In the valley of Pamijahan one of the most important ways of making a serial trajectory is to follow the mystical itinerary undertaken by Shaykh Abdul Muhyi. Villagers make coordinates in their landscape referring to the ‘mystical journey’ of their ancestors. As we saw above, places in the village of Pamijahan are attached to the past through the metaphor of a mystical journey performed by their ancestors. Each point indicates the place where Shaykh Abdul Muhyi made a shelter, or stopped in his the mystical journey.
The narrative is crucial in this case because the experience of tracing the path has to be broadcast to others. Broadcasting narratives needs a special person such as the kuncen. Accordingly, tracing and depicting the path is not only important for making the space and place in a material sense, it is also important in the transformation of the metaphor of genealogy into ritual and social structure. In Pamijahan, everyday activities engage with these narratives.
Every single Pamijahanese can recite that Shaykh Abdul Muhyi came from Mataram and that from his father he had Sundanese and from his mother he had Javanese blood (see also Chapter 4). Through his Javanese blood, Shaykh Abdul Muhyi derived a holy genealogy linking him to the nine Saints of Java[7] and to the Prophet himself. What is significant here is that Shaykh Abdul Muhyi, in his journeys, recognised Pamijahan as a mystical destination because in this place he found the sacred cave suggested to him by the grand master of Sufism, Shaykh Abd al -Qadir Jailani (see Chapter 9). The cave was the final destination in a mystical journey undertaken by Shaykh Abdul Muhyi.
There is a second narrative of a mystical journey relating to the everyday activities of Shaykh Abdul Muhyi after he founded Pamijahan. According to the villagers, after he found the sacred cave he settled in Bengkok. The discovery of the cave created a spatial link between three important places namely the cave, the village of Pamijahan, and the village of Bengkok.[8] These places are connected by the history of the search for the cave and make up the entity called Pamijahan. According to the custodians, the Wali went to the cave for meditation regularly for various periods and returned to Bengkok. In Bengkok, he met a local woman who later became his first wife. Accordingly, in the Pamijahan landscape, Bengkok is important because it was once the Wali’s shelter and his father-in-law’s home. During periods of meditation, Shaykh Abdul Muhyi often rested in the valley between the cave and Bengkok. In this valley, he built a mosque known as the Sacred Mosque, (Masjid Karamat). These artefacts are recognised as material evidence of his wali-hood. The Pamijahanese believe that the holy man bequeathed a sacred heritage to the villagers. This heritage consists of artefacts ranging from material items such as the Sacred Mosque the Sacred Tomb (Makom Karamat), the sacred village (the nonsmoking area), a sacred rosary, a sacred robe (jubah), sacred manuscripts, and spiritual artefacts such as the torikoh Shattariyyah. The following are the principle of these artefacts.
Kampung Bengkok is located about ten minutes’ walk through the paddy fields from Masjid Karamat in Kampung Pamijahan. This village is classified as being in the second ring. It is called Kampung Bengkok because it is located in the valley close to a bend (bengkok) in the river. Here, Shaykh Abdul Muhyi’s father in law, Sembah Dalem Sacaparana, is buried. The place is popular among woman pilgrims who are looking for a husband. Unlike Pamijahan and Panyalahan, Bengkok is a rather backward area, which does not yet have electricity. Only specialists[9] or those who want to perform additional rituals will come to this site.
In village narratives, Bengkok is recognised as the second station in Muhyi’s mystical journey after he found the sacred cave. He lived here for a long time and married a local woman. Unlike Panyalahan, Bengkok has been attached to the mystical journey of the Wali. Thus, even though Bengkok is located in the second ring, situated outside the non-smoking area, its position slightly differs to that of Panyalahan. The arrow sign placed close to the custodian’s office mentions clearly that pilgrims are welcome in Bengkok. However, we can not find the same signs for Panyalahan. The place is important because it is touched not only by family linkages but also by the mystical journey. Whatever has been used by the Wali is important.
When he studied Sufism in Mecca, Abdul Muhyi’s master Abdul Rauf[10] of Singkel ordered him to meditate in the Safarwadi cave, the place where the famous Sufi Shaykh Abd al-Qadir Jailani obtained an acknowledgment (ijazah) from his master Shaykh Sanusi. Now, the cave is recognised as the place of meditation (tempat tawajjuh) of Shaykh Abdul Muhyi.
The Safarwadi cave is also reputed to have been the meeting place where Kangjeng Shaykh met other saints of Java. The cave, which is 284 metres long and 24.5 wide has several chambers. Each chamber has a tunnel running off it, which is regarded as a ‘door’. These doors ‘connect’ the cave to the centre of pilgrimage in Mecca and to the tombs of other great walis in Surabaya and Cirebon and Banten. Besides the doors, the cave also has a place for meditation (tempat tapa), a spring of holy water (tempat cai zam-zam), a spring of the water of life (tempat cai kahuripan), a mosque which consists of two spaces, one for women and one for men, a vault pocked with round indentations in the roof (jabal kupiah), a space known as the ‘boarding school’ (pasantren), a space known as the ‘kitchen’ (dapur) and ledges of rock called ‘altars’ (paimaran).
The cave is open 24 hours a day for villagers except on Fridays. On Fridays from 11 am - 2 pm the cave is closed because according to villagers, at this time, Kangjeng Shaykh often ‘performs’ communal weekly Friday prayer (jumaah) there. For the believers, the Wali is still alive in a different world but he often comes to the village to see his descendants. During his lifetime, he often went to Mecca for the Friday communal prayers` through the cave.[11] Today villagers still believe that the Wali comes to the cave every Friday to perform Friday prayer in Mecca. Thus, during the period of Friday prayer, villagers close the gate of the cave.
In the cave, visitors first take holy-water (cai zam-zam) and put it in his plastic containers (jariken.) After that, they climb to the mosque or Masjid. This place is believed to be another holy mosque where Kangjeng Shaykh Haji Abdul Muhyi used to perform prayers shalat when he was undertaking meditation. Visitors often chant a calling prayer (azan) in the dome (quba). For older visitors, it is difficult to stay in the Masjid for long during the peak seasons because the oxygen is reduced by the hundreds of pilgrims and the guides to the cave (nu jajap ka guha) who bring push lamps. However, in the low season, the place is silent and some visitors prefer to perform meditation (tapa). Most ordinary pilgrims (nu ziarah biasa) stay here for ten minutes, reciting their own supplication (doa).
There are rivers that flow in the lowest bed of the cave. Pamijahanese believe that anyone who takes a bath in the water of life (cai kahuripan) will be free from disease and anyone who takes a bath in ‘ the water of gloriness (cai kajayaan) will succeed in business.
All mosques are sacred, but not all the mosques in Pamijahan have the title Masjid Karamat or ‘the blessed mosque’. Karamat is derived from the Arabic word meaning a miracle given to a wali as a close friend of God. This mosque has the title karamat because it was built and used by a wali.
In 1909, when Rinkes came to Pamijahan he still found that the dome, or quba, of the mosque was the one made by Kangjeng Shaykh. Today, no original materials from the Muhyi period remain or are visible to visitors. However, the custodian recounts that the original materials of the sacred mosque were buried in the same place when they renovated the mosque. At this time, the mosque has more permanent and modern construction material than before. The mosque is designed following the architecture found in Arabic countries with the big dome on the top. The style differs to the old mosque, which uses the pyramid structure on the top as 'the dome'.
Event though the mosque has experienced massive renovation, the sacred material are still in there. One elder Pamijahanese recited his experience to me when he renovated the mosque in the seventies:
When I was restoring mosque in the 70’s, if I am not mistaken, I found the old stone still there, very clean. Then, when we were trying to move one of these stones close to the altar, there was a distinct stone radiating a light. Then friends and I buried this stone again. Accordingly, everything still on the site, particularly the solid materials; even, the dimensions of mosque and its main pillars are close to the original. This is an evidence that this mosque is the one originally built by our ancestors (karuhun).
Although visitors and younger villagers are unable to verify such narratives, the fact that this narrative is attached to the existence of the sacred mosque has a powerful association for them.