Hasan Mustapa ― Ethnicity and Islam in Indonesia

Hasan Mustapa (1857-1930) was a scholar, mystic and poet who studied in Mecca for thirteen years before commencing his career as an Islamic official in the Netherlands East Indies. He wrote a number of sufistic treatises on Islamic belief and practice, mostly in the Sundanese language. His name and writings are referenced in much modern public discourse. Indonesians interpret his work as a characteristically Indonesian mediation of Islamic concepts belonging to the intellectual lineage of figures such as Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240) and 'Abd al-Karim Al-Jili (d. 1424). Apart from that, members of the Sundanese ethnic group of West Java-who currently number around forty million-have shown renewed interest in his work as a model for nurturing a pro-diversity ethic in the province's unsettled Islamic public sphere. Hasan Mustapa is comprised of chapters by Sudanese scholars, alongside the editor's contributions. Some essays provide introductions to Mustapa's life and work, while others perform a discursive move of increasing importance in contemporary Indonesia: reaching into a regional Islamic past to make authoritative statements about the present. Together, the chapters form a timely addition to the literature on a question of growing importance: what influence should regional traditions have in contemporary Islamic societies? (Series: Vernacular Indonesia) [Subject: Islamic Studies, Indonesian Studies, Asian Studies]