Islamic Reform, the Family, and Knowledge Networks Linking Mecca with Southeast Asia in the...

The Journal of Asian Studieshttp://journals.cambridge.org/JAS

Additional services for The Journal of Asian Studies:

Email alerts: Click hereSubscriptions: Click hereCommercial reprints: Click hereTerms of use : Click here

Islamic Reform, the Family, and Knowledge NetworksLinking Mecca to Southeast Asia in the NineteenthCentury

Francis R. Bradley

The Journal of Asian Studies / Volume 73 / Issue 01 / February 2014, pp 89 - 111DOI: 10.1017/S0021911813001691, Published online: 27 February 2014

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021911813001691

How to cite this article:Francis R. Bradley (2014). Islamic Reform, the Family, and Knowledge Networks Linking Meccato Southeast Asia in the Nineteenth Century . The Journal of Asian Studies, 73, pp 89-111doi:10.1017/S0021911813001691

Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/JAS, IP address: 71.190.16.168 on 15 Jun 2015

Islamic Reform, the Family, and KnowledgeNetworks Linking Mecca to Southeast Asiain the Nineteenth Century

FRANCIS R. BRADLEY

Through a study of over 1,300 previously unanalyzed Malay Islamic manuscripts, thisarticle examines the role of the Patani community in the construction of transoceanicknowledge networks between Mecca and Southeast Asia in the nineteenth century. Setagainst the backdrop of the destruction of prevailing symbols of authority, as well asthe displacement and scattering of the community after 1200/1786, the present studyinvestigates the manner by which scholars established new cultural unities for the com-munity and addressed social concerns by translating and spreading Islamic writings,teachings, and schools. With its spiritual leadership centered now in Mecca, influentialmembers of the community began producing works that were contingent upon politicalcircumstances, but also directed at the problems facing the refugee community. Of fore-most importance were the place and definition of the family, and related issues such asinheritance, divorce, and visible social actions, including ritual purity, fasting, almsgiv-ing, and criminal punishments.

INTRODUCTION

EXPLANATIONS OF THE TRANSMISSION of Islamic knowledge have long relied upon theassumption of a pure center as the source of religious knowledge—Mecca or the

Middle East generally—and syncretic, culturally dependent peripheries such as South-east Asia. This producer-consumer relationship has colored debates concerning myriadissues related to the spread of Islam into Asia, even adopting the problematic term“Islamization” to characterize the gradual diffusion and purification of Islamic beliefand practice in the religion’s easternmost expanse. These theories arose during the colonialera when European administrator-scholars were attempting to confront Islamic revivalistcultural influence from the Middle East that they believed obstructed their own attemptsto establish greater control over subject Southeast Asian populations (e.g., SnouckHurgronje 1906, 1931; Winstedt 1917, 1939).1

Francis R. Bradley ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor of History in the Department of Social Sciencesand Cultural Studies at the Pratt Institute.1The Dutch Orientalist Christian Snouck Hurgronje and the British administrator-scholar RichardWinstedt were the two most active scholars in this tradition. Snouck Hurgronje tried to portray theIslamic leaders of Mecca as manipulative of Southeast Asians, the latter of whom, he believed, pos-sessed no scholarly traditions of their own. Winstedt made common reference to the Indic infil-trations upon Malay Islamic practice and constructed the idea of early Islam in Southeast Asia assyncretic in relation to a purer, imagined form practiced in the Middle East.

The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 73, No. 1 (February) 2014: 89–111.© The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2014 doi:10.1017/S0021911813001691

mailto:[email protected]

The effects of diffusionist theory on scholars’ understanding of the spread and devel-opment of Islam in Southeast Asia have been twofold. On the one hand, these models of“geographical diffusionism” do not take into account the fluctuating pace of the spread ofIslam, the sudden rise or decline of particular knowledge centers, or the varying valueattributed to various religious discourses that naturally change over time. On the otherhand, the picture often portrayed is one in which Southeast Asians passively receivedtheir religious teaching from outsiders, rather than employing agency of their own toacquire, disseminate, and employ texts, beliefs, and doctrines in their home communities.The position that Islamic belief and practice in premodern Southeast Asia was syncreticand experienced a slow process of purification belies the claims made by leaders ofnineteenth- and twentieth-century Islamic revival and reform movements. The wayscholars have employed syncretism in their understanding of Southeast Asian Islamascribes a moral superiority to Arab or Middle Eastern Islamic practice without consider-ing the variation of practice that existed in the latter regions during the same time period.The juxtaposition of the Islam practiced in these regions is a legacy of the colonialist gaze.

In this article, I approach the issues of knowledge dissemination and religious changeby studying social values, textual traditions, the role of family, and knowledge networks.The nineteenth century was a period of incredible change for Islamic belief and practiceboth in Southeast Asia and the broader Muslim world. By asking what cultural value par-ticular teachings had for Islamic scholars, scholars may better understand why certainteachings became popular and others disappeared from knowledge networks. Sociocul-tural value attributed to certain teachings fluctuated over time and accounts for therise and decline (and often reemergence) of particular teachings during the nineteenthcentury. Understanding the power relations between scholars, teachers, and studentsalso helps scholars grasp how the filtration and flow of knowledge occurred, a topicrarely discussed in existing scholarship.

By analyzing the textual traditions of knowledge networks, scholars may also moveaway from the dichotomy of traditionalist Sufism and reformist legalism when analyzingIslamic intellectual history in the nineteenth century. Though the Wahhabiyya polemi-cized scholarly debate in Mecca intermittently from the dawn of the nineteenthcentury, their influence was not immediate, nor universally accepted. Many SoutheastAsian scholars resisted the reforms advocated by the Wahhabiyya, even though theysimultaneously sought to reform Sufi practices. Sufi reform had been ongoing forseveral centuries, and thus nineteenth-century changes must not be seen only as a reac-tion to or a result of the Wahhabiyya movement, but also as continuity with earliertraditions (Azra 2004).

Recent scholarship on the study of religion in motion has begun to critique thediffusionist model. Thomas Tweed (2002) argued for a view of “translocative religion”that was “on the move,” but still relies upon the diffusionist model for the base mechan-isms of knowledge dissemination. Tweed argues for the spatiality of such knowledgethrough the process of “making homes” and domestication, recognizing the importanceof personal connection and social value in the rise and spread of knowledge. Further-more, Tweed (2006, 167) proposes to define religions as “confluences of organic-culturalflows that intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and suprahumanforces to make homes and cross boundaries.”

90 Francis R. Bradley

As I propose in this article, the family became a vitally important organism for thetransmission of knowledge between the Middle East and Southeast Asia and served asthe most prominent site for contentious reformulations of the sociomoral order. Withattention shifting towards the prescribed social practice of individuals, families becameincreasingly important both as the progenitors of religious reform and as vessels of knowl-edge transmission. Families that, in the Southeast Asian context, included an entourageof followers, maneuvered themselves such that they spanned the Indian Ocean andbecame powerful and transformative players in the transmission of sacred and moralcapital.

Other scholars have abandoned the diffusionist model for one of networks. Thisapproach allows for the complexity, connectivity, and fluidity inherent in Islamic practicethat today spans the globe. One scholar argues that networks are a “necessary correctiveto hydraulic models of flows and spatial metaphors of landscapes” and allow us to avoidprivileging “the hermeneutic and phenomenological dimensions of religious activity”(Vásquez 2008, 151). Jason Neelis, a scholar of early Buddhism, argues that networks

facilitate the movement or ‘flow’ of material and cultural goods as well as peopleand ideas through ‘conduits’ joined by variable ‘nodes’ of economic, political,and/or religious power. . . . Just as trade networks accelerate commercialexchanges of commodities via multiple routes connected to ‘hubs,’ religious net-works contribute to dynamic processes of conversion, migration, patronage, andinstitutional expansion, as well as the transfer and permutation of doctrines,practices, and artifacts. (Neelis 2011, 10)

In this same vein, Anne Blackburn’s (2010) recent study of Sri Lankan Buddhism arguesfor strands of intellectual continuity between the precolonial and colonial periods, viewedthrough the lens of the works of one particularly influential monk who was linked to localand transregional networks. Historian Azyumardi Azra (2004), in his study ofseventeenth- and eighteenth-century knowledge networks within and between SoutheastAsia and the Middle East, argues that scholars transmitted reformist ideas via networks ofmaster-student relationships, some of which lasted for numerous generations. Scholarssuch as A. H. Johns (1978, 1984), Martin van Bruinessen (1995), Michael Feener(2010), and Peter Riddell (1990, 2001) have drawn connections between individualscholars of Southeast Asia and the Middle East, or have illustrated how intellectualmovements spread across the Indian Ocean, showing how succeeding generations influ-enced one another and how texts and ideas flowed between the regions. For the Patanicase in particular, Virginia Matheson and M. B. Hooker’s (1988) pioneering study firstillustrated the region’s scholarly tradition. The present study builds upon this scholarshipby showing how the transregional Patani community, stretching fromMecca to SoutheastAsia, became some of the most influential transmitters of Islamic knowledge in thenineteenth century.

Building on these previous studies, I advocate for an approach focused on net-works, human movement, and sociocultural values that accounts for human agency,material circumstance, and local variation of Islamic practice. In so doing, Iexamine how a group of Southeast Asian scholars reconstructed a moral order aftera period of devastating warfare that destroyed the old social and political elites.

Islamic Reform, the Family, and Knowledge Networks 91

Scholarly communities linked Mecca and the broader Islamic world with SoutheastAsian Muslims via extensive maritime and terrestrial networks by which they trans-mitted texts and oral traditions on their own terms, translated Arabic into Malay intheir own understanding, and disseminated this knowledge to their relatives, students,and other members of the community.

The role of returning Southeast Asian pilgrims in the rise of nationalism has beenstudied eloquently in a recent book by historian Michael Laffan (2003). In the presentcase, I examine how a transregional community formed cultural unities and transmittedsacred knowledge in the period prior to the rise of nation-states. The Patani2 communityis a particularly illuminative case as one in which a vast knowledge network grew out of afreshly displaced population. Two centuries of contentious tributary relations betweenthe Patani Sultanate and Siam reached a boiling point, and the latter power laid wasteto Patani in 1199–1200/1785–86.3 The fall of Patani represented a transformativedenouement in a century-long process of shifting sociomoral values that ultimately pro-duced a transregional community that linked Mecca with many parts of Islamic SoutheastAsia.

These exiles sought an explanation for their defeat and a means for rebuildingtheir fractured homeland. Their most successful leaders gathered in Mecca wherethey—together with other Jawı4 from across the region—forged a new vision of them-selves as Muslims. What sorts of knowledge were most compelling to the Patani com-munity in Mecca and how were they employed by members of the knowledgenetwork? Sacred knowledge possessed increasing value to members of the Patani com-munity at the turn of the nineteenth century and served as their most valuable socialcurrency. The dispossessed and exiled, now bereft of a formal, political apparatus thatmight reconstitute them under a new banner, turned increasingly to Islamic teachingsas their main source of cultural unity. Patani’s Islamic leaders, who had for several cen-turies coexisted alongside other figures of authority and prestige in their society before1199/1785, rose to the fore as shepherds of a new moral order. Their success wasbased upon their ability to harness sources of moral power, for them largely newand empowering, and by grounding their claims in sacred knowledge possessing anesteemed intellectual genealogy linking them back to the Prophet Muh. ammad orsome of the great scholars of Islam. Key individuals of the Patani community con-structed relationships with students and followers centered around the reproduction,extrapolation, and dissemination of particular forms of Islamic knowledge. Thusone’s access to and facility with these forms of scholarship were key factors in deter-mining one’s standing in the community.

Most studies of Islamic revivalism and reformism have been written in the context ofEuropean colonialism (e.g., Hourani 1962; Metcalf 1982; Voll 1994). The fact that the

2The spelling of “Patani” is a contentious issue. I use the Malay spelling in this article because I amreferring to the Patani Sultanate before its formal annexation by Siam in 1909.3All exact dates provided in the body of the text are given first in the Islamic system (A.H.) followedby common era (C.E.) dates.4“Jawı” is a term often adopted by Southeast Asian Muslims in Mecca. This nisba, a specifier thatindicated one’s place of origin, tribal affiliation, or ancestry, was often adopted by Malay-speakers inMecca, and some used multiple nisba or different nisba in varied contexts.


Patani refugees reformulated themselves under an Islamic reformist banner in oppositionto Siam, which at that time acted as a regional hegemonic power, underscores the impor-tance of the present study (Thongchai 1994). Rather than viewing the motivations behindIslamic revivalism and reformism as driven by an Islamic cultural insecurity vis-à-vis theWest, the present study poses different questions with broad comparative relevance.How did politically marginalized communities and displaced groups form culturalunities after their states were destroyed or seriously weakened? How did these culturalunities play a major role in Islamic revivalist movements? How was socioculturalpower constructed and practiced in relation to Islam and Islamic knowledge? And howdid social reproduction relate to the acquisition and reproduction of sacred knowledge?Culturally relative moral attitudes regulated the inherent value instilled in actions,beliefs, and objects affiliated with Islam. With that in mind, I investigate the relationshipsscholars, teachers, and students had with texts and with each other that together allowedthem to disseminate knowledge into Southeast Asia at an unprecedented rate in the nine-teenth century.

THE MAKING OF A COMMUNITY IN MECCA

The main players in the exchange of knowledge between Arabia and Southeast Asiain the early nineteenth century were transient Malay-speaking Muslims. Particularlyactive were scholars from Patani, which was conquered by Siam in the period of1199–1253/1785–1838. Massacres and expulsion in 1200/1786 and 1247/1832 led tothousands or even tens of thousands of refugees fleeing south into the neighboringpeninsular regions of Kedah, Kelantan, Perak, and Terengganu, and a privileged fewwho made the journey to Mecca (Bradley 2010, 114–88). In Islam’s holy city, theserefugees-turned-scholars constructed newfound cultural unities, established pervasivediscourses regarding Islamic practice, and transmitted these ideas to Southeast Asia viaknowledge networks (see figure 1).

Had the cultural destruction of Patani not been so devastating in 1200/1786, thesultans might have recovered their prestigious position, reestablished the court as thecenter of social life in the sultanate, and reconstructed a sociocultural power matrixwith themselves at the apex. But the fall of Patani in 1200/1786 was a watershedmoment for the sultanate and its people. Its reigning sultan, Muhammad, was slain inthe battle, and the ruling dynasty came to an end. Patani’s legendary cannons, oncemarks of political prestige and military puissance, were captured and taken to Bangkokalong with thousands of slaves (Toua, n.d., 5). The sultan’s nobat, sacred drums of sover-eignty bequeathed as royal regalia by the last sultan of Melaka and passed down throughthe generations, disappeared, likely destroyed when the Siamese army burned the palace(istana) and the entire city to the ground (Bradley 2009, 288–89). The sultanate’s prin-ciple mosque at Kresik, built in the early seventeenth century under royal patronage,was the only building left standing. As a Siamese chronicler, who escorted the victoriousarmy in 1200/1786, wrote of the mosque, “The ceiling and floor are all broken, but thewalls are still there which enclose all four sides” (Toua, n.d., 1). These people, places,and objects were of immense symbolic significance to the old system of value and pres-tige, and, without them, Patani’s new leadership was to struggle for several decades


before coalescing around a newmoral order promulgated by Islamic leaders via an unpre-cedented textual tradition. Thus a sociomoral system that had been crumbling throughthe course of the eighteenth century came to its definitive end.5 The leaders of the

Figure 1. The northern trajectories indicate the possible routes for the slaves cap-tured in 1200/1786 and 1247/1832. The southern trajectories represent the flight ofPatani refugees. Map created by Dr. Jessica Athens.

5See, for example, the feelings of sociomoral despair intoned by one of the chroniclers of theHikayat Patani during the political struggles of the 1720s: “The country of Patani has been ingreat confusion and its people suffer from many ills, while rules and customs are no longer


scattered community would take several decades before forging a new vision of them-selves via writing.

The Patani community arrived in Mecca with at least a three-century tradition ofIslamic belief and practice, but there is yet no evidence of a sustained scholarly tradition.6

The sultanate’s royal chronicle, the Hikayat Patani, features the conversion of the rajaand the court as second in importance only to the foundation of the polity itself, butsheds little light on the role of Islamic leaders other than the building of an earlymosque and the spread of basic teachings (LC 1839, 5–11, 14–15). It is very likely thatPatani drew its knowledge of Islam considerably from the Sultanate of Aceh in the seven-teenth century, despite its often adversarial relationship with the Sumatran power duringthe period. With the benefit of royal patronage, Aceh developed Southeast Asia’s first sus-tained Islamic scholarly tradition for which ample evidence has survived. Nur al-Dınal-Ranırı (d. 1068/1658) and ‘Abd al-Ra‘uf al-Sinkıli (1023–1104/1615–93) were themost prominent of these scholars, building on or reforming the work of their predeces-sors. Via scholarly or trade networks, texts by these authors found their way to Patani, forwhich there is evidence by the early nineteenth century (MKI 144B, 13; PNM 547B, 12r;781(1), 57r; 1690, 207r; 2270B, 30r; 2410, 150v).7 Texts by the eighteenth-century Ter-engganu scholar ‘Abd al-Malik bin ‘Abd Allah (better known as Tok PulauManis, c. 1060–1148/1650–1736) also appeared in Patani around the same time (PNM 2400A, 51r). Thusat the point when Patani scholars first began traveling to Mecca in significant numbers inthe nineteenth century, they were already familiar with an Islamic scholarly tradition con-ducted in the Malay language stretching back more than two centuries.

In Mecca at the turn of the nineteenth century, language was the common groundupon which individuals from disparate Southeast Asian communities established bondswith one another (Snouck Hurgronje 1931, 229). In their distant, newfound home,Jawı from south Sumatra, southern Borneo, Patani, and other parts of Islamic SoutheastAsia now formed a community in Mecca where they discussed the relevant issues of theirday, debated scholarship, exchanged and shared texts, and competed for prestige within asmall circle of religious scholars known as ‘ulama’ (Azra 2004, 112, 120; Snouck Hur-gronje 1931, 245).8 It is not clear how large the community was at that time, but itlikely numbered in the low hundreds, when including the families and entourages

observed” (LC 1839, 78). Also see Bradley (2009) for an analysis of the disintegration of Patani’ssociomoral order in the period after 1650.6There is no clear evidence of when significant portions of Patani’s population first began practicingand preaching Islamic teachings. Some scholars accept the date of 861/1457 for the conversion ofthe court, which is based upon unsatisfactory evidence. The early Portuguese explorer EmanuelGodinho de Eredia claimed that Patani had Muslim communities prior to Melaka, that is, before1413. To these is added an oral tradition that the populace converted prior to the raja. It is safeto hypothesize that Patani’s Muslim communities date to the late fourteenth century, thoughperhaps slightly earlier (Mills 1930, 49).7Works by al-Ranırı and al-Sinkıli experienced the widest circulation in Patani circles, including thelatter’s well-known Tarjuman al-Mustafıd (The interpreter of that which gives benefit). The earliestextant manuscripts of these works in Patani date to the 1820s, but knowledge of these texts likelyexisted much earlier given the trade links between Aceh and Patani in the seventeenth century.8The prominent figures of the late eighteenth century were ‘Abd al-S. amad al-Falimbanı (d. c. 1203/1789) of Palembang, Muh. ammad Arshad bin ‘Abd Allah al-Banjarı (d. 1227/1812) and Muh. ammad


affiliated with the chief scholars. Despite the community’s relatively small size, thesewriters began to harness the social forces of Islamic renewal and reform in an attemptto bring changes to their home communities that faced a diverse set of threats, fromeconomic and political subjugation to perceived moral decay and social upheaval.

Mecca was changing rapidly at the turn of the nineteenth century. The Wahhabiyyamovement spawned by Shaykh Muh. ammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1115–1206/1703–92)sent profound sociomoral reverberations throughout the Islamic world as the most con-certed and powerful effort to reform Islamic practice since Abu H. amid Muh. ammadal-Ghazalı (450–505/1058–1111). The Wahhabiyya began as followers of the H. anbalıschool of law, generally considered the most “conservative” of the four Sunni schoolsof law, and were heavily influenced by the writings of Ibn Taymiyya (661–728/1263–1328). The central doctrine of the Wahhabiyya was monotheism (tawh. ıd), and theyrejected theological innovation, blind imitation (taqlıd), saint worship, vows, and pil-grimages to shrines (Laoust 1939, 514–24). And though they did not find fault withMuslims who appealed for intercession (tawassul) from the Prophet Muh. ammad inapproved ways, they criticized those who employed the practice involving recently orlong-dead Sufi saints. The Wahhabiyya movement naturally came into conflict withmany Sufi practices, which were synonymous with Islamic practice in many parts ofthe Muslim world. Many of these controversial debates continue to the present day.

Shaykh Da’ud bin ‘Abd Allah al-Fat.anı (1183–1263/1769–1847; hereafter ShaykhDa’ud) was the most prominent of the Patani scholars in Mecca in the early nineteenthcentury, and the later knowledge networks built by his students mainly served to spreadhis writings. There was a distinct shift in the scholarship of Shaykh Da’ud during and afterthe Wahhabiyya occupation of Mecca. Before 1226/1812, he spent nearly all of his timetranslating Shafi‘ı legal codes. These were relatively short treatises on themed topics, suchas the laws of marriage, inheritance, or mercantile transactions.9 Soon after the Wahha-biyya defeat, however, he turned to more practical texts concerning the hajj, Fridayprayers, and the building of mosques. By 1232/1817, as the Wahhabiyya presence wassurely receding, he first turned to the teachings of the great Sufi, al-Ghazalı, and spentmuch of the next seventeen years translating and extrapolating upon related teachingsand writings. Only late in life did he return to an interest in legal texts, brought on bycontinued political problems for Patani back on the Malay-Thai peninsula.

REDEFINING THE FAMILY VIA SHAFI‘I LAW

Shaykh Da’ud’s most popular and widely disseminated books were his legal tracts,largely due to the fact that they most directly addressed the social problems Patanifaced. For a society that had been shaken to its very foundations by warfare and displace-ment, these focused and practical treatises, centered upon relevant thematic topics, had

Nafıs bin ‘Idrıs bin H. usayn al-Banjarı (b. 1147/1735) of Banjarmasin, ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Bugisı, and‘Abd al-Rah.man al-Batawı al-Mas. rı.9Shaykh Da’ud’s earliest dated works are from 1224/1809, but several of his undated legal works,known to be in circulation by the 1820s, probably date to his early legal period.


great appeal. Through the course of the nineteenth century, these books, read widely bythe Patani community and broader Jawı circles, served to orient them around the reli-gious authority of Mecca, redefining the role of individuals, families, and communitieswithin the broader Muslim world. I seek to build upon a number of influential studiesthat have made major steps forward in scholars’ understanding of Southeast Asianfamily dynamics in recent years (Aihwa and Peletz 1995; Andaya 2000; Day 2002; Reid1988–93, vol. 1). Of particular influence on my thinking about families, anthropologistEngseng Ho (2006) broke new ground in his study of H. adhramı families in the IndianOcean by examining how families continued to play a crucial role in community powerrelations after their state apparatuses had been destroyed.

I analyze the Patani case by asking how families became the single most influentialsocial units for religious change and the transmission of knowledge. There are very fewsources upon which to draw to illustrate family dynamics in pre-1785 Patani. The sulta-nate’s royal chronicle displays how elite families operated with extended kin groups,sometimes in concert against rival families but no less often devolving into intrafamilyfeuds (Teeuw and Wyatt 1970). Familial alliances often reached far beyond Patani, aslocal stakeholders sought to buoy their fortunes by increasing their local or regional pol-itical capital (Bassett 1969, 431). Networks of Patani orangkaya (elite families) extendedas far as Makassar, Maluku, and Batavia in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries (Cum-mings 1998, 114; Reid 1983, 137). Like many parts of the region, familial kin groupsalso included a retinue of loyal followers, including warriors and servants, and oftenincluding scribes, entertainers, accountants, spies, and the like.

The fall of Patani in 1200/1786 thrust the family to the forefront of social relationswithin the Patani community. Indeed, the family came under considerable threat as refu-gees scattered. This movement of people tore apart families, separated parents and chil-dren, scattered siblings to disparate parts of the Malay-Thai peninsula and beyond, andsundered old relationships of oath, vow, and bondage. As ‘ulama’ in the communitysought to resurrect Patani, both spatially and disparately, the family became a fundamen-tally important social object by which to build their society anew. In Shaykh Da’ud’s writ-ings, he constructed legalistic prescriptions based upon the Shafi‘ı scholarly traditionstretching back more than a millennium.

There are very few primary sources that we may employ to illustrate the place of thefamily in ritual observance before the fall of Patani to Siam in 1200/1786. Mosques opento public worship date to the reign of Sultan Muz.affar Shah (c. 936–71/1530–64), thoughthese may have been preceded by smaller wooden structures built for the same purpose(LC 1839, 14–15). In 1602, one Dutch observer wrote of a later mosque:

The Mahometan Church is a stately Edifice of Brick-work, gilt very richlywithin, and adorned with Pillars. . . . In the midst close to the Wall is thePulpit, carv’d and gilt all over, unto which the Priests are only permitted toascend by four large Steps. (Nieuhoff 1704, 218)

This almost certainly refers to the Kresik mosque, built under the royal patronage of RajaIjau (r. 992–1025/1584–1616), who ruled Patani during the height of its economic andpolitical strength. Kresik functioned as the sultanate’s principle center for Muslims toworship. As Islamic practice became more prominent in the region, other smaller, less


permanent structures also likely proliferated, which drew families to take part in ritualpractice and knowledge acquisition.

Shaykh Da’ud’s own genealogy reveals something about the role of an elite family inthe process of acquiring knowledge and social prestige. His father, Shaykh ‘Abd Allah,and his grandfather, Shaykh ‘Idrıs, both held respected positions at Kresik mosque. AtKresik, they naturally mediated between religious leaders and powerbrokers of theroyal court, including the sultan. Shaykh Da’ud’s line maintained their position by build-ing relations between the court and the mosque and passed this down through the gen-erations. Father taught son until the former’s offspring had learned to deftly maneuver incourt intrigue and was ready to stand on his own in religious debates and in leading rituals(LC 1839, 35–46, 75–78, 83–88).10 Shaykh Da’ud himself was the eldest of at least sixchildren, including five boys, at least one of whom joined him in Mecca. ShaykhDa’ud remained the senior scholar until his death, after which his brother and othersof the inner circle took over leadership of the Jawı in Mecca.

The transmission of knowledge and the building of a sociomoral order via familycannot readily be understood without also considering the role of the entourage. Elitefamilies’ prestige was often maintained by their ability to attract followers that includedbodyguards, servants, slaves, warriors, scribes, religious advisors, musicians, and others(Reid 1988–93, 2:35, 86, 108). The exodus from Patani in 1200/1786 undercut eventhe most economically powerful families from maintaining such large followings. Butthe tradition of acquiring protégés continued in religious communities. A respectedteacher sometimes adopted a gifted student as his own son, and in many cases teacherssolidified the bond by arranging a marriage between their daughter and the protégé.11 Inthis way, families became not only the vessels of the passage of moral and religious auth-ority, but also vibrant units for the transmission of knowledge and the reproduction ofsocial changes often associated with Islamic revivalism.

Even close relatives had often become scattered after the exodus of Patani refugeesin 1200/1786, but those with means to do so maintained contact with their siblings,cousins, and other relations in the decades that followed.12 These lines of communicationformed the foundation for the spread of Islamic knowledge between resettled branchesof the scattered community. Mothers and fathers also reproduced a system of socialvalues embedded in Islamic beliefs and practices by teaching their children, nephewsand nieces, and grandchildren. Thus family upbringing, material circumstances, andone’s familial or social relationship to scholars and teachers—the most powerful culturalproducers—together gave birth to transformative social dynamics in the Patani

10The Patani court, like others of the Malay-Thai peninsula, had experienced periods of intenseinternal conflict and thus one’s social survival rested upon one’s ability to forge alliances and toacquire loyal followers. The Hikayat Patani features two such protracted periods of conflict, butalso references a general level of intrigue as standard in social life in elite circles.11One early example is Lebai Ah.mad bin ‘Abd al-Shukur, who succeeded his father-in-law, HajjiMah.mud bin Muh. ammad Yusuf bin ‘Abd al-Qadir Terengganu (fl. 1235–91/1819–74), as thechief teacher at Kampung Pusing, one of the early pondok near Patani. There are dozens ofother examples.12There are only a few documentary examples of direct correspondence, but the colophons innumerous texts help scholars reconstruct the geography of transmission, as well as the identityof their authors or scribes.


community that allowed ‘ulama’ to construct a new moral order centered upon Islamiclearning. But these reforms were not confined to elite circles only, they were aimed atthe entire community of believers, addressing “the religious problems to which theanswers are needed by both educated and common believers” (Fat.anı, n.d.a, 2).

Shaykh Da’ud composed concise works related to family matters. His writingssuggest a desire to bring the Patani community into line with prevailing ideas withinthe Shafi‘ı school of law because he believed this would give them the inherent moralstrength necessary to rebuild in the wake of defeat. He argued that the teachings con-tained in such books would “enliven the world and religion, and build communications”between the sources of Islamic authority and his Patani kindred (Fat.anı, n.d.b, 2). Heturned primarily to one of the founders of Shafi‘ı thought, Muh. yı al-Dın Abu ZakariyyaYah. ya al-Nawawı (631–76/1233–77). Shaykh Da’ud especially referenced al-Nawawı’sMinhaj al-T. alibın (Direction for the inquirers) as the source for a number of his legalwritings. Shaykh Da’ud also drew from a number of scholars who wrote commentarieson al-Nawawı, especially ninth- through tenth-century scholars, among whom the mostprominent was Abu Yah. ya Zakariyya al-Ans. arı (824–926/1420–1520), who wrote Fath.al-Wahhab (The bounty of the giver).

In Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab (Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage), which Shaykh Da’ud completed in 1224/1809, he providesa “commentary covering the law and rule of marriage. It also concerns divorce proceed-ings, as well as the other things necessary for those who need to know the right way ofmarriage” (Fat.anı, n.d.b, 2). This book is the first of a series of works he producedthat addressed specific social concerns of the Patani community. With its sociomoralsystem torn asunder, the early nineteenth century was a period during which ‘ulama’began to reformulate the practice of a number of social objects—marriage, divorce,inheritance, trade, and worship being chief among them. Because the old order had col-lapsed, ‘ulama’ seized the opportunity to redefine these actions—all of which possessedgreat sociomoral value—as a way of orienting the community around the spatial authorityof Mecca and the moral authority of Islamic texts and teachings. This was a symbioticprocess that involved gifted ‘ulama’, students, and other members of the faithful whosought to explain their defeat and to rebuild their scattered community.

Shaykh Da’ud’s treatise on marriage law was his single most popular work, evidencedby the movement of texts from Mecca to Southeast Asia and their circulation within thelatter region, totaling eighty-four extant manuscript copies.13 It was disseminatedthrough the network with regularity from the time of its authorship well into the twen-tieth century. The work was one of the principle texts studied in Jawı scholarly circlesin Mecca (PNM 123, 42v; 470, 93; 530, 60r; 1256, 25r; 2541, 44r; 2566, 48r–49v;2959, 23r). The text was met with widespread interest along the east coast of theMalay-Thai peninsula, appearing in Kelantan in the 1810s and Patani and Terengganuby the 1820s (MKI 75B, 105; PNM 161, 78v–78r; 2014, 110; 2545, 70v). Scholars alsointroduced the text wherever the network was expanding and had the greatest appealof any of Shaykh Da’ud’s works across the Malay-speaking world. Scholars brought itto Aceh by 1269/1853 and to Malay-speaking communities in Cape Town (today in the

13Ninety-three extant manuscript copies exist, as well as at least fourteen published editions.


Republic of South Africa) around the same time. It appeared in publishing houses in Sin-gapore from 1287/1870; Constantinople in 1304/1886; Mecca from 1306/1889; and inEgypt, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia in the twentieth century (Proudfoot 1993,135–36; Rahman 2002, 98).

Shaykh Da’ud followed his treatise on marriage law with Ghayat al-Taqrıb fı al-Irthwa al-Ta‘s. ıb (The goal of approximation in inheritance and genealogy) in 1226/1811,which enjoyed a similar popularity. This second work detailed the Shafi‘ı rules of inheri-tance, an issue that had become quite critical for the scattered people of Patani. Many inthe community were now separated from their immediate families, often by vast dis-tances, or had lost many close relatives. Others were living in new places with lawsthat varied from those of their native Patani. Defining inheritance and family relation-ships according to Shafi‘ı law became critical to ensuring the community’s survival andaligning it along a new system of value. The old authority of the sultan and, indirectly,that of the village headmen was no longer in a position to enforce traditional (adat)law, the legitimacy of which had been thoroughly humbled, and thus Islamic leadersimplemented these new rules and regulations to fill the void. Shafi‘ı law became anincreasingly popular universal for a community divided, scattered, and politicallymarginalized.

Ghayat al-Taqrıb was also one of the most commonly studied texts in the knowledgenetwork, of which fifty-eight known copies exist. It remained one of the central texts forJawı scholars in Mecca (MKI 65, 22; 391, 42; PNM 231, 22r; 1147, 20r; 2338, 18r). Thereis also evidence of teachers spreading the work in Patani by the 1820s, where it retainedits prominent position throughout the century (PNM 2419, 18v). Publishers in Singaporeand Mecca began mass-producing the text from 1305/1887, as well as in Egypt, BritishMalaya, and Thailand in the twentieth century (Proudfoot 1993, 240; Rahman 2002,98). The text did not travel further afield, however, perhaps encountering greater resist-ance from variant traditions of inheritance law practiced elsewhere in the Islamic parts ofthe archipelago.

The 1246–47/1831–32 Patani-Siam war, the fourth of the five conflicts between thetwo polities, was the most devastating for Patani since the events of 1200/1786 (Bradley2012). A fresh wave of refugees appeared in Mecca shortly thereafter, to whom ShaykhDa’ud afforded nearly all of his energies as a teacher until his retirement in 1260/1844.Whether in response to the queries of his students or due to a personal interest in findingpragmatic solutions for the cause of Patani, he entered a new phase in his writing, turningagain to Shafi‘ı law.

The most popular work of Shaykh Da’ud’s late legal period was Sullam al-Mubtadı fıBayan T.arıqat al-Muhtadi (The beginner’s ladder in the light of the guided), completedin 1252/1836. This treatise shed light upon the sources of a number of Islamic doctrinesand was more broadly focused than his early legal writings. Rather than directing it atfamilies, he addressed all segments of the community, advocating for purification ofsocial practices, displays of public devotion, and how to respond to those who deviatedfrom such laws and rituals. He claimed to outline all that was “required for devout wor-shippers” and directed his text at “families, friends, and soldiers” (Fat.anı, n.d.c, 2).Outward social practices, such as purification before prayer, fasting, pilgrimage (hajj),almsgiving (zakat), and punishment for criminal offenses ( jinaya) garnered the greatestattention. As with all of his legal works, it is a moral text aimed at reforming Islamic


practice and bringing existing traditions more in line with what he believed—based uponwidely regarded Shafi‘ı thought—to be the proper way for Muslims to live. This shifttowards the community, just as another wave of refugees scattered across the northernMalay states, came at a time of great peril for the people of Patani. The ‘ulama’ whospread the text sought to draw them together, offering a set of social and religious prac-tices based upon Shafi‘ı and broader Sunni tradition that might redefine transregionalPatani as a religious community. Social practices, along with the moral attitudes and reli-gious doctrines they outwardly expressed, became symbolic of this transition from a pol-itical community to a religious one.

Sullam al-Mubtadı was second in popularity only to his earlier writings on marriagelaw and found eager teachers and students throughout the knowledge network. The textmaintained a regular readership throughout the century. It appeared on the east coast ofthe Malay-Thai peninsula in and around Patani by the 1850s, where it became one of thestandard texts employed in the early learning centers (PNM 456, 48r). Publishers laterbegan mass-producing the text in Singapore from 1313/1895, as well as in Egypt,British Malaya, Thailand, and Indonesia in the twentieth century (Proudfoot 1993,483–84; Rahman 2002, 103).

Brief attention to Shaykh Da’ud’s less popular writings further highlights the popu-larity of his legal treatises. He began and concluded his career as a scholar of jurispru-dence, but he spent seventeen years—the most prolific period of his career—primarilyfocused upon Sufi writings and translations, most of which never gained the same levelof readership. Of those, only his primer, al-Manhal al-S. afı fı Bayan Ramz Ahl al-S. ufı(Pure spring in the explanation of Sufi symbolism), which he intended as an introductionfor beginning students, became widely disseminated, but even of this text, only thirty-sixextant copies remain. Sufi texts appear to have been relegated to circles of prestigious‘ulama’ and failed to gain as wide a following among students. One other notable categoryof Shaykh Da’ud’s texts did gain a following: guides to prayer. Complementing legal texts,these guides to the conduct of communal prayers—a collective, social action of risingimportance—were very popular alongside other books.14

THE KNOWLEDGE NETWORK AND THE EMERGENCE OF PRESTIGIOUS LINEAGES

The movement of Muslims and their teachings across the Indian Ocean began withH. adhramı merchants settling along India’s Malabar Coast in the seventh century andreached Southeast Asia when another H. adhramı mass exodus occurred in the thirteenthcentury (Cherian 1969, 1, 3–12; Forbes 1981, 67, 82; Miller, 1992, 41–42; Ho 2006). Areciprocal movement by Southeast Asian Muslims to Mecca began in earnest by the six-teenth century, when scholars first came in substantial numbers to the H. aramayn (Attas1963, 22; Vakily 1997, 119). Thus, by the time of the arrival of Patani refugees around the

14Some combination of four of Shaykh Da’ud’s writings on prayer appeared in compilation volumes,though usually only two or three texts inhabited an individual book. These writings included a briefexposition on s. alat (ritual) prayer, a more detailed treatise on s. alat, a short discussion of hadithrelating to niyya (intention) before prayer, and a focused guide to the Jum‘a (Friday) prayer thatalso discussed the building of mosques, Kitab Sembahyang Jum‘a (Book of the Friday prayer).


turn of the nineteenth century, they came along well-charted routes most likely familiarto them in popular stories and tales.

The transmission of knowledge became the defining social characteristic of thePatani community in Mecca. One of the most significant ways they built relationshipswith their newfound neighbors in transplanted communities was through Islamic learn-ing, wherever they settled. The Patani community built broad networks of scholars,teachers, and students in the nineteenth century that tied together Muslims fromacross the Indian Ocean on an unprecedented level.

The culture of knowledge transmission had numerous layers, only some of which willbe analyzed in this article. At the apex, great scholars wrote or translated key works andthus defined the discourse on Islam as it was to develop over the course of the century.The authors of these works selected their writings from the massive stores available tothem in Mecca and thus their choice to concentrate upon particular texts shows anexplicit interest in introducing certain teachings, while ignoring others.

Teachers formed the second layer of people involved in knowledge transmission.They opened schools either in great centers of learning, such as Mecca, or back intheir home societies, often moving between centers with regularity. It was customary,in fact, for most teachers to return to their hometown after studying, where theyopened a school for students. These schools were known as pondok—taken from theArabic word funduq, meaning circle—and generally revolved around one or moregifted teachers with a following of students or disciples. Pondok taught Malay-languageliterature, Arabic, and calligraphy, in addition to basics of the faith, such as prayer, oralrecitation, and ritual purity. Once students had gained sufficient skill, teachers recitedtexts written by the great scholars, at which time students scribed their own writtencopies.

Students and disciples formed a third layer of people involved in knowledge trans-mission. The ability of some students to rise to become teachers or great scholarsdenotes a certain level of social mobility, or rather, that pathways existed for gifted‘ulama’ to gain considerable prestige via social practices, cultural acquisition, and theadoption of moral attitudes imbued with value by the broader community. The systemwas far from stagnant—even the corpus of Shaykh Da’ud’s works alone provided awide enough variety of thought to provide debates between students who focused onone text or another. Others inevitably rose through the ranks of the learned tocompose works of their own, amplifying aspects of their predecessors’ teachings or chal-lenging prevailing perspectives on Islamic belief and practice. Nevertheless, ShaykhDa’ud’s writings constituted the vast majority of texts studied in the network untilaround 1286/1870, after which the works of other scholars gradually appeared alongsidethem.

The most successful scholars established prestigious lineages through which knowl-edge and authority flowed and evolved. Sons, son-in-laws, and nephews of existingshaykhs benefited from valuable social and cultural capital by which to establish sociallyprestigious positions for themselves. They maintained their position by continuing todefine Patani as a moral and religious community. The continued process of scholarsteaching and spreading religious texts maintained the sociomoral order.

Shaykh Da’ud, for all of his interest in the family unit, never married and had no chil-dren of his own. This may have played a role in his desire to draw together dedicated


students who could carry on his legacy and continue to spread his teachings. He had atleast twenty-seven students who joined him in Mecca, but only those who left behindwritten copies of his works are known. He likely taught many more whom the sourcesdid not record. Though fifteen were from Patani, others claimed origins from throughoutthe peninsula and wider Jawı world, including Nakhon Si Thammarat, Kedah, Kelantan,Terengganu, Melaka, and Banjarmasin (see figure 2). The tradition of returning to one’s

Figure 2. The origins of Shaykh Da’ud Fat.anı’s students who came to study inMecca. Most of these students afterward returned and spread his teachings in ornear their homes. Map created by Dr. Jessica Athens.


birthplace to teach what one had learned in Mecca may have begun during ShaykhDa’ud’s time, if it had not existed earlier. But this became the norm for students involvedin the knowledge networks well into the twentieth century. In this manner, scholars trans-mitted knowledge from Mecca back into their home communities.

After Shaykh Da’ud’s death in 1263/1847, other teachers, including his youngerbrother, Shaykh ‘Idrıs, took over leadership of the scholarly circle in Mecca. Teacherscontinued returning to Southeast Asia’s Malay-speaking areas carrying copies ofShaykh Da’ud’s works. Later, Shaykh Da’ud’s grandnephew, whom he had taken as hisadopted son, Shaykh Muh. ammad bin Isma‘ıl Da’ud al-Fat.anı (1260–1333/1844–1915),known as Shaykh Nik Mat Kecik Patani, emerged as one of the most esteemed teacherswithin the community in Mecca by the 1880s, when he spread existing texts and addedmore than ten of his own works to the intellectual milieu (Daud 2001b, 193–201; Fatani2002, 76). Another grandnephew, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir bin ‘Abd al-Rah.man al-Fat.anı (c.1245–1315/1829–98), known popularly as Shaykh Nik Dir Patani, was active in the Shat.-t.ariyya Sufi order, affiliated himself with an anti-Wahhabiyya contingent in Mecca, andwrote over a dozen of his own works on diverse topics from Sufism to Qur’anic recitation(tajwıd) (Daud 2001a, 129). He also instructed a number of the most influential Shat.t.ar-iyya brothers of the succeeding generation. Later generations of the family continued toplay key roles in the community well into the twentieth century.

A second family that also became influential within the knowledge networks firstcame to prominence at Pondok Bendang Daya, near Patani, with relations who regularlyconnected with the community in Mecca. Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir bin Hajji Mus. t.afaal-Fat.anı (1234–1312/1818–95) studied directly with Shaykh Da’ud in Mecca in the1830s, after which he returned to the peninsula, where he succeeded his father aschief teacher at Bendang Daya (MKI 158, 10; PNM 2764, 66v). He taught ShaykhDa’ud’s texts on Sufism as well as other legal works and wrote his own books concerningSufism and monotheism (MKI 17, 23; 729, 21; PNM 181, 32v; 1495A, 11r; 1495B, 14r;1495C, 14r). Through his efforts, Bendang Daya became one of the most prestigiousschools on the peninsula in the 1880s and 1890s—one of the final destinations for themost gifted students before they continued their studies in Mecca. His nephew,Shaykh Ah.mad bin Muh. ammad Zayn al-Fat.anı (1272–1325/1856–1908), became oneof the most prolific Jawı writers in Mecca during the final two decades of the nineteenthcentury.15 He also supervised the Malay wing of the Ottoman press in Mecca from 1301/1884 until his death, during which time he mass-produced copies of Shaykh Da’ud’sworks chief among its publications.16 Two other members of the family carried on thelegacy of teaching in Mecca until after World War II.17 Other members of the family

15Shaykh Ah.mad bin Muh. ammad Zayn al-Fat.anı rivaled even Shaykh Da’ud in quantity and rangeof coverage in his works. He benefited greatly from his position at the Ottoman press, by which hisworks were disseminated via the knowledge networks back into Southeast Asia in a higher volumethan had been possible before publishing technology was developed.16At least twenty titles by Patani authors appeared from the press during Shaykh Ah.mad binMuh. ammad Zayn al-Fat.anı’s tenure, of which more than 75 percent were those written byShaykh Da’ud.17Shaykh Da’ud bin Mus. t.afa al-Fat.anı (1282–1354/1866–1936) and Shaykh Isma‘ıl bin Wan ‘Abdal-Qadir al-Fat.anı (1300–84/1882–1965) were key teachers in Mecca who not only taughtmembers of the Patani community, but many other Jawı as well. The latter figure was an authority


also figured as prominent teachers in Patani, Kedah, and Kelantan, as well as among thedescendants of the slaves who still resided in Bangkok, and one went to India (PNM1502; Awang 2007; Fatani 2002, 149–66, 284–86, 289).

Many other examples of prestigious families arising from the scholarly milieu exist thatwill not be entertained here. Some of these lasted only for two or three generations, whileothers survive to the present day. The evidence provided shows that in this stateless powerstructure, families became the principle vessels for the passage of knowledge and authority.Social prestige within the community continued to evolve throughout the century, subject tothe whims of scholarly debates that ‘ulama’ waged in Mecca at the time. The chief power-brokers managed these debates with an adept ability for fashioning the sociomoral order ofthe community, while justifying a social system based upon their prescribed moral authority.

Knowledge networks served to disjoin Patani from its regional context and propel itspeople to draw previously untapped cultural unities with a broader Jawı community.Texts, journeys, and master-student relationships came to form a crux for the practiceof their shared culture, centered upon Islam and the Malay language. While Patani’s pol-itical concerns continued to draw attention even from those refugees who had settled indistant environs, the bonds they forged with other Jawı endured long after the construc-tion of the border that today separates Thailand from Malaysia.

CONCLUSION

This article has examined the role of social values in the formation of knowledge net-works emanating from Mecca into Southeast Asia in the nineteenth century. The displa-cement of Malay-speaking populations from the Malay-Thai peninsula region ofSoutheast Asia gave birth to the transregional Patani community. This far-flung commu-nity stretched from Mecca back into Southeast Asia and used its scattered spatiality to itsadvantage in building networks of knowledge exchange and dissemination through thecourse of the nineteenth century. Underlying the motivations of Islamic scholars andteachers of the network was a desire to rebuild their community, which they accom-plished by advocating for the moral and religious reform of the family as the most impor-tant unit after their dispersal in 1200/1786 and the result of later wars.

The period covered in this article represents only the earliest manifestations of theknowledge network as employed by the Patani scholars. Building on the work of theirSoutheast Asian predecessors, the Patani scholars continued to press for futurereforms after the period covered here. Indeed, they encountered great success in insti-tutionalizing their vision in the pondok that proliferated after 1286/1870. A large portionof the early teachers of pondok in what is now Malaysia in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries either came from Patani or were trained there. Many, in fact, tracedtheir origins to Patani but had resettled in the northern Malay states of Kedah, Kelantan,Perak, and Terengganu. Other prominent teachers hailed from other displaced groups,such as the Minangs who had migrated north from Sumatra in the eighteenth century,

on Qur’anic recitation and left numerous works, among which the most popular were his Friday andholiday sermons.


the Mandailings who had been displaced as a result of a number of wars in Sumatra andlater on the peninsula in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the Bugis who hadsimilarly settled on the coasts of the peninsula in the 1700s and 1800s. The pondok werethe fruit of their labor and formed a spiritual home for a number of dispossessed, exiled,and politically marginalized populations from across the archipelago.

North of the Malay-Thai border, however, the stalwart descendants of the Patanipopulations that chose to remain in the Siamese political periphery and oftenconflict-ravaged region struggled to find their place in a growing, Thai-speaking nation-state. Resistance to the central state has ranged from political organizing to educationalreforms, a greater visibility for cultural practice, and sustained militant resistance.Through all of this, some of the most highly contested spaces have been the pondok,which have experienced a perceived marginalization by the central Thai state (e.g.,Forbes 1983; Suhrke 1977, 238–39). As the locus for local cultural reproduction, inmany ways, these spaces still operate today as centers for social rebuilding and rebirth—an ongoing process that began nearly two centuries ago.

Acknowledgments

I conducted the initial research for this paper in Thailand with funding from theSocial Science Research Council and subsequently from the Fulbright program in Malay-sia. The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pro-vided additional financial assistance for research in London. I owe a great deal to ThomasWilson and the Asian Studies program at Hamilton College for providing me the timeand additional funding to complete the writing of this article in 2010–11, when Iworked there as a post-doctoral fellow. I also wish to thank Thongchai Winichakul,Michael Laffan, Eric Tagliacozzo, Abhishek Amar, Thom Rath, and the referees at theJournal of Asian Studies for their comments on various parts of the project. Appreciationis also due to Jessica Athens for her assistance in creating the maps.

List of References

Archival Sources

Library of Congress (LC)

[1839]—History of Patani: A Kingdom on the East Coast of the Peninsula of Malacca,Near the Siam Boundary [Hikayat Patani]. Singapore: Copied by Abdullah benAbdulkadir, 1839.

Muzium Kesenian Islam [Islamic Arts Museum], Kuala Lumpur (MKI)

17—Al-Manhal al-S. afı fı Bayan Ramz Ahl al-S. ufı [Pure spring in the explanation of Sufisymbolism], copied by ‘Abd al-Qadir Fat.anı, 1311/1894.


65—Ghayat al-Taqrıb fı al-’Irth wa al-Ta‘s. ıb [The goal of approximation in inheritanceand genealogy], copied by Isma‘ıl, undated, in Mecca.

75B—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied by Lebai Iman of Kota Bharu, 1224/1809, in[Mecca].

144B—Hal al-Zill, copied by ‘Abd al-Ra’uf bin al-‘Usurı, undated.158—‘Aqidat al-awwam min wajibat fi al-din bil-tamam [The doctrine of precise reli-

gious duties], copied by Muh. ammad Zayn, 1261/1845.391—Ghayat al-Taqrıb fı al-’Irth wa al-Ta‘s. ıb [The goal of approximation in inheritance

and genealogy], copied by Muh. ammad S. alih. , 1269/1853, in Mecca.729—[Kitab tasawwuf] [Book on Sufism], written by ‘Abd al-Qadir bin Mus. t.afa al-Fat.anı,

undated.

Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia [National Library of Malaysia], Kuala Lumpur (PNM)

123—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied 1299/1882, in Mecca.

161—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied by ‘Abd al-Malik Tarkanu, 1239/1823, inMedina.

181—Sullam al-Mubtadı fı Bayan T.arıqat al-Muhtadi [The beginner’s ladder in the lightof the guided], copied by ‘Abd al-Qadir bin Hajji Mus. t.afa al-Fat.anı, 1296/1878.

231—Ghayat al-Taqrıb fı al-’Irth wa al-Ta‘s. ıb [The goal of approximation in inheritanceand genealogy], copied 1296/1879, in Mecca.

456—Sullam al-Mubtadı fı Bayan T.arıqat al-Muhtadi [The beginner’s ladder in the lightof the guided], copied by Muh. ammad bin Encik Putih, 1267/1851, in Patani.

470—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied by Ibrah. ım bin Hassan Fat.anı, 1260/1844, inMecca.

530—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied by Da’ud bin Muh. ammad Kelantan, 1281/1864, in Mecca.

547B—[Kitab tasawwuf] [Book on Sufism], copied by Encik ‘Abd al-Karım bin Encik‘Abd Allah Fat.anı, 1269/1853, in Mecca.

781(1)—Khalaq al-Samawati wa al-Ard. [Creator of the heavens and the earth], copiedby ‘Abd al-Rah.man, undated, in Kelantan.

1147—Ghayat al-Taqrıb fı al-’Irth wa al-Ta‘s. ıb [The goal of approximation in inheritanceand genealogy], copied by Muh. ammad Saman Fat.anı, 1289/1873, in Mecca.

1256—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied in Mecca, undated.

1495A—Al-Manhal al-S. afı fı Bayan Ramz Ahl al-S. ufı [Pure spring in the explanation ofSufi symbolism], copied by ‘Abd al-Qadir bin Mus. t.afa al-Fat.anı, in Mecca, undated.

1495B—[Kitab sifat dua puluh] [Book on the twenty attributes], copied by [‘Abd al-Qadirbin Mus. t.afa al-Fat.anı], undated.

1495C—[Kayfiyyah membaca selawat Nabi Muhammad] [How to recite the prayers ofthe prophet Muhammad], copied by [‘Abd al-Qadir bin Mus. t.afa al-Fat.anı], undated.

1502—Ghayat al-Afrah. li-man Yatawalla al-Ankah. , undated.


1690—[Tarjuman al-Mustafid] [The interpreter of that which gives benefit], copied byHajji Ibrah. ım bin ‘Abd al-Rah.man al-Fat.anı, 1235/1820.

2014—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied by Hajji Mah.mud bin Muh. ammad YusufTarkanu, 1236/1821, in Kampung Lengkandi, Patani.

2270B— Durr al-Fara’id. bi Sharh al-‘Aqa’id [The pearls of laws in the explanation ofbeliefs], copied by Hajji Mah.mud bin Muh. ammad Yusuf Tarkanu, 1257/1841.

2338—Ghayat al-Taqrıb fı al-’Irth wa al-Ta‘s. ıb [The goal of approximation in inheritanceand genealogy], copied 1268/1851, in Mecca.

2400A—Muqaddimat al-Mubtadin, copied by Muh. ammad Amın bin Lebai Ish. aq Fat.anı,1245/1830.

2410—Sırat al-Mustaqım [Biography of the righteous], copied by Harun Fat.anı, 1261/1845, in Canak.

2419—Ghayat al-Taqrıb fı al-’Irth wa al-Ta‘s. ıb [The goal of approximation in inheritanceand genealogy], copied by Ah.mad bin ‘Abu Bakr, 1237/1821, in Yala.

2541—[Idah al-Bab li-Murid al-Nikah bi-l-Sawab] [Explanation of the chapter for theone who desires a good marriage], copied by Muh. ammad Min bin Encik H. amıdFat.anı, in Mecca, undated.

2545—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied by Imam ‘Abd al-S. amad, 1236/1820, inKampung Laut, Satun.

2566—Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab [Explanation of the chapter for the onewho desires a good marriage], copied 1244/1828, in Mecca.

2764—Al-Jawahir al-Saniyyah fı Sharh. al-‘Aqa‘id al-Dıniyyah wa Ah. kam al-Fiqhal-Mard. iyyah wa T.arıq al-Suluk al-Muh. ammadiyyah [Joyful jewels in the expla-nation of the religious dogma in the satisfactory laws of jurisprudence and thepath of Muhammad’s precedent], copied by Muh. ammad Zayn al-Fat.anı, 1270/1853, in Mecca.

2959—[Idah al-Bab li-Murid al-Nikah bi-l-Sawab] [Explanation of the chapter for theone who desires a good marriage], copied by Muh. ammad Sani Fat.anı, in Mecca,undated.

Published Primary Sources

FAT. ANI, DA’UDBIN ‘ABDALLAH AL. n.d.a. Furu‘ al-Masa‘il wa Us. ul al-Masa‘il. PulauPinang: Maktabah Dar al-Ma‘arif.

——. n.d.b. Id. ah. al-Bab li-Murıd al-Nikah. bi-l-S. awab. Pulau Pinang: Maktabah Daral-Ma‘arif.

——. n.d.c. Sullam al-Mubtadı fı Bayan T.arıqat al-Muhtadı. Pulau Pinang: MaktabahDar al-Ma‘arif.

NIEUHOFF, JOHN. 1704. “Mr. John Nieuhoff’s Remarkable Voyages and Travels into Brazil,and the Best Parts of the East-Indies.” In A Collection of Voyages and Travels, SomeNow First Printed from Original Manuscripts, vol. 2. London: Printed for Awnshamand John Churchill, at the Black Swan in Pater-Nester-Row.

TEEUW, A., and D. K. WYATT. 1970.Hikayat Patani: The Story of Patani. Bibliotheca Indo-nesica, 5. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.


TOUA THAO. n.d. Unpublished translation of “Phongsawadan Muang Pattani” [Chronicleof Patani]. In Prachum Phongsawadan, Phak thi Sam [Collected chronicles, part 3].Bangkok: Thai Printing House, [1914].

Secondary Sources

AIHWA ONG and MICHAEL G. PELETZ, eds. 1995. Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Genderand Body Politics in Southeast Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.

ANDAYA, BARBARA WATSON. 2000. Other Pasts: Women, Gender and History in EarlyModern Southeast Asia. Honolulu: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Universityof Hawai‘i at Manoa.

ATTAS, MUHAMMAD NAQUIB AL-. 1963. Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Prac-ticed among the Malays. Singapore: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute.

AWANG, ISMAIL. 2007. “Pak Cu Him Gajah Mati (1894–1968).” In Tokoh-tokoh Ulama’Semenanjung Melayu, vol. 2, 2nd ed., ed. Ismail Che Daud, 107–16. Kota Bharu:Majlis Ugama Islam dan Adat Istiadat Melayu Kelantan.

AZRA, AZYUMARDI. 2004. The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks ofMalay-Indonesian and Middle Eastern ‘Ulama’ in the Seventeenth and EighteenthCenturies. Asian Studies Association of Australia, Southeast Asia PublicationsSeries. Honolulu: Allen & Unwin and University of Hawai‘i Press.

BASSETT, D. K. 1969. “Changes in the Pattern of Malay Politics, 1629–c. 1655.” Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 10(3):429–52.

BLACKBURN, ANNE M. 2010. Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in SriLanka. Buddhism and Modernity series, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press.

BRADLEY, FRANCIS R. 2009. “Moral Order in a Time of Damnation: The Hikayat Patani inHistorical Context.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 40(2):267–93.

——. 2010. “The Social Dynamics of Islamic Revivalism in Southeast Asia: The Rise ofthe Patani School, 1785–1909.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison.

——. 2012. “Siam’s Conquest of Patani and the End of Mandala Relations, 1786–1838.”In Struggle for Patani’s Past: History Writing and the Conflict in Southern Thailand,ed. Patrick Jory. Singapore: Singapore University Press.

BRUINESSEN, MARTIN VAN. 1995. Kitab Kuning: Pesantren dan Tarekat; Tradisi-tradisiIslam di Indonesia. Bandung: Penerbit Mizan.

CHERIAN, A. 1969. “The Genesis of Islam on Malabar.” Indica 6(1):1–13.CUMMINGS, W. 1998. “TheMelaka Malay Diaspora in Makassar, c. 1500–1669.” Journal of

the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 71(1):106–21.DAUD, ISMAIL CHE. 2001a. “Syaikh Nik Dir Patani (1829–1898).” In Tokoh-tokoh Ulama’

Semenanjung Melayu, vol. 1, 3rd ed., ed. Ismail Che Daud. Kota Bharu: MajlisUgama Islam dan Adat Istiadat Melayu Kelantan.

——. 2001b. “Syaikh Nik Mat Kechik Patani (1844–1915).” In Tokoh-tokoh Ulama’Semenanjung Melayu, vol. 1, 3rd ed., ed. Ismail Che Daud, 189–204. Kota Bharu:Majlis Ugama Islam dan Adat Istiadat Melayu Kelantan.

DAY, TONY. 2002. Fluid Iron: State Formation in Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University ofHawai‘i Press.

FATANI, AHMAD FATHY AL-. 2002. Ulama Besar dari Patani. Bangi: Penerbit UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia.


FEENER, R. MICHAEL. 2010. “New Networks and New Knowledge: Migrations, Com-munications and the Refiguration of the Muslim Community in the Nineteenthand Early Twentieth Centuries.” In The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 6,ed. Robert Hefner, 39–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

FORBES, ANDREW D. W. 1981. “Southern Arabia and the Islamicisation of the CentralIndian Ocean Archipelagoes.” Archipel 21:55–92.

——. 1983. “Thailand’s Muslim Minorities: Assimilation, Secession, or Coexistence?”Asian Survey 22(11):1056–73.

HO, ENGSENG. 2006. The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the IndianOcean. Berkeley: University of California Press.

HOURANI, ALBERT. 1962. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

JOHNS, A. H. 1978. “Friends in Grace: Ibrahım al-Kuranı and ‘Abd al-Ra‘uf al-Singkeli.”In Spectrum: Essays Presented to Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana on His Seventieth Birth-day, ed. S. Udin. Jakarta: Dian Rakyat.

——. 1984. “Islam in the Malay World: An Exploratory Survey with Some References toQuranic Exegesis.” In Islam in Asia, vol. 2: Southeast and East Asia, eds. RaphaelIsraeli and Anthony H. Johns. Jerusalem: Magnes Press.

LAFFAN, MICHAEL FRANCIS. 2003. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: TheUmmabelow theWinds. SOAS/Routledge Studies on theMiddle East series, eds. BenjaminC. Fortna and Ulrike Freitag. London: Routledge.

LAOUST, HENRI. 1939. Essai sur les Doctrines Sociales et Politiques de Tak. ı-d-dın Ah.madb. Taimiyya: Canoniste H. anbalite né à H. arran en 661/1262, mort à Damas en 728/1328. Le Caire: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.

MATHESON, VIRGINIA, and M. B. HOOKER. 1988. “Jawi Literature in Patani: The Mainte-nance of an Islamic Tradition.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the RoyalAsiatic Society 61(1):1–86.

METCALF, BARBARA DALY. 1982. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900.Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

MILLER, ROLAND E. 1992.Mappila Muslims of Kerala: A Study in Islamic Trends. Rev. ed.Madras: Orient Longman.

MILLS, J. V. 1930. “Eredia’s Description of Malaca, Meridonial India, and Cathay, Trans-lated from the Portuguese with Notes.” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the RoyalAsiatic Society 8(1): 1–288.

NEELIS, JASON. 2011. Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks: Mobility andExchange within and beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia.Leiden: Brill.

PROUDFOOT, IAN. 1993. Early Malay Printed Books: A Provisional Account of MaterialsPublished in the Singapore-Malaysia Area up to 1920, Noting Holdings in MajorPublic Collections. Kuala Lumpur: Academy of Malay Studies and the Library,University of Malaya.

RAHMAN, MOHD. ZAIN ABD. 2002. “New Lights on the Life and Works of Shaikh Dawudal-Fattani.” Studia Islamika 90(3):83–117.

REID, ANTHONY. 1983. “The Rise of Makassar.” Review of Indonesian and MalaysianAffairs 17:117–60.

——. 1988–93. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce. 2 vols. New Haven, Conn.: YaleUniversity Press.


RIDDELL, PETER. 1990. Transferring a Tradition: ‘Abd al-Ra’uf al-Singkilı’s Rendering intoMalay of the Jalalayn Commentary. Monograph Series, no. 31. Berkeley: Centersfor South and Southeast Asia Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

——. 2001. Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World: Transmission and Responses.London: Hurst.

SNOUCK HURGRONJE, C. 1906. The Achehnese. 2 vols. Translated by A. W. S. O’Sullivanwith an index by R. J. Wilkinson. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

——. 1931. Mekka in the Latter Part of the 19th Century: Daily Life, Customs andLearning; The Moslims of the East-Indian-Archipelago. Translated by J. H.Monahan. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

SUHRKE, ASTRI. 1977. “Loyalists and Separatists: The Muslims in Southern Thailand.”Asian Survey 17(3):237–50.

THONGCHAI WINICHAKUL. 1994. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of a Nation.Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

TWEED, THOMAS A. 2002. “On Moving Across: Translocative Religion and theInterpreter’s Position.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70(2):253–77.

——. 2006. Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion. Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press.

VAKILY, ABDOLLAH. 1997. “Sufism, Power Politics, and Reform: Al-Ranırı’s Opposition toHamzah al-Fansurı Teachings Reconsidered.” Studia Islamika 4(1):113–15.

VÁSQUEZ, MANUEL A. 2008. “Studying Religion in Motion: A Networks Approach.”Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 20(2):151–84.

VOLL, JOHN OBERT. 1994. Islam: Continuity and Change. 2nd ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: SyracuseUniversity Press.

WINSTEDT, R. O. 1917. “The Advent of Muhammadanism in the Malay Peninsula andArchipelago.” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 77:171–75.

——. 1939. “A History of Malay Literature.” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the RoyalAsiatic Society 17(1).


Islamic Reform, the Family, and Knowledge Networks Linking Mecca with Southeast Asia in the...

Documents

Transcript of Islamic Reform, the Family, and Knowledge Networks Linking Mecca with Southeast Asia in the...