Adatlaw and Muslim Religious Law in Modern Indonesia

Abstract

There never was in any Indonesian language a word that had exactly the same meaning as the English word the Dutch and German recht, the Latin jus. Now in official modern Indonesian [i.e. modernized, europeanized Malay] the originally Arabic word hukum has been adopted for law; hadkim for judge and 'ilmu kehakiman 1) for legal science. So the modern intellectual class of Indonesians as a result of long European influence became at least to a certain extent familiar with the Western distinction between and, say, manners and customs. It may be quite natural to Europeans, heirs to the treasures of Roman law, to make such a distinction, more or less clearly conceived. But it never was and perhaps never will be so plainly marked off by the average Indonesian or by many other peoples in the non-western world. For history made them think along other lines. The sense of justice however and the need of administering it are universal. There always was such an administration of justice in any country, more or less distinct and developed. Dutch scholars who set out to study and describe what was rule of law or justice in the non-Western societies invented and introduced for Indonesia the word adatrecht i.e. adatlaw. This term came into use about I900. These scholars had good reasons to do so.