CHAPTER 1
Feelings

It is impossible to write the history of Islam without referencing how the faith appealed to the feelings of those it touched. The Qur'an's rhythmic prose enchanted the Arabs. The enigmatic arrangement and tempo of its verses melted the hearts of the staunchest enemies of Islam. Although the Makkans loathed Muhammad's message of unity, egalitarianism, and humanism, they were entranced by the beauty and simplicity of the revelations sent through him. The aesthetics of the Qur'an facilitated the rapid growth of Islam. Artistic and literary works produced centuries after Muhammad's demise communicated the Qur'an's exquisiteness, winning converts from all walks of life within the expanding Muslim civilization. Sufis were perhaps the most passionate recipients of the divine word. They wept at the recitals of the Qur'an. Some suffered from fits, and others died in states of extreme emotion.1

In Southeast Asia, Sufis used the term rasa to express their internalizations of Islam's sacred sources. Rasa, a Sanskrit term denoting taste or flavour, is an emotive and affective concept widely used by poets and mystics in India. The term permeated everyday conversations of societies within the Sanskrit cosmopolis, which spanned the waterways and land routes linking South Asia and Southeast Asia.2 In Java, local mystics used rasa to describe earnest internalizations of divine revelations, pointing to a profound recognition of the inner powers of charismatic persons and unravelling the "intuitive aspects of reality."3 Sufis in other parts of Southeast Asia used rasa similar to the Arabic term dhawq, which literally means tasting. In Sufi cosmology, it refers to experiencing the divine fully via the senses, sensibilities, and the soul. Dhawq connotes an ardent awareness of all things transcendent and unseen.

Sufis in Southeast Asia stressed merasakan (to feel) divine presence in their writings. Such feelings were intended to go beyond the personal to the social, beyond the inner conscience to touching other hearts. Using rasa as their missionizing tool, Sufis in Southeast Asia generated a whole array of textual, visual, auditory, and performative arts. As Annemarie Schimmel observes: "Thanks to their experiences, new nuances of 'the language of love' developed in Arabic. Persian is unthinkable without the Sufi flavor, even in very worldly parts of its literature; Turkish, Urdu, Sindhi, Panjabi and Pashto were all used as literary media first by the Sufis in order to preach to the people in an idiom which they could easily understand."4

The same could be said about Malay-Indonesian, the languages of Southeast Asia, which are widely spiced with Sufi inflections. Southeast Asian Sufis were innovators and inventors of poetical works. Adept with Hindu-Buddhist metaphysics, acquainted with Indic epics, and skilled at appropriating Arab-Persian mystical prose, they introduced a new genre of poetics that was at once Islamic and yet indigenous in character and concerns. By introducing new vocabularies and reinterpreting existing ones into Malay-Indonesian poetical writings, Sufis ushered two major transformations.

First, they altered local concepts and made these concepts congruent with the spirit of Islam. Ancient and Hindu-Buddhist keywords were reinterpreted to reflect the Islamic tasawwur (worldview). Hence, sembahyang which literally means "to pray to the divine" was retained because it has the same connotation as solat in Arabic. Sufis, however, changed the interpretation of sembahyang from entreating many deities to praying to the One True God, Allah. Dosa, a Sanskrit word that could be translated as "something which causes harm," was reinterpreted to mean sins. As they did in South Asia, the Sufis in Southeast Asia vernacularized Islam to fit local needs, embedding primordial beliefs within the faith's universal message.5

Second, due to the imaginative stimulus afforded by the Sufis, Southeast Asian literary works once penned in Kawi, Sasak, Pallava, and Nagari scripts gradually transitioned to Jawi, a writing system based on Arabic script. A "Jawi ecumene" encompassing most of island Southeast Asia, and stretching north into Thailand and Cambodia, became dominant in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the kingdoms of Malacca, Aceh, and Patani morphed into intellectual and literary powerhouses.6 Sufism did not completely undo the creative legacies of non-Muslims in Southeast Asia. Rather, they made these artistic vestiges "deeper, more complex, and utterly fascinating."7

This chapter examines how Sufis utilized and fashioned emotions through oral, artistic, and literary works filled with significant meanings. Products of perasaan (feelings), these works shaped the feelings of the people as well. I call them "aesthetical mediums" inspired by Islam's sacred sources, with the Qur'an being the most dominant. Sufi dialogical tradition in Southeast Asia was reproduced by aesthetical mediums, used to engage with the masses and bring about a new brand of religious universalism. For clarity, I have divided the mediums into supplicative and figurative forms.

SUPPLICATIVE MEDIUMS

Sufis produced and used supplicative mediums to direct the masses' feelings towards divine grace and to epitomize the magnificent qualities of His Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad. I use the word "supplicative" because these mediums were not for vain entertainment but for generating the remembrance of all things sacred. Supplicative mediums were transcendental in character, linking human beings to God through pleasurable and memorable words, acts, and sounds. The most influential supplicative mediums popularized by the Sufis in Southeast Asia are called burdah, mawlid, and ratib, all originating from the Arab-Persian worlds and have been translated in many parts of Asia for centuries. These mediums included dhikr, du'a (invocations), and Prophetic panegyrics.

The importance of dhikr and du'a in Sufi praxis is well-documented. Numerous books and treatises discussing the types of dhikrs and du'a to be read by any aspiring Muslim have been published across Southeast Asia, some claiming to provide cures for a host of illnesses such as cancers.8 Both dhikr and du'a were read in tandem either individually or in gatherings, with the use of different instruments performed in either monophonic or polyphonic rhythms.9 Dhikr and du'a were also part of a long assemble of wirid (litanies) put together to beseech God's succour, praising the Prophet, his family, and companions, and petitioning for the well-being of oneself and the community of believers. For the Sufis, dhikr and du'a are inseparable as means to attain the highest forms of love and to enter into the abode of serenity.10

As a child, I used to attend congregations to read these texts, eagerly anticipating the feasts that followed these highly emotive sessions. Such gatherings served many purposes. They were occasions of blessed remembrance, communal solidarity, and generous hospitality as kindreds and the needy converge to enjoy sumptuous meals. The texts read by the congregants were arranged and read in ways to ease memorization. Kenneth Honerkamp captures the functions of these supplicative mediums well:

Through these litanies and invocations, which were recited and memorized from childhood, even those who had neither the time nor the means to pursue a mystical path had the opportunity to reflect upon the essential teachings of Islam as they were filtered through the litanies, invocations, and devotional texts of the faith, and through the inherited wisdom and shared understanding of the community as a whole.11

Burdah, mawlid, and ratib have been read in one sitting and interlaced with three other supplicative mediums: zikrzamman (remembrance of the time), hadrah (presence), and qasidah rebana (poetic tambourine songs).12 In Kerala, South India, where many Muslim missionaries in Southeast Asia hailed from, burdah, mawlid, and ratib were recited to guard against and relieve oneself from evils and ailments caused by evil spirits, snake bites, and burns.13 Similarly, Sufis in Southeast Asia incorporated beautiful sounds and rhythms appealing to local ears as they read these mediums. They termed it as sama' (listening), where music, chanting, singing, and melodious recitations were used to achieve spiritual states and devotional experiences.14 Burdah, mawlid, and ratib filled the transcendental thirst of the Sufis and those who promoted and participated in the remembrance of God and his Prophet. These supplicative mediums cemented communitarianism among Southeast Asians while heightening feelings about Islam and revered Muslim figures.

The Qasidah al-Burdah (Poem of the Cloak) was one of the earliest supplicative mediums that captivated the rasa of Southeast Asians.15 Written by Sharaf al-din al-Busiri (1211-1294), an adherent of the Shadhiliyyah Sufi order, it is part of longer poem entitled Al-Kawakib al-Durriyya fi Madh Khair al-Bariyya (The Shining Stars in Praise of the Best of Creation), consists of ten parts and over 160 lines. Al-Busiri enjoins his audience to...