2 - The Invention of the Wali Pitu

Summary

In the previous chapter, I briefly discussed the general characteristics of the sainthood tradition in Indonesia, its entanglement with the economy, and the proliferation of invented saints and pilgrimage sites in contemporary Indonesia. Whereas the Wali Sanga was an important focal point in the previous chapter, this chapter studies the seven saints, the Wali Pitu, as a new expression of Muslim saint veneration. The invention of the Wali Pitu invites one to wonder who invented these saints and who turned visiting their graves into a tradition. How was the tradition invented and sustained, and how is this tradition related to tourism?

As for the use of the term ‘invention’, I should signal clearly at the outset that the Indonesian word ‘penemuan’ (discovery, finding, invention) is an emic term developed by Toyyib Zaen Arifin (1925-2001) to describe his discovery of seven graves attributed as the tombs of the Wali Pitu, on account of which he is credited the title “penemu”, the inventor of the Wali Pitu. The range of semantic meanings of the Indonesian term “penemuan” includes invention, discovery, and finding, but I maintain the word ‘invention’ as its English translation, rather than discovery or finding, to suggest the continuous labour required to guarantee the perseverance of a discovery. Invention is not complete and static; invented tradition is routinised in order to attain significance and to maintain its existence and durability. Thus, as Hobsbawm argues, inventing traditions is essentially a process of formalisation and ritualisation. Throughout the history of religion, invention provides a way for a religious tradition to guarantee its sustainability and durability and it appears to be a perennial motif of all religions.

Nevertheless, the concept of invention does not imply the creation of something which is entirely new or never existed before, but refers to the modes of ‘adaptation’ and ‘innovation’ of religious tradition typically in hybridised forms. As Nile Green writes, the notion of adaptation refers to the modification of already existing techniques (in this case, saint worshipping), while the notion of innovation points to religious strategies that go beyond adaptation through accumulative adaptations. The term innovation does not exclusively generate distinctively ‘new’ forms, but quite often hybridised ones. It is also an etic category and should be distinguished from the notion of bid‘a (Ind. bidah, unlawful innovation) in the discussion of Islamic theology, particularly as it is understood by puritan reformist theologians.