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A.C.M. Kappelhof Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, The Hagu

A.C.M. Kappelhof Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, The Hague The Dutch and radical Islam in nineteenth-century Sumatra The Padri War (1821-1837), the Aceh War (1873-1903) and their aftermaths1 November 2011 Introduction In 1855 H.A. Steijn Parvé, a lower ranking civil servant, wrote an article in a colonial journal about the Islamic Padri ‘sect’ in the Minangkabau region in West Sumatra whose programme for religious and political reform was based on a very orthodox interpretation of Islam.2 The Padri had caused a long and bloody civil war which the Dutch colonial government had been involved in since 1821 but the Padri were finally defeated in 1837. Most Dutch writers had very negative opinions about the Padri, but Mr. Steyn Parvé was more positive. He thought the movement was very promising at first and could have accomplished much in society. He even went so far as to describe the colonial state as ‘an enemy from overseas that brought the resources of civilisation and the art of war’ and characterized Islam as a religion ‘so loved by eastern peoples, fulfilling by its outward forms the heated imagination of these people’ i.e. the population of the Padangsche Bovenlanden [Padang Upper 1 . The author is senior researcher at the Huygens Institute of Netherlands History in The Hague, The Netherlands and project leader of the research guide ‘Dutch Missionary archives 1800-1960’. He wants to thank Dr. Gerrit Knaap, leader of the research programme ‘The Dutch and Cultures across the Borders’ for his advices. I thank my former colleague Mrs. Isabel van der Heiden for her comments on an earlier version of this article. 2 . Steijn Parvé, ‘De secte, 249-278 1 Countries].3 Steijn Parvé, who had been working in the region for about ten years, was fairly well informed about the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, but his views on Islam are typical of a European white man living in a colonial environment. On Sumatra in the nineteenth century the Dutch colonial government was challenged by two long wars: the Padri War (1821-1837) and the Aceh War (1873- 1903). Both ended in subjugation by the Dutch but only after many years of fighting, requiring huge efforts and causing heavy losses on each side. Most historians agree that radical Islam played a role in these wars. In this article I will analyze and compare the wars. I will start with a few basic questions such as what were the causes, how was the colonial state involved in them, what were the aims and intentions of the opponents and why did it take so much time to end the wars. Then the focus will shift to Islam in its different forms. This religion had been important in the Indonesian archipelago, long before the Europeans arrived. Their governments were confronted with the problem of how to tackle a religion which was basically anti-Christian and which did not separate state from church. Radical movements constantly pressed for a purer form of Islam and a prang sabil, a holy war, against a government led by Christian infidels. Was the prang sabil and the wish to purify Islam an autonomous movement which would have taken place anyway or just a reaction to the European colonizer striving to tighten its grip on an indigenous society? After a short introduction about Islam in Indonesia, orientalism and the Dutch policy with regard to religion, I will describe the course of both wars and the consequences they had for the colonial government and the indigenous population. There follows a comparison of the wars, stressing the main lines of historiography 3 . Steijn Parvé, ‘De Secte’ , the quotes on p. 250 (‘Een overzeesche vijand, die met zich de hulpmiddelen der beschaving en der oorlogskunst voerde, verscheen’) and 251 (‘zoo bij de oostersche volken geliefd, en welke door hare uiterlijke vormen de verhitte verbeeldingskracht dezer menschen voldoet’) respectively. 2 concerning the causes of the strong resistance and the long time the Dutch army needed to defeat its opponents. This will lead to an analysis of the role Islam played and the article will end with some concluding remarks. The Western mind-set with regard to Islam Many Dutch writers and Dutch and English missionaries, as well as (at the end of the nineteenth centur) the orientalist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, all observed that Indonesian Islam contained numerous non-Islamic elements. The majority of Indonesian Muslims did not live up to the Islamic rules from the Quran and the Hadith. Most Indonesians could not even read Arabic and learned the Quran by heart without understanding what it really meant. Before going further it is worth paying attention to how Westerners used to view ‘the East’. Norman Daniel thinks that a system of beliefs about Christianity and Islam developed in the period c 1050 – c 1350, partly through prejudice. 4 In the West, Islam was considered a heresy and Mohammed described as an imposter and a false prophet. By adopting this mind-set the European intellectual elite was able to justify and propagate crusades. The mindset persisted even though Western Christianity split up into several churches after 1500 and after the Enlightenment. In his Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le prophète Voltaire attacked the Prophet as many writers before him had done, although using different arguments and words.5 When Europe resumed the offensive against the Middle East with Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 a new branch of scholarly knowledge arose called ‘Orientalism’. During the nineteenth century these scholars built up a pattern of thinking opposing ‘the West’ against ‘the East’. A dominant theme was the 4 . Daniel, Islam and the West, . 5 . Daniel, Islam and the West, 310-312. 3 superiority of the European race and the corresponding condescending way of looking at ‘the other’ as being backward and underdeveloped. Islam was considered a backward religion, which was expected to disappear sooner or later. 6 The East was sensual and irrational, weak and female, the West was rational and cool, resembling the male sex.7 Non-Europeans were supposed to do only one thing: to develop and climb up to the ‘civilized’ level of the West. Their institutions had to give way to ‘modern’ ones coming from the Western world. The Palestinian scholar Edward Said went a step further, seeing orientalism as a tool of colonialism. Orientalists constructed ‘the East’ by acquiring more and more knowledge about people, languages and religion. This enabled West European powers like France and the United Kingdom to divide the Middle East among themselves and transform the Arab states into European colonies. Although Daniel, Said and other authors following this path have concentrated on the Middle East, and Said is sometimes exaggerating certain aspects, the Western feeling of superiority also dictated the mindset and behaviour of Dutch army officers, civil servants and intellectuals in the Netherlands East Indies. As most of our sources are of European origin, they contain biased information, so we have to be careful about taking explanations and interpretations for granted. The religious policy of the Netherlands East Indies government After the fall of the Dutch Republic and the transformation into the Batavian Republic in 1795, state and religion were separated and the privileged position of the Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) came to an end. Governor General Herman Willem Daendels introduced the new ideas on Java in 1808. 8 All religions 6 . Snouck Hurgronje, The Achehnese, 338-351. 7 . Said, Orientalism, 207. 8 . Reenders, Alternatieve zending, 43-45 and Müller-Krüger, Der Protestantismus, 77-79 and 188-193. 4 were considered equal and the government was supposed not to favour any one more than another. Not all government interference disappeared, however. Christian ministers stayed on the governmental pay roll after 1808 and Batavia subsidized the building and restoration of Christian churches (Protestant and Catholic alike) and even some mosques. Catholic vicars and penghulu, high-ranking leaders of Islam in Java, also received an allowance: the latter was nevertheless much lower than that which the Protestant and Catholic clergy received. The Governor General and his civil servants were responsible in the first place for the maintenance of public order. If a regional governor could report that everything had been quiet in his district during the year, he had done well and deserved promotion. As Batavia wanted to prevent collisions and conflicts between Christianity and Islam, Christian missionaries, intent on spreading the gospel to new converts, needed a special permit before they were allowed to start work in a certain area. 9 In practice this meant that they were seldom able to preach the gospel in regions where the purer form of Islam was influential. Allowing missionaries into regions like Bantam or the Preanger Regencies, areas considered to be ‘orthodox’, could have caused unrest. So the principle of religious neutrality was subordinated to another policy, i.e. that of the maintenance of public order. The situation on Sumatra was different from Java because only a small part of Sumatra was under Dutch control. The Hague had decided, in 1841, that Dutch power would not be expanded further. uploads/Religion/ the-dutch-and-radical-islam-in-nineteenth.pdf