Piety, Politics, and Everyday Ethics in Southeast Asian Islam

Beautiful Behavior

Robert Rozehnal, Robert Rozehnal

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781350041738
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Islamwissenschaft

This book explores the diversity and dynamism of Islam in Southeast Asia through the concept of adab, or beautiful behavior. Amid the complexity of Islamic civilization, adab provides Muslims with a shared sense of sacred history, identity, and morality. In the context of Islamic ethics, adab defines the rules of personal and public etiquette: good manners, proper conduct, civility and humaneness. Featuring the interdisciplinary research of nine prominent scholars of Islam, the book offers new perspectives on adab 's multiple meanings and myriad applications for Muslim communities in Malaysia and Indonesia. The chapters examine a wide range of texts, spotlighting the writings of prominent Muslim thinkers, and contexts, focusing on the everyday experiences of lay Muslims. Drawing on a variety of theoretical and methodological lenses, the essays reveal how beautiful behavior impacts local institutions, cultural practices, and religious imaginations via politics and law, spirituality and piety, ethics and experience. With its careful textual analysis, detailed case studies, and attention to historical continuities and disjunctures, Piety, Politics and Everyday Ethics in Southeast Asian Islam is essential reading for students and scholars interested in global Islam and the lived, local dynamics of Muslim Southeast Asia.

Part One

Texts and Contexts

1

The Interplay between Adab and Local Ethics and Etiquette in Indonesian and Malaysian Literature

Muhamad Ali

Introduction

The concept of adab is a fundamental and pervasive code of behavior in Muslim societies. It is “a deeply embedded cultural/religious value flexibly and situationally determining the best form of action based in an ontological refinement and found in the Islamic and Islamicate cultural arena.”¹ Even though adab does not exist in the primary scripture of Islam, the Qur’an, the term has become not only a pervasive concept but also a historically persistent norm, intersecting with cultural and ethicoreligious concepts in many Islamicate societies around the world. In Southeast Asia, the prevalence of adab and its meanings are shaped by both scriptural and cultural factors, as well as by Arabic and non-Arabic sources of knowledge and practice. Determining the best form of action, adab is framed within the fundamental Qur’anic concepts of akhlaq (akhlaq karima and husn al-khulq, or good morality), the English/Dutch word “etiquette/etiket,” and the Arabic and Sanskrit localized concepts of custom known as adat or adat istiadat.

In the Islamicate societies in Southeast Asia, the modern Arabic-English dictionary’s description of adab as culture, refinement, good breeding, good manners, decency, propriety, humaneness, the humanities, literature, civility, and civilization intersects with a wide variety of localized terminology. This includes Sanskrit and old Javanese words such as sopan santun (politeness), budi pekerti (good character), tata krama (manners), unggah-unggah (manners); localized English words such as etiket, moralitas, and etika; as well as the equally wide variety of meanings of the Arabic terms akhlaq (disposition, nature, character, temper, ethics, morals, or manner) and adat (custom, habit, tradition, culture). In short, there is both interchangeability and distinction between adab and other concepts that define good manners, morality, and tradition. Together, the appropriation and localization of Arabic, Sanskrit, Dutch, and English terminology illuminates how codes of behavior operate in Malay and Indonesian Muslim societies. In this process, Arabic-Islamic and Western epistemologies intertwine within local ethnic, nationalistic, and Islamic works on ethics and etiquette. This complex interplay between Arabic, Western, and local taxonomies is evident in the various texts we will discuss in this essay.

Adab and Adat in Indonesian Local and Nationalist Literature

In Indonesia, when adab is used in particular local traditions (adat), the term can mean ethics, etiquette, and sometimes literature. A volume entitled Beberapa Etika dan Etiket Jawa (Some Literature on Javanese Ethics and Etiquettes) contains a variety of serat literature (a serat means a text made of fiber and other materials) from the old eras of Javanese kingdoms which signifies the conflation of ethics and tradition. In the volume, a serat text entitled Serat Panitisastra (Manual of Wisdom), composed by different court authors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, blends Javanese morality with some reference to Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. In this work, the Javanese word unggah-ungguh signifies manners in language and custom according to an individual’s place in society. The text contains ethical rules for the ruler and ruled, the aristocracy and the ordinary people, the students and teachers, and the parents and children.

Another serat literary text that blends local Javanese moral values with the Islamic ideas of divinity, spirituality, and ethics is Serat Wulang Reh (Advice About the Way to Attain a Goal), composed by the Surakarta Muslim King Pakubuwana IV (1768–1820). This poetic text emphasizes the importance of adat (local custom) and tata krama (good manners) in both culturally Javanese and religiously Islamic terms. The book was meant to teach the court and the wider Islamized Javanese society about moral values to attain a harmonious life in this world and a contented life in the hereafter. A passage in the text, for example, says, “knowledge (ngelmu, from Arabic ‘ilm) can be understood and mastered by the path; the path to attain it is a special one; it is by fostering character; the strong character leads one away from anger.”²

According to the text, abstaining from eating in excess, remembering one God (Tuhan Yang Maha Esa, a Sanskrit phrase which means “The One and Almighty God”), and the performance of the Five Pillars of Islam (proclamation of faith, prayer, fasting, charity, and the pilgrimage) are the prerequisites for living a good life in the world and success in the afterlife. An action is appropriate if it is considerate, thoughtful, and wise. A pious Muslim has to avoid any action that only benefits himself and harms others. He should avoid saying untrustworthy words (lunyu), keeping secrets, or being a hypocrite. Proper social relationships are shaped on the basis of age, position, and kinship. Parents, parents-in-laws, older brothers, teachers, and rulers each deserves respect and honor. Toward God, the believer has to serve Him and put trust (pasrah) in Him while obeying His commands and the Prophet Muhammad. All these principles are based on reciprocity, solidarity, obedience toward elders, the power of the heart, and trust in one’s fate.³ Blending local Javanese with Islamic messages, this text focuses on inner spiritual development as the prerequisite for living in multiple layers of relationship to attain a successful life in this world and the afterlife.

Another adab text which accommodates adat in an Indonesian language using an Arabic script (jawi) is Kitab Adab Al-Insan (Book of Good Manners of Human Being), authored by a prominent scholar of Arab descent, Sayyid Uthman of Batavia (1882–1914), and published in 1900. Uthman was born in Batavia, the capital of the Netherlands East Indies (the present-day Indonesia). He later moved to and studied in Mecca and Hadhamaut, Yemen, and traveled to parts of Arabia. He then returned to Batavia and cooperated with Christian Snouck Hurgronje (1889–1906), the advisor for the colonial government on Arabic and Islamic affairs and a scholar of Islam and Islam in the Archipelago. Sayyid Uthman wrote and published multiple works on Islamic belief, ritual, law, and ethics, including the one mentioned earlier on good manners.⁴ Sayyid Uthman states the context and purpose for writing such a manual: many people in the Netherlands East Indies do not know and do not follow rules (aturan) and customary manners (adat kelakuan) and therefore are inclined toward bad behavior, both private and public. As a result, he feels the need to write an accessible pocket book one could carry while working and traveling. To that end, Sayyid Uthman chooses to use a low, vernacular Malay language (bahasa Melayu rendah) written in the Arabic script (jawi) so that the ordinary people who know jawi could understand.

In this text, goodness and wisdom are believed to produce four benefits: wealth, health, spiritual satisfaction, and good reputation. In his view, it is vitally important for Muslims not to contravene agama (religion) and adat negeri (customs of the country) and not to be harmful so as not to be harmed. In his formulation, adab takes various forms: the adab of humans toward Allah (to know Allah, the God of mankind, and His attributes, such as the All-Knowing, All-Seeing, and All-Hearing) and the adab of children toward their parents, reflecting the Qur’anic verse, “And serve Allah and do not associate Him with anything, and be kind to your parents” (Chapter 4, Al-Nisa, 36). Sayyid Uthman interprets this verse as an instruction for Muslims to listen to and show respect for their parents, to say no harsh or loud words against them, to show no unpleasant face to them, and to help them when they are in need. This is articulated in his detailed descriptions concerning the adab of children toward their parents. The other sections of the book address the proper adab between siblings; the adab between husbands and wives; the adab between neighbors; the adab between students and teachers; the adab of learning; and the adab of teaching. Sayyid Uthman asserts that wisdom (hikmah), which is beyond discursive, book knowledge (ilm), is of paramount value. In his view, a wise Muslim knows when to stop speaking, what to learn, how to teach, what knowledge is appropriate for particular audiences, and when and how to give greetings.⁵ This adab text in jawi indicates that proper behavior toward God and other human beings in accordance with the religious–cultural codes results in both material and spiritual gains.

Beyond these religious–cultural texts, there are also “nationalistic-religious” texts that describe proper etiquette beyond particular ethnic and religious groups. Numerous local authors have written about an Indonesian etiquette that contrasts with foreign customs. These authors are typically concerned with nation building, which they feel needs clearer orientation and focused renewal in the face of crises and social change. In this genre of texts, Indonesia is imagined as belonging to the East (Timur), in opposition to the West (Barat). To be Eastern and nationalistic means to create and develop a national style of civility and civilization derived from the existing local and ethnic cultures.

Nilakusuma, another local author—a female writer, a Minangkabawi from West Sumatera—published a book, Etiket Sopan Santun Pergaulan Sehari-hari (The Etiquette of Everyday Personal and Social Interactions), in 1959 during the era of President Sukarno (ruled 1945–1965). In this book, Nilakusuma uses the term adab in its derivative form: peradaban. This term means civility or civilization, a concept that includes manners. She suggests that etiquette determines both an individual's level of civility and sense of nationhood. She contends that manners are a critical necessity for the Indonesian people from all walks of life—the educated and the general public, men and women, old and young—in order to position them to adapt to the changing environment and attain success in life. Westerners and Easterners such as Indonesians, she writes, have different etiquettes. For her, etiquette is one of the key characteristics of a civilized nation. Although men are “hard” and women “soft” in speaking and in character, both must work to create harmony and to act politely toward each other in a sincere way. All citizens, she maintains, need to learn and practice the appropriate ways of behaving, talking, visiting, dressing, debating, shaking hands, serving guests, offering greetings and thanks, laughing, sleeping, keeping promises, and other daily activities. By way of example, she insists that during Islamic holidays, such as after the fasting month of Ramadan, people should be considerate in the timing of their visits, avoiding the early morning hours when women are still preparing for food and drink, or the late afternoons when the hosts are likely to be resting.

Nilakusuma worries that as societies progress, the sense of nationhood deteriorates. To avoid the loss of tradition and good manners, she contends, leaders and lay people—both Muslims and non-Muslims alike—are all responsible for preserving their manners and creating a national personality (kepribadian nasional). In her view, nationalism requires speaking the Indonesian language instead of foreign languages, and using local products such as clothing made in Indonesia in order to support the creation of a national style of dress (pakaian nasional).⁶ In this text, a distinct Indonesian national etiquette is characterized by language, slogans, clothing, and dress, as well as through moral behavior among the members of the nation—a bulwark against a lack of sense of belonging to the nation and the loss of the tradition.

In a similar fashion, another local Javanese author, Oetomo Ds, in his book Tata-Krama Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Etiquette), publishe...