Gudjarat

Properties2
tagsplace, region, india, arab-migration, raniri, rifa'i, 16th-century, 17th-century, indian-ocean-network, acheh, trade, precolonial, islamic
aliasesGujerat, Gujarat, Goedjarat, Gudjerat, Goedjerat

6 min read

Gudjarāt — in English Gujarat — is the region of north-western India whose coastal towns were, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the principal nodes of the Indian Ocean network that linked the religious scholarship of India with the Malay-Indonesian world. Gujarat is the region of origin of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī and of his uncle Muhammad Djailani Hamid; the region of the religious activity of Muḥammad al-ʿAddārs and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Aydārūs; and the immediate source of the Rifāʿiyya silsila that was carried to Acheh and Makassar by Raniri and Shaikh Yūsuf al-Makassar.

The coastal towns and the Indian Ocean network

The coastal towns of Gujarat in this period had a very international population. Ships regularly sailed thence to the Strait of Malaka; among the mercenary troops of the sixteenth century were “Javanese” — that is, in this context, Indonesians. The Malay language was certainly not unfamiliar in the harbour towns, and the family of Raniri — Indian Arabs of mixed blood, who maintained contact with the motherland by correspondence and study-journeys, and who stood in relation with Indonesia — had its centre in the coastal towns of Gujarat. To learn Malay, as Voorhoeve records, Raniri “had no need of distant travel: there were Malays enough in Gujarat, and his uncle Muhammad Djailani Hamid will have spoken that language too.”

The religious families of Gujarat

The Indian-Arab religious families of mixed blood — the al-Aydārūs family, the family of al-ʿAddārs, and the family of Raniri himself — formed the network that carried the orthodox Sufi scholasticism of the Arab and Persian worlds to the Malay-Indonesian archipelago. The family of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Aydārūs had come from South Arabia to India in 1551; the mother of ʿAbd al-Qādir was an Indian. Al-ʿAddārs was born at Tarim in 1561 and came to Gujarat at the age of nineteen, succeeding his famous grandfather as religious teacher first at Ahmadabad and later at Surat. The family of Raniri — descended, like the al-Aydārūs and al-ʿAddārs families, from Arabs of mixed blood — was centred at Ranir near Surat.

The first Gujarati scholar in Acheh

The first recorded link of the family of Raniri with Acheh is the visit of his uncle Muhammad Djailani Hamid between 1580 and 1583. The visit established the precedent by which a Gujarati scholar of Arab descent could seek his fortune at the Achehnese court, and was the immediate experience on which Raniri himself drew, more than half a century later, when he left for Acheh in 1637.

Significance

Gujarat is the region of origin of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī and the immediate source of the Rifāʿiyya silsila that was carried to Acheh and Makassar by Raniri and Shaikh Yūsuf al-Makassar. The Gujarati-Ḥadramī Sufi network — centred in the coastal towns of Gujarat, with nodes at Surat, Ahmadabad, Bījāpūr, and Bilgrām — was the principal channel by which the orthodox Sufi scholasticism of the Arab and Persian worlds was transmitted to the Malay-Indonesian archipelago in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the immediate background of the orthodox reaction of Acheh against the Wujudiyyah of Hamzah Pansuri and Shamsuddin of Pasai.

Account from Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis (1955)

The following account is drawn from the parliamentary history of the Dutch Second Chamber as narrated by Vermeulen in the colonial section of the 1955 fourth revised edition of Rengers’s *Schets*.

Gujerat — Gujarat, in the source’s spelling Goedjarat — is the north-western Indian region that was, according to Nederlanders over de Zeeën, “een even oud als vermaard handelsmiddelpunt” (an equally old and renowned trading centre) from which a lively trade with the archipelago was maintained, “m.n. op Atjeh” (especially with Atjeh). The Gujerat-Atjeh trade is the source’s principal illustration of the pre-Company Asian commerce that the Dutch East India Company would, after 1602, partially displace.

The Gujerat-Atjeh trade

The source records that, from Gujerat, “werd een levendige vaart op de Archipel onderhouden, m.n. op Atjeh” (a lively shipping to the archipelago was maintained, especially with Atjeh). The Gujerat-Atjeh trade route is, in the source’s narrative, the principal Asian commercial artery that the Dutch encountered when they entered the Indian Ocean trade. The route carried Indian textiles to the archipelago in exchange for spices — the same exchange that would, after 1602, become the principal business of the VOC.

The route to Suratte

The source records that “het was juist vanuit Atjeh, dat de Nederlanders, reeds tijdens de Voor-Compagnieën naar de grootste haven Soeratte voeren” (it was precisely from Atjeh that the Dutch, already during the Pre-Company period, sailed to the greatest harbour Suratte). The Gujerat-Atjeh route was thus the conduit by which the Dutch reached Suratte, the principal port of the Mogol empire. The Dutch establishment at Suratte — initially unsuccessful, since the Portuguese hanged two of the Dutch merchants — was the eventual consequence.

Significance

Gujerat is, in the source’s narrative, the Indian trading centre whose commerce with Atjeh was the principal Asian artery of the pre-Company Indian Ocean trade. The Gujerat-Atjeh route is the conduit by which the Dutch reached Suratte and, through Suratte, the Mogol empire.

See Also

Sources

Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955. Inleiding §1 (“De auteur”), pp. 5–6.

Gudjarāt — in English Gujarat — is the region of north-western India whose coastal towns were, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the principal nodes of the Indian Ocean network that linked the religious scholarship of India with the Malay-Indonesian world. Gujarat is the region of origin of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī and of his uncle Muhammad Djailani Hamid; the region of the religious activity of Muḥammad al-ʿAddārs and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Aydārūs; and the immediate source of the Rifāʿiyya silsila that was carried to Acheh and Makassar by Raniri and Shaikh Yūsuf al-Makassar.

Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955. Inleiding §1 (“De auteur”), pp. 5–6.

Nederlanders over de Zeeën: 350 Jaar geschiedenis van Nederland buitengaats, onder redactie van Dr. H. J. de Graaf, met medewerking van Prof. G. Gonggrijp, W. R. Menkman en Prof. Jhr Dr P. J. van Winter, 2e geheel herziene druk (Utrecht: W. de Haan N.V., MCMLV), p. 163. Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), pp. 80 and 181 (chapters De oudste cultuurstroomen and Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur door Dr. F. H. van Naerssen, and chapter De invloed van den Islam door Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp).

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