ABSTRACT
Muslims traditionally cherish the search for knowledge and learning, even though, as the oft-quoted Prophetic saying goes, the quest may take the student as far as China. Religious education and knowledge have always been important criteria for being a Muslim. The question, however, of how Muslim norms and values should be defi ned is rather problematic. The two fundamental norm-giving authorities in Islam are the Qur’ân, God’s word revealed to the Prophet and the sunna, the words and deeds of the Prophet himself. Their interpretation, however, is not uniform and so different Islamic self-definitions have been developed over time. In this chapter I wish to explore the ideas and practices in the fi eld of moral education by the traditionalist group in twentieth-century Java. In their concepts about good and evil we fi nd a refl ection of ideals concerning authority, obedience, family and relations between man and woman. I focus my attention on the genre of Javanese Islamic poetry called singir (or syi‘ir, syiir, syi’ir, syair, all possible transliterations of what is spelled in Arabic script as sh-‘-[î]-r) that is mainly sung by girls and women.1 Furthermore I look into related forms of Indonesian Islamic poetry (mainly written by Javanese), demonstrating that moving into the twenty-fi rst century, issues of Islamic identity continue to preoccupy Muslims in Java and the Indonesian Muslim community at large.
