Suchergebnisse

This paper explores the complex interaction between state-sanctioned Islam and local religious practice in Indonesia's periphery. In 1982 in the "county" of Tinombo, Central Sulawesi, immigrant Reform Muslims convinced the regional government to ban a spirit possession ritual performed by the indigenous Laufe people. Reformists claimed that Laujé spirit mediums were possessed by satanic spirits. Insulted by Reformists' claims that Laujé rites were pagan and they themselves were not Muslims, prominent Laujé went to officials in the government asking to rescind the ban. In their arguments, Laujé borrowed the rhetoric of Reform Islam. The ban was rescinded in 1984. Once the rite was performed again in 1985 the Laujé participants continued using Reformists' categories to define their rite. This paper examines why and how particular Laujé, female spirit mediums and male interpreters, borrowed the rhetoric of Reformist Islam. The participants in the spirit possession rite, each in their own way, used the rhetoric of global Islam not as a "watered down" version of a Great Tradition, but as a vehicle for subtly subverting the premises on which that rhetoric was based.

The diversity of the African cultures led the scholars to the conclusion of the impossibility of a unique African indigenous religion (AIR); however, this view fails to account for the common spiritual elements found in Africa. Based on these elements, some scholars support the existence of a unique AIR, but these "common elements" are not found in every African culture. This article capitalizes on the scientific monotheism of the Kongo religion, the Bukongo, and its likeness to the solar religion of Egypt to improve the single-AIR approach and show the various AIRs to be results of the devolution of the original unique solar religion kept in the Bukongo. Contrary to the scholastic monotheism, demonstrated to be fallacious, the monotheism of the AIR is proven to be scientific through the use of a cosmological argument whose conclusions are mathematically convergent with Newtonian physics in its interpretation of the movements and stability of bodies at the astronomic and subatomic levels.

Two rulers, one in Africa, one in Asia, are about to undergo the ceremony of baptism following first contact with the Portuguese maritime expansion—but they insist that the rite be conducted in secret. The African ruler is a regional governor (the Mani Soyo) of the Congo King Nzinga Nkuwu who has just converted in 1491. The high king's diplomatic exchanges with the sea captain Diogo Cão had not elicited any real sensation of vulnerability to Portuguese imperial designs, yet he had been happy to convert nonetheless. Now the Mani Soyo is about to follow suit, but he will not have any of his subordinates witnessing the ritual because he does not want them benefiting from the enhanced status and power that the ritual could bestow. In the highlands of Sri Lanka some fifty years later, the King of Kandy is equally intent on keeping his baptismal rites hidden from public view. But his reasons are strikingly different. He does this "lest his people should kill him." When news of the baptism did leak out rioting followed, and the king had to spread the story that it had all been a ploy to deceive the Portuguese.

This essay argues that the history of the international system has revolved around a moving frontier of cultural exclusivity. Originating under monotheism, the cultural frontier has been characterized by a persistent "us/them" dichotomy. Civilizations which anthropomorphized God in monarchical terms tended to divide the world between the God-fearing and the sinner. This tendency was reinforced by the culture of politics which differentiated supporters from adversaries. Both were embodied in early international law such that a system of rules for civilized nations did not apply to 'them' – the rest of the world, thus opening the door to imperialism and eventual class stratification in the international system. Although the cultural frontier has been moving due to secular challenges, the major challenges to Judaeo-Christian monotheism – Marxism and Islam – are themselves dualistic: the Marxist dialectic is inherently of this nature as is the tension between good and evil in Islam. The interrelationship between major cultural themes in today's world, coupled with a developmental system of stratification which is based on technical know-how, suggests that important but hidden problems of a cultural nature are contained in the world order agenda.

The world of Liu Zhi -- Chinese Muslim tradition and Liu Zhi's legacy -- Liu Zhi's concepts and terminology -- Ritual as an expression of Chinese-Islamic simultaneity -- The spirit of ritual and the letter of the law -- Allah's Chinese name