Conversations
about the role and value of Islamic diversity in Indonesia’s Islamic public
sphere are becoming more frequent and intense. For some Muslims, homogeneity is
a precondition for a prosperous and pious community. For others, diversity is a
resource that is necessary for creating a just society, and for preserving
Indonesia’s religious, political and social distinctiveness.
Indonesia’s
regional Islamic traditions are increasingly being cited as reference points in
these conversations. Hasan Mustapa (1857–1930) was a scholar, mystic and poet
who studied in Mecca for thirteen years before commencing his career as an
Islamic official in the Netherlands East Indies. He wrote a number of sufistic
treatises on Islamic belief and practice, mostly in the Sundanese language.
To the
surprise of many, his name and writings are now being more frequently
referenced in public discourse. Indonesians are becoming more interested in his
work, which they interpret as a characteristically Indonesian mediation of Islamic
concepts belonging to the intellectual lineage of figures such as Ibn al-‘Arabi
(d. 1240) and ‘Abd al-Karim Al-Jili (d. 1424). Apart from that, members of the
Sundanese ethnic group of West Java, who currently number around forty million,
have shown renewed interest in his work as a model for nurturing a
pro-diversity ethic in the province’s unsettled Islamic public sphere.
Hasan Mustapa is comprised of chapters by Sundanese scholars, alongside the editor’s
contributions. Some provide introductions to Mustapa’s life and work, while
others perform a discursive move of increasing importance in contemporary
Indonesia: reaching into a regional Islamic past to make authoritative
statements about the present. Together, the chapters form a timely addition to
the literature on a question of growing importance: what influence should
regional traditions have in contemporary Islamic societies?
