Notes Towards the History of Qur'anic Exegesis in Southeast Asia

Aktivitas penulisan tafsir di Dunia Melayu atau Asia Tenggara telah dimulai sejak beberapa abad lalu. Meskipun masih dalam bentuk elementer, sejak abad 17 wilayah ini telah memproduksi tafsir. Sebuah manuskrip melayu asal Aceh yang tersimpan di Universitas Cambridge menunjukkan bahwa teknik penulisan dan metode penafsiran yang diterapkan saat itu masih tergolong sederhana. Manuskrip ini yang merupakan tafsir surat al-Kahfi ditulis dengan tinta merah disertai terjemahan serta komentar yang ditulis dengan tinta hitam.DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v5i3.73

Tabut: Muharram Observances in the History of Bengkulu

Tabut is the name given to the commemoration of Muharram as it is observed in Bengkulu, Indonesia. The basic traditions connected with its observance have their origins in Muslim India. However the Tabut has, over the course of its development in Bengkulu, absorbed and incorporated various local elements. Recently the "Tabut Festival" has come to be seen as a symbol of 'local Bengkulu culture', this reinterpretation facilitating the easy absorption of this potentially disruptive' happening into the fold of acceptable and even desirable 'local cultural heritage' as defined by the present lndonesian government.DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v6i2.73

Spectral Encounters on the Sinamale’ Bridge : Affective Infrastructure along a Watery Stretch of the Belt Road

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Spectral encounters on the Sinamale’ Bridge:Affective infrastructure along a watery stretch of the Belt Road

This article focuses on one of the largest infrastructure projects in the Maldives, the Sinamale’ (“China-Maldives Friendship”) Bridge. The bridge affords a range of meanings, shaped to various degrees by both its global entanglements with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and local political contestation within the Maldives. Linking the national capital to its international airport and spanning across the three islands, the Sinamale’ bridge quickly became the site of a diverse range of social and cultural experiences and interpretations—including encounters with the supernatural. The bridge has thus inadvertently become a space in which local experiences of modernity are elaborated by individuals through complex engagements with diverse elements of local cosmology, and symbolic expressions of locality and trespass that complicate any neat linear narratives of modernizing development and “progress.

The Islamic Legal System in Indonesia

This chapter describes the historical evolution and current structure of Indonesia’s Islamic legal structure. The current system of Islamic courts in Indonesia is traceable to a late nineteenth century Dutch decree establishing a system of Islamic tribunals on the islands of Java and Madura. The decree created collegial courts in which a district-level religious official called the penghulu acted as chair and was assisted by member judges chosen from the local religious elite. The courts were authorized to decide matrimonial and inheritance disputes, but execution of the courts’ decisions required an executory decree from the civil court. The system was expanded to south Kalimantan in the 1930s, but at the same time the jurisdiction over inheritance was transferred to the civil courts. At independence, the Islamic judiciary was placed under the authority of the Ministry of Religion, which used executive powers to expand the system to other parts of the country. It was not until 1989 with the passage of the Religious Judicature Act that the existence of the courts was guaranteed by statute. The 1989 Act also vested the courts with enforcement powers and mandated changes in the organization and staffing of the courts modeled after the parallel system of civil courts. The substantive jurisdiction of the courts has also been expanded to include inheritance cases as well as a so far little-used power to decide cases involving economic transactions based on Islamic law. In 2004, the administrative supervision of the Islamic judiciary was transferred from the Ministry of Religion to the Supreme Court. In 1999, the province of Aceh was granted special autonomy status that included the authority to enforce Islamic law in areas beyond the established jurisdictions of Shari‛a courts in the rest of the country. These developments add a new dimension to the institutional structures for the practice of Islamic law in the countr

Why Study Islamic Legal Professionals?

In many countries today, including the Southeast Asian nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, governments regulate some aspects of Muslim life according to Islamic law. The administration of Islamic law in these states is carried out by modern courts that are structured differently and staffed by different types of figures than were earlier institutions for the implementation of Islamic law. Prior to the modern era, courts tasked with the job of resolving cases according to Shari‛a were staffed by judges with a particular type of training, and litigants appearing before these judges were generally not represented by a specialized class of lawyers. In the modern era, Shari‛a courts have undergone radical changes in many countries. Modern Shari‛a court judges are trained to find Islamic rules of a decision in ways that differ significantly from that of classical jurists. To varying degrees, these judges are also taught to apply Shari‛a law in a manner similar to that of judges who apply non-religious law outside the Islamic court system. At the same time decisions are rendered in an environment in which litigants who appear before these judges are increasingly coming to be represented by lawyers who advise on questions of law and procedure, advocate for them and appeal cases. These differences in both training and professional practice affect the way in which the court engages with the Islamic tradition and thus affects the way that Islamic law is interpreted and applied. This article argues for new attention to be paid to the educational backgrounds and professional practice of the judges and lawyers who work in Shari‛a courts to further our understanding of the practice of Islamic law in contemporary societies

Introduction by Guest Editors

This book grew out of conversations among the three guest editors, Mark Cammack, Michael Feener, and Clark Lombardi, in the summer of 2008 about the general lack of attention among scholars of Southeast Asian Islam on important questions about the foundations of the region’s Islamic legal structures. First, despite its evident importance, there has been little research on the process by which legislators and judges decide which interpretation of Islamic law will be formally applied by the state apparatus. Another important question that has been largely ignored by scholars concerns the qualifications of Islamic legal professionals. The three Southeast Asian states treated in this volume—Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore—have separate systems of Islamic courts. Although the educational background of those who staff these courts will clearly inform the way they understand, interpret, and apply the law, to date little research has been done on the educational processes by which judges who serve on Islamic courts are trained to think about Islamic law. Studies on the means by which judges are appointed and regulated have also been lacking—even though the decision to favor one type of candidate surely affects the interpretation and application of Islamic law in the courts. Finally, lawyers who practice before Islamic courts play a crucial role in framing and presenting the issues for decision and in mediating between the courts that apply Islamic law and the public who have recourse to the state’s official Islamic legal institutions, but research on the professional training and governance of these lawyers is almost entirely lackin

Penultimate predecessors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Aceh, Sumatra: stratigraphic, archeological, and historical evidence

We present stratigraphic, archeological and historical evidence for two closely timed predecessors of the giant 2004 tsunami on the northern coast of Aceh, northern Sumatra. This is the first direct evidence that a tsunami played a role in a fifteenth century cultural hiatus along the northern Sumatran portion of the maritime silk route. One seacliff exposure on the eastern side of the Lambaro headlands reveals two beds of tsunamigenic coral rubble within a small alluvial fan. Radiocarbon and Uranium-Thorium disequilibrium dates indicate emplacement of the coral rubble after 1344 ± 3 C.E. Another seacliff exposure, on the western side of the peninsula, contains evidence of nearly continuous settlement from ~1240 C.E. to soon after 1366 ± 3 C.E., terminated by tsunami destruction. At both sites, the tsunamis are likely coincident with sudden uplift of coral reefs above the Sunda megathrust 1394 ± 2 C.E., evidence for which has been published previously. The tsunami (or tsunami pair) appears to have destroyed a vibrant port community and led to the temporary recentering of marine trade dominance to more protected locations farther east. The reestablishment of vibrant communities along the devastated coast by about 1500 CE set the stage for the 2004 disaster