Transformation of Hamzah Fansuri’s Wujūdīyah Thought in Malay Islamic Civilization: Continuity and Adaptation in the Contemporary Socio-cultural Dynamics of Indonesia and Malaysia

The teachings of Wujūdīyah developed by Hamzah Fansuri in the sixteenth century represent an important strand of Malay Islamic intellectual history, particularly in understanding the relationship between God, creation, and human spirituality. In Indonesia and Malaysia, this tradition has undergone transformation in response to changing social, political, cultural, and religious contexts, including shifts in religious authority and Islamic discourse. The current study intended to trace the development of Wujūdīyah. Furthermore, the study aimed to situate it in the Malay religious culture as well as explore the manifestations of its acceptance and rejection in different geo-historical settings. Qualitative research design included a historical-descriptive and hermeneutic-interpretive approach. Methods used for the research included textual analysis, literature review, and semi-structured interviews. The conclusion confirmed that Wujūdīyah is not static but adaptable and regularly reinterpreted in this modern day through the cycles of acceptance, debate, regulation, and revival. These processes are facilitated through networks of practitioners, constellations of concern, and local cultural formations. Overall, Indonesia is more accommodative and cultural-communitarian than Malaysia, which is claimed to be regulatory and doctrinal-state oriented. Wujūdīyah continues to serve as an important model of self and spiritual identity. This also offers a possible middle ground, which may be conducive to more spiritual discussion and to the salience of humanistic aspirations in modern Islamic societies. The main purpose of the research was to investigate Malay Sufism and, more generally, to offer an early foundation for a model of localized Islamic thinking based on localized circumstances.