The Shattariyyah Order is perceived as a domain of ancient mysticism that many villagers believe is difficult to practise. Historically, the Shattariyyah came earlier than other currently popular orders in the regency of Tasikmalaya such as the Tijaniyah, Idrissiya, or Qadiriyyah-Naqshanbandiyyah. Some elders and prominent custodians are of the view that Sufi practices have been in decline for a long period. I learned that the villagers believe that it is complicated to participate in the Wali’s tarekat. There are even villagers who think that the Order has disappeared from contemporary Pamijahan, since there is no true Shattariyyah successor who can transmit the Way to the younger generation. A leading custodian told me that, in other places in Java, he had met real disciples of the Wali’s teaching who still practised it and initiated new followers. Despite this, the custodisan asserted that the Shattariyyah tradition was defunct in Pamijahan. Later I was to discover that this was his way of warning me that, whatever Shattariyyah practices I might still come to witness in Pamijahan, they were, in his judgement, not authentic.
By September of 1996, I had spent three months in the field without being able to confirm a single piece information given by Rinkes (1910) regarding the existence of the Shattariyyah order in Pamijahan. Then, early one afternoon, before the shalat ashar prayer, someone approached me and informed me that he had what I was looking for. That night at about 10.00 p.m. he invited me to his house and showed me a manuscript written in pegon, the Arabic letters used in some circumstances to write the Sundanese and Javanese languages. He said that this was the Wali’s teaching. This was my first contact with Shattariyyah material in Pamijahan. My informant confessed to me that he was actually unable to comprehend the contents of the manuscript. He had simply collected it as an artefact because of its value as part of ancestral heritage, its kakantun karuhun value. He also stated that in his village there was not a single person who could continue to translate the Sufi practices of the ancestors. At that time I had almost come to the conclusion that what had been described by Rinkes (1910), Lombard (1996: 136--138) and Krauss (Lombard 1996), and in several manuscripts as well was, in fact, difficult to verify in the field. My hopes rose.
It was later in Batu Ngijing, where I had been collecting data on the population, that while awaiting the zuhur or noon prayer in a small hut that had been erected from coconut trees for the cigarette smokers, I was approached for the second time regarding the Shattariyya order by a young man who had graduated from the State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN). He informed me in a low voice that the same night after the Isya prayer, about 9.30 p.m, I was invited to come to Beben’s Muhammad Dabas’ house. It was my policy never to reject any invitation related to my fieldwork, or to any social activities, so naturally I accepted.
Late that night, after I had waited for an hour, I met the young Sufi master. He came out onto the verandah of his and invited me to accompany him to his Sufi assembly place, or zawiya. He said modestly that he had a few ‘stories’ about Shattariyyah. He then admitted to me that he was a true follower of the Shattariyyah in the village, and without claiming more, that he was a regular leader of the Shattariyyah congregational meetings. In his zawiya he went to a cupboard and took out some papers. These documents were a manuscript, and a certificate given by the government, approving his activities as the leader of Shattariyyah congregation. He drew my attention to the silsilah, or genealogy of the masters. Furthermore, he said that Sunday afternoon was the time for the Shattariyyah congregation to conduct assemblies.
The Shattariyyah zawiya assembly, or communal dikir, is mainly performed in Beben Muhammad Dabas’ residence. This zawiya hall is located within the smoking territory (see Chapter 4). The shrines-and-zawiya configuration is typically part of the transformation of the Sufi order into more popular practices. (Eickelman 1990; Gellner 1969; Trimingham 1998) Beside the zawiya there runs a small creek that marks the boundary between the most sacred territory (the non-smoking area) and the less sacred area (the smoking area). However, both areas are still located within the kaca-kaca, or the sacred border gateway, thus still inside the sacred territory of Kampung Pamijahan. The zawiya is about 100 metres from the gate to the north, about 200 meters from the sacred mosque, 500 metres from the Shrine and 700 meters from the Safarwadi cave.
This location of Beben Muhammad Dabas’s zawiya is a strategic one because pilgrims have to pass it before coming to the sacred mosque, the shrine or the cave. I believe that the zawiya, located as it is between the gate and the mosque, the shrine, and the cave, is the result of making the most of available land, while considering the feelings of the custodians and their families.
The zawiya has been built right behind Beben’s house, amidst groups of houses belonging to the Wali’s family from different lines of descent, or pongpok. Mainly young people occupy the area, or families who do not have rights of residential privilege, or who do not have enough land, to build their houses in the central territory or in the non-smoking area of the village. There is a clear demarcation in social level for the families who live close to the sacred mosque and inside the smoking territory. Their proximity to the heart of the sacred artefacts directly reflects their genealogical closeness to the Wali. However, the site of Beben’s residence and his zawiya do not mean that he does not have any linkages to the inner territory. His mother still lives in the area of the centre, in the non-smoking area itself. Beben also keeps a small gift shop on the path close to the shrine. Furthermore, he is given a shift of 24 hours a week in the custodian’s office as one of the custodians in charge. This is due to the fact that he has the right to this role as one of the prominent members of the third side, the pongpok tilu (see also Chapter 9). In other words, Beben retains fruitful access to the symbols of the centre.
However, in the eyes of other older custodians at the symbolic centre, the combination of the Sufi institution which he runs and his service as a member of the custodial staff, is ‘too much’, ‘too heavy’, and has come too early in Beben’s life. Beben, for his part, does not have any argument about their reservations. He is just respectful of these issues. His position in the village, as he always stated in our interviews, is simply to carry on or “hanya menjalani.” Behind his humble explanation there is also latent symbolic power being negotiated. Beben, and other groups who create new options for tapping the barakah are in fact trying for, to borrow Fox’s terminology, precedence (1996:131). Beben is only one of the custodial staff and he is in charge just once a week. Also, he does not come from the first side, the pongpok hiji, so it is difficult for him to be dominant in the sacred administration (pakuncenan). By erecting his zawiya and renewing the Sufi congregation (tarekat) of the Wali he is able to tap barakah through different sources. Shattariyyah is the oldest tarekat in the village. In popular perception, no-one masters this mysticism any longer; yet Beben has deliberately set out to access this symbolic past.
Indeed, in the zawiya symbolic power is derived differently from the symbolic power of the pilgrimage rituals. During the pilgrimage, villagers play the role of the hosts in the Wali’s house and serve the pilgrims as well as possible. In the zawiya, on the other hand, Beben and his devotees access the blessing as ‘the humble disciples’ (murid) of the Wali and other mystical masters listed in the genealogy. We shall see this in the ritual of khataman.
The disciples take part in a mystical congregation every Sunday night. Unlike other larger zawiya in other places in the Tasikmalaya region, such as at Surialaya, Beben’s zawiya is small and is not equipped with a boarding house. Most of the followers come from villages around Pamijahan. To the north of the zawiya, there is the third biggest mosque in the village, where some old manuscripts were previously preserved.
Beben Muhammad Dabas – at the time of my fieldwork he was 37 years old - derived his mystical linkages from his father, Haji Muhammad Akna, who was known by other villagers as an individual who practised the Shattariyyah. Beben told me, “My father, Muhammad Akna, died in 1982. He said to me that I had to carry on the Shattariyyah in this village.”
Before his father initiated him, Beben spent time in a pesantren in Pekalongan, North Java. In village culture, most young Pamijahanese have to spend a period in a pesantren when they reach fourteen or after they finish primary school (Sekolah Dasar). However, only a few people in Beben’s generation attended secular schools. He is one of a few young Pamijahanese who went to a secular school, junior high school, in Karangnunggal. After that, he continued his study at a senior high school (Sekolah Menengah Atas). As his family and neighbours related, during his time at high school Beben showed no sign that he would become a Sufi. The villagers even saw him as a ‘bad boy’ because he was often involved in fighting with gangs from a nearby area. His parents, mindful of the moral fibre of his family, then sent him to a traditional Islamic boarding school. He also spent time at other pesantren in Central and West Java.
Later, Beben’s family was surprised at his ability to study Sufism because they knew that he had been a rather naughty boy. After spending time in the pesantren, he returned to Pamijahan, establishing the Shattariyyah Tarekat congregation on April 4, 1991.