A re-examination of the place of al-Hallaj in the development of Southeast Asian Islam

For decades, the academic study of Islam in Southeast Asia has been dominated by a preoccupation with the role of mysticism in the region. From the earliest descriptions in Raffles' History of Java of 1817 to the anthropological writings of Clifford Geertz (Geertz I960, 1968), the mystical orientation of Southeast Asian Islam has been assumed a priori. Such an orientation has dominated the contents of several Leiden dissertations, and eventually led to Professor Johns' thesis concerning the role of Sufi turuq in the Islamization of the region.1 While there is no denying that some schools of Islamic mystic thought have been influential in the development of Islamic civilization in Southeast Asia, it seems inadvisable to continue taking the 'mystical' nature of Islam in the region as a given. Rather, we should refrain from letting the nebulous term 'Sufism' bias us in our investigations of the actual situation in both its historical and contemporary contexts. It was just such a predisposition to find the 'mystical' in Southeast Asian Islam that was evident in the Dutch publications cited by Massignon in his Passion.2 Going by indications in this handful of studies, Massignon came to imagine a much more prominent role of 'Sufism', and of Hallajian elements therein, than it may have actually played. In this paper I will go into the factors that were responsible for Professor Massignon's conclusions and examine these in light of subsequent research.3 In this connection it might be useful first of all to look at the explanation