Java, Indonesia and Islam

The essays included in this volume were written between 1985 and 2010. They are based on three decades of ethnographic research in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta and other regions of the Indonesian island of Java and on close readings of contemporary and historical Indonesian Islamic texts. Versions of all but two have been published previously. Those which have appeared previously have been greatly revised and expanded to reflect, and attempt to explain, the ways in which Javanese and Indonesian religions, cultures and societies have changed since I first came to Yogyakarta, and in response to more recent scholarship. They also reflect the development my own theoretical interests in nationalisms and problems of religion and violence. Many are nearly double the length of the originals. I have also included occasional references to others parts of Muslim Southeast Asia I have had to opportunity to visit over the years, especially Jakarta, East Java, Lombok and Sumatra in Indonesia as well as Malaysia and Singapore. All are informed by comparisons with other lived and mediated Islams and by Pan-Islamic Arabic textual traditions that have shaped the development of Javanese and Indonesian Islams.