Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgedments
- The Contributors
- Introduction: Issues and Ideologies in the Study of Regional Muslim Cultures
- 1 Connected Histories? Regional Historiography and Theories of Cultural Contact Between Early South and Southeast Asia
- 2 Like Banners on the Sea: Muslim Trade Networks and Islamization in Malabar and Maritime Southeast Asia
- 3 Circulating Islam: Understanding Convergence and Divergence in the Islamic Traditions of Ma‘bar and Nusantara
- 4 From Jewish Disciple to Muslim Guru: On Literary and Religious Transformations in Late Nineteenth Century Java
- 5 Wayang Parsi, Bangsawan and Printing: Commercial Cultural Exchange between South Asia and the Malay World
- 6 Religion and the Undermining of British Rule in South and Southeast Asia during the Great War
- 7 The Ahmadiyya Print Jihad in South and Southeast Asia
- 8 Making Medinas in the East: Islamist Connections and Progressive Islam
- 9 Shari‘a-mindedness in the Malay World and the Indian Connection: The Contributions of Nur al-Din al-Raniri and Nik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Nik Mat
- 10 The Tablighi Jama‘at as Vehicle of (Re)Discovery: Conversion Narratives and the Appropriation of India in the Southeast Asian Tablighi Movement
- 11 From Karachi to Kuala Lumpur: Charting Sufi Identity across the Indian Ocean
- Index
9 - Shari‘a-mindedness in the Malay World and the Indian Connection: The Contributions of Nur al-Din al-Raniri and Nik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Nik Mat
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgedments
- The Contributors
- Introduction: Issues and Ideologies in the Study of Regional Muslim Cultures
- 1 Connected Histories? Regional Historiography and Theories of Cultural Contact Between Early South and Southeast Asia
- 2 Like Banners on the Sea: Muslim Trade Networks and Islamization in Malabar and Maritime Southeast Asia
- 3 Circulating Islam: Understanding Convergence and Divergence in the Islamic Traditions of Ma‘bar and Nusantara
- 4 From Jewish Disciple to Muslim Guru: On Literary and Religious Transformations in Late Nineteenth Century Java
- 5 Wayang Parsi, Bangsawan and Printing: Commercial Cultural Exchange between South Asia and the Malay World
- 6 Religion and the Undermining of British Rule in South and Southeast Asia during the Great War
- 7 The Ahmadiyya Print Jihad in South and Southeast Asia
- 8 Making Medinas in the East: Islamist Connections and Progressive Islam
- 9 Shari‘a-mindedness in the Malay World and the Indian Connection: The Contributions of Nur al-Din al-Raniri and Nik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Nik Mat
- 10 The Tablighi Jama‘at as Vehicle of (Re)Discovery: Conversion Narratives and the Appropriation of India in the Southeast Asian Tablighi Movement
- 11 From Karachi to Kuala Lumpur: Charting Sufi Identity across the Indian Ocean
- Index
Summary
In a 2006 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Muhammad Ali wrote that “the patterns of networking between…ulama in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in ‘Indonesia’ and those in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Kelantan seem to be similar. Surau, mosques, pondok, and later madrasah served as the major local centres for the transmission of Islamic knowledge.” While a general comparison of selected scholars from these two periods might seem random, it is worthwhile considering how different scholars from different periods and geographical locations have been connected to a particular theme. In the context of this volume's focus on Islamic linkages between South and Southeast Asia, this chapter will give particular attention to two figures from very different time periods and contexts, who have made a powerful contribution to Islamic identity in the Malay world: Nur al-Din al-Raniri and Nik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Nik Mat. Particular attention will be especially devoted to examining how both scholars were driven by a sense of “Shari‘a-mindedness” in pursuing their respective goals, and the extent to which this mindset was rooted in events and experiences in South Asia.
INTRODUCING THE TWO SCHOLARS
Nur al-Dinal-Raniri (d. 1658)
Very little is known about the early life of al-Raniri, and scholars depend on the form of his name to deduce something about his background and childhood. The large number of nisba elements in his full name — Nur al- Din Muhammad b. Ali al-Hamid al-Shafi‘i al-Ash‘ari al-‘Aydarusi al-Raniri al-Surati — point to his origins lying in a diaspora family of the Hamid clan in Ranir (today's Rander) in Gujerat, India. There is some scholarly debate as to whether he was of Hadhrami extraction; what is clearer is that he claimed to be descended from the Quraysh. He was thus a member of an ethnic minority, and may well have been of mixed racial descent himself.
- Type
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- Information
- Islamic ConnectionsMuslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia, pp. 175 - 194Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak InstitutePrint publication year: 2009