Islam, like other religions, is a spiritual and moral force which influences, motivates and gives colour to individuals' behaviour. To elucidate the tradition of Islam within a particular society is to locate the Islamic traits which are manifest within the popular tradition. At this point, an immediate problem one encounters is  what constitutes ‘tradition,’ and more importantly what constitutes the ‘Islamic Tradition.’ I would like to suggest that the term ‘tradition’ is generally conceived as ‘knowledge, doctrines, customs and practices, etc, transmitted from generation to generation as well as the transmission of such knowledge, doctrines and practices.^[17] Islamic tradition is thus all the things which come from, are associated with, or bear the spirit of Islam. But how can we know that a certain tradition or elements of tradition come from, are associated with, or bear the spirit of Islam, and thus have become Islamic? In this context, it is interesting to refer to Barth who remarks on the relation between acts and intention in human interaction. He says among other things:

Barth's point allows us to assume that a tradition or elements of tradition can be Islamic when the performer intends or claims that his act is performed within his Islamic spirit. This of course is simplistic and at best, it provides only a starting point. Barth however is a contemporary scholar who acknowledges the importance of intention in human action.

More than a millennium ago, long before Barth, the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, had put forward this point explicitly. He said among other things that the validity of actions is based on intention and thus the value of everything is dependent on the intention attached to it. If something is intended for a worldly end then its value is there, whereas if something is intended for the sake of God, then its  value is a devotion to Him (which is very precious). This is both clear and authoritative indicating how important intention is for the Muslims.^[19]

Now let us turn further to formal Islamic scholarly discourse. Here I would like to refer to remarks from Nasr (1981:1). He states that Islamic tradition is something which incorporates both the message received by the Prophet Muhammad in the form of the Scriptures as well as all that Islam, as a religion, absorbed according to its own genius and made its own through transformation and synthesis. It embraces all aspects of religion and its ramifications based upon sacred models. Further, Nasr argues that the Islamic tradition is like a tree. It has roots which are sunk in the Divine revelation, and from these roots grow over time trunk and branches. Islamic tradition is therefore a tree composed of roots, trunk and branches. Its core is religion, its sap incorporates God's grace (barakah), the sacred, the eternal and the immutable Truth, and the perennial wisdom and its continuous application according to various temporal and spatial conditions (Nasr, 1981:12).

Following Nasr's definition, Islamic tradition may be conceived as a vast embracing entity. It may include knowledge, world view, values and mode of behaviour where the Scriptures and the spirit of the Scriptures are the ultimate reference. Viewed in a technical context, it follows that to know to which religion a certain tradition belongs (Islamic, Christian, Hinduist, Buddhist, etc) is to find out in which religious Scriptures the tradition has its roots. By considering all these, it is also possible to draw the lexical meaning of ‘tradition’ into Islamic perspective and then to posit the tradition of Islam as something which involves ‘tradition’ wherein the owner or performer intends to do or claims that his action comes from, is  associated with, or bears the spirit of, Islam; and that his intended or claimed behaviour is verifiable through, and finds its roots or justification in, Scriptures.

Taking Scriptures of various degrees of authority as a standard notion for justifying to which religion a certain tradition belongs should not be confused with using Scriptures to justify a legal and theological position as theologians, jurists and clergy do. Rather, we treat the society's reference to Scriptures directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, as a sociological fact and empirically observable and testable phenomenon. Thus, when an observer sees that many things belonging to a society's beliefs and practices find their roots and justification in Scripture, he is neither collecting relics of revelation nor assembling a chronicle of error, as Geertz negatively implies.^[20] As Graham points out, in a culture, the influence and importance of a scriptural text extends beyond the specifically religious sphere. One of the most obvious, according to Graham, is its effect upon language.^[21] While this effect, as Graham says, is evident in Western Christendom, similar effects should not be ignored in Javanese Islam. The intrusion of an Islamic vocabulary and Arabic language upon the Javanese is enormous. As a tiny example, the prominent Javanese political jargon (Indonesian as well), the word adil (Arabic: ‘Adl) to mean just, such as in Ratu adil (the just king), is a word that appears many times in the Qur'an. So too is the word salam and salamat (pl. of salamah) meaning ‘safe’ which the Javanese slightly corrupt to slamet. No single Javanese word can replace adl (adil) and salamah (slamet). Even if for example, as Geertz (1976:14) tries in invoking a talk on etymology. He explains that in Javanese the word slamet means ‘gak ana apa-apa’--’there isn't anything’ or, which according to Geertz ‘more aptly’ (though not apt at all), ‘nothing is going to happen (to anyone).’ All these phrases and  explanations, unfortunately, still do not reflect the real meaning of slamet as the original Arabic word implies. That is why the Javanese took it intact into their language. Even with such a simple thing, Geertz does not realise that the word he uses to refer to the core of abangan ‘animistic ritual,’ the ‘slametan,’ is in fact, derived from the Qur'an and thus essentially Qur'anic. The slametan,’ may be a religious symbol peculiar to Javanese Muslims. As we shall see however, it is not alien to the universal Islamic tradition; the name, the words recited in it, the procedures and the nature of its performance are after all Islamic.^[22]

It is also from this point of view that a work like The Religion of Java, while stimulating, is also at the same time quite disappointing. Its author unhesitatingly judges various elements of Javanese tradition as belonging to a certain religion such as Hindu, Buddhist and animist, without a clear and definite standard for his judgement. This judgement appears to be based on the author's personal whims and simple rules of thumb. Throughout this work, not even a verse of formal Hindu or Buddhist Scriptures such as Veda or Theravada is cited. Geertz, the author, occasionally mentions the ‘Ramayana’ (p. 263) and ‘Mahabarata’ (pp. 263, 269ff, 278ff). Yet everyone knows that these epics, although they enjoy wide acceptance, are, like the Kamasutra and Kakawin Arjunan Wiwaha, not religious constituents of either Hinduism or Buddhism. Although these epics are enunciated through wayang, wayang takes more than these epics as its themes. Wayang, for a small fraction of Javanese, may be a ritual but for a majority of others, wayang belongs to the arts and the arts are entertainment and not a formal religious ritual as Geertz (1976:261ff) implies. Certainly, a deeply artistic entertainment like wayang may cause a certain degree of aura. To most Javanese (Muslims), all these things are part of their cultural heritage. The Javanese are proud to have them, good or bad, as signs of being a civilised society. Nevertheless, pride does not force an individual to take and mix  them with his formal faith. What may be part of Islam —or other religions as well— is a respect for heritage, as respecting something, including a refined cultural heritage, is considered religiously meritorious and embedded deeply in Islamic Scriptures.

Kyai Fuad Hasyim, a religious orator of Pesantren Buntet, for example, is a genuine santri but he has been one of the fanatic lovers of wayang since his childhood.^[23] On many occasions he unhesitatingly, even proudly, imitates a dalang to attract his audience, takes wayang figures to show both exemplary and derogatory behaviour, uses Sanskrit (Hindu/Buddhist) terms, vocabularies and wayang philosophies, to explain a theological or theosophical outlook and then finds the relevant Qur'anic verses, the Hadith or the work of ulama that enunciate the issues he is talking about. Is Kyai Fuad religiously syncretic? Few, if any, would consider him so.

While considering religion as a moral force which motivates human behaviour, I do not take the individual, household and community as units of analysis and then describe them based on predefined cultural traits. Rather, I stress action and behaviour. Thus, I identify and observe a certain behaviour, then trace it culturally within the sphere of a scriptural context. My approach therefore involves more ‘contextual explanation’ rather than that of social unit analysis.^[24] Taking Scriptures into consideration in the study of Islam on Java has gained some currency. Studies that do this include the works by Dhofier (1985), Simuh (1988) and Woodward (1989). Through a detailed account based on my own data, I shall endeavour to demonstrate that the Javanese beliefs and practices, which are manifest in the life of  the Javanese, including many things that Geertz claims as necessarily syncretic, are in fact genuinely part of an Islamic tradition, or an Islamic refinement of local tradition. Not only do the performers claim their tradition as Islamic but also find their roots and justification come from the basic sources of Islam: The Qur'an, the Hadith and the work of the ulama.