Khalwatiah Sammān : a popular Sufi Islamic movement in South Sulawesi, Indonesia (1820s-1998)

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Khalwatiah Sammān Sufi brotherhood (tarekat) in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and attempts to explain the reason for its continuing success since its origins in the first half of the nineteenth century. A major reason, I contend, is the very close relationship that is maintained between its leaders (Shaikh, Murshīd, Khalīfah) and its followers (sanakmangaji) through the legitimization of the authority of the former via Islamic spiritual ideas (taṣawwuf). The emergence of this tarekat was the result of the confluence in the nineteenth century of two important developments: the expansion of European colonialism in Muslim lands around the world, and the rise of the puritanical Wahabi movement centered in the heartland of Islam. The links between the Islamic heartland and the Malay-Indonesian archipelago grew stronger in this period, as religious discourses, particularly Sufism, became increasingly influential in the ummah, or community of believers, "below the winds." The Khalwatiah Sammān tarekat in South Sulawesi appealed far more to the commoners than the elite. Its eclectic religious perspective, though opposed by the orthodox modernist and traditional streams of Islam, was in fact a reason for its attraction among the ordinary people. One of its appeals is the practice of reciting the zikir (dzikr al-Jahri) as a congregation, rather than performing a private silent zikir as is done by other tarekats. Challenged by the two Islamic mainstreams--global Wahabism and local orthodoxy--the Khalawatiah Sammān responded by creating a tarekat that succeeded in demonstrating its legitimacy and orthodoxy through its scholarly leaders and their links to important Islamic teachers in Mecca and Medina, the Ḥaramayn. One of the major conclusions of this study is that Islam is not monolithic, and that groups such as the Khalwatiah Sammān demonstrate the dynamism of Islam in all its different cultural manifestations.