Sufism, Miracles and Oceanic Fatwas: The Beloved of North Jakarta

What is it about?

This article focusses on a saint named Habib Hussein (d. 1756) and his shrine in a village in North Jakarta. To better introduce readers to the saint, his past, grave, and village, this article works backwards from a contemporary moment, by walking readers through the village he is buried in and introducing stories of miracles that continue to be told today. I discuss a twenty-first century moment when the saint was seen resisting the state’s urban redevelopment plans in collusion with Islamists; in doing so, he reminded followers of his immortal history of resisting colonialism and secularism. Next, readers are introduced to biographies of the saint that were written by Sufi scholars. These biographies included the stories of the saint’s life as a miracle worker, missionary, and scholar in Yemen, western India, and Java. These stories have been passed down orally across generations. Moving from biographies of the saint’s life to documents on his shrine, this article then studies legal opinions that were written in the late nineteenth century by Islamic scholars from the Arab world and Java. These texts on the finances and customs of Habib Hussein’s shrine remind us that a shrine located in a seemingly peripheral village of Java has been of major concern to Islamic authorities across the globe. Ultimately, this article tells a story of devotion, miracles, law, and sacred places marginalised in the academic study of religion.

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