In Memoriam Watt and Geertz

Two prominent professors have passed away last week, that is Prof. William Montgomery Watt, an Islamic scholar from Scotland, and Prof. Clifford Geertz, an American anthropologist who served the Princeton University until the end of his time. Both were well known among students and scholars of social science. I write this as a thankful note for both of them.

In 2000, I have chosen Edinburgh University for my Master program, faculty of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, after reading Prof. William Roff’s book: Pengantar Studi Alqur’an (Introduction to the Science of Quran). I also read Watt’s works such as Muhammad at Mecca, Muhammad at Medina, Muhammad Prophet and Statesman, Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam, Islamic Political Thought: The Basic Concepts, Islamic Philosophy and Theology, and Muslim-Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misperceptions. Some other works of him are: Islam and the Integration of Society, Muslim Intellectual: A Study of Al-Gazhali, A History of Islamic Spain, What is Islam?, Islamic Revelation in the Modern World, the Influence of Islam in Medieval Europe, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, Islam Past Influence and Future Challenge, Islam and Christianity Today: A Contribution to Dialogue, Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity.

As a former student of faculty of tafseer-hadits in State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta, reading Mr. Watt’s works on Alqur’an, theology, philosophy and Islamic politic was necessary for me. Mr. Watt was one of western scholars who were regarded as orientalist –although he did not use this label himself-, learnt Arabic and dig up the Islamic sources in order to generate brilliant works that were rich of enlightening facts and analyses. Mr. Watt was a western scholar who was sympathetic upon the life of Prophet Muhammad and optimistic about the relation between Islam and West Christian. For that reason, Mr. Watt wrote about how Islam had influenced the European civilization.

I once visited Mr. Watt’s house in 2001, with Prof. Carole Hillenbrand, Mr. Watt’s student who wrote The Crusades: Islamic Perspective. Mr. Watt was very weak and talked haltingly in that time. I praised his writings on Islam, and we talked about many things including the importance of a harmonious relationship between Muslims and Christians.

Mr. Watt affirmed that the modern challenge is holding a harmonious relationship between Muslims and Christians, which can be done by tracing the history of both religions from their original sources. An “objective” review is important, since most of the leaders and adherents of both religions used to prioritize their theological apology.

Mr. Watt especially wrote about perceptions and misperceptions within Muslim-Christian encounters and offered useful thoughts and practices for dialog. In regard Islamic fundamentalism, Mr. Watt observed it as a modern phenomenon. The history of Islam had also recognized theological conflict which initiated by political conflict. To Mr. Watt, theological differences in the early Islam which have great influences upon Muslims up to now, were more political and started from the matter of leadership after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

While Mr. Watt was an expert in the early and medieval history of Islam, mainly the Islamic normative teachings from the Arabic sources, Clifford Geertz was an anthropologist who observed the empirical situation of Muslims in certain context. Mr. Geertz’s expertise laid on his analytical and theoretical ability to understand and explain the Islamic phenomenon such as his observation in Mojokuto (Religion of Java) and its comparison with Muslims in Marocco (Islam Observed).

Mr. Geertz’s work was enormously influential in anthropology and other social sciences. South Asian scholars from various disciplines could not skip Mr. Geertz’s works. In the field of anthropology of religion, Mr. Geertz has inspired the rise of revisionist works from other scholars such as James Peacock (Muslim Puritans ), Merle Ricklefs, Drewes, Doland Emmerson, Nakamura, Andrew Beatty, Woodward, Roff, Robert Hefner, Mortimer, Jay, Lyon, Wertheim, Greg Barton and Eldar Braten. Indonesian scholars who have modified Mr. Geertz’s theories were Harsja Bachtiar, Supardi Suparlan, Kuntjaraningrat, Zamakhsyari Dhofier. Religious studies, especially modern Islamic studies in Indonesia and South East Asia, used to refer to Mr. Geertz’s works.

Of course, it was not Mr. Geertz who initially found the terms santri (devout Muslims), abangan (syncretists), and priyayi (bureaucratic elites) as variants of Javanese religion in The Religion of Java , since they have been used among limited circle. However, Mr. Geertz was the first who systemized those terms for the representation of important cultural groups in Java.

However, this categorization began to draw attacks from critics who regarded that he had mixed the term priyayi (the category of social class) with the terms santri and abangan (category of religiosity). They saw Mr. Geertz’s limited understanding of Islamic normative terms for he had concluded that the Javanese tradition of selamatan (festive meal and praying) is pure of local Javanese tradition and not influenced by the Islamic teaching.

However, it was from Mr. Geertz that every scholar learns about religion in Java although with some modifications and corrections. In Islam Observed , Mr. Geertz compared the accommodative and syncretic Javanese Islam with the fundamentalistic Islam in Marocco. It does not mean, however, that Mr. Geertz conclude that Islam in Java is always syncretic as if the puritan Islam has not develop there at all.

In After Facts: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Antropologist (1995), Mr. Geertz realized the increasing puritanism of Islam in Java, at least as compared to the 1960s. One of his interesting remarks in this book is about the theory of change. Mr. Geertz wrote: “Change, apparently, is not a parade that can be watched as it passes.” Change can be only known when the thing has really gone.

I admire Mr. Geertz’s ethnographic methodology “Thick Description” in The interpretation of Culture. Thick Description is an approach to understand and explain (not only observe) a phenomenon, event, idea, social custom, or anything else (including religion, politic etc). This approach prioritizes the collection of data from various aspects, which are at once strange, irregular, and inexplicit.

Mr. Geertz’s language was indeed very complex and twisting, but it was clear and endorsing the reader to think endlessly. Although we will not discuss about Mr. Geertz’s theories here, I have to emphasize on how interesting the concepts of social science he had promoted. I guess his successors will constantly develop those concepts.

What is interesting from Mr. Geertz was his deep reflection and interpretation in explaining various phenomenon and topics, from the smallest one such as cockfighting in rural area of Indonesia, up to the big changes such as the ecological change (the concept of involution), religion, law, economy, philosophy, state and politic.

In short, both Western scholars were meritorious and will always influence the path of social studies in the future decades. Their merit on the development of science has gone beyond the boundaries of religion and identity. Thank you Mr. Watt and Mr. Geertz!

* Muhamad Ali is lecturer in State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, alumnus MSc Islam and Politic in Edinburgh University, England, and now candidate of PhD in History in University of Hawaii, Honolulu, United States.