landscape

May 22, 2015

Landscapes of Environmental Prayer: Shifting Dedication

Landscapes of prayer for the environment in Indonesia are being transformed primarily through interventions of dedication and intent, and secondarily through structural form. Cases of observances of various forms of Muslim prayer, such as observances known as du’a, dhikr, and salawat are presented here by considering how a third term besides supplicant and deity, namely the natural world and its conditions, or “the environment,” comes to emerge or alternatively recede in changing landscapes of prayer. Expectations that prayer carry an intent, subject to the individual dedication of action, now coincide with an expanded array of options for dedication with respect to environmental change, both in the present and in the future.

Emerging structures and orientations for Muslim environmental religious observances are not dramatically new in terms of their formal enactments in Indonesia. By and large they preserve religious and ritual structures that predate the 20-21st centuries. New strategies to promote aspects of local “culture” in order to foster notions of environmental connection and responsibility may even revitalize otherwise declining practices. What is becoming altered, however, are possibilities for the dedication and orientation of practices that some Muslims now seek intentionally to promote as “environmental prayer.”

In the current era of the Anthropocene, in which human actions dominate planetary conditions, any global prayer practice could be said to be “about” the environment. Not only does the state of the biosphere determine human survival, just as it always has, but now humans alter those conditions irrevocably and on a global scale. To designate a prayer to be explicitly “environmental” is also new, just as the English-language expression, “the environment” (in contrast to a concept of “nature,” for example), is distinctively modern. Landscapes of prayer shift in Muslim Indonesia as a direct effect of changes in the natural world (alam), as in the case of a natural disaster, as well as with respect to the development of explicitly social ideas like that of “the environment” (lingkungan hidup).

As with other global faith traditions, typical Muslim religious expression related to “the environment” reflects expectations of instrumentalism: these acts are expected to be purposive or intended for something, rather than, say, performed self-justifyingly for their own sake. “Acts are known by their intentions” overall from the perspective of Islamic legal traditions, Paul R. Powers explains in his study of Muslim jurisprudence and philosophy. In other words, intention shapes the identity and recognition of any ritual act. Thus, to introduce a new intentional field, “the environment,” in ritual activity means also to reconfigure substantively the act itself.

We can understand niyya (Islamic ritual intent) by considering it first with respect to obligatory rituals in Islam, ‘ibadat (acts of worship) that are also rewarded in the life to come. These include the five pillars of Islam (such as praying, fasting, alms-giving and pilgrimage). Only with intent performed as an explicit component of action are these considered legally or spiritually valid: a good example of this is how the act of forming niyya is a requirement of salat (canonical worship) in Islam, as discussed in detail in a recent book on Islamic prayer by Marion H. Katz.

In modern Indonesian contexts, anthropologists John R. Bowen, writing on salat in Indonesia, and Mark R. Woodward, analyzing a Javanese ritual called the slametan, show how intention is a locus of practical and theological controversy and consensus in historical and cultural contexts. More generally, a wide range of disputes about the permissibility of practices in the history of Islamic thought and practice have long been resolved by an assessment of intent, whether in the modernist/reformist rhetoric of the colonial and post-colonial eras or long ago, in the time of the earliest development of Sufi expression.

In addition to acts of canonical worship known as salat, there are many types of “prayers” performed by Muslims in Islamic Indonesia and globally, and many sorts of purposes and non-formal intents go along with them. For example, du’a is the word for acts that fall within the category of supplicatory or petitionary prayer, whether performed in Arabic or another language that Muslims speak. Dhikr is a disciplined practice of repeated or repetitive piety; it may be performed communally or individually, and may be associated with esoteric expression or with the regimens of self-cultivation of Sufi orders. Dhikr may also be an act of devotion, such as rehearsing divine praise of the names of God after daily worship.

Muslims in Indonesia also engage in prayers in spaces and times that are contested. These include veneration performed at the tombs of holy or powerful figures such as the “Wali Songo” or “Nine Saints” of Java. Also controversial have been communal recitations like the mawlid (sometimes called barzanji for an author of one of the versions, and sometimes called salawat nabi) that venerates the Prophet Muhammad through his life story and praise. More theologically problematic still is the popular talqin reading, often Surat 36 Ya Sin of the Qur’an, observed in commemoration of the dead.

The prayer-types as outlined above follow a progression from what are probably the least contested practices (salat, du’a) to those that are considered more questionable among certain scholars (mawlid, talqin). The historical grounds for objections to such practices are usually that proper intention has been distracted or diverted; for example, reformers may claim that the questionable acts are not performed for the sake of Allah but rather for the sake of something else, like a saint’s intercession.

Texts of Islamic jurisprudence do authorize a form of environmental prayer that has a worldly dedication. These are salat prostrations for rain, called salat al-istisqa, which is based on a hadith (report) that the Prophet Muhammad conducted the practice. As a normative ritual, it is governed by guidelines that include a combination of du’as (prayer formulas) and rak’at (prostrations), just as are performed in daily salat. Classical books of fiqh treat it within a class of required salat on the occasion of unpredictable yet inevitable events, like funerals, and salat in the event of natural “signs” such as eclipses and earthquakes. The difference between salat al-istisqa and other salats in this grouping is that prayer for rain occurs before, not after, the event.

Another key difference between the required daily salat of worship and salat for rain is that the salat for rain is a petition for a specific outcome. As with most Muslim du’a, there is a third term added to the relation of God to supplicant: the event of falling rain. Present scholars of religion would feel at ease calling this practice “environmental” since it is a religious response to climate disturbance (i.e., drought). The Indonesian cases presented here, highlight environmental ritual practices that are performed in response to environmental conditions and those that anticipate them, and also practices that have been altered as a result of environmental change.

All of the cases discussed here relate to new prayer-intents, such as: formulating an explicit, instrumental purpose for an enactment; establishing an intent that is singled out from among other possibilities; and, making a dedication that is specifically “the environment.” I offer two pairings of ethnographic examples of prayer related to the environment in eastern and central Java, Indonesia. The first two of these cases are accounts of the effects of the catastrophic eruption of the volcano, Mount Merapi, in 2010. The other examples are instances of a transformation of older devotional practice (dhikr and salawat nabi) in new, “environmental” registers. These examples represent how intentional dislocation and re-ascription may be critical to contemporary practices of prayers, rendered with the environmental urgency that increasingly defines a shared global experience.

Part One: Landscapes of Environmental Prayer
Part Two: Mount Merapi, Prayer and Disaster
Part Three: Dedicating Environmental Devotions
Part Four: Islam and Prayers for the Environment in Java

May 22, 2015

Mount Merapi, Prayer and Disaster

Indonesia is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, and it is one of the most severely threatened due to deforestation, sea temperature rise and acidification, and other impacts of resource extraction and environmental degradation. Indonesia is also vulnerable to disasters, like earthquakes; these disasters may also be intensified by human factors, as in the case of severe weather events that are linked to climate change.

Disaster brought both the beginning and the end of prayer to the slopes of Mt. Merapi, Java, when the volcano erupted in 2010. Conditions of chaos and re-established social order following the catastrophic eruption transformed key relations of religious dedication. Below I consider two examples: one documents prayer arising spontaneously in the context of environmental crisis, while the other relates of the end of a kind of prayer, or more specifically a mode of its dedication, also brought on as a result of the disaster.

In Cangkringan District, Sleman, there is a pesantren (residential religious school, a madrasa) called Al-Qodir. It is located right at the boundary of what was the initial evacuation line at the time of the volcano’s eruption. This meant that the residents who fled from within the perimeter of the evacuation zone came to the pesantren as refugees in the first hours, days and weeks after the eruption. (For another firsthand story of an Islamic pesantren and disaster relief in the area, see the end of this video, taken in 2011, explaining efforts underway at Pondok Pesantren Pabelan, in Maggelang near the Borobudur monument.)

The leader, or kiai, of “Pondok Pesantren Al-Qodir” is K.H. Masrur Ahmad. In a 2014 interview in Ramadan, K.H. Masrur explained the chain of events at Al-Qodir at the time of the eruption:

Al-Qodir had already long been known as a center for interreligious activity, but in October and November 2010, the multifaith commitments of refugees and relief workers made it a site at which boundaries of religious practice were blended through shared, urgent need.

Sleman, Central Java, has been a region of tense conflict among Christians and Muslims; however, the recognition of common experience and intention made spontaneous, communal prayer possible at pesantren Al-Qodir in 2010. At time signature 3:20 in the video embedded above, K.H. Masrur narrates how interreligious prayer took shape as people gathered at the evacuation line. Communal prayer that broke down boundaries was made possible by shared purpose or intent, namely safety (5:29), which allowed members of different faith communities to come together in shared observances and in one voice.

The eruption brought other religious changes in Cangkingan over the long-term as well as the short term. Some alterations of prayer practices were exclusive, not inclusive, with respect to traditional intentions. This, however, did not mean that such practices disappeared. Rather, a purpose with respect to the natural world was recast in the context of disaster relief efforts.

The ritual called the labuhan is a longstanding annual Javanese observance during which offerings are made to the spirits of Mt. Merapi. These offerings, such as new clothes, are gifts from the sultan of Jogjakarta, provided to the mountain’s spirit-guardian. Besides Mt. Merapi, offerings are also made at two other locations linked to the kraton, the royal palace of Jogjakarta, Central Java. The ritual begins with simultaneous processions leading from the palace to the ritual sites, the mountains and the beach of the southern sea respectively. The labuhan on Mt. Merapi, however, changed in imagination if not in its form after the eruption of the volcano and the concurrent passing of the mountain’s juru kunci (gatekeeper), Mbah Maridjan. (This documentary film on Mbah Maridjan includes an historic interview with him.)

As the juru kunci of Mt. Merapi, Mbah Maridjan, now deceased, was charged with conducting the labuhan annually. In his lifetime, he was famous for his daily silent walks up the mountain to visit its special sites, during which villagers would accompany him. On the day of the worst eruption in October 2010, when the call came for evacuation, he did not leave his home in his village on the mountain. The red cloud of pyroclastic flow subsequently swept down the slope at a temperature estimated at 600 degrees centigrade. His burned body was found later in the position of salat prayer prostration. Thirty-nine others from his village also died, many of whom had returned to their homes when they thought it was “all clear” to retrieve their animals. In total, the eruption caused 350 fatalities on the mountain.The figure of Mbah Maridjan is now venerated widely. Many praise his dedication to his role as juru kunci and to the sacred mountain, and he is seen as having made the ultimate sacrifice in this capacity. His house, once buried in ash, and his adjacent grave have now become a tourist destination. The role of juru kunci has since been passed on to his son (see top photo), Mas Asih Surakso Hargo (“Pak Asih”). Pak Asih says he is the fourth juru kunci of his line, now serving under the tenth sultan of Jogjakarta; the lineage began in his family under the eighth sultan of Jogjakarta. He continues the ritual of the labuhan, which has transitioned in public imagination out of the domain of religious rite and into the realm of “culture” and “tradition.”

I took the hike up the mountain with Pak Asih early one morning in July (Ramadan) 2014. The path starts at the ruins of the village where he had lived with his father before the evacuation; the government prohibits re-settlement there. He explained that it had taken three months to clear the path up to the second post, where the labuhan ritual is now held. (It used to be conducted higher up at the third post, but the way there is still obstructed, blocked by debris and ash.) Following a narrow path of loose rock up the steep grade of the slope, I saw signs prohibiting hunting in the sacred area. We met numerous people coming to clear vegetation for feed for livestock, even though the government prohibits anyone to live for quite a distance below. One person said he was carrying wood, and a couple more came along with hunting dogs. Pak Asih was guarding the mountain through his watchful presence in the social and physical landscape during our long hike, talking to everyone we met, all of whom recognized him instantly. When we got as far as we would go, the second post, he asked to take a picture of me under a tree he himself had planted. We stopped for a while there, the location of the ritual since the eruption, as he uttered silent devotions. On the way back down, we chatted about environmental studies and the importance of protecting the watershed against deforestation. He showed me where Mbah Maridjan had planted trees whose leaves protect against malaria.

Pak Asih explains the labuhan ritual conducted at the top of the path in the following segment of video:

At the end of the clip (6:28), when asked about the changes to the ritual since the eruption, he responds in terms of the intensification and proliferation of activities, not their disappearance. Labuhan has become embedded in what is now a media event, he explains. Since the eruption, disaster relief efforts have promoted festivalization as a part of community-building initiatives; the multi-day event now includes traditional dances, shadow puppet theater and popular musical performances.

Prayer, as in labuhan devotions to the mountain-spirits, had become a public enactment of “cultural tradition.” Pak Asih explains this point in his own words in the video segment posted below, in which he narrates the complete origin-myth of the ritual, explaining why the mountain’s guardian, Sapu Jagad, receives offerings from the sultan during the labuhan every year:

He clarifies here emphatically that the purpose of the ritual is not to worship or petition the mountain, or its spirit, since these are the creations of Allah the Creator, who Alone is worthy of praise (8:10). In the final minute of the clip above, Pak Asih emphasizes that the labuhan is a practice of cultural heritage. Intent, if it was formerly to petition the mountain or its spirits, now conforms to confirmations that do not leave space for ontological ambiguity. Labuhan is still performed, and bigger than ever, but now as “culture” not “religion.” Dedicated purpose for prayer is has come consciously to be framed among various competing or complementary commitments, aligning with reformist voices of Islam.

On the other hand, we never did discuss what Pak Asih was saying quietly when we were at the ritual site, or as he stopped for a few moments at various locations along the way. When asked, Pak Asih only offered that individual and private devotions were still observed by others. The purpose of such prayers that appeared to respond directly to the conditions of the natural world had disappeared from access. With both the gatekeeper of Mt. Merapi as well as the case of interfaith prayer in the evacuation zone of its eruption, catastrophe in the natural world had come to reveal dramatically either the rejection, adaptation or inclusion of competing possibilities for ritual purpose across what was a radically altered terrain.

Part One: Landscapes of Environmental Prayer
Part Two: Mount Merapi, Prayer and Disaster
Part Three: Dedicating Environmental Devotions
Part Four: Islam and Prayers for the Environment in Java

May 22, 2015

Dedicating Environmental Devotions

In a trend I have seen developing in Indonesia for at least two decades, some Muslims in Indonesia have recast traditional devotional observances, salawat and dhikr, for non-traditional intents and purposes. Salawat are prayers of peace and blessings devoted to the Prophet Muhammad—a longstanding tradition with a Qur’anic support, which became increasingly popular in the “Islamic revival” since the 1990s (for explanation, see my book). This phenomenon would have been unexpected decades before, given historical controversy around the practice. Salawat has come now to be increasingly performed in new contexts and for public purposes, such as mass entertainment. While long carried out for instrumental ends, such as blessing a at a new baby’s naming ceremony, it was also now being observed for beneficial outcome in new contexts such as corporate functions and even, in one case I documented, as a way for a women’s mosque group to support the home soccer team to a win from up in the stands.

Such practices may be dedicated as suits the practitioners, whether as individuals or as part of a group. In modern contexts, dedication that is specified for an explicit purpose may be expected in many circumstances. In two cases of environmental prayer described below, a formerly generalized practice has been reworked specifically in service of the well-being of a newly-introduced ritual agent, “the environment.” In both of these cases of Muslim environmental devotions, “the environment” has been introduced as a third agent with respect to the relation of supplicant to petitioned, perhaps as the primary beneficiary of prayer practice. However, re-dedicated intent is also overlaid, implicitly or explicitly, on traditional prayer practices that are not formally changed.

An example of “eco-salawat” provided by a highly respected kiai (religious scholar) in West Java demonstrates this re-dedication of prayer to environmental intent. K.H. Thonthawi Jauhari Musaddad of Pondok Pesantren “Al-Wasilah” is renowned for his Islamic religious knowledge as well as his environmental activism (see this article for more on K.H. Thonthawi). Along with developing Islamic law of the environment through key fatwas (non-binding legal opinions) under the authority of the national organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, K.H. Thontawi has also developed new forms of environmental religious devotion that preserve traditional forms. Here is a short recorded excerpt of his eco-salawat from 2010, the full text of which appears in the article linked above.

The first verse of the 45-second clip is from standard Arabic “salawat nabi,” as recited for centuries by Muslims worldwide, in accord with a Qur’anic injunction. It calls prayers, peace and blessings on the Prophet Muhammad, his family and his companions. The second part, in the national language of Bahasa Indonesia, is for the environment. It translates as: “With blessing (we) care for the natural world, a healthy environment, the Earth sustained.” A new intent has been created (environmental care), here both spoken and explicit, while the traditional structure and authority of salawat tradition remain the same.

At an “eco-pesantren,” a traditional Islamic school dedicated to environmentalism, located across the island of Java, new forms of environmental religious observance were developing along similar lines. This is another case of the conservation of traditional devotional ritual form with re-purposed intent. However, environmental purpose is internalized and left to individual choice in prayer, even as it is officially sponsored by the institution. This follows religious theory and practice that are consistent with Muslim Sufi tradition as well as modern, globalized structures of religious participation.

I have seen two “eco-dhikrs” at the institution called “Pesan Trend Ilmu Giri,” which is located on the southern side of the city of Jogjakarta (Mt. Merapi lies to the north), in the vicinity of Imo Gir. This is the area of the tombs of the kings of central Java, both Majapahit and Mataram dynasties. The dhikr observance I attended in 2011 did include an opening dedication of salawat for the sake of the environment, as well as to the Prophet Muhammad. Later in 2014, I returned to film another enactment: like the previous one, it corresponded with a calendrical observance traditional to Java, in which various forms of Muslim chant occur on certain nights of certain months.

The ritual in Ramadan 2014 was a “Selasa Pon” in which the first chapter of the Qur’an, Al-Fatihah, is recited forty-one times. “The Fatihah” is the surah recited with each cycle of salat (which means it is to be recited seventeen times a day, adding up all five daily prayers). As scholars of Islam—from Fazlur Rahman to Mahmoud Ayyoub—have observed, the sura itself takes the structure of a prayer. The entire “Selasa Pon” ritual, edited from its original length of about 40 minutes down to 20 minutes, can be viewed here:

The dhikr above was convened at Ilmu Giri after the special evening tarwih prayers of Ramadan (which mixes prostrations with ritual audition of Qur’an) and supererogatory, nighttime salat, called witr. The introspective and participatory nature of the dhikr lends itself to an intent of environmental well-being at this eco-pesantren, whose stated mission is sustainability and environmental care; nevertheless, there was no explicit mention of “the environment” during the entire ritual, which is exceedingly conservative of its traditional form.

Ilmu Giri’s founder, H.M. Nasruddin Ch. succinctly introduced the ritual as an eco-dhikr on the same night of its observance documented above, using the following words.

First, he frames the practice in terms of a regime of self-cultivation, using classic Sufi concepts and terminology (e.g., a Sufi observance called mujahada). In the next statement, however, he names the spiritual quality to be developed as khalifa (“stewardship”), a Qur’anic term linked to humanity’s responsibility to care for God’s creation. From the context, it is clear he means this to be understood as “environmental stewardship.” The ritual, with an intent that he says is interiorized, he now names as an eco-dhikr. At 1:15, H.M. Nasruddin suggests that alignment of internal order and cosmological order leads to environmental well-being, with words I translate as, “After this, it is not possible to destroy the environment” because the ritual has “humanized humanity, naturalized nature, and divinized the Divine.”

In each of these cases of Muslim environmental devotions, “the environment” has been introduced as an intentional object, a third agent with respect to the relation of supplicant to petitioned. “The environment” could even be said to be the primary beneficiary of prayer practice. As with the cases of changing prayers in the aftermath of disaster on Mt. Merapi, these cases of re-dedicated intent also represent a reworking, whether implicit or explicit, of traditional prayer practices that nevertheless do not change formally in their outward structure.

Part One: Landscapes of Environmental Prayer
Part Two: Mount Merapi, Prayer and Disaster
Part Three: Dedicating Environmental Devotions
Part Four: Islam and Prayers for the Environment in Java

May 22, 2015

Islam and Prayers for the Environment in Java

All of the cases show re-dedication of prayers by Muslims with respect to the environment within a landscape of multiple, even expanding options. One ritual had come to exclude agents of prayer with connection to the natural world, the mythic guardian spirit (who nevertheless still receives his new clothes and offerings every year). Coinciding with expectations that religious intention should become rationalized, the traditional forms of prayer associated with labuhan had been rendered as non-religious “culture,” while their identity as private devotion receded into domains of the inaccessible. As a response to the same event that precipitated social change of the labuhan, another form of prayer in the wake of disaster unexpectedly shifted boundaries of intent to include others (Christians) as purpose was reshaped by abrupt environmental change.

Across the island of Java, devotions for environmental well-being introduced a new object of purpose (“the environment” itself), through forms of dhikr and salawat that nevertheless still conserved outward form. Esoteric theory and practice combined with modern patterns of ritual purpose to support the specificity of such explicitly “environmental” prayer. As I discuss elsewhere, new stakeholders, such as Muslim and non-Muslim NGOs, now seek to extract from Islamic traditions such ritual resources in order to promote environmental care. The conditions that shift landscapes of prayer in this manner also form the contours for pluralistic religious norms of environmentalism that are committed to notions of the traditions of “world religions.” This renders Muslim prayers, now re-dedicated in their intent to be universally and instrumentally “environmental” as globalized performances in our shared era of the Anthropocene.

Part One: Landscapes of Environmental Prayer
Part Two: Mount Merapi, Prayer and Disaster
Part Three: Dedicating Environmental Devotions
Part Four: Islam and Prayers for the Environment in Java