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A visual pilgrimage to 'living' tombs of `Walisanga'
No modern, critical historian is able to talk with great confidence about when and how the religion of Islam was spread in Java, let alone confirm the historicity of the walisanga, the nine quasi-mythical Islamic saints who were believed to have Islamized the Hindu-Buddhist communities on the island
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No modern, critical historian is able to talk with great confidence about when and how the religion of Islam was spread in Java, let alone confirm the historicity of the walisanga, the nine quasi-mythical Islamic saints who were believed to have Islamized the Hindu-Buddhist communities on the island.
History and myth are often intertwined in traditional sources, while foreign records mostly provide a vague, or even inaccurate, depiction of the island's early Muslim settlers and converts.
Discourses on the arrival and spread of the Abrahamic religion in Java -- and throughout the Indonesian archipelago in general -- have generally been academically polemical with historians from different nationalities (Dutch, French, Australian and Indonesian) offering different theories.
Yet, most Javanese seem to pay no heed to the quarrels of these academics -- regardless of their arguments and evidence.
As writer Seno Gumira Ajidarma said; "it doesn't really matter whether the historians are still arguing about the role of the wali in history, for their tombs alone have brought them to the spiritual ecstasy they need most in their lives."
Seno, a journalist and prolific fiction writer, has artistically captured through his camera the dynamic of life that surrounds the consecrated tombs of the wali while writing short articles on the subject for Intisari magazine.
His articles have been compiled into a book titled Sembilan Wali & Siti Jenar (Nine Saints and Siti Jenar) and his photographs are now on display in an exhibition with the same title at the Japan Foundation from Sept. 8 to 19.
"I wrote a series of articles on the walisanga and Siti Jenar for the magazine from October 2005 to August 2006, during which time I was required to provide some illustrations of the wali.
"It was certainly impossible for me to take their pictures, though they sometimes miraculously appeared to me in the form of drawings sold by vendors near their tombs. What I did was photograph their tombs -- and I really have no idea how pictures of tombs can turn out to be *beautiful' pictures," Seno said.
A pilgrimage to the holy places of Islam in Java is a living tradition that has survived the assaults of not only the rationality of the modern world, but also the ongoing wave of Islamic puritanism which abhors pilgrimages to any tombs, including the Prophet's.
The pictures in the exhibit show how people are willing to travel far, some on foot, from east to west or vice versa, and devotedly pray before the tombs of the saints for days, or even months.
Was it like a miracle, Seno asked, that the world of the deceased could provide a living for the living? Most of the cemetery complexes are often crowded by pilgrims, caretakers, small vendors and beggars, who create a world beyond the mute gravestones and beautiful gardens.
However, the cemetery is not always packed with pilgrims. On certain days, the tombs are closed to the public, and in such moments the silent tombs seem to be telling their stories.
Behind the mystical aura emanating from the ornamented gravestones, there are many kinds of stories -- historical and mythical -- that signify their existence.
In his picture of the grave of Binti Maymun (the daughter of Maymun), believed to be the "niece" of the first wali Malik Ibrahim or Sunan Gresik, Seno quoted the opinions of authoritative historians that the date written on the gravestone actually made Binti Maymun older than her "uncle".
The tombs of the nine saints -- from Sunan Gresik in East Java to Sunan Gunung Jati in West Java -- are shrouded with myths and historical speculations. Strange as it seems, but one wali could have more than one grave. Stories, whether they are true or not, are preserved by the people who keep the graves to maintain their existence.
Myth, Seno said, was inimical to the production of meaning when any attempt to break it was prohibited. The publication of his article on Siti Jenar, the controversial mystic who was believed to be executed by the nine wali for heretically proclaiming himself as God, for instance, was postponed out of fear of angry protests from Siti Jenar followers; in the article he was called a cacing tanah (an earthworm).
"It is a metaphor. The term cacing tanah symbolizes Siti Jenar's earthly life. Attempts to interpret his life will always be controversial, and therefore what is needed is a new discourse to acquire new meanings," Seno said.
The exhibit is more than just a visual pilgrimage. The tombs that appear in black and white photographs represent the world of the spirit as believed by mystics, and they also provide a blurry story of the past that historians try to elucidate.
Thus, the exhibit, though located in a modern building on Jl. Sudirman, perhaps also offers a spiritual as well as intellectual pilgrimage to the world of the wali for those who seek them, especially during this holy month.
