Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java

The Javanese - one of the largest ethnic groups in the Islamic world - were once mostly 'nominal Muslims' with pious believers a minority and the majority seemingly resistant to Islam's call for greater piety. Over the tumultuous period analyzed here - from the 1930s to the 2000s - that society has changed profoundly to become an extraordinary example of the rising religiosity that marks the modern age. Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java draws on a formidable body of sources, including interviews, archival documents and a vast range of published material, to situate the Javanese religious experience. Winner of the Kahin Prize from the Association of Asia Studies, the study has considerable relevance for much wider contexts. The final section of the book, which considers the significance of Java's religious history in global contexts, shows how it exemplifies a profound contest of values in the universal human search for a better life

2002 Mount Beauty Workshop on Islam in Indonesia: Report

The workshop invited each candidate to present her or his topic to colleagues. There followed debate and discussion about the topics, about conceptual complexities, and about the way in which the research of others shed light on each individual topic. Most of the students were at early stages of research (mostly in the first year of candidature), but three were at final stages (Syafi'i Anwar, Fatimah Husein and Saliy White). One candidate, Mohamad Hafiz, is working on the Syariah Court of Singapore. The discussions were vigorous and of great help to all participants.DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v10i1.64

The perils of hybridity in 19th-century Java: Ronggawarsita’s reputation, animated debates in Bramartani, and the probable origins of Javanese acrostics; with a postscript on Purwalĕlana

n 1866-1867, a controversy in the Javanese newspaper Bramartani raised questions as to whether the writer Ronggawarsita was really a great Javanese pujongga (poet). The correspondents – all from Java’s tiny literate class – stooped to extraordinary rudeness towards each other in the midst of withering criticism of Ronggawarsita, until the newspaper’s editor brought the correspondence to an end. This lively correspondence revealed not only divisions about what, in the new colonial age in Java, constituted good literature, but also about what, in the pages of the new medium of a newspaper, constituted proper manners. It probably also suggests how the Javanese use of acrostics may have found its origins in a popular Dutch song. With Ronggawarsita’s reputation under attack – which occurred again in his final year of life, 1873 – the very different experience of the innovative writer Purwalĕlana is also considered.En 1866-1867, une controverse dans la revue javanaise Bramartani remit en question la notoriété au titre de grand pujongga (poète) de l’auteur Ronggawarsita. Les correspondants —appartenant tous à la minuscule classe lettrée de Java — s’abaissèrent à une extraordinaire grossièreté les uns envers les autres au milieu de la critique mordante de Ronggawarsita, jusqu’à ce que le rédacteur en chef de la revue mette fin à la correspondance. Animée, cette dernière révéla non seulement des désaccords sur ce qui constituait une bonne littérature durant le nouvel âge colonial de Java, mais aussi ce qui, dans les pages du nouveau média qu’était une revue, constituait les bonnes manières. Cette correspondance suggère probablement aussi comment l’usage javanais d’acrostiches a pu trouver ses origines dans une chanson populaire hollandaise. En contrepoint à la mise en cause de la réputation de Ronggawarsita — qui resurgit au cours de la dernière année de sa vie, en 1873 — l’expérience très différente de l’écrivain novateur Purwalĕlana est également abordée

Religious Reform & Polarization in Java

Pressures for religious reform—in any society or religious tradition—may lead to greater orthodoxy and orthopraxy, but can also invite opposition, social polarization, conflict, and violence. In this context the history of the Islamization of the Javanese is particularly interesting and significant. That history reveals periods of conflict and periods of reconciliation, so it may tell us something about what circumstances make religion a source for social harmony and what circumstances make it a cause of conflict

Differences in life-history traits in two clonal strains of the self-fertilizing fish, Rivulus marmoratus

We compared life-history traits such as fecundity, sex ratio, reproductive cycle, age at sexual maturity, embryonic period, egg size, early growth and morphology in two clonal strains (PAN-RS and DAN) of the mangrove killifish, Rivulus marmoratus, under constant rearing conditions. We found a positive relationship between growth and reproductive effort. Fecundity was significantly higher in the PAN-RS strain than in the DAN strain. The sex ratio was significantly different, with DAN producing more primary males than PAN-RS. Spawning and ovulation cycle did not clearly differ between the strains. PAN-RS showed a significantly higher growth rate than DAN from 0 to 100 days after hatching, however, age at sexual maturity, embryonic period, egg size, and morphometric and meristic characteristics (vertebral and fin-ray counts) did not differ between the two strains. The high fecundity of PAN-RS may provide an increased chance of offspring survival, while the attainment of sexual maturity at a smaller size in DAN may allow them to invest earlier in reproduction to increase breeding success. Variations in the life-history traits of PAN-RS and DAN may be adaptive strategies for life in their natural habitat, which consists of mangrove estuaries with a highly variable environment

Babad Sangkala and the Javanese sense of history

Merle C. Ricklefs There is a tradition of scepticism about the historical value of Javanese chronicles (babad), which has led to a privileging of European sources in the study of Javanese history. This scepticism may rest upon doubt whether the Javanese even have a sense of history. This paper argues that there is ample evidence in Javanese chronicles of a vibrant sense of the past. It analyses particularly Babad Sangkala. The original version of this work (Leiden cod. or. 4097) seems to have been completed c. 1750 and is shown here to be very accurate in its account of the reign of Pakubuwana II (1726-49). This babad demonstrates that in the mid-eighteenth century there was a Javanese chronicle tradition which assumed that events occurred in a sequence, that they had causes and consequences, that they could be judged and that the past was worth both knowing and recording accurately. This demonstration that Javanese chronicle writers could be concerned to record the past with precision is essential to showing that the Javanese were indubitably people with a sense of history and a capacity to record it. Clearly therefore historians of pre-colonial Java are as much obliged to take Javanese sources seriously as historians of France or Germany are obliged to use French or German sources. The author expresses regret that this seems not yet to be accepted by all scholars of Javanese history.Ricklefs M.C. Babad Sangkala and the Javanese sense of history. In: Archipel, volume 55, 1998. pp. 125-140

Sejarah Indonesia Modern

xiv,501 hlm.;21 cm

Sejarah Indonesia Modern

xiv + 479 hlm.; 14 x 21 c