Perspectives of Islamic Spirituality in Southeast Asia: Reflections and Encounters

Abstract

This essay has grown out of reflections presented at a workshop on 'Islam in Southeast Asia', loosely structured around a concern with Muslim-Christian understanding. It draws on the author's attempts to come to terms with both Southeast Asia as a complex geographical and cultural entity and the diverse expressions of Islamic spiritual life that developed there, and urges that the region deserves recognition as a major cultural zone of the Islamic world in its own right. It explores some of the semantic levels of the word 'spirituality', seeing it as a dimension of religion, but not limited by the credal statements with which any one faith community defines itself. As a quality it is intrinsically dynamic and creative, and often fraught with tension. The essay offers examples of its expression in the architecture of the mosque, in dedicated religious writings and in secular literary forms. It concludes with the hope that a perception of spirituality as a common element in the cultural expressions of different faith communities may contribute to a growth in sympathy and mutual appreciation.