17*TARIQA KHALWATIYYA - Martin van Bruinessen

http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/personal/publications/Khalwatiyya_Sulawesi.htm

Martin van Bruinessen, "The tariqa Khalwatiyya in South Celebes", in: Harry A. Poeze en Pim Schoorl (eds), Excursies in Celebes. Een bundel bijdragen bij het afscheid van J. Noorduyn... Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij,1991, pp. 251-269.


The tariqa Khalwatiyya in South Celebes

A striking aspect of Islam in South Celebes is the remarkable prominence of the tariqa (mystical order) Khalwatiyya among the Bugis and Makassarese. There are, in fact, two separate branches of this order, co-existing in many districts of South Celebes and known as Khalwatiyya-Yusuf and Khalwatiyya-Samman. The latter especially is present wherever there are large Bugis and Makasarese communities in the archipelago, such as Riau, Malaysia, East Borneo, Ambon, and West Irian, but the centre of gravity is South Celebes. Membership in both branches appears limited to these two ethnic groups and perhaps a few Mandarese. According to statistics compiled by the Department of Religious Affairs, the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf in 1973 had around 25,000 followers in the province and the Khalwatiyya-Samman 117,435. Of the latter, some 70,000 were registered in the district of Maros alone, where this branch had been established by the charismatic teacher Haji Palopo in the late nineteenth century.[1] It is not clear how these statistics were compiled, and a certain scepticism may be called for, but it is obvious that the tariqa Khalwatiyya in South Celebes is by no means a marginal phenomenon. The followers of these branches taken together represent five percent of the province's population over the age of 15; those in Maros make up two-thirds of that district's adult inhabitants! Even if we allow for a wide margin of error, these are higher proportions than any other tariqa elsewhere in the archipelago can boast.
The Khalwatiyya-Yusuf is named after the seventeenth-century mystic, scholar, and warrior Yusuf Makasar, who is still highly venerated in South Celebes, and to whom Noorduyn's teacher A.A. Cense devoted a short study in 1950. (The Khalwatiyya-Samman owes its name to the eighteenth-century Madinan mystic Muhammad as-Samman, about whom more below.) Noorduyn himself has long had a genuine interest in the historical and legendary dimensions of Yusuf's life. He was the obvious person to turn to when I first encountered this fascinating character in the course of an earlier study, and he was one of the very few people to make useful suggestions. It is in gratitude that I dedicate to him these few observations on Shaikh Yusuf and later developments of the Khalwatiyya in South Celebes.
Two branches of the Khalwatiyya
At present, the two branches of the Khalwatiyya function as entirely independent turuq (pl. of tariqa), having little in common besides the name. There are differences in ritual, organization, and in the social composition of the followers. The dhikr, the recitation of God's names and other short formulas, is silent in the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf, while in the Khalwatiyya-Samman it is loud and ecstatic. The Khalwatiyya-Samman is strictly centralized, all its teachers being subordinated to the centre in Maros, while the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf has no central authority. Even the teachers claiming descent from Shaikh Yusuf himself have no authority over their colleagues. The local branches of the Khalwatiyya-Samman often have their own prayerhouses (musalla, langgar) and tend to isolate themselves from the other believers, while those of the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf do not have special places of worship and freely mix with their neighbours who do not follow a tariqa.
The Khalwatiyya-Yusuf may perhaps be called the more 'aristocratic' of the two; among its followers we find many members of the Makasarese nobility, including the last ruler of Goa, Andi Ijo Sultan Muhammad Abdul Kadir Aidid (who ruled 1946-60). But its following is certainly not restricted to lite circles or to Makasarese; it is said, by a knowledgeable observer, to be a fairly representative cross-section of South Celebes' population.[2] The Khalwatiyya-Samman is definitely more 'popular', both in its style and in the composition of its following; there appears to be a higher proportion of villagers among them. Both worldly authorities and orthodox `ulama have often looked upon it with suspicion, and this has strengthened the order's tendency towards seclusion. In order to dispel political suspicions, the shaikh has joined the Golkar organization, as many tariqa teachers throughout the archipelago have done. This has led to a certain opening up of the community; its government-subsidized school even has teachers from outside the community.[3]
Shaikh Yusuf and his teachers
Shaikh Yusuf Makasar is known in Celebes by the honorific title of at-Taj al-Khalwati, 'Crown of the Khalwatiyya'. He was probably the first to introduce this order into Indonesia, and in Celebes it has remained closely associated with his name. The Khalwatiyya was by no means the only order in which Yusuf was initiated, however. He spent several decades in Arabia and studied with numerous teachers. In his treatise Safinat an-najah, he mentions the various turuq that he studied, with the names of his spiritual preceptors and their predecessors.[4] His initiation in the Khalwatiyya took place in Damascus, where he had probably gone for the purpose of paying his respects at the shrine of the great mystic Muhyiddin Ibn al-`Arabi. Yusuf relates that the shaikh who initiated him, Abu Barakat Ayyub b. Ahmad al-Khalwati al-Quraishi, was the prayer leader and preacher (imam and khatib) at Ibn al-`Arabi's mosque. He also gives his silsila for this order, which runs through the reputed founder, Dede `Umar al-Khalwati (d. ca. 1497), up to the famous ninth-century Baghdad mystic Junaid, with whom the order has always associated itself.[5]
There are indications that the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf, the order as taught by Shaikh Yusuf upon his return to the Archipelago, is in fact a composite of the various turuq that he had studied, although the Khalwatiyya remained dominant. The other orders in which Yusuf was initiated (and for which he also records his silsila) are the Qadiriyya, the Naqshbandiyya, the Shattariyya, and the Ba`alawiyya. I shall make brief comments on each.
Yusuf's initiation in the Qadiriyya apparently took place during his stay in Aceh on the way to Arabia, which must have been in or not long after 1644. As his teacher, the Safina mentions Muhammad Jila[ni], 'known as Shaikh Nur ad-Din b. Hasanji b. Muhammad Hamid al-`Urshi ar-Raniri'. This appears to be a contamination of two names, a mistake perhaps of a copyist. Nur ad-Din Raniri had left Aceh before Yusuf arrived there, so it is obvious that he cannot have been his teacher. Muhammad Jilani b. Hasan b. Muhammad Hamid ar-Raniri was Nur ad-Din's paternal uncle. He had first come to Aceh around 1580; if he was really still alive in 1644, he must have been in his eighties.[6] The first part of Yusuf's Qadiri silsila, immediately following Muhammad Jilani, is surprisingly familiar. The first ten names are identical with those in the silsila of the other Raniri, Nur ad-Din, although the latter was an initiate of the Rifa`iyya, not the Qadiriyya.[7] These ten predecessors, who apparently practised both turuq, were Hadrami sayyids just like the two Raniri, and the last generations of them were also resident in Gujarat.[8]
Yusuf took his next tariqa in Yemen, while he was still on the way to Mecca. The Naqshbandi shaikh Muhammad `Abd al-Baqi al-Mizjaji in Nuhita initiated him in the branch of this order associated with the Indian shaikh Taj ad-Din Zakariya. Shaikh Taj ad-Din, it may be relevant to note, was a rival of the reformist Naqshbandi shaikh Ahmad Faruqi Sirhindi, who was known as an opponent of wahdat al-wujud. Taj ad-Din's branch of the Naqshbandiyya, on the other hand, staunchly defended Ibn al-`Arabi's doctrines.[9]
Another famous expert of Ibn al-`Arabi's metaphysics, Shaikh Ibrahim al-Kurani, the leading scholar of Madina, initiated Yusuf in the Shattariyya. Shaikh Ibrahim was also the teacher of `Abd ar-Ra'uf of Singkel, the chief propagator of this tariqa in the archipelago (cf Johns 1978, 1982). Yusuf studied more with Shaikh Ibrahim than just the Shattariyya. We know that he studied `Abd ar-Rahman Jami's difficult text ad-Durrat al-Fakhira under his guidance, for two copies of this work made in Yusuf's own hand are still extant, one of them containing Ibrahim's glosses on the text (Heer 1979:13-5). Shaikh Ibrahim must have been a major, if not the most important, influence on Yusuf's intellectual and spiritual development.
The final tariqa mentioned by Yusuf is the Ba`alawiyya, an order that has remained largely confined to the Hadrami sayyids and their disciples. It differs from the other turuq mentioned in that its spiritual exercises are limited to the recitation of a lengthy litany (ratib); it does not appear to have adhered to specific mystical doctrines. Yusuf gives only a defective silsila for this tariqa, perhaps reflecting his lack of a deeper interest in it.[10]
Shaikh Yusuf studied in Arabia at a time when the mystical and metaphysical system of Ibn al-`Arabi (the doctrine of Unity of Being, wahdat al-wujud) was increasingly coming under attack, not only from orthodox fiqh-oriented `ulama but even in sufi circles. The Indian Naqshbandi Ahmad Faruqi Sirhindi (1564-1624) spearheaded the rejection of wahdat al-wujud and embraced the alternative doctrine of wahdat ash-shudud (Unity of Experience), which insisted on God's ultimate transcendence.[11] Yusuf clearly did not come under the influence of this reaction; he studied with some of the most prominent representatives of wahdat al-wujud of his time. The circle around Ibrahim al-Kurani engaged in fierce polemics against Sirhindi's followers (although Ibrahim also wrote a treatise, especially for Indonesians, against 'pantheist' interpretations of wahdat al-wujud). Yusuf's Naqshbandi teacher, Muhammad `Abd al-Baqi, belonged to an anti-Sirhindi branch of that order, while his instructor in the Khalwatiyya was in charge of the mosque of Ibn al-`Arabi's shrine. It is unlikely that the Hadrami circles from which Yusuf's initiation in the Qadiriyya derived were an exception to this wahdat al-wujud orientation. Nur ad-Din Raniri, it is true, became known in Indonesia as a fierce opponent of Hamzah Fansuri's brand of wahdat al-wujud, but an analysis of his own writings shows that Raniri in fact adhered to a very similar interpretation of Ibn al-`Arabi.[12]
In none of his extant writings (most, if not all, written after his return from Arabia) does Yusuf give a systematic exposition of his own views.[13] But the frequent references to Ibn al-`Arabi and other mystics of the same persuasion make abundantly clear where he stood doctrinally. Moral anecdotes about great shaikhs of various turuq show that he remained quite eclectic in this respect. Although Yusuf (or a later copyist) calls himself at-Taj al-Khalwati in some treatises, he in fact quotes Naqshbandi more often than Khalwati shaikhs.
Present practice of the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf suggests that Yusuf was also eclectic in the actual spiritual techniques he taught (notably in the adoption of the silent dhikr of the Naqshbandiyya). In his treatise Habl al-warid li-sa`adat al-murid, he mentions three basic dhikr: 'O God, enlighten our hearts with the dhikr la ilaha illa'llah, set our souls free with the dhikr Allah Allah, and unveil our innermost self with the dhikr Hu Hu!'. He explains how the syllables of the first-named dhikr should be 'drawn' through the body, dragging a lengthened 'la' of negation up to the brain, turning the 'ilaha' to the right, followed by a short pause, and then drawing 'illa'llah' to the left, beating it into the heart with great force. None of this is specifically Khalwati, while Yusuf does not mention any of the dhikr forms that are considered as distinctive of the Khalwatiyya elsewhere (see De Jong 1977).
The Indonesian Khalwatiyya after Yusuf
After his return from Arabia, around 1670, Yusuf settled at first in Banten, where he became a spiritual adviser and son-in-law to Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, and the charismatic leader of the numerous Makasarese and Bugis then living in Banten. Here he apparently wrote most of his works. When the Banten crown prince rebelled against the aging sultan and enlisted the support of the East Indies Company (which had been waiting for such an opportunity), Yusuf sided with the father. Even after the sultan had been captured, Yusuf continued his resistance and led a band of followers through the mountains of West Java, persecuted by Dutch troops. In December 1683 they were finally captured. The Dutch exiled the shaikh to Ceylon but allowed (some of) his Makasarese followers to return to Celebes. After a decade in Ceylon, the Dutch found it necessary to remove him once again and took him to the Cape of Good Hope, where he died in 1699. The Malay communities in both places of his exile venerated him as a great saint. There is still a cult at Yusuf's shrine in Cape Town (although his bones were returned to South Celebes, where his second grave in Lakiung is also the centre of a cult), while in Banten too his name is not yet entirely forgotten. The tariqa associated with his name, however, appears only to have survived among the Makasarese and Bugis. Significantly, almost all the manuscripts of Yusuf's writings originate from South Celebes.[14]
Among Yusuf's first disciples, the Makasarese probably predominated. Yusuf hailed from the Makasarese kingdom of Goa (later sources even suggest he was related to the royal family), and he corresponded from Banten with the Goa prince Karaeng Karunrung.[15] A possible reason why Yusuf did not settle in his native Goa after his return from Arabia is that this kingdom had been subjected by the Bugis kingdom of Bone in co-operation with the Dutch in 1669. Karaeng Karunrung, the leading prince and chief military commmander of Goa, still engaged in acts of resistance at the time that Yusuf wrote to him. After Yusuf's capture and exile, the king and nobles of Goa repeatedly requested the Company to allow Yusuf to return; contemporary Dutch reports confirm his great popularity among the people of Makasar.[16] When Yusuf's remains were finally repatriated in 1705, the king himself took care of the reinterment in Lakiung (Cense 1950:53-4). The veneration of Yusuf was initially primarily a Makasarese affair; there are no indications that he enjoyed anything like a similar popularity among the Bugis then. And this may also have been true of the tariqa Khalwatiyya-Yusuf. In fact, the only early silsila of this tariqa that I have found belonged to a Makasarese, Muhammad `Abd al-Wahid b. `Abd al-Ghaffar al-Maqasari al-Khalwati. He had been initiated by his father, `Abd al-Qadir Majannang, and he by Abu'l-Fath `Abd al-Basir ad-Darir al-Khalwati, who had received the tariqa from Yusuf himself.[17] `Abd al-Basir, who is also known as Tuang Rappang, was Yusuf's chief khalifa in South Sulawesi. Local tradition has it that he first met with Yusuf in Arabia and became his most faithful disciple. He apparently accompanied Yusuf to Banten; the diary of the Makasarese rulers records his arrival from Banten in 1678. He later settled far north of the Makasar lands, in Rappang, where he died in 1723.[18] His remains were brought to Goa, where they were buried beside Yusuf in Lakiung (Ligtvoet 1880:144, 201). A descendant of `Abd al-Basir, Shaikh Haji Muhammad Sultan Baitullah (d. 1948), was the most famous recent teacher of the tariqa in Goa (Rahman n.d.:5-6).
Other Makasarese followers of Yusuf, including perhaps even khalifa, returned to Celebes after the shaikh's capture. The royal diaries record the arrival of a ship full of them from Cirebon in March 1684 (Ligtvoet 1880:154). One propagator of the tariqa must have been Yusuf's son by his first wife, Muhammad Jalal (also known as Muhammad Kabir); a descendant of his, Haji Raden Daeng Tompo, the former qadi of Takalar, still teaches the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf (Rahman n.d.:5).
While Yusuf's association with the royal house of Goa may have been the reason why his influence was initially strongest among the Makasarese, it nevertheless soon spread to the Bugis too. In fact, the most important manuscripts of his works originate from the Bugis kingdom of Bone. A century after the shaikh's death, the ruler of Bone, Ahmad as-Salih Matinro ri Rompegading (1775-1812), was a great admirer of Yusuf and apparently compiled a treatise based on Yusuf's teachings.[19] At present, the most influential teachers of the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf, besides the Makasarese already mentioned, are Puang Lallo of Garassi in Maros and Puang Ngemba of Tomajennang Tonasa in the island part of Pangkajene, both of them Bugis.
The Khalwatiyya-Samman: early incursions
The other branch of the Khalwatiyya, associated with Muhammad b. `Abd al-Karim as-Samman, is of more recent date and has entirely different origins. Most if not all of the present local branches are affiliated with the charismatic Haji `Abd ar-Razzaq alias Puang Palopo, who gathered a large following in South Celebes in the early twentieth century. The present strict separation between the two branches, and the present 'popular' character of the Sammani branch probably date from this period. Earlier incursions of the same branch appear to have been easily integrated into the existing network of Yusuf's Khalwatiyya. These will be discussed first.
Muhammad as-Samman (1718-1775) was a famous `alim and mystic, teaching in Madina. He was initiated in various other turuq besides the Khalwatiyya (notably the Qadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya, and Shadhiliyya), and combined elements from all of these into his own distinctive Khalwatiyya branch, which is usually called Sammaniyya (see Grandin 1985:173-5). His most celebrated Indonesian disciple was `Abd as-Samad al-Palimbani, who is generally considered to be the person who introduced the Sammaniyya into the Archipelago. However, the Celebes branch does not derive from `Abd as-Samad.
According to a local tradition in the Banjar region of South Borneo, three other Indonesians studied together with `Abd as-Samad at the feet of Muhammad Samman. The most celebrated of them is Muhammad Arshad al-Banjari (best known for his Malay fiqh work Sabil al-muhtadin); the others were Masri Betawi (an Arab scholar from Batavia) and `Abd al-Wahhab Bugis (Zamzam 1979:8). The last-named then would have been the first Bugis to become a devotee of the Sammaniyya. He appears not to have returned to Celebes, however, and therefore cannot have spread the tariqa there. After his return from Arabia he settled at Martapura near Muhammad Arshad, whose son-in-law he had become.
Shaikh Samman had at least one other Indonesian student, a certain Yusuf from Bogor, and he seems to have been the first to spread the Sammaniyya to Celebes. We find his silsila in an appendix to the Malay version of the Khalwati treatise an-Nur al-hadi.[20] The author of this treatise (possibly the said ruler of Bone, Ahmad as-Salih) states at the beginning that it is based on the teachings of the great Shaikh Yusuf of Makasar and a second Yusuf, who was qadi in Bone. It is likely that this second Yusuf was the man from Bogor mentioned in the appendix. It was not at all unusual for the important position of qadi in the kingdoms of the archipelago to be filled by non-local scholars.
This first incursion of Sammani influence was, as shown by Ahmad as-Salih's treatise, quite naturally integrated into the existing tradition established by Shaikh Yusuf Makasar. This tradition remained eclectic; a large part of the Malay an-Nur al-hadi is in fact devoted to what it calls the Qadiriyya, apparently introduced by the same Yusuf of Bogor.[21] There are no indications, however, that this Yusuf of Bogor established a lasting presence of the Sammaniyya in Celebes besides among Bone's royal family. It is said that the king of Bone prevented commoners from studying the tariqa, guarding its spiritual 'knowledge' as a royal privilege (Rahman n.d.:14). All later branches of the Khalwatiyya-Samman appear to have another affiliation.
The present Khalwatiyya-Samman (which is just another name for the Sammaniyya) of South Celebes derives from another khalifa of Shaikh Muhammad Samman, Siddiq b. `Umar Khan, also a resident of Madina. In fact, `Abd as-Samad was first initiated in the Sammaniyya by the same Siddiq, and only later completed his studies with Muhammad Samman himself. Siddiq b. `Umar Khan wrote,
for the benefit of `Abd as-Samad, a commentary on as-Samman's an-Nafahat al-qudsiyya,[22] titled Qatf azhar al-mawahib ar-rabbaniyya.[23] All present South Celebes silsila descend from Shaikh Siddiq through a South Sumatran disciple named Idris b. `Uthman, who settled in Sumbawa, where he had Bugis disciples. He appointed as his khalifa `Abdallah al-Munir, the son of a Bugis noble from Bone and a local (Bimanese?) princess. `Abdallah al-Munir's son, Muhammad Fudail, later settled in Barru in South Celebes and is credited with establishing the Khalwatiyya-Samman in the region.[24]
Haji Palopo and the propagation of the Khalwatiyya-Samman
Muhammad Fudail himself does not appear to have had a very wide influence but he did acquire a few disciples, mainly among the nobility. A short Buginese manuscript originating from Bone mentions both the ruler, Ahmad as-Salih, as a teacher of the Khalwatiyya and the much younger Muhammad Fudail and his son `Abd al-Ghani (but not Fudail's successor Haji Palopo) as holy men whose blessing should be invoked.[25] Apparently the nobility of Bone adopted Muhammad Fudail as a teacher after the demise of Yusuf Bogor and Ahmad as-Salih.
But it was no longer the high nobility alone that was initiated in the tariqa. Muhammad Fudail's chief khalifa, Haji Palopo alias `Abd ar-Razzaq, appears to have belonged to the lower nobility. He was also of Bone origin (Palopo is a personal name in this case, and does not refer to the capital city of Luwu), but travelled much, initiating people throughout South Celebes. As his son and successor `Abdallah later told a Dutch official, Haji Palopo 'was invited everywhere by the rulers of South Celebes, by the ruler of Bone as well as Goa, those of Soppeng and Pare-Pare; and everywhere he found disciples, especially among the anakkaraeng (higher nobility)'.[26] When his father began his teachings, he added, the tariqa had only a handful of followers, chiefly among the high nobility, while in his own time there were several hundred. He did not even know all his father's khalifa, and was regularly visited by people from other districts who brought him presents because he was now the Puang Lompo, 'the highest teacher'.
Haji Palopo settled in the district of Maros, which since then has been the centre of the tariqa (although there were a few shifts from one village to another). He appointed khalifa to other districts, notably to Bone and Pangkajene. The tariqa also gained followers in areas that were still only superficially Islamicized. An interesting anecdote relates how the tariqa became established in the districts of Sidenreng and Rappang. A local noble, Andi Mambolong, who had a reputation for prowess in the martial arts and associated magic, traveled to Maros to acquire mystical-magical knowledge from Haji Palopo. He returned as a khalifa of the Khalwatiyya and began teaching its mystical techniques to the commoners around him (the anecdote speaks explicitly of peasants and agricultural workers!). He initially de-emphasized the Islamic character of these teachings, and named them To Warani To Kebbeng, '[the way of] the daring and the invulnerable'. Only after he had attracted a sufficient number of disciples, who were primarily interested in the dhikr as a way of acquiring magical powers, did he start explaining basic sufi ideas to them and employing the name of tariqa Samman (Amin 1983:66-7). In such ways the tariqa spread to ever broader strata of society, no doubt at the expense of spiritual sophistication.[27]
Haji Palopo died around 1910. His descendants, who succeeded him in Maros (the first of whom was the said Haji `Abdallah), were recognized by the other regional groups as the supreme shaikhs, Puang Lompo.[28] After Haji `Abdallah's death in 1964, this position was held successively by his three sons, Muhammad Salih (d. 1968), Muhammad Amin (d. 1970), and Ibrahim (d. 1982). The present Puang Lompo is Ibrahim's son `Abdallah.
Under Haji `Abdallah's leadership, the following of the tariqa continued to increase, and began drawing the attention and apprehensions of the Dutch as well as of Muslim authorities. The Dutch noted around 1918-19 that 'in the district of Bone and the subdistricts of Palopo and Malili the number of followers of [the Khalwatiyya or Sammaniyya] was growing' (Eerdmans n.d.:1094). These east-coast districts were quite far removed from Haji `Abdallah's own base in Maros, in the west. There were khalifa all over South Celebes then, who in turn appointed their own deputies (who had, however, to be ordained by the Puang Lompo). Not only men, but also women were initiated into the tariqa and took part in its communal dhikr.[29]
Other `ulama were apprehensive of the growing popularity of the Khalwatiyya-Samman, which may have threatened their own authority. In the 1920s, the Khalwatiyya ran into fierce opposition for the first time. Anonymous letters were sent around accusing the tariqa of heterodox teachings and illicit sexual activities at nightly meetings. The Dutch were warned, often anonymously too, that the tariqa was plotting against the government.
Opposition to the Khalwatiyya
When he was interviewed by the controleur of Maros in 1924, Haji `Abdallah defended himself against some of the earlier accusations.[30] They had started, he said, soon after his father's death, after he had been invited for the first time by the ruler of Bone. Someone had sent an anonymous letter to the governor, accusing the khalifa in Bone, Pangkajene, and Maros itself of cheating the populace by charging high prices for very poor religious instruction and, more seriously, of indulging in immoral practices. The dhikr was allegedly performed in the company of young virgins, who as a consequence became pregnant. An official investigation found both accusations groundless, but the campaign of slander continued. Haji `Abdallah complained that on one visit to Bone, where he came to collect a loan, he had been arrested and deported by the assistent-resident, who accused him of begging and extorting the population. During another visit to the court of Bone, one of the nobles gave the ruler, in Haji `Abdallah's presence, a highly pornographic account of the orgies that allegedly took place during the nightly Khalwati dhikr. Another claimed that, when heated by the Khalwati dhikr, the murid saw God in the form of a man whose entire (apparently naked) body was covered with hair.
Such accusations against religious minorities and sects are found in all times and places, and may say more about the accusers than about the accused. The dhikr meetings are closed to outsiders, and the participation of women must have titillated people's fantasies. The loudness of the dhikr, and the violent bodily movements accompanying it, which must have made the fragile wooden and bamboo musalla vibrate, may have given further food for suspicion. None of the accusations of sexual misdemeanours was ever substantiated, as Haji `Abdallah reminded his interlocutor. But rumours still circulate.
Another, and more serious, offensive was opened against the mystical doctrines that were taught by Haji `Abdallah and other khalifa. These were pervaded with wahdat al-wujud, and according to opponents, the Khalwatiyya khalifa simplified this doctrine to the extent that they proclaimed the identity of worshipper and Worshipped, of man and God. (Hence perhaps the claim, reported above, that during the dhikr the devotees perceived God in the form of a hairy man.) In his 1924 statement to the controleur of Maros quoted above, Haji `Abdallah expressly denied this interpretation. The tariqa, he said, was a way of achieving direct knowledge of God and of bringing one's spirit into His proximity. 'But this should never', he continued, 'lead one to declare "I am God"; he who says so is a heretic and will not escape punishment.' The distinction between what he actually taught and this well-known pantheist simplification may not have been clear to his opponents - nor, for that matter, to all his followers. Present khalifa of the order speak of fana fi Allah, 'extinction (of the individual personality) in God', rather than of identity, but at least some followers seem to believe that because of their merging with God, they will attain a divine position in the hereafter (see Djamas 1985:330).
While the fiqh-oriented 'traditional' `ulama felt uneasy about Ibn al-`Arabi's ideas, the Muslim modernists saw them as dangerous unbelief that had to be extirpated. Modernist Islam gained a foothold in South Celebes from the early 1920s on. The first local branch of the Muhammadiyah was founded in Makasar (Ujung Pandang) in 1926, while other parts of the province soon followed suit (see Mattulada 1983). Modernism spread rapidly and soon became influential because, it appears, it was adopted by young members of the nobility in conflict with the older generation (Harvey 1974:96-8). Like the tariqa in an earlier period, modernism thus entered South Celebes society from the top. Much of the modernists' reformist zeal was directed against mystical beliefs and practices, and the Khalwatiyya was a prime target.
In 1930, Haji `Abdallah wrote to the governor of Celebes, complaining that the modernist qadi of Luwu, Haji Ramli, prevented the local population from joining the tariqa. There were, he claimed, a thousand people who wished to be initiated, but they were stopped by the qadi, who also forbade other traditional religious practices.[31] The precise reasons why the qadi opposed the tariqa are not clear from this letter; the old accusation of sexual misdemeanour was mentioned, but the qadi had, Haji `Abdallah claimed, refused to give other arguments why he rejected the tariqa as un-Islamic.
A more explicit condemnation followed in 1931, when Bugis `ulama (not all of them modernists) urged the young ruler of Bone to request a fatwa on Haji `Abdallah's Khalwatiyya from the visiting Arab `alim, Sayyid `Abdallah b. Sadaqa Dahlan. This scholar already enjoyed a certain reputation as an opponent of the mystical orders. He had recently written a polemical tract against the Tijaniyya, which ever since has been the major reference of all Indonesian opponents of that tariqa.[32] Sayyid `Abdallah Dahlan issued the requested fatwa, declaring the Khalwatiyya of Haji `Abdallah heretical and contrary to Islam. He based his verdict on a booklet by Haji `Abdallah, which, he concluded, affirmed wahdat al-wujud and proclaimed the identity of creature and Creator. Haji `Abdallah quoted from Ibn al-`Arabi's Fusus and Futuhat and similar works, as well as from more orthodox sufi texts, to which he allegedly gave an unwarranted pantheist twist.[33] Sayyid `Abdallah Dahlan's fatwa was co-signed by two Arab and twenty-three Bugis `ulama, including the four qadi of Luwu (the said Haji Ramli), Bone, Soppeng and Rappang.[34]
This powerful opposition did not prevent the tariqa from continually attracting new followers, however. While in 1924 Haji `Abdallah still counted his followers by the hundreds, there were soon thousands, and a few decades later tens of thousands. The opposition also continued, and was particularly severe during the years of Darul Islam rule (1953-65). Kahar Muzakkar had previously been affiliated with Muhammadiyah; other leaders of the Darul Islam were also modernists. They imposed a strict ban on tariqa practices in the area under their control (although among the Darul Islam forces there were followers of the order, who continued to practise it in secret).[35] The Darul Islam was finally suppressed by the central government, but the Khalwatiyya kept meeting much opposition from other `ulama. In 1968, the old fatwa of Sayyid `Abdallah Dahlan was reprinted, with a warning of hellfire awaiting those led astray by the tariqa.
It was probably with the aim of receiving a certain amount of government protection that in 1971 Haji Ibrahim, who had just succeeded his brother Muhammad Amin as the Puang Lompo, joined the government's political machine Golkar, one of the first `ulama to do so. In this and all following election years, the Puang Lompo and his khalifa campaigned on behalf of Golkar. It was a mutually beneficial alliance; the Khalwatiyya-Samman could deliver a large number of votes and in return had access to various facilities. Criticism of the order, moreover, became somewhat muted though by no means silenced. This aided the further spread of the order. Most of the towns in South Celebes now have a mosque controlled by the Khalwatiyya-Samman; the provincial capital Ujung Pandang has no less than five (Rahman n.d.:21). Followers of the tariqa are to be found in all the major Bugis communities elsewhere in the Archipelago.
Conclusion
The Khalwatiyya-Samman of Haji Palopo and his descendants now clearly outshines the older branch of the Khalwatiyya, which is still associated with Shaikh Yusuf. Its following appears to consist almost exclusively of Bugis, however, and to have made only minor inroads among the Makasarese and Mandarese. Significantly, one study of religious life in a village in Goa (Djamas 1985) shows that all followers of the Khalwatiyya-Samman there belong to the Bugis minority. The development of the Khalwatiyya-Samman over the past century is relatively well-documented, if only because of the reactions it provoked among other `ulama as well as administrators. We know much less about the development of the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf, although this too must have experienced appreciable growth during the same period. With its tens of thousands of followers, it also deserves to be called a mass movement. It is perhaps most firmly established among the Makasarese, but also has numerous Bugis followers (and Bugis khalifa). Because its followers never set themselves apart from the other believers, and did not engage in suspicion-arousing loud dhikr, it never gave rise to the sort of conflicts that drew attention to the other branch.
The popularity of these two Khalwatiyya branches shows that the tariqa does not, as has often been assumed, represent a survival from the past, that will gradually wither away. The Khalwatiyya did not become a mass movement until the twentieth century. To be sure, the modernist Muhammadiyah is much better organized, and has established an effective network of schools. The same is true of the more traditional educational organization Darud Da'wah wal Irsyad, which was established in 1947 and now claims over a thousand madrasah in South Celebes alone, with another hundred or so among the Bugis communities elsewhere. In sheer number of followers, however, the Khalwatiyya has not done worse; it may even outnumber these organizations. It is firmly rooted in the soil of South Celebes and will be one of the major factors shaping the face of Islam there for some time to come.--------------
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Notes:
[1]These statistics were shown me during a visit to Ujung Pandang in February 1985. Abu Hamid (1983:361) quotes the even higher number of 259,982 followers of the Khalwatiyya-Samman in 1976. These figures may be compared, as I do below, with the population figures of the 1971 census, published in Sulawesi Selatan dalam angka 1971.
[2]Drs Ahmad Rahman of the Research Bureau of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Ujung Pandang, personal communication. Drs Ahmad Rahman took part in a research project on the world view of Indonesia's `ulama, carried out by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) during 1986-88, in which I was also involved. He helped me obtain some rare materials, while his unpublished reports on the `ulama of South Sulawesi also are an important source of information. Another person whose help I wish to acknowledge here is the Bugis anthropologist Drs Abu Hamid of Universitas Hasanuddin, Ujung Pandang, who was the first to explain to me the differences between these two branches of the Khalwatiyya.
[3]See the report in the reformist (anti-tariqa) magazine Panji Masyarakat, no. 548 (11-20 August 1987), 40-2.
[4]The sole extant copy of this treatise, in which Yusuf lists the various turuq in which he was initiated and gives for each his silsila (spiritual pedigree), was in a majmu`a that Hamka brought from South Sulawesi to Jakarta. This manuscript was in very poor condition, and Professor Tudjimah of Universitas Indonesia wisely had it transcribed before it had become entirely illegible; she kindly provided me with a photocopy of this transcription. For a description of the contents of this majmu`a, see Chapter 3 of my forthcoming book on the Nashbandiyya in Indonesia.
[5]Yusuf's silsila lists, in ascending order: Ayyub b. Ahmad al-Khalwati al-Qurashi ad-Dimashqi, Shihab ad-Din Ahmad b. `Umar [al-`Asali] al-Hariri ash-Shami, Shah Wali al-Halabi al-`Ajami, [Ahmad ar-Rumi], Abu Yusuf Ya`qub al-`Aintabi, Mulla Darwish [or: Da'ud] ar-Rumi, Mulla Shams ad-Din ar-Rumi, [Uwais al-Qarani ath-Thani ar-Rumi (should be: al-Qaramani)], Muhammad [Jamal ad-Din] al-Aqsarayi, `Abdallah al-Arkazani (should be: al-Arzinjani), Yahya ash-Shirwani, Saur ad-Din Pir `Umar ar-Rumi al-Aydini, Dede `Umar al-Khalwati ar-Rumi, Abu `Abdallah Muhammad [Nur], Ibrahim az-Zahid al-Jilani, Jamal [ad-Din] at-Tabrizi, Shihab ad-din Ahmad at-Tabrizi, Jamal ad-Din Muhammad at-Tabrizi Rukn ad-Din as-Sinjasi, [Muhammad al-Abhari], Abu'n-Najib as-Suhrawardi, `Umar b. Muhammad Suhrawardi, Abu Ahmad Aswad ad-Dainawari, Mumthad al-`Alawi ad-Dinawari, Junaid al-Baghdadi. Not all names were legible; the emendations in brackets were made on the basis of a silsila of a later follower of the Khalwatiyya-Yusuf in the same majmu`a. Yusuf's teacher and his predecessor were well-known and highly respected men; see the biographical notices in Muhibbi's Khulasat al-athar I:428-33 and 248-50, respectively. This is one of the major lines of affiliation in the Khalwatiyya, see Kissling 1953, Trimingham 1973:74-6, and De Jong 1977. Yusuf calls his teacher a shaikh of the Khalwatiyya Ahmadiyya, the name given to the branch deriving from Ahmad Shams ad-Din of Maghnisa (d. 1504), with whom we may identify the Mulla Shams ad-Din ar-Rumi in the silsila.
[6]Nur ad-Din ar-Raniri writes of his uncle's coming to Aceh in his Bustan as-salatin (Iskandar 1966:32-34).
[7]Nur ad-Din gives this silsila in his Jawahir al-`ulum; see al-Attas 1986:14-5.
[8]The Qadiri and Rifa`i silsila diverge from Shihab ad-Din Ahmad b. Abi Bakr ar-Raddad (d. 1418?) up. Five of the intervening shaikhs belong to the al-`Aidarus family; the common teacher of both Raniri is Abu Hafs `Umar b. `Abdallah Ba Shaiban at-Tarimi (d. 1656).
[9]See my forthcoming book on the Naqshbandiyya.
[10]Yusuf gives the name of his teacher simply as Sayyid `Ali; the silsila continues from son to father through the sayyids Abu Bakr, `Abdallah, `Umar, ash-Shihab, `Abd ar-Rahman, `Ali, `Abdallah, `Umar al-Muhdar, `Abd ar-Rahman as-Saqqaf, to Muhammad Maula ad-Dawila the Second and the First, then to a paternal uncle, `Abdallah al-`Aidarus, his father Sayyid Muhammad 'al-muqaddam sahib Tarim Hadramaut' and grandfather `Ali, and a few more distant ancestors, `Alwi, Muhammad, `Alwi, `Abdallah, after whom the silsila breaks off. The `Aydarus family belongs to the Saqqaf branch of the Ba `Alawi Hadrami sayyids. Sayyid Muhammad 'sahib Tarim' and his father `Ali are well-known persons (although other sources mention `Ali (d. 1133) as the one who first settled in Tarim); their descendants in this silsila are not well-known. See Lfgren 1960a, 1960b.
[11]Sirhindi's attitude towards Ibn al-`Arabi was not, however, as unambiguously negative as has often been claimed by his later admirers as well as detractors. See Yohanan Friedmann's important study (1971).
[12]This is argued convincingly by al-Attas (1986) and is also implicitly clear from the analysis in Ahmad Daudy (1983). Raniri's opposition to Hamzah's followers was probably primarily political rather than purely doctrinal.
[13]The contents of Yusuf's writings available in the Jakarta and Leiden collections are summarized in Tudjimah CS (1987). This study does not, however, cover the manuscript mentioned in note 5, which contains several other treatises by Yusuf, including the most substantial one, Habl al-warid li-sa`adat al-murid, and the biographically important Safinat an-najah. The attribution to Yusuf of some of the short texts discussed by Tudjimah is, on the other hand, very doubtful.
[14]There may be one exception. The South Sumatran Sammani shaikh K.H.M. Zen Syukri of Palembang told me in March 1990 that he owned a manuscript with some treatises by Yusuf. It had been borrowed, however, so that I could not see it then. Kyai Zen Syukri promised me a photocopy, but died before his manuscript was returned.
[15]A letter to Karaeng Karunrung, written in 1084/1672, is still extant in the majmu`a mentioned in note 4. Yusuf expresses regret at not being able to meet the prince and thanks him for things sent to him (subtly remarking that the money has not reached him). The remainder of the letter consists of moral advice of the sufi kind.
[16]After one such request for Yusuf's return, in 1689, the VOC president at Fort Rotterdam, Hartsink, reported that 'the request had come from the common man, and the masses in Makassar hold this same Syaikh in such great love and awe as though he were a second Muhammad' (quoted in Andaya 1981:277). Commoners and nobles had collected a large sum to pay for the shaikh's return. Andaya suggests that a possible reason why the king so much wanted Yusuf's return was the hope that he could 'infuse a strong sense of unity and hope once again in the demoralized Makassar lands' (Andaya 1981:277).
[17]This silsila, with a short religious admonition (wasiyya) written by `Abd al-Wahid in 1145/1733, is to be found in the majmu`a that has been repeatedly referred to.
[18]`Abd al-Basir's association with Rappang might indicate that he was a Bugis, but both the respect he was shown by the Goa ruler and the fact that his khalifa was a Makasarese too (Majannang is a place in Goa) suggest that he was a Makasarese. Rappang was outside the control of Bone; when the Bone crown prince fell out with strongman Arung Palakka (in 1673), he also fled to Rappang to unite with other opponents of Arung Palakka (Andaya 1981:148). `Abd al-Basir's choice to reside there may also have had political reasons.
[19][an-]Nur al-hadi ila tariq ar-rashad. An Arabic version of this work is extant in the manuscript A 108 in the Jakarta National Library, which contains also six treatises by Yusuf, and which once belonged to Ahmad as-Salih himself. There are also Buginese and Malay versions of this work (see Cense 1950:55-6; see also below).
[20]MS ML 69, Jakarta National Library. The appendix is written in Buginese script, only the names of teachers being in Arabic script. The first names are: Yusuf Bukur (i.e., Bogor), Muhammad b. `Abd al-Karim as-Sammani, `Abd ar-Rahim b. `Abd al-Latif, Mustafa al-Bakri, `Abd al-Latif Afandi, `Ali Afandi Qirbas (Qarabash), Khair ad-Din al-Kharqani, Muhyi ad-Din al-Qa[s]tamuni and Isma`il al-Jurumi.
[21]The silsila given here ascends from Yusuf Tibuku (i.e., of Cibogo near Bogor) through Muhammad Abu Tahir al-Kurani (d. 1733) and his father Ibrahim al-Kurani (who did teach the Qadiriyya, among others) to Ahmad Qushashi, Ahmad Shinnawi, Muhammad al-Ghauth, Haji Huzur, Hidayat Allah Sarmast etc. This is, in fact, a well-known Shattari, not Qadiri line of affiliation (see Rizvi 1983:154ff).
[22]Sic! This appears to be a contamination of the titles of two works by as-Samman, an-Nafahat al-ilahiyya and al-Futuhat al-qudsiyya, both of them rather general works on sufism. The Nafahat is considered as as-Samman's major work.
[23]A small fragment of this important work is in the Jakarta National Library (Ms A 450, see Van Ronkel 1913, no. 279). The Sammani khalifa K.H. Muhammad Zen Syukri of Palembang owned a complete copy, which he gracefully allowed me to photocopy. This copy was written in the Sammani zawiya in Ta'if between 1197/1783 and 1202/1788, perhaps by `Abd as-Samad himself, who completed parts of his Sair al-salikin in Taif in those years.
[24]I owe these biographical data on Idris b. `Uthman and his successors to Drs Ahmad Rahman of Ujung Pandang. `Abdallah al-Munir's father bore the title of Arung Ujung Baso Bukaka, his mother that of Lalan Datuk Melse. Muhammad Fudail's Bugis name was Lolo Panenrang Daeng Manessa (see Rahman n.d.:14-5).
[25]This manuscript is in the possession of Drs Ahmad Rahman in Ujung Pandang. The contents are briefly described in Rahman n.d.:14.
[26]'Mededeeling omtrent de Tarequat Hadji Palopo, door Hadji Palopo's zoon Hadji Abdullah bin Abdul Razak, bijgenaamd Poeang Lompo', typescript dated May 24, 1924. KITLV, Kern Collection, H 797, inv. no. 323.
[27]This is not to say that the earliest devotees of the Khalwatiyya, the nobility, were not primarily interested in the tariqa for the invulnerability and other magical powers associated with it. If the Bone ruler Ahmad Salih prevented the commoners from following the Khalwatiyya, this was not only because he deemed them incapable of understanding its spiritual teachings but also because the magical powers had to remain a monopoly of the nobility.
[28]There is one exception: the descendants of Haji Palopo's teacher, Muhammad Fudail, continue to consider themselves as the rightful claimants to central authority. They have not been very successful, however. The successive khalifa of this genealogical line were Muhammad Fudail's son `Abd al-Ghani, `Abd as-Samad, Abu Bakr (known as Puang Labbang, in Pangkajene; d. 1970), Shams ad-Din, and the present khalifa, Tahir b. Shams ad-Din alias Puang Lolo, who is based in Ujung Pandang but also has followers in Pangkajene, Maros, and Barru (Rahman n.d.:17-8).
[29]According to Haji `Abdallah, in speaking to his Dutch interrogator, in the document cited above. Women taking part in the dhikr had to maintain modesty; they could only whisper, not shout loudly like the men, nor were they allowed to make wild bodily movements.
[30]The following is summarized after KITLV, Kern Collection, H 797, inv. no. 323.
[31]Letter enclosed in KITLV, Kern Collection, H 797, inv. no. 454.
[32]See Pijper 1934:111-6. Sayyid `Abdallah hailed from Mecca and was a cousin or nephew of the late Shafi`i mufti of that city, Ahmad b. Zaini Dahlan. He was for some time the mufti of Kedah in Malaya and then came to Java, where he lived in Batavia and later in Garut. He wrote his anti-Tijani tract also at the request of local `ulama; the prestige of his family no doubt added to its impact. When controversies around the Tijaniyya flared up again in the 1980s, especially in East Java, the Madurese kyai As'ad Syamsul Arifin of Situbondo, who saw his position threatened by the order's growing popularity, had the tract reprinted, both in the original Arabic and in a Madurese translation.
[33]The other 'heretical' works quoted by Haji `Abdallah were al-Jili's al-Insan al-kamil and the nineteenth-century Jami` al-usul fi'l-auliya' (by the Turkish Naqshbandi shaikh Diya' ad-Din Gumushkhanawi), while he allegedly misquoted from Ibn `Ata' Allah's al-Hikam and Zain ad-Din al-Malibari's Hidayat al-adhkiya', two very popular sufi texts. I have been unable to find a copy of the booklet concerned. Sayyid `Abdallah's reading of it gives the impression of being ungenerous and biased if not malevolent. He does not adduce any literal quotations to support his conclusions, and I doubt whether the author would have agreed to this rephrasing of his words.
[34]This fatwa was reprinted, with Buginese and Indonesian translations, in Watampone (Bone) in 1968. Photocopy kindly procured by Drs Ahmad Rahman.
[35]Interview with a former Darul Islam fighter, Palopo, February 1965. It was impossible, he told, to perform the loud dhikr within hearing of other people, but he and his friends would recite the dhikr silently, especially when in danger.