Islam in the Early Modern Javanese Courts: Not Syncretism, But Dialogic Encounter

Abstract All too often, Islam in the early modern Javanese courts is trivialized by being called a form of syncretism . This article calls that trivialization into question through an exploration of Islamic traditions in Java from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, in large part as they are revealed in a selection of writings produced by Javanese subjects associated with those courts. This brief historical review argues that the living Islamic traditions of Java comprise “conversations” formed from historically situated “dialogic encounters” between and among Javanese Muslims, the Revelatory experience, and the greater Islamic tradition – suggesting at the same time that such “conversations” also comprise Islamic traditions elsewhere in the Muslim world. This historical overview also sheds light on the fields of ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox that these conversations traverse.