Ritual and Political Critique: Tuan Guru's Subversive Pietism

Abstract

Shaykh ‘Abdullah ibn Qadi ‘Abdus Salam (lived 1712-1807),
more commonly known as Tuan Guru, was chiefly responsible
for the institutionalization of Islam in Cape Town. The intellectual
matrix of this institutionalization was his massive compendium
of Islamic writings that was to play a central role in shaping the
theology and ritual practices of Cape Muslims. While this
compendium contained apparently very different types of subjects
– a very philosophical “high theology” written side by side with
devotional litanies, supplications and amulets characteristic of
popular Sufism – we argue that they must be seen as interacting
organically. These pietistic sections of the compendium played a
crucial role in reinforcing and vivifying its theological component
and, by extension, this theology's critique of the colonial
worldview.

Journal for Islamic Studies Vol. 26 2006: pp. 92-112