In this rich account of a Muslim society in highland Sumatra,
Indonesia, John Bowen describes how men and women debate among
themselves ideas of what Islam is and should be--as it pertains to
all areas of their lives, from work to worship. Whereas many
previous anthropological studies have concentrated on the purely
local aspects of culture, this book captures and analyzes the
tension between the local and universal in everyday life. Current
religious differences among the Gayo stem from debates between
"traditionalist" and "modernist" scholars that began in the 1930s,
and reveal themselves in the ways Gayo discuss and perform worship,
sacrifice, healing, and rites of birth and death, all within an
Islamic framework.
Bowen considers the power these debates accord to language,
especially in arguments over spells, rites of farming, hunting, and
healing. Moreover, he traces in these debates a general conception
of transacting with spirits that has shaped Gayo practices of
sacrifice, worship, and aiding the dead. Bowen concludes by
examining the development of competing religious ideas in the
highlands, the alternative ritual forms and ideas they have
pro-mulgated, and the implications of this phenomenon for the
emergence of an Islamic public sphere.
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