In this rich account of a Muslim society in highland Sumatra, Indonesia, John Bowen describes how men and women debate among themselves ideas of what Islam is and should be--as it pertains to all areas of their lives, from work to worship. Whereas many previous anthropological studies have concentrated on the purely local aspects of culture, this book captures and analyzes the tension between the local and universal in everyday life. Current religious differences among the Gayo stem from debates between "traditionalist" and "modernist" scholars that began in the 1930s, and reveal themselves in the ways Gayo discuss and perform worship, sacrifice, healing, and rites of birth and death, all within an Islamic framework.
Bowen considers the power these debates accord to language, especially in arguments over spells, rites of farming, hunting, and healing. Moreover, he traces in these debates a general conception of transacting with spirits that has shaped Gayo practices of sacrifice, worship, and aiding the dead. Bowen concludes by examining the development of competing religious ideas in the highlands, the alternative ritual forms and ideas they have pro-mulgated, and the implications of this phenomenon for the emergence of an Islamic public sphere.
| List of Illustrations | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| Note on Transcription | |
| Pt. 1 | A Genealogy of Divergent Understandings | |
| Ch. 1 | Introduction | 3 |
| Ch. 2 | Religious Disputes in Takengen | 18 |
| On Modernists and Traditionalists | 21 |
| Social and Moral Contexts | 30 |
| Ch. 3 | Islamic Knowledge in the Highlands, 1900-1990 | 39 |
| Languages of Past Piety and Learning | 40 |
| The Development of Traditionalist Scholarship | 47 |
| Muhammadiyah: Social and Religious Innovation in the Highlands | 55 |
| Radical Reform through Islamic Education | 61 |
| Pt. 2 | Powerful Speech and Spirit Transactions | |
| Ch. 4 | Spells, Prayer, and the Power of Words | 77 |
| Distinctions among Doa | 82 |
| The Efficacy of Spells | 87 |
| Quranic Knowledge and Power | 94 |
| Acquiring Power and Expecting Results | 101 |
| Ch. 5 | The Source of Human Powers in History | 106 |
| The Creation of the World | 106 |
| The Human Embodiment of Creation | 115 |
| The Coming of Islam to Aceh | 124 |
| Ch. 6 | The Healer's Struggle | 129 |
| Healers and Knowledge | 131 |
| Finding the Jin | 135 |
| Restoring the Balance | 139 |
| Asking a Spirit to Depart | 145 |
| Ch. 7 | Exorcism and Accountability | 151 |
| Casting Out the Spirits | 152 |
| The Social Framework of Exorcism | 162 |
| Ch. 8 | Farming, Ancestors, and the Sacred Landscape | 173 |
| Speaking with the Ancestor | 174 |
| Protecting the Crops and the Community | 185 |
| Ancestors and Other Sacred Beings | 194 |
| Ch. 9 | Adam and Eve's Children | 202 |
| The Origins of Rice | 202 |
| Cain, Abel, and the Marriage of Twins | 209 |
| Hunting, Healing, and Spiritual Siblingship | 216 |
| Pt. 3 | Negotiating Public Rituals | |
| Ch. 10 | Transacting through Food: The Kenduri and Its Critics | 229 |
| Prayers, Food, and Sacrifice | 230 |
| Celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's Birthday | 237 |
| The Child's Entry into the World | 240 |
| Ch. 11 | Speaking for the Dead | 251 |
| Speaking to the Dead at the Grave | 252 |
| Negotiating the Passage of the Dead | 259 |
| Chanting for the Deceased | 262 |
| Ch. 12 | Sacrifice, Merit, and Self-Interest | 273 |
| Generating Merit in Isak | 273 |
| "Selfless Sacrifice" in Takengen | 279 |
| Ch. 13 | Worship and Public Life | 289 |
| Form and Feeling in Worship | 290 |
| Worshiping Together | 296 |
| Disputations | 300 |
| Mosque Politics | 309 |
| Ch. 14 | The Social Forms of Religious Change | 315 |
| Creating Private and Public Spheres | 315 |
| Two Modes of Cultural Rationalization | 321 |
| Public Discourse and the State | 325 |
| Glossary of Gayo and Arabic Terms | 331 |
| Bibliography | 335 |
| Index | 353 |
is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Washington University. He is author of
Presents an account of a Muslim society in highland Sumatra, Indonesia. This book describes how men and women debate among themselves ideas of what Islam is and should be - as it pertains to all areas of their lives, from work to worship. It analyzes the tension between the local and universal in everyday life.
"Bowen's observations that anthropologists, historians of religion, and other scholars of Islam have neglected the study of Islamic ritual practice, and that Indonesianists have for too long neglected the study of Islamic textual traditions, point to significant problems in all of these fields. It is hoped that Bowen's work will inspire Islamicists to pay greater attention to the varieties of Muslim ritual practice and inspire Indonesianists to consider more seriously the importance of the Islamic textual tradition in what is, after all, the world's most populous Muslim society."
