De Islaam in Indonesië (Mellema, 1947)

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tagsdocument, source, publication, colonial, religious, ethnology, 1947, mellema, indisch-instituut, java, comparative
aliasesDe Islaam in Indonesië, De Islam in Indonesië, Mellema 1947, Mededeling No. LXXVII, Afd. Volkenkunde No. 25, The Islam in Indonesia (in particular on Java), Islaam in Indonesië

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De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java) — “The Islam in Indonesia (in particular on Java)” — is a concise ethnological survey of Muslim institutions and practice in the Netherlands Indies, written by R. L. Mellema and published in Amsterdam in 1947 by the Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut as Mededeling (Communication) No. LXXVII of the Society, being No. 25 of its Afdeling Volkenkunde (Ethnology Section). Though the pamphlet’s subtitle confines its detailed treatment to Java, Mellema draws comparatively on Atjeh at several decisive points — the moekim–imeum territorial system, the rangkang village chapel, the diversion of zakaat as an underground war-chest by the oelama’s during the Atjehoorlog, the social prestige of the Haddji title, and the oldest Arabic-inscribed graves in the archipelago — making it a distinctive mid-twentieth-century colonial source for the comparative study of Islamic institutions in Atjeh.

Publication and scope

The pamphlet was issued in 1947 — two years after the Japanese surrender of August 1945 and in the middle of the 1945–1949 Indonesian revolution — as part of the Indisch Instituut’s series of ethnological Mededeelingen. Its price was fixed at f 1.50 (fl. 1,–). The work carries the shelfmark of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library) at The Hague, where it is preserved as part of the library’s Netherlands Indies collection.

In his Inleiding (Introduction), Mellema expressly disclaims any intention of writing a systematic treatise on Islam or of discussing either mysticism or the historical coming and spread of Islam in the archipel. His purpose, he writes, is rather “het geven van voorlichting aan hen, die tegenover een nieuwe wereld en onbekende godsdienst komen te staan” — to give guidance to those who come face to face with a new world and an unfamiliar religion. The subjects are therefore ordered not in the traditional systematic fashion of Muslim legal treatises, but “naar de onderwerpen naar voren te halen en te belichten, waarmee de vreemdeling in Indonesia in de eerste plaats in aanraking komt of kan komen” — so as to foreground the topics with which the stranger in Indonesia would first come into contact.

Contents

The survey opens with the traditional Javanese city — the aloen-aloen (town square), the kraton (princely residence), and the placement of the mosquee at the western side of the square — and proceeds through the architecture and furnishings of the mosque, the ritual ablution, the salaat or daily prayer (the second pillar), the call to prayer (adzaan), the five waktoe’s (prayer times), the Friday service and sermon (choetbah), and the distinction between mosque and langgar (prayer-house where no Friday service is held). It then treats the Kaoeman (the pious quarter around the mosque), the wakap (waqf) endowment law, the mosque personnel (penghoeloe, modin/bilal, imaam, ketip/chaatib), the so-called “priesterraad” (religious court), marriage and divorce, the meaning of Islaam, the life of Mohammed and the early revelations, the hidjrah, the Muslim calendar, the fast of Ramadhaan (the fourth pillar), the pitrah (zakāt al-fitr), the haddj pilgrimage to Mekka (the fifth pillar), religious education in the pesantren, the confession of faith (the first pillar), the circumcision, the creed, the resurrection and the day of judgment, the imaam mahdi and ratoe adil, amulets, the holy war (djihaad), burials and the Muslim grave, the graves of saints, and the slametan (ritual meal).

Atjeh in the survey

Although the work is “in het bijzonder op Java” — in particular on Java — Mellema turns to Atjeh at five distinctive points, each of which establishes an Atjehnese institution as a point of comparison with or exception to the Javanese pattern:

  1. The moekim and the imeum. In his discussion of the distinction between the mosque (masdjid, where Friday service is held) and the langgar (where it is not), Mellema notes that the canonical requirement of forty resident Muslim men for a Friday service could, in Atjeh, be met by several desa’s uniting to support a single mosque; from this cooperation there arose new territorial congregations, likewise called moekim, at the head of which stood an imeum — “Atjeh’s voor imaam” (Atjeh’s word for imaam). This is the etiological account treated at length in Moekim and Imeum in Atjeh (Mellema 1947).

  2. The meunasah and the rangkang. In his survey of religious education, Mellema lists the regional names of the village prayer-house in which the returned haddji might settle as goeroe (religious teacher): the langgar of middle-Java, the tajjeg of Soenda, the soerau of middle-Sumatra, and — in Atjeh — the meunasah or rangkang. The alternative name rangkang is the subject of Rangkang.

  3. The zakaat as underground war-chest. In his treatment of the zakaat (the third pillar, alms), Mellema observes that the canonical category of “those who fight in the path of God” (ḥaqq al-sabīl) — volunteers fighting on their own account for the defence or extension of the faith — was put to practical use in Atjeh during the Atjehoorlog, when the oelama’s (whom he glosses as “godsdienstleiders (eigenlijk: wetgeleerden)” — religious leaders, properly legal scholars) collected the zakaat as a private war-chest, paid their followers from it, and so built up a personal ascendancy over the population greater than that of the official chiefs. This account is the subject of Oelama zakaat war-chest in the Atjehoorlog (Mellema 1947).

  4. The Haddji title. In the same passage, Mellema notes that the oelama’s ascendancy was further strengthened when, in addition to their role as zakaat-collectors, they could assume the title of Haddji upon completion of the pilgrimage to Mekka — a title that “could only enhance the prestige they enjoyed in the eyes of the people.” This observation is the subject of Haddji title prestige in Atjeh (Mellema 1947).

  5. The Arabic-inscribed graves. In his treatment of the Muslim grave, Mellema observes that the oldest graves in the archipelago — in particular those of the saints who brought Islam to the archipelago — are distinguished by bearing inscriptions in Arabic, and that examples are found in Atjeh and in Grisee (Gresik) near Soerabaia. This observation is the subject of Arabic-inscribed graves in Atjeh (Mellema 1947).

Register

The pamphlet closes with a detailed Register (index) in which the Atjehnese entries are explicitly flagged: Imeum “(in Atjeh hoofd van een moekim)” — in Atjeh, head of a moekim; Moekim “(gebiedsdeel in Atjeh)” — territorial unit in Atjeh; oelama “(wetgeleerden in Atjeh)” — legal scholars in Atjeh; meunasah; and rangkang. The Register thus codifies the five Atjehnese institutions as the distinctive Atjeh content of the survey.

Significance

De Islaam in Indonesië is significant for AcehWiki as a mid-twentieth-century colonial comparative source that sets Atjehnese Islamic institutions alongside the Javanese — and, in the case of the moekim–imeum system, the meunasah, the zakaat war-chest, and the Arabic-inscribed graves, treats the Atjehnese forms as the more archaic or the more fully developed. Written in 1947, in the middle of the revolution that would end the colonial state, the pamphlet is also a tempo doeloe memory of the Netherlands Indies’ religious landscape, composed by a former teacher of Javanese at the Algemene Middelbare School te Djogjakarta for the Indisch Instituut’s ethnological series. Its Atjeh content — though brief — is the distinctive contribution of the work to the comparative ethnology of Islam in the archipelago, and it furnishes a source independent of Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers for several of the institutions that Snouck had earlier made canonical.

See Also

Source

De Islaam in Indonesië (in het bijzonder op Java), by Drs. R. L. Mellema, Oud-Leraar in de Javaansche Taal en Letterkunde aan de Oosters Letterkundige Afdeeling van de Algemene Middelbare School te Djogjakarta, Taalkundig Medewerker bij de Afdeeling Volkenkunde van het Indisch Instituut te Amsterdam. Mededeling No. LXXVII, Afd. Volkenkunde No. 25. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Vereniging “Indisch Instituut,” 1947. Prijs f 1.50. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Den Haag, shelfmark 903 A 29.

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