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RITUAL GUARDIANS VERSUS CIVILSERVANTS AS CULTURAL BROKERS INTHE NEW ORDER ERALany ProbojoPublished online: 15 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Lany Probojo (2010) RITUAL GUARDIANS VERSUS CIVIL SERVANTS AS CULTURALBROKERS IN THE NEW ORDER ERA, Indonesia and the Malay World, 38:110, 95-107, DOI:10.1080/13639811003665421

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Lany Probojo

RITUAL GUARDIANS VERSUS CIVIL

SERVANTS AS CULTURAL BROKERS

IN THE NEW ORDER ERA

Local Islam in Tidore, North Maluku1

This paper examines two leading social roles in the island of Tidore: that of the traditionalclan leaders and that of the civil servants, who advance two competing versions of Islam.While the traditional Tidore Islam espoused by the clan leaders is integrated with ancestorworship, the civil servants espouse a more strictly Qur’anic Islam endorsed by the Indonesianstate ideology of Pancasila and modernisation. The two forms of Islam have come torepresent a struggle for political power within Tidore society.

Introduction

This article addresses a variant of Islam found at several places in Indonesia including theisland of Tidore. The focus is on the local ritual guardians and civil servants who act aswhat Eric Wolf has called ‘cultural brokers’ because they stand guard ‘over the crucialjunctures of synapses of relationships which connect the local system with the largerwhole’ (quoted in Geertz 1960: 229). Kebudayaan, as the people of Tidore refer totheir Islamic belief in Indonesian, literally means ‘culture’. The Tidore are proud oftheir kebudayaan, which is traced back to a female ancestor (gosimo), now a spirit( jin), who married the first Muslim. Two clans, or soa, are regarded as the guardiansof this ancestor spirit, but belief in her is starting to be regarded as backward andold-fashioned. State-sponsored modernisation has been spreading in the form of theNew Order’s Program Pembangunan (development programme), and Indonesia’s IslamPancasila or ‘Five-principle’ Islam is rapidly taking over. When I conducted my field

1This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the panel ‘Bhineka Tunggal Ika: MasihMungkinkah?’ (Unity in diversity: is it still possible?), First International Conference on SocialAnthropolgy, Kampus Universitas Hasanuddin, Makassar, 1–4 August 2000, and is based on researchfor my PhD thesis, Tradition und Moderne in Tidore/Indonesien. Die Instrumentalisierung islamischer Ritualeund ihre politische Relevanz. (Munster: Lit 1998). The field research on Tidore was undertaken fromOctober 1989 to September 1990 in the three villages: Jaya, Gurabunga and Tomalou.

Indonesia and the Malay World Vol. 38, No. 110 March 2010, pp. 95–107

ISSN 1363-9811 print/ISSN 1469-8382 online # 2010 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World

http://www.informaworld.com/journals DOI: 10.1080/13639811003665421

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research in 1989 to 1990, some Tidore Muslims, especially civil servants, were reluctantto worship the ancestors and proclaimed themselves to be ‘proper’ and ‘modern’Muslims in this sense. Being active in the development programme signifies one ismodern, and that means one is a Muslim who worships only Allah without referenceto ancestors. The Tidore have always regarded themselves as devout Muslims and seeno contradiction in believing in Allah and worshiping their ancestor spirits. The questionis, what do people who claim to be ‘real Muslims’ really want to show by identifyingthemselves in this way? What is their intention when they identify Islam, as a religion,with Pancasila, as the Indonesian state ideology?

Pancasila, the philosophical basis of the Indonesian state, was created in the 1945Constitution. The central place that religion occupies in Indonesian values is enshrinedin five (panca) principles (sila), the first of which is belief in one supreme God, implyingmonotheism.2 In these terms, Tidore Islam is understood as ancestor worship and classi-fied as a ‘traditional religion’ (Atkinson 1988: 49; Dove 1988). This is the position takenby Tidore civil servants. I will argue that the Tidore have reacted strategically in the faceof modernisation. They participate enthusiastically in the development programme, butstill practise their own form of Islam. This can only work through the active collabor-ation of the local ritual guardians with the Tidore civil servants, who together functionas cultural brokers, connecting local and national spheres.

The local understanding of ‘Tidore Islam’

The Tidore believe their island to be the so-called Serambi Mekkah, the ‘veranda ofMecca’ (Baker 1987: 13–4; van Bruinessen 1990: 44–5). The island and its sacredmountain, Kiematubu, are viewed as equivalent to Mecca, and thus a suitable placeof pilgrimage for a devout Muslim. Until recently the people of Tidore consideredtheir Islam to have been the first in Indonesia (Probojo 1998: 80–1), with great affinityto Arab Islam. As the Tidore would proudly say, ‘We didn’t need any Indian traders toIslamise us, we were always Muslims.’

According to my informants, the first Muslim who came to Tidore, ‘SaidnyaAssyed Jafar Sadik’, was an Arab who claimed to be a direct descendant of theProphet Muhammad. He married a local woman, Nursafa, who is the ancestor ofthe Tidore, and now a spirit (Probojo 1998: 84–5). This marriage is understood asan alliance between Islam and the local tradition of ancestor worship, and the Tidoreargue that their Islam can only be understood in the context of this legend. To beMuslim in Tidore inevitably means accepting this ancestor, and her worship is neverseen as being in conflict with Islam. The Tidore insist that this local tradition is asimportant and valuable as Islam itself. To be Tidore is to be Muslim and Tidore isthe home of Islam (Probojo 1998: 84–5).

The marriage of Jafar Sadik and Nursafa produced four sons, the ancestors of thefour sultanates of North Maluku, Maluko Kie Raha (Probojo 1998: 85–6): Ternate,Tidore, Jailolo (Halmahera) and Bacan. The legend of the four sons has remained a legit-imation of the close political relationship between these four islands. Tidore, as the

2The other four principles of the Pancasila are humanitarianism, national unity, democracy and socialjustice.

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centre of the four sultanates, was the centre of Islam, too. The first Sultan of Tidore wasMohammad Nakel, commonly known as Sahyati, said to have been installed in thevillage Rum in north Tidore in 1082 AD (see Figure 2). During his reign, Islamic jur-isprudence is said to have been officially implemented in the villages of Tidore, and laterthe complementary duties of the clans were organised. However, this was not the begin-ning of Islam on Tidore. From the Tidore point of view, Tidore was always Islamic,within a system of ancestor worship (Probojo 1998: 44, 85).

FIGURE 1 North Maluku.

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The establishment of the soa clan system was of major importance during the era ofthe Four Sultanates (Probojo 1998: 55–6). As groups within each village, they defendedNorth Maluku from European incursions and organised communal labour to support thesultans (Katoppo 1984). North Maluku was a source of crops like nutmeg and cloves,much coveted by Europeans, who introduced Christianity as a means to gain influenceand take control of the spice trade. The inhabitants of Tidore joined the struggle todefend the islands against the Europeans and Christianity in a variety of ways. It issaid that some soa used their mystical ability to enter into trance to limit the expansionof European culture. The Sultan of Tidore had troops who fought against the comingEuropeans (Katoppo 1984). And as the Tidore believed themselves to be far moredeeply religious than the other three North Maluku sultanates, they steadfastly main-tained their Islamic faith and did not tolerate conversion to other religions.

The Spanish and Portuguese in the 16th century, and later the Dutch, were unableto influence Tidore Islam. However, Portuguese missionaries were very successful onHalmahera, the island next to Tidore, thanks to Portuguese trade there, and they influ-enced the fishermen living in the Tidore coastal village of Tomalou (Probojo 1998: 47).Much later, in the early 20th century, one clan, soa Tomadoe, was converted to Protes-tant Christianity, split off and later migrated to North Sulawesi near to the city ofManado; people in North Sulawesi still call them the Tidore in Minahasa. This happenedwithout any violence and conflict and to this day the Tidore speak openly about their soain North Sulawesi (Probojo 1998: 76–8). But at the same time, it is clear that choosingto remain in Tidore automatically meant being Muslim. One prominent civil servant inSoa Sio, the capital of Tidore, informed me that Tidore was and is predestined to be anIslamic island. The Tidore say that the island actually belongs to their ancestor, who is anIslamic spirit ( jin Islam), and this man added that Tidore is pulau jin (island of the spirit).Thus being a Tidore by descent means being a Muslim (Probojo 1998: 77).

During my time in Tidore, Islam Pancasila and Islam Murni (‘real Islam’) were themain belief systems among the civil servants (Probojo 1998: 186, 190).3 This impliedthat Tidore Islam was not the ‘real’ Islam and caused many elders from the Tidore tra-ditional elite some disquiet and cultural discomfort. After performing various rituals athome, or after evening prayers (salat or canonical ritual prayer) in the village mosque, forwhich almost the whole village gathered, they discussed this issue extensively. Someustad (Islamic religious teachers), found the issue of Islam Pancasila strange.4

Soa Sowohi and Soa Joguru

Nevertheless, the traditional Tidore elite still held the decision-making power onTidore, through the soa system. A soa can be understood as an extended family livingtogether in a village. The first Sultan of Tidore, Mohammad Nakel, is said to havegiven every soa certain social and political duties. The two soa relevant to this articleare soa Sowohi and soa Joguru, both of which were close to the sultan and were respon-sible for holding traditional religious events. Holding prestigious positions as ritual

3On the notion and a deeper analysis of Islam Murni see Mulkhan (2000).4When explaining their local tradition of Tidore Islam, they were comparatively open with me, as anIndonesian woman, trained in Europe and a non-Muslim. Their hearty openness often seemed a kindof pride and at the same time, a defence against influence from outside.

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guardians of Tidore, they served as cultural brokers for the island and are still consideredthe people most competent for this task. Sowohi are socio-political brokers who rep-resent the ancestor spirit, whereas Joguru have authority over Islam in Tidore. TheTidore accept them as not only competent but also as possessing the spiritual powerto accomplish these tasks (Probojo 1998: 87–8).

Soa Sowohi consists of five families (hali), viz. Fola Sowohi, Toduho, Mahifa, TosofuLamo and Tosofu Kene. They represent the jin that is the ancestors of Tidore, and regardthemselves as the original natives of the island. They live in Gurabunga, a village at thefoot of the sacred volcano of Kiematubu, considered to be the navel of the isle of Tidore.Sowohi is a title used by members of soa Sowohi, and the head of each family is its sowohi.One of the five family heads is declared by the ancestor in a ritual as the head of them all,making him more powerful and highly respected than the others. The status of thissowohi is higher even than the sultan, for he is closer to the ancestor spirits. Assowohi, he is the highest spiritual authority and the only person allowed to take careof the sultan’s grave, which is seen as sacred and magical. The sowohi can be incontact with the ancestor spirit without any extensive or elaborate ritual, unlike theother ritual elite in Tidore. Among his titles is ‘Lord of Darkness’ ( jou kornono), asmediator with the ancestor spirit. This is a supremely difficult task and not everysowohi can fulfill it, since it requires life-long sacrifice. It complements the Sultan ofTidore, who is ‘Lord of Brightness’ ( jou sita-sita) as the ruler in worldly matters.

From a cultural and political perspective, this sowohi is still the most importantperson in Tidore, and in North Maluku in general. All decisions must have his agree-ment as the ‘spiritual’ owner of the island (Probojo 1998: 65). The sowohi is very

FIGURE 2 Tidore Island.

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wealthy but is forbidden to show his wealth as he represents the ancestor spirits. He isnot allowed to adopt the modern way of life like that of the rich civil servants in thecoastal area. A sowohi once told me that it was very hard for him to live modestly ina simple bamboo house for his whole life, but his status demanded it. This statusgives the sowohi good access to the government and its officials and every civil servanthas to consult him before enacting government policies on Tidore. His agreement isnecessary for any project to succeed, giving the civil servants permission to carry itout and have it accepted by the people. The sowohi, like many other members of thetraditional elite in Tidore is not only a cultural broker but a key figure for all politicalprogrammes on the island (Probojo 1998: 96–9).

Soa Joguru consists of a number of families – Togobu, Fabanyo, Jawa Toru, JawaKonora, Jawa Yuke and Doyado – living near the village of Soa Sio, the capital ofTidore. The Soa Joguru state that they were originally Arab migrants and traderswho came to Tidore. As with sowohi, joguru is the title of the headmen of the soa. SoaJoguru is responsible for religious affairs on Tidore, that is the interpretation and teach-ing of the Qur’an and of Islam (ijtihad). Joguru are traditional teachers of religion, stillaccepted as experts on Islam in Tidore. During the time of the sultans they were respon-sible for Islamic jurisprudence beyond the court of the Sultan of Tidore. In those times,Islam was understood as a religion of the court and as an embodiment of the sultanhimself so, in accordance with their task, joguru live not in the centre of the island ofTidore, specifically not in the village of Gurabunga, as the sowohi does, but in themore densely populated coastal areas. The joguru work hand in hand with the sowohi,but they have different tasks and joguru are subordinate. If there is something criticalto decide upon, they will consult the sowohi on it. Even on questions regarding Islam,although the joguru is the most credible person, he will also obtain the opinion of thesowohi as the ‘owner’ of the island of Tidore and its highest cultural authority(Probojo 1998: 88–9).

Almost all joguru are members of the Qadiriyya brotherhood; a mystical Sufi order(tarekat) that practises austerities to facilitate the attainment of union with the divineessence (from Arabic tariqah, ‘the way’). However, the head of the tarekat brotherhoodon Tidore is not a joguru but a sowohi, which is further evidence of the fact that the sowohihas the power in Tidore Islam (Probojo 1998: 88–9). Each joguru teaches Islam and themystic path to the tarekat tradition to a group of pupils and shares his particular religioussecret knowledge with the most serious pupils. People in Tidore believe that this secretknowledge is the most important element of their Islam, which enables people to go intotrances or become invulnerable. Famous joguru possess many secrets and are believed tobe invulnerable. They have many pupils and establish small social networks of youngstersin the village society.

Many prominent joguru are also civil servants in the sub-district office (kantor daerah)in Soa Sio. They have high status, not only in religion but also as relatively well educatedpeople, as is necessary to their professions.5 Unlike the sowohi, the joguru own modernhouses and enjoy a comfortable way of life. Like all civil servants in Tidore, they dec-orate their houses with Arabic calligraphy and pictures of mosques and stress the

5In several aspects this resembles the priyayi phenomenon, with people who are on the one handsuperior in the cultural context and on the other hand government-employed (Sutherland 1975:65–8).

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importance of pilgrimage to Mecca. One prominent joguru with whom I had the oppor-tunity to speak had the highest grade in the tarekat brotherhood, was very close to thesowohi, and was also Secretary of the Sub-district Department of Education and Culture(Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan). He was not only a very well-known civil servantbut also head of the Sultan’s sacred Museum in Soa Sio, a position that can only be heldby a joguru. As a devout Muslim, he belonged to the traditional elite and confidently andopenly admitted to belief in the ancestor spirit, but insisted that there was no differencebetween Tidore’s Islam and Indonesian Islam, or Islam Pancasila as many civil servantscall it (Probojo 1998: 214–5). This was very unusual among civil servants onTidore, and significant because of his religious role as joguru.

Rituals

People in Tidore differentiate between the local traditional rituals, in which ancestorsare worshipped through trance and ritual prayer, and those which consist only ofQur’anic recitations.

The main intention of the ancestor rituals is to communicate with the spiritsthrough ritual prayer and trance, to deal with sickness and misfortune (Probojo1988: 139). The gahi sou ritual (sou Tid.; ‘medicine’; Ind.; obat) is for receivinghealing from any illness or disharmony. Dabus is the ritual performed in the tarekat broth-erhood which show the invulnerability of the ritual leader (whether sowohi or joguru).Salai jin is a dance ritual for the spirits to calm them and to obtain good health andfortune for the family, soa and the audience (cf. Baker 1988; van Staden 2000).

These rituals contrast with tahlil, a Qur’anic recitation which is usually performedfor a family event such as death, sickness and recovery, childbirth, a good harvest ornatural catastrophe. It is held in the house following evening prayers in the mosque,and all males can attend. This is an expensive undertaking because it is followed by ameal for all those attending, and it is commonly held in the month of Ramadan. It isinteresting to note that almost all participants involved in tahlil were civil servants,for whom it is acceptable to Islam in that there is no trance involved. Trance is regardedas primitive, or at least not modern and, in any event, not Islamic.6 It was very easy todiscern in Tidore, especially in a coastal village like Tomalou, that tahlil was ‘the ritualfor the civil servants’, whereas ancestor worship was ‘the ritual for the peasants and thefishermen’ (Probojo 1989: 140, 174). Peasants and fishermen in Jaya and Gurabunga aswell as in Tomalou were more committed to ancestor worship rituals, but they wouldattend a tahlil evening as well, making tahlil a kind of common stage where the ‘state/modernity’ met the ‘locality/tradition’ in village society.

As soon as a peasant or fisherman had a position as a civil servant, he would changehis ritual habits and become more engaged in tahlil evenings in the village. A fishing boat

6Another influence was the Muhammadiyah in Tidore, who would not tolerate any ritual celebrationexcept salat (one of canonical ritual prayers) which takes place in the mosque. Unlike the NahdlatulUlama (NU) who do accept local traditions as a part of Islam and are prepared to consider the mysticas Islamic, Muhammadiyah judges it to be kafir or ‘heathen’ (see also: Nakamura 1976; Peacock 1978;Woodward 1989). Islam in Tidore clearly has greater affinity with the NU, as in many parts ofIndonesia.

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owner told me he had always participated in the traditional worship of his ancestors butnow that he had a position in the village cooperative (Koperasi Unit Desa, KUD Perikanan)in Tomalou he had decided to leave them to be more involved in the tahlil evenings. Heinsisted that he was not against the local rituals or his own ancestors, and would notforbid the young men who worked on his boat to attend their ancestor worship, buthe had to conform to his new position (Probojo 1998: 184–5). When statuschanges, it would be reflected in participation in the right sort of ritual in the villagesociety (Probojo 1998: 35–6).

This was a phenomenon not only of the coastal area, but of the interior as well. Aclove farmer who obtained a position in the sub-district office in Soa Sio still lived in hisvillage, but began to distance himself from the local tradition and spoke more or lesscritically about indigenous customs and the rituals performed in his village, especiallywith those from outside Tidore. But he still had respect for the traditional elites.Like all his friends, when he had an illness that could not be cured by the doctor’s medi-cine, and when he had to make any difficult business or political decision, he consultedthe joguru or the sowohi. It has to be assumed that the change of religious affiliationreflected this man’s social and political position, as in the case of the village civil servants.This is a change not in the belief system but rather of strategic alignment within thesystem.

The practice of tahlil as ‘ritual’ prayer has a unique function in its ability to unify the‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’ members of village. There are some ustad and civil ser-vants who do not accept local ritual at all, and there are fishermen who worship theancestor before all else. Tahlil seems to be acceptable in villages, especially for thosewho live in the wealthy coastal village of Tomalou. It is not ‘traditional’ in the specificsense that it is not performed to contact the ancestors, nor ‘modern’ in the sense ofsomething totally new; instead it is seen as neutral, familiar and acceptable to everyonein the village.

Ratib, a non-obligatory prayer, is similar to tahlil in performance, but not in sub-stance. Ratib is also a special prayer but, as the prominent sowohi of the village Gurabungaexplained to me, few people in Tidore know that there is a basic difference betweenthem. For a death, the family can invite the sowohi or joguru to perform a ratib ratherthan an open tahlil ritual, but people in the village are actually eager to hold the‘wrong’ ritual, that is, the tahlil (Probojo 1998: 90). In Tidore not every spiritualperson can carry out a ratib, as its prayers include more secret verses than Qur’anic reci-tations. It is a focused prayer which enables the ritual guardian to be in touch with thedead and not infrequently leads him into a trance. Ratib is central to every traditionallocal ritual, as a way of getting in touch with the ancestors, and it can grant theability to go into a trance, to be invulnerable or contact with the spirit world(Probojo 1998: 94).

Ritual guardians versus civil servants

The Tidore are religious people and a good religious education is considered important.There is a small Islamic theological school (pesantren) in Tidore in the village of Dokiri,but many well-off young Tidore are able to obtain this education outside the island.Some go to Ternate, but many of them are sent at a very young age to Ujung

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Pandang (now Makassar), the capital of South Sulawesi. Ujung Pandang is seen as a placewhere children and young people can learn the ‘real Islam’, which means the Islam ofthe Qur’an. And indeed the teachings of Islam they receive in Ujung Pandang do notaccept any kinds of local rituals unless they are compatible with the Qur’an. Manyalso travel to Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi, for a university education.Manado is known as a Christian town and seen as modern and liberal, and its studentsas more ‘secular’ in their perception of Islam than those of Ujung Pandang.

Many civil servants in Tidore, especially those who have a position in the fisherycooperative or a high position in the sub-district office in Soa Sio and Central Halmahera,have this kind of educational background. When the graduates come back to Tidore withtheir degrees, they will have been influenced by an Islamic reformism which rejects alllocal traditional elements, and they almost immediately become critical of their ownculture and local traditions. They try to apply what they have learned and their influenceoften leads to clashes with the joguru. Young returnees are often determined to turnIslam in Tidore into a ‘real Islam’ as one civil servant from the fishery cooperativetold me (Probojo 1998: 186–7).

Do these religious civil servants, themselves originally traditional Tidore, reallywant to purify Tidore Islam, or is this only a strategy?7 Are they really opposed totheir inherited version of Islam, and will they ever succeed? A joguru informed methat people saw things differently after obtaining a position as a civil servant becauseof influences from abroad. They would say that Tidore are not Muslim, and that theywere going to convert them to the real Islam, as civil servants or Muslims fromoutside Tidore are also likely to do.8

It would appear that the civil servants equate the notion of monotheistic Islam withthe state ideology of Pancasila and with Indonesia itself. In other words, to be a Muslim isto be an Indonesian and thus ‘real Tidore’ are not ‘real Muslims’. One important civilservant at the fishery cooperative in Tomalou, who was very often at business and reli-gious meetings in Jakarta, asked how the Tidore could be modernised like the Muslimsseen everywhere on Java as the Tidore, compared with other Indonesians, appeared tobe so backward in their way of thinking. He said they had more pride in their ancestorsthan in ‘real Islam’ and in the modern, new fishery management and marketing (Probojo1998: 185–8). He implied that those who still worshipped their ancestors were non-Indonesian and thus not Muslim and not modern, and he asserted that the only waywas to turn the Tidore into devout Muslims who stressed their faith in the Qur’anonly, not in their ancestors (Probojo 1998: 185–8). This particular civil servant waswell known in the village for his strong opposition to ancestor worship, which hedemonstrated openly in his Friday sermons in the village mosque. For him as a civilservant, and for many of his colleagues, local tradition was the main barrier to

7The same tendency on ‘pure’ Islam with presumably different political intentions is found among theyounger generation in Ternate, the island next to Tidore, particularly in the southern part of theisland (Kiem 1993: 103), where the ‘pure’ religion is not admixed with the heathen veneration ofkings (sultans) and the sultan is regarded as belonging to the colonial infrastructure (van Klinken2007: 116). The current Sultan of Ternate, Mudaffar Syah, arranged to have himself elected as chair-man of the North Maluku branch of Golkar in December 1998.8Interview 12 January 1990. Islam Murni or Islam Pancasila share the same idea, namely that Islam doesnot accept the local tradition, which is seen as an impediment to progress or even modernity.

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modernisation. Yet for the Tidore elders it was wholly impossible to practise their Islamcorrectly without devotional rituals that include worship of the ancestor, because it ispart of their Islam.

During one phase of my research some civil servants of the cooperative were tryingto force their notion of Islam on the local fishermen and stop them worshipping theirancestors. They argued that ancestor worship was a waste of time and money, whichshould be spent on improving their houses instead (Probojo 1998: 204). But the fisher-men continued to perform rituals for successful fishing and for safety, which they con-sidered to be part of their Islam. Rather than pay lip service to Islam for the sake of goodrelations with the fishing-boat owners (who are also civil servants), these fishermencontinued to pursue their traditional beliefs in an undemonstrative way and to resistattempts to change their practice.

Some of the people of Tidore had broken their attachment with the ancestorsbecause they no longer had time for traditional ritual practices, but this did not meanthat they did not participate in the rituals or were opposed to ancestor worship.Almost all Tidore think that contacting the ancestors in the ritual is compatible withIslam and the Qur’an, and participating in a ritual is actually more familiar to themas religious practice than going to the mosque.9 Many Tidore view their ancestors asa part of them, as their forbears, whereas going to the mosque means going to meetAllah, who is omnipotent and somehow far away. Ancestor belief is not an intellectualexercise but a tangible part of their life, which is realised in ritual celebrations and inday-to-day affairs, of a less formal character than worship in a mosque. A prominentjoguru explained that the ancestor spirits were their life and their identity. He saidthat the Tidore are the real Muslims because of their descent from the Tidore ancestorspirit Nursafa and the Arab Jafar Sadik. Ancestor worship in Tidore should also beunderstood as an encounter with Islam itself, which kept the ancestor alive. It is imposs-ible that Islam should be against the Tidore, because their traditional ritual and Islam areunited, and to banish the traditional rituals would mean banishing their ancestors,banishing Islam, and banishing ‘Tidore-ness’ (Probojo 1998: 244–6).

Soa Marsaoli

Among those who were reluctant to speak about or attend traditional ritual celebrationswere the high ranking civil servants of soa Marsaoli. Most civil servants in Tidore aredrawn from this clan, which is also very prominent in modern fishery and marketingthroughout the island. The soa Marsaoli lives mainly as an extended family in thewealthy fishing village Tomalou, and have been in charge of the fishery sincethe sultans’ time. They are well known as the best fishermen, especially for tuna, inthe entire North Maluku area. Many of them have become very rich from fishing andas influential civil servants in the fishery cooperative which works very closely withfish processing factories and the local bank. As wealthy owners of the fishing boats,they are able to send their children to study abroad for their academic degrees.

Marsaoli is a highly religious soa, considered to have authority on Islamic issues, andincludes most of the Tidore who have been on pilgrimage to Mecca. Many of them are

9This pattern is not typical for Tidore alone, but can also be found in other parts of Indonesia, as thedata on Java by Koentjaraningrat (1980) show.

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religious teachers in the pesantren in Dokiri, a coastal village near to Tomalou (Probojo1998: 211). People from this soa are eager to speak about modernisation and Islam andthey represent the so-called ‘intellectuals’ on the island, to the extent that they claim tobe the only persons giving correct information about Islam. This challenges the sowohi asritual guardian in his claim to the highest religious position in the island. Marsaoli werelikely to celebrate tahlil during the month of Ramadan, and a number of them weremembers of the tarekat brotherhood. These men were civil servants at the fishery coop-eratives and most were also very involved in the dominant state political party, Golkar,which had donated large sums for the new modern village mosque in Tomalou. Theirmain objective was to modernise Tidore and transform its people into ‘real’ Muslimswho only pray in the mosque instead of maintaining ancestor worship.

The Marsaoli families are politically and economically dominant in Tidore societyand in some respect seemed to be even more prominent than the joguru or thesowohi. Nonetheless, they were not as aggressive and fanatical in their manner asmany Muslim missionaries (mubaliq) from the nearby island of Ternate who regardedthe Tidore as still living in a state of paganism. Another high ranking Marsaoli toldme that they could not prohibit their fishermen or employees from participating in aritual celebration, or even persuade them not to, although they believe that with mod-ernisation leading to a better standard of living, the local tradition will disappear fromvillage society. One Marsaoli, the late Hasyim Marsaoli, was in charge of the MajelisDakwah Islamiyah (MDI) in Jakarta and the main representative of Golkar in Tidore.As a civil servant as well as a strategic cultural broker, he never argued openly onthe local tradition issue but was involved in cultural discussions after a tahlil andsupported meetings on proselytising (dakwah). He told me that his goal was to seethat the Tidore regenerate their Islam.

The Tidore may in time abandon their ancestor-centred traditions and accept the‘real’ Islam, but not while the traditional leaders of the island society have any politicalinfluence. Indeed the soa Marsaoli still accepts the traditional elite as important figures inIslam and, as civil servants, they recognise the strategic position held by the sowohi andjogura in various fishery businesses and as brokers, not only in economic but also in cul-tural matters. The prominent joguru from Soa Sio told me with great conviction thateven if modernisation and prosperity came, the Tidore would remain loyal to theirancestors deep in their hearts. He underlined his assertion by reminding me of thenotion of Bhineka Tunggal Ika (‘Unity in Diversity’) which is central to the Indonesianway of life. This would support the maintenance of local tradition in Tidore and allthe local traditions of all Indonesian ethnic groups. The question is whether it isindeed possible for Islam in Tidore to maintain itself without the traditional ritualelites, which also includes the imam in the mosques. This joguru stated that Tidoreand their traditional elites would stay faithful to the ancestors on the one hand, andspeak for Islam on the other and repeated a common expression, that their belief inancestors is their Islam, and is identical with Islam (Probojo 1998: 214–5).

In this regard, an influential religious teacher from the soa Marsaoli, also a civilservant, told me that he had received his religious education at Pondok Gontor,Jombang, East Java, an Islamic school of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). He is the mostsought-after ustad in the coastal village of Tomalou when it comes to celebrating tahliland, significantly, also always a fervent participant in the dabus ritual of the tarekat broth-erhood in his village. One evening when I visited him we had as usual a lively discussion

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and I asked him whether his beliefs and practices were at all compatible with those of theMarsaoli, which is very much against the local traditional rituals. He answered that tahlil,ritual celebrations and the rituals of the tarekat brotherhood were all important andacceptable to Islam as long as they strengthened their belief, that is their Islam. Hesaid the Tidore perform these rituals as spiritual exercises which offer several ways tocome closer to understanding the real Islam. He defended himself and the traditionalleaders, as well as Tidore devotional traditions, by insisting that the motive behindactions such as meditation, fasting, recitation and trance was the most importantthing. He added that the Tidore tradition never takes away from Islam but, on the con-trary, all these devotions train them to become pious Muslims. On the question of howthis issue related to the doctrine of bidah or innovation within Islam, he explained thatbidah is to be understood as tradisi tanpa hukum (that is a custom outside the Islamiclegal tradition) which includes all local rituals accepted as Islamic. Hence rituals liketahlil, dabus, the tarekat ritual of the brotherhood or even local rituals worshipping theancestors are completely legitimate and appropriate to Islam (Probojo 1998: 208–9).

Conclusion

This article has dealt with the relationship between ‘real’ Islam and the local Islamicbelief system of Tidore, and the important roles of cultural brokers. To a certainextent, advocating ‘real’ Islam has more to do with politics than with the beliefsystem itself, in the Tidore context. It is still unclear which will eventually prevail:local tradition or the ‘real’ Islam. Another question is whether Islam could be main-tained without a local tradition to support it, and indeed if there is any manifestationof Islam in the Indonesian context which is not ‘local’ Islam (Woodward 1996). Thisis a significant question, since the case of Tidore shows that their Islam is only under-standable in its traditional context. Tidore Islam is fully accepted as Islam, eventhough it incorporates many local traditions, and the way the civil servants advocateso-called Islam Pancasila, rejecting their own local tradition, has to be understood as apolitical strategy. They have no option but to acknowledge the local tradition, as theycould never achieve their objectives without the approval of the traditional elites, thesowohi and joguru, so championing ‘real’ Islam seems more to do with their positionas civil servants representing state interests and policies. But are they really convincedthat it is right to reject their own ancestors, which are their identity?

The debate on Islam Pancasila was very popular at the time I conducted field researchin Tidore from 1989 to 1990. There were certain civil servants who were fundamentallyagainst any local tradition because they belonged to the particular Islamic school ofthought which would not follow anything but the Qur’an, but only a few Tidore takethis uncompromising position. It is they who are the most fervent advocates of modern-isation, of a better education system and of more technology. They contribute to stereo-types of the Tidore as ‘primitive ancestor-worshippers’ whose local traditions waste time,strain the economy and are an impediment to modernisation. The kind of modernisationcalled for by the Indonesian government would indeed be unacceptable in Tidore if it wereto damage the local tradition, but the local tradition is actually not an impediment, as it isan adaptable agent for integration. Local rituals are the village institutions which cantransmit development programmes from the state to peasants or to fishermen. The

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traditional elites can act as cultural brokers in negotiations between the village society andthe government in matters of cultural policy as the authorities in village society. Whilecivil servants proclaim their own form of ‘real’ Islam as the necessary religion of mod-ernisation, the modernisation they actually achieve is based upon the local TidoreIslam, which is the source of traditional authority and identity in Tidore.

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