Framing the defence in scriptural terms made it
possible to tackle criticism utilizing a publicly acceptable discourse.
While it is tempting to analyse the rituals of the Aawl, especially the
man:qib recitation, as a B: 6Alaw;’ effort to appropriate and purify
existing practices, I would suggest that such is not the case. The abridged
59
Vincent Cornell, Realm of the Saint, xxxi.
60
Mahdi, interview, Solo, 8 May 2007.
61
R. Michael Feener, ‘Shaykh Yusuf and the Appreciation of Muslim ‘‘Saints’’
in Modern Indonesia’, Journal for Islamic Studies, 18–19 (Cape Town; 1998–
1999): 112–31.
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 321
man:qib certainly simplified the language and minimized the saints’
miracles, which stands in stark contrast to the manaqiban where miracle
stories are expected. Yet the decision to abridge the man:qib was made
to accommodate the changing demographic of the pilgrims as well as the
increasing domination of modern Islamic reformist discourses in the
country. Hereditary caretakers such as Bagir and his forefathers do not
perceive existing Javanese practices of man:qib recitation as less
appropriate. In fact one of their routines as local religious elites is
leading the manaqiban of al-J;l:n;. But for the purpose of the Aawl, they

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seems to regulate the man:qib recitations in ways deemed more
agreeable to those who are not accustomed to the manaqiban. This in
turn facilitated the expansion of the B: 6Alaw; network to include those
who were previously outside its purview.

MAWLID
The conclusion of both the Aawl in Pekalongan and Solo is marked by
the recitation of the mawlid, a ceremonial reading of a panegyric
biography of the Prophet that begins with the story of his birth, his life,
his first revelation and nocturnal journey (mi6r:j) and concludes with a
description of his characteristics (sham:8il).62 In Ea@ramawt and
Indonesia, recitations of mawlid are used to celebrate various occasions
including the Prophet’s birthday, weddings, housewarming, and circum-
cision. The mawlid involves the ceremonial practice of standing up
(qiy:m) at the point where the recitation describes the moments of the
Prophet’s birth. This particular practice has been a subject of long debate
between the anti-ritualistic modern reformist Muslims and their
traditionalist defenders. In fact, Nico Kaptein argues that its rejection
could be seen as one of the major characteristics of the young modern
reformists (known as the Kaum Muda).63

62
There are several mawlid texts recited in Indonesia, the most popular being
the 6Iqd al-jawhar f; mawlid al-nab; al-azhar (‘The jeweled necklace of the
resplendent Prophet’s birth’) of the Madinan Ja6far b. Easan al-Barzanj; (d. 1177/
1764), and thus its recitation in Java is usually described as berjanji or berzanjen.
Today, the mawlid composed by 6Al; b. MuAammad al-Eabashi—whose death is
commemorated in Solo—titled 4imt al-durar f; akhb:r mawlid khayr al-bashar
(‘The pearl necklace of the best human’s birth’) is becoming increasingly popular
and was recited during the Aawl in Solo. In Pekalongan, the recited mawlid was
that of the Yemeni 6Abd al-RaAm:n b. MuAammad al-D;ba6; (d. 944/1537). In
Java, recitation of the mawlid of al-D;ba6; is usually referred to as diba’an.
63
Nico Kaptein, ‘The Berdiri Mawlid Issue’, 124–53.
322 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
Despite its common association with traditional Sufi practices, the
mawlid I observed during the Aawl has been used to communicate the
constructed ‘reformist’ contour of the Aawl. In Solo, a sermon was
delivered reflecting the noble character of the Prophet, underlying his
position as the prime archetype. In following the Prophet, however, one
needs immediate paragons who can be emulated. The B: 6Alaw; were
thus portrayed as the Prophet’s successors, whom one should emulate in
the process of imitating the Prophet. Following the sunna (the way of the
Prophet) by direct access to the Prophetic tradition is one hallmark of

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modern reformists thought. The sermon in Solo shares a similar concern
to emulate the sunna, not by studying textual sources but by imitating
the Prophet’s descendants. In other words, the sermon appropriated
reformist discursive frames to incorporate the B: 6Alaw; and strengthen
their eminence.
In sum, the mediating shaykhs allowed the recasting of B: 6Alaw;
authority into a form accessible to the changing Indonesian public. The
projected image of the B: 6Alaw; is no longer foreign, exotic and esoteric
but familiar, presentable, and Indonesian. Such a reconfiguration marked
the transition of the Aawl from an Arab diasporic gathering into one that
is more in conformity with Islam in Indonesia.

DECENTRALIZATION OF THE NETWORK

This article has demonstrated the centrality of the mediating shaykh in

enabling the Aawl actively to facilitate the reconfiguration of the B:
6Alaw; network. This was accomplished by three means: expanding the
textual base of the network, cementing social bonds while reinforcing
hierarchy, and communicating with public articulations of Islam. During
the commemoration, B: 6Alaw; and kyais from different localities
interacted with one another in a publicly visible performance, which
further secures and expands the B: 6Alaw; network.
This network in turn helped increase the number of attendees. My
discussions with pilgrims illustrate how they became aware of the
Aawl. Many related that, usually a month before the Aawl, an oral
invitation would be read during Friday prayer in their village. Some
reported how kyais told them about the Aawl during their weekly
lessons. Such strategy corroborated information from KH. Abdul
Rasyid that since his father’s days he would receive invitations to the
Aawl from the hereditary caretakers, which he subsequently conveyed
to their students. Others like KH. Abdullah Mukhtar of Sukabumi
and KH. Abdul Rahman Nawi of Depok received telephone
 PILGRIMAGE AND NETWORK FORMATION 323
invitations.64 They would then bring a bus or two of students to
attend the commemoration. Such networks connecting villages to the
B: 6Alaw;, covering most parts of Java, ensured a well-attended Aawl.
Many of the pilgrims I talked to understood the purpose of coming to
the Aawl, namely commemorating a saint. When asked why the saint is
commemorated, most of them replied because he was a wal;, a friend of
God, while many others responded because he was a descendant of the
Prophet. When asked from where they received such information, most
answered from the village kyai. This indicates the role of the kyais in

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instructing their students about the B: 6Alaw;. This information confirms
the importance of the network in maintaining the commemorations.
The Aawl, however, should not be seen merely as benefitting from the
network. Rather, the commemorations themselves served to extend,
strengthen, and consolidate the network. The Aawl acted as a site in
which social bonds were cemented in a horizontal solidarity. It is also
where hierarchy was reinforced. Many participants whom I conversed
with claimed that the Aawl is a site where they could interact with the B:
6Alaw; and kyais. Such interactions served to foster feelings of love,
admiration and connection to these elites. One pilgrim from
Probolinggo, Abdul Jalil, told me that he could feel baraka flowing
through him, in the form of serenity, resulting from his interaction with
the scholars.65 ‘The more I meet them, the more I love them’, said Nizar,
the schoolteacher from Probolinggo.66 As the scholarly elites, the B:
6Alaw; and the kyais represented the extensive network and became its
public face. In certain contexts, such as those described in this article, the
B: 6Alaw; are no longer seen as different and foreign from the majority of
the Indonesians. The vast informal network that ties the B: 6Alaw; to the
wider Indonesian Muslim public has practically secured their position
within the nation, albeit while retaining their genealogical, scholarly and
saintly distinctions.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this article, I have attempted to connect the study of ritual with

network formation. The article shows how the sites, rituals, and
commentaries of the Aawl served to extend the B: 6Alaw; network and

64
KH. Abdullah Mukhtar and KH. Abdul Rahman Nawi, interview,
Pekalongan, 27 August 2007.
65
Abdul Jalil, interview, Solo, 7 May 2007.
66
Nizar, interview, Solo, 7 May 2007.
324 i s m a i l f a j ri e a l a t a s
strengthen social bonds between the B: 6Alaw; and the wider Indonesian
public while simultaneously securing the former’s authority among the
latter. The imaginary of the B: 6Alaw; generated by the rituals is that of
sanctity, genealogical distinction, and Islamic activism, thereby position-
ing them as a group with significant dedication (berjasa is the word
commonly deployed during the speeches) to the nation. What emerged
from and is sustained by the Aawl is a non-egalitarian solidarity that is
instantiated in informal networks that tie the B: 6Alaw; to the wider
Indonesian public. Such bonds form the social fabric that facilitated the

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B: 6Alaw;’s practical integration to the Indonesian nation during the time
when their position as members of the nation was precarious.
The solidarity that emerges throughout the Aawl enhanced the
sentiments and affections of the pilgrims towards the B: 6Alaw;,
strengthening and expanding their shared network, and assisting the
practical integration of the B: 6Alaw; to the wider Indonesian Muslim
public. This underlines the crucial role of the hereditary caretakers as
mediating shaykhs in adapting the Aawl to the changing socio-political
contexts. It is not a coincidence therefore that ordinary Indonesians who
became followers of the B: 6Alaw; and attended their rituals are referred
to collectively as the muAibb;n (the lovers) of the B: 6Alaw; whom they
addressed as Aab;b (pl. Aab:8ib, the beloved).
Such affective formation is realized in new forms of networks and
alliances, embracing those who were previously outside its purview into
a hierarchic formation. The Aawl and the networks it sustained therefore
allowed the B: 6Alaw; to weave themselves and become woven into
important sectors of the Indonesian Muslim fabrics while retaining their
distinctions. It enabled the honouring of the past by carrying it into new
and lasting forms of alliance and participation.