Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition, by Syaifudin Zuhri
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: About a decade ago I visited the small, picturesque holy tomb known as the Keramat Agung Pemecutan on Jalan Gunung Batukaru in the centre of Denpasar, Bali.In the narrow street outside the tomb several big buses were parked as their passengers-visitors from Mojokerto in East Java-paid their respects at the grave of the saintly Siti Khodijah, a Balinese princess who reputedly converted to Islam centuries before.In the courtyard beside the holy grave, I fell into conversation with a member of the party, a tall, smooth-faced young man wearing a batik shirt, neatly creased grey rayon trousers and a black peci fez-cap.He stood bare foot staring wide-eyed around the compound."Amazing," he muttered."It's exactly like Java five hundred years ago, in the time of the Nine Saints.""What do you mean?" "Well, we know that five hundred years ago nine holy men brought Islam to Java.At the time the Javanese were Hindus.Islam took root in little enclavesislands if you like-in the midst of the Hindu population.Those islands must have been just like this place."In his mind's eye a story from the distant past was helping to generate the landscape of an imagined future.The tomb of Siti Khodijah was an enclave of Islam.As in Java centuries before, in Bali too, Islam would eventually emerge from its enclaves and send fingers of faith into the countryside.Sooner or later the future of Bali, like Java five hundred years ago, was destined to be Islamic.My chance encounter with a Javanese pilgrim at a Muslim holy site in Bali exemplifies two of the themes in Syaifudin Zuhri's fascinating study: the rarely examined place of Islam as a minority religion in certain parts of Indonesia, and the equally rarely examined phenomenon of religious translocation from region to region within the Republic.These thematic motifs are just the beginning of this study's richness.It examines the cohort of seven Muslim saints known as the Wali Pitu and their burial places scattered across the overwhelmingly Hindu island of Bali.The cohort was "discovered"-that is, invented-during the last decade of the twentieth century.The first decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed a remarkable boom in pilgrimage to their tombs, especially by pilgrims from Java.The study falls into two parts.The first considers the phenomenon of Muslim saint worship in Indonesia, illustrated by the seven saints of Bali (Siti Khodijah
Author: George Quinn
Institution: Australian National University
Language: Dutch
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4394961514