Religion in Southeast Asia: An Encyclopedia of Faiths and Cultures

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SANTI ASOKE

Santi Asoke is a Buddhist sect in Thailand. It was established in the early 1970s by a group of followers to a monk called Bodhiraksa (b. 1934). Bodhiraksa’s lay name was Mongkol “Rak” Rakpong, and he was a famous TV entertainer. Santi Asoke is controversial due to its strict adherence to vegetarian (vegan) and ascetic practices. The Asoke group differs from Thai Buddhism by rejecting magico-animistic rituals; the monks do not distribute Buddha amulets, sprinkle “holy water,” or engage in fortune-telling. In the beginning, the group had no Buddha images in the temples. These practices led to the accusation that the group was “heretic.” Bodhiraksa was also accused of deviating from the interpretations of Buddhist Pali concepts, and in 1975, the highest Buddhist state authority in Thailand, the Council of Elders (mahatherasamakhom), forced Bodhiraksa to disrobe. Bodhiraksa refused and started to ordain his own followers; the entire group hence became nominally outlawed by the state.

One of the major controversies has remained vegetarianism. The mainstream Buddhists argue that Buddha never declared that his monks must be vegetarians. Asoke monks argue that the first Buddhist Precept (sila) encourages practitioners to refrain from destroying life.

The name Santi Asoke refers to their urban temple and community in Bangkok. Asoke group runs about 10 villages around the country, Pathom Asoke in Nakhon Pathom, Sisa Asoke in Sisaket, Sima Asoke in Nakhon Ratchasima, Sali Asoke in Nakhon Sawan, Racthathani Asoke in Ubon Ratchathani, and Lanna Asoke in Chiang Mai are among the largest ones. About 50–100 lay people live in each Asoke village, grow organic vegetables and rice, and prepare herbal shampoos, detergents, and medicines. All the villages have public schools with about 50 to 100 students who study ordinary primary school, secondary school, or high school subjects as well as more practical vocational skills such as agriculture and herbal products, skills that they can support themselves with in the future.

The Asoke group consists of approximately 100 monks and 25 nuns known as sikkhamats. These numbers have remained stable for the last 20 years. The monks are called samana, as the Pali word bhikkhu and Thai word phra are reserved for the state Buddhist monks. The nuns are Ten-Precept nuns, which means that they follow Ten Buddhist Precepts and rely financially on the community support for their survival, as they—like the Asoke monks—are not allowed to use money. The monks and the nuns eat only one vegetarian meal a day before noon; no breakfast, and nothing else but pure water in the afternoon, contrary to many mainstream monks who eat a breakfast and a lunch, and in the afternoon drink yoghurt and other milk products. The monks and the nuns walk barefoot the whole day—not only on the alms round—and they live in very modest wooden huts (kutis). Hundreds of lay people live permanently in the Asoke villages and communities, and additionally there are many regular supporters of the Asoke group, people who may have attended one or two of the annual weeklong retreats in the villages. There are no membership cards; hence it is impossible to give any precise numbers. The Asoke people are often recognizable with their blue peasant pajamas, which symbolize their modesty and search for simplicity.

In the late 1980s, the Asoke group was involved in a court case when their most prominent lay supporter, Major General Chamlong Srimuang (b. 1935), while governor of Bangkok, established his own political party, Palang Dharma (The Power of Righteousness) and was planning to be a candidate for the Parliament. The state Buddhist sangha criticized the Asoke group’s practices for years, and in 1989, the Asoke monks and nuns were detained. The nuns were released, but the monks were accused of being bogus monks, and they were forced to wear white robes symbolizing their lay status. They were not allowed to go for their alms rounds as they were not legally “monks.” The court case lasted until the end of 1995, and the court sentenced the Asoke monks to a suspended sentence of two years. After two years, the Asoke monks changed back to their brown robes and continued their activities.

Anti-government demonstrators and members of the Santi Asoke sect, carrying blue flags, march in the Thai capital of Bangkok on March 14, 2006. Over 100,000 people turned out to protest against the government of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. (Yvan Cohen/Getty Images)

The sect has grown its own vegetables and rice since the 1970s and is practically self-sufficient in terms of food production. Asoke people refer to E. F. Schumacher’s book, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973), and particularly to the chapter “Buddhist Economics,” where Schumacher argues that Buddhist economics must, due to Buddhist teachings, be based on the modest use of natural resources, minimum consumption, and self-sufficiency. After the Thai currency collapsed in 1997, “sufficiency economy” became a catchword in Thailand, promoted by the state. Santi Asoke’s lifestyle became suddenly popular, and thousands of Thais and foreigners visited Asoke villages to learn about organic farming and “sufficiency economy.” The Asoke version of “sufficiency economy” is called “meritism” (bunniyom), placing spiritual merit (bun) before profits.

When the telecom tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra was elected as prime minister in 2001, the Asoke people warmly supported him, mainly because he was regarded as a protégée of Chamlong. One of Thaksin’s poverty-alleviating policies was to grant farmers a debt moratorium for three years and to require that the indebted farmers attended a training course, for instance, in an Asoke village. From 2001 to 2008, hundreds of thousands of Thai farmers were trained in organic farming in Asoke villages. The trainees received simultaneously daily preaching on vegetarianism, modesty, and self-sacrifice. New villages were established to accommodate all the training courses. The courses started to wind down when Chamlong broke up with Thaksin and the Asoke people joined the anti-Thaksin demonstrations in 2006 under the name Dhamma Army (Kongthub Dharm), which is an Asoke foundation responsible for the maintenance of vehicles. By turning against Thaksin, the Asoke group alienated itself from the pro-Thaksin rural population whom they had tried to help with their teachings.

Despite the political turmoil in Thailand, the Asoke group continues its work in organic farming, selling the surplus in their cooperatives in Bangkok and other cities. They run vegetarian restaurants, of which particularly the one in Chiang Mai is hugely popular. The Asoke group runs schools in several centers and the Asoke people are busy in publishing their weekly and monthly magazines and journals and in running their own TV channel called “For Mankind TV” (FMTV).

Marja-Leena Heikkilä-Horn

See also: Bhikkhu, Buddhadasa; Buddhism; Education; Reform Movements; Religion and Society; Thailand.

SANTO, IGNACIA DEL ESPIRITU

The Venerable Ignacia del Espiritu Santo, also known as Mother Ignacia, was a Filipino Catholic Religious Sister who founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Religious of the Virgin Mary (now known as the Religious of the Virgin Mary), considered as the first Filipino female congregation recognized by the Vatican. Mother Ignacia was declared venerable by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007.

Ignacia was born to a Chinese father from Amoy and a Filipina mother in Binondo, Manila, on February 1, 1663, and was baptized in the Church of the Holy Kings of Parian. Growing up as the eldest of four children, she had shown the traditional qualities of a daughter obedient to her parents’ wishes. However, when told that she was expected to get married at the age of 21, Venerable Ignacia asked the Jesuit priest Father Paul Klein, who was a family friend and her spiritual adviser, for guidance. He gave her the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. After spending time meditating during a retreat, Ignacia decided to enter the religious life and left her parents’ home with only a needle and a pair of scissors.

During her time, the Spanish Catholic authorities prohibited Filipinos from becoming priests or nuns. Ignacia lived alone in a house near the Colegio Jesuita de Manila, headquarters of the Jesuits in the Philippines. Her self-imposed monastic life, marked by spiritual devotion and labor, attracted many followers among Filipinas. She accepted them, leading them in prayer and penance, performing many acts of public devotions, and receiving the sacraments at the church of St. Ignatius in the walled city of Manila. They also taught street children and less fortunate Filipinas. Though they have not yet received official recognition, their group became known as the Beatas dela Compania de Jesus (Blesseds of the Friends of Jesus). The “beatas,” as the members came to be called, performed labor such as sewing and even begged for alms and for their food. Venerable Ignacia drew inspiration from the life of St. Mary and set an example before her congregation.

To gain recognition for her congregation, Venerable Ignacia wrote a history of her congregation and composed a constitution, and submitted them for approval in 1726. By 1732, the Archdiocese of Manila proclaimed official recognition of the Beatas dela Compania de Jesus. Soon after, Venerable Ignacia stepped down as mother superior and lived as an ordinary nun. In 1748, the archbishop of Manila recommended her group to the Spanish king for royal patronage. Two months later, she died at the age of 85 on September 10, 1748.

With the approval of Pope Benedict XVI on July 6, 2007, Manila archbishop Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales presided over the promulgation that officially accorded to Mother Ignacia the title “Venerable” at the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz in Binondo, Manila.

George Amurao

See also: Christianity; Philippines; Women; Women’s Monastic Communities.

SATHYA SAI BABA MOVEMENT

The Indian miracle-working guru, Sathya Sai Baba, was one of the spiritual figures who had an influence on the religious scenario of Southeast Asia. Born on November 25, 1926, Sathya Sai Baba was among modern India’s most renowned religious figures. During his lifetime, he attracted a following both in India and overseas. In Southeast Asia, interest in Sai Baba grew rapidly during the 1970s and became particularly intense among the Indian minority in Malaysia and also in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Sai Baba was born into a non-Brahmin family of the kshatriya caste in the village of Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India, and was called Sathya Narayana Raju at birth. At 34 years of age, he claimed he would live another 59 years (until he was 94 years old) but he died aged 84 in March 2011, though some have explained the discrepancy as due to his reckoning according to lunar rather than solar years.

According to his biographers, Sai Baba’s birth and early childhood were marked by miracles and mysterious events. Then, as a young teenager, he had a seizure but recovered quickly and afterward called his family and neighbors to his bedside and declared himself to be Sathya Sai Baba (Sai Baba of truth). With this, he was claiming to be the reincarnation of the Maharashtran ascetic saint Sai Baba of Shirdi, who died in 1918. He later explained that eight years after his death, there would be a third Sai Baba incarnation, Prema Sai Baba (Sai Baba of love).

Devotees have published various accounts of his miraculous cures and materializations of gold rings and trinkets, but his most common feat was to manifest sacred ash known as vibhuti by means of a circular movement of his right hand. This ash would be given to devotees, often for medicinal use. Belief in Sai Baba’s paranormal powers became the hallmark of a devotee. Although he only once left India to visit his Gujarati devotees in Africa, many traveled to his ashram in Puttaparthi in order to experience one of his twice-daily appearances known as darshan, at which devotees could participate in the Divine by meeting the gaze of their Lord.

Sai Baba developed an ambiguous appearance that combined erotic and ascetic symbolism. He wore long robes, usually of the ascetic color orange or occasionally white, and the fabric could be glistening silk; but his lifestyle was modeled on that of the ascetic. He never married and spent his time in meditation or by giving blessings. His hair had an “Afro” appearance—neither long and matted like Hindu renunciants, nor neat and oiled like ordinary Indian men.

This ambiguous symbolism evidently appealed to the predicament of cosmopolitan overseas Indians who sought to reaffirm their Hindu identity without foregoing the comforts of modern life. The fact that Hinduism is seen by devotees as the original source of universal truth and of a modern, omnipotent God incarnate re-ennobles Indian culture and offers a readily accessible avenue to divine power. However, the public presentation of the movement as an interfaith organization promoting national unity and charity makes it politically palatable in the predominantly Muslim countries of Southeast Asia.

Sai Baba began to attract a following in India as a young man, but the number of devotees increased significantly, both in India and overseas, from the 1960s onward. During the 1970s, the movement was starting to become formalized. The movement has attracted influential devotees from politics, business, the sciences, and the professions. According to the International Sai Organisation website (http://www.sathyasai.org/default.htm), there are now 1,200 registered Sai Baba centers in 126 countries. Some 35 centers and 13 so-called devotional groups have been noted in Malaysia (see Kent 2005) and 17 in Singapore (see http://sathyasai.org.sg/sssos/singapore-sai-centres/). However, it is difficult to know how many devotees there are since many people worship Sai Baba privately, without registering as members or attending the centers. This is particularly pertinent to the question of Muslim devotees, for whom overt participation in non-Muslim worship is attended by considerable risk.

The organization, with its headquarters in Puttaparthi, is pyramidally structured with regional, national, and local chairpersons. In order to become registered, a center is required to have a chairperson, secretary, and treasurer and to provide worship, spiritual education, and charity activities. Support is through anonymous donations, and there are no membership fees. In Puttaparthi, the organization has sponsored the construction of a school, a college, and a large hospital. The movement has prompted some controversy. At least one organization in India has gone to some lengths to discredit Sai Baba by releasing films showing the guru performing ”faked” materializations and books that contradict some of the devotees’ miracle claims. Rumors have also circulated about Sai Baba sexually abusing devotees. In general, however, the movement has weathered the storms well.

The growing interest in Sai Baba in the 1970s coincided with the heightening of Islamic consciousness in Malaysia, and it was around this time that Malaysian middle-class Indians and some Malaysian Chinese began to develop what was to become a renowned Sai Baba organization in their country. Here, the movement grew strong under the leadership of middle-class, politically well-connected Indians, and some Chinese. Many of these Indians grew up under a strong British and Christian influence and now aspire to rekindle their Hindu identity while also cleansing it of association with the folk practices such as blood sacrifice, spirit possession, and firewalking that have been common among the Indian plantation laborers, who also arrived in Malaya under British colonial rule.

It is illegal in Malaysia both for Malay/Muslims to engage in any non-Muslim religious activity and for non-Muslims to proselytize among Malays. Attempts to influence the ruling Malays should therefore avoid phrasing themselves in terms of religion, ethnicity, and politics. It is against this background that the equivocality of the Sai Baba movement creates room for maneuver. The Malaysian Organization proclaimed itself to be an ecumenical body that aspired to assist the government in nurturing national unity and it developed an “ABC programme” (Action for Betterment of the Community) and a Friendship Group, ostensibly to promote interracial and interreligious harmony. This format also enabled Chinese and Indians to establish a politically unproblematic forum for solidarity. In theory, this public presentation allowed Malay Muslims to participate alongside their Indian and Chinese compatriots in performing community service. In reality, however, although some Malays are said to have experienced Sai Baba’s miracles, their participation in the movement has been minimal and largely clandestine.

While it outwardly stresses universal values, the movement privately elevates Hinduism over other religions. For example, Sai Baba education programs set up by devotees usually promote a set of “universal human values”—prema, shanti, ahimsa, sathya, and dharma (love, peace, nonviolence, truth, and duty)—which, although they are said to underlie all religions, are ultimately seen to derive from Hinduism. Similarly, Sai Baba altars in Malaysia, as elsewhere, tend to display images and symbols from several of the world religions, including Islam, and include a picture of Sai Baba or his feet. However, the fact that vibhuti ash is said to appear miraculously on some of these altars and the fact that worship at the Sai Baba centers tends to follow the format of Hindu puja ritual again gives Hinduism primacy. Prayers include offerings of flowers to the image of Sai Baba, the chanting of Sanskrit mantras, the singing of devotional songs (bhajans) in Sanskrit and other languages, the recitation of prayers and the offering of burning camphor to the altar, and the distribution of vibhuti ash to the congregation. Overall, Sai Baba’s own personhood and this way of using symbolism and ritual has enabled many Indians in Muslim Southeast Asia to reassert their Hindu identity to the Muslim majority in a politically and ethnically convivial format. During his lifetime, Sai Baba’s claim to be a universal godhead thus helped redignify Indian culture for Indians in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, allowing them to claim that “God lives in India.”

Alexandra Kent

See also: Contextualization; Diaspora; Ethnicity; Hinduism; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Popular Religion.

SAYADAW, MAHASI

Born in Seikkam, Upper Burma, in 1904, the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw (1904–1982) is highly revered as one of the great Theravada Buddhist meditation monks of his age, whose influence stretched well beyond the borders of Myanmar (Burma) into Asia and the Western world. Emphasizing the practical element of insight meditation, Sayadaw’s teaching provided techniques for everyday practitioners to use in their pursuit of enlightenment. Following his death in 1982, Sayadaw’s teaching continues to inspire generations of Buddhist practitioners.

Sayadaw was enrolled at the local monastery at the age of six and was initiated as a young novice at the age of 12, at which stage he was given the name Shin Sobana. At age 19, he elected to become ordained within the priestly Order, devoting himself to the study of Theravada texts, passing the rigorous government examinations required of all Buddhist monks. Excelling in the study of scriptures, he became known in 1941 as Mahasi Sayadaw, teaching vipassanā (insight) meditation at the Monastery in Seikkham, concentrating his efforts on combining scriptural knowledge with the teaching of meditation practice. In accordance with the teaching of the Buddha, Sayadaw believed that for any teaching to be effective, it must be put into practice. If a teaching proved to be beneficial, then it should be accepted, and if not, it should be discarded. The Mahasi wrote a comprehensive and widely circulated manual that dynamically combined both doctrinal and practical aspects of meditation.

Following the Independence of Myanmar in 1948, Sayadaw was invited to Rangoon to become the guardian of Myanmar’s largest lay meditation center, the Mahasi Thathana Yeithka. This center was established to help revitalize the wisdom of the Buddha’s teaching in order to help purify the state and society from moral decline. Within the center, monks serve as teachers and guides to the laity, who come to actively practice insight meditation techniques. The impact of the Mahasi Thathana Yeithka was such that within a few years, similar meditation centers were opened across Burma, and subsequently in other Theravada Buddhist countries including Thailand and Sri Lanka. Centers have now been established around the world, including India, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the United States. In recognition of his considerable spiritual attainments, distinguished scholarship and teaching, Sayadaw was awarded the prestigious title of “Exalted Wise One.”

The Sixth World Buddhist Council, held in Burma between 1954 and 1956, was organized to promote the Buddha’s teachings and practices according to the Theravada tradition, and had the goal of harmonizing the Scriptures and erasing discrepancies that had appeared within Buddhist texts over time. Within the council, Sayadaw played a preeminent role and served as the final editor in the process of interpreting and revising key passages of scripture.

The teaching of Sayadaw can be found within the extensive range of written publications in Burmese, as well as publications in English, including ‘Practical Meditation Insight’ and ‘The Process of Insight.’ The legacy of Sayadaw’s contribution to Buddhism, and in particular to the teaching of practical meditation techniques, continues to have an impact around the world. Insight meditation, a technique in which the participant concentrates on the rising and falling of the abdomen during the breathing cycle while acknowledging the changes taking place within the mind and body, allows the participant to journey through the steps towards enlightenment.

That such a path could be taken not only by monks but everyday persons had a dramatic influence within the realm of Theravada Buddhism, generating waves of interest in the practice of insight meditation at the Mahasi Thathana Yeithka center. A prominent image at the center is that of a painting depicting the Buddha surrounded by laypeople listening to his teaching. The Buddha appears to be conditioning those gathered for enlightenment. Inspired by this approach, Sayadaw devoted himself to making the wisdom of Buddha accessible, through the application of simple meditation techniques, for those seeking a meaningful path of transformation and enlightenment.

Adrian Bird

See also: Buddhism; Dharma/Dhamma; Diaspora; Education; Myanmar (Burma); Religion and Society; Southeast Asian Religions in the USA; Thailand.

SAYADAW, THAMANYA

Thamanya Sayadaw was an influential and charismatic Burmese Buddhist monk who passed away in 2003. His hagiographies give as his birth year either 1910 or 1912. He was born in the Karen state and educated in monasteries in Moulmein but he himself was an ethnic Pao. He was ordained as a novice monk at the age of 13. His monastic name was U Winaya, but after he established himself in Hpa-an in the Karen state on Thamanya Hill, he became known as Thamanya Sayadaw. He was one of the most venerated monks in Myanmar (Burma) throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Some scholars have attempted to politicize him as the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited his temple. He was hence regarded as an opponent to the military rule that had restarted in 1988. He had allegedly refused the government patronage, which further enhanced his reputation as an antimilitary monk.

He was donated land by wealthy supporters, and he redistributed the land to the people in the area. In the 1990s, there were around 400 monks and 200–300 female ascetics in the temple. He had 4,000 to 5,000 households residing in the vicinity of his temple. These people were ethnic Pao, Mon, and Pwo Karen. Many Karen villagers had escaped the ongoing fighting between the Burmese military and the Karen armies. One basic rule for people to enter his compound was that they were not allowed to carry arms. Thus he managed to keep the army and the militias out of the temple, and the compound formed a “peace zone” in a war-torn region.

Sayadaw himself was a vegetarian—which is rare in Theravada Buddhism—and only vegetarian food was served in the temple compound. Sayadaw was also seen as radiating metta (compassion) and was visited by many educated middle-class people who granted him generous donations, thus enabling him to financially support the temple community and provide all pilgrims with vegetarian food. The temple ran schools for local children. Sayadaw also built roads. As is common in Burmese Buddhism, Sayadaw was also believed to have supernatural powers as a result of his ascetic practices, and hence his pictures became valued amulets to protect lay people against any mishaps in life. In 1991, the Ministry of Religious Affairs granted him a hierarchical title, Abhidhaja Agga Maha Sadhamma Jotika.

After his death, his body was preserved in the monastery in a glass mausoleum and was assumed to have magic power. His corpse was mysteriously removed from the mausoleum in April 2008 and was allegedly burnt. There is no reliable information about the events. The monks that time suggested that his body was snatched by one of the several armies fighting in the area. Thamanya’s temple was a popular site of pilgrimage until 2008 but has somewhat declined after the disappearance of the body.

Marja-Leena Heikkila-Horn

See also: Buddhism; Education; Myanmar (Burma); Peace-Building; Religion and Society; Sayadaw, Mahasi; Study of Religion; Women’s Monastic Communities.

SECULARISM

Any discussion on secularism in Southeast Asia today should take place in the context of the new debate about religion and politics, with the impression gaining ground that religion is playing an increasingly visible role in politics including international affairs. It may also be important to note that secularism is the separation between religious institutions and the state rather than that between religion and politics.

The term secularism was first used by the British writer George Jacob Holyoake in 1851. He invented the term to describe his view of promoting a social order separate from religion without actively dismissing or criticizing religious belief. An agnostic himself, Holyoake argued that “Secularism is not an argument against Christianity; it is one independent of it.”

A distinction may be drawn between secularism and secularization. The meaning of secularism is generally political. In this sense, secularism refers to political arrangements that make separation between religious institutions and the state. Secularization refers to a widespread decline of religious practice and among ordinary people.

Secularism aims at avoiding the medieval pattern of state, which was theocratic. All states and societies in the medieval period have been theocracies. State and society were integrated with the authority of one “established religion” whose sanction determined the law of citizenship and social structure. A theocracy gives first-class citizenship only to the adherents of the established religion; the others are legally restricted in their religious practices and discriminated adversely in social life and the provision of social opportunities.

The secular state is antitheocratic in the sense that the state has no special relation to any one particular religion. Therefore, the adherents of all religions and no religion have the same status and rights of citizenship, including freedom of religion/belief and freedom from discrimination in civic life on the basis of religious belief. A secular state is one that guarantees individual and corporate freedom of religion, is not constitutionally connected to a particular religion, and does not seek either to promote or interfere with religion.

“Well … secularism in Asia is not at all like the Western version. Here it is so connected to how we are and who we are. For me secularism in this part of the world means tolerance. When you go to a Catholic church in Sindh, in my hometown Larkana, there are no pews. They sit on the ground with their legs crossed. And they don’t have candles but diyas. And they put rose petals on the picture of the Virgin Mary. We come from a region where we mix all these ideas and have done so for centuries beautifully” (Fatima Bhutto, Pakistani writer).

Ninan Koshy

In the relation between religion and state, five aspects of religion are important. First, the view of history taken by a religion—whether human history is regarded as real and important. Second, the attitude of a religion to other religions. Third, the capacity a given religion has demonstrated for effective ecclesiastical organization. Fourth, historical traditions of separation or fusion of political and religious functions. Fifth, the extent to which religion has tended to regulate social life.

Rajeev Bhargava points out that secularism is a complex, evolving idea. It is not a doctrine with a fixed content. It has no single meaning. Of course, not all meanings are equally valid for every society. Secularism has multiple interpretations that change over time. Different societies must work out their own distinctive conceptions of secularism and see which one of them is good for them.

Secularism is a principle that involves two basic questions. The first is the strict separation of the state from religious institutions. The second is that people of different religions and beliefs are equal before the law. Bhargava is of the view that there are two types of political separation. The first identifies separation with exclusion. For the second, to separate is to mark the distance or boundaries. In the first type, politics must keep off religion. The standoffishness may be robust or mild, interventionist or noninterventionist. The second does not demand total exclusion. Some contacts are possible, but some distance has to be kept. It can mean some form of political neutrality, or the respect of the boundaries between religion and politics.

Any theory of secularism must be able to offer a sketch of how the two must relate after separation. M. M. Thomas makes a distinction between “closed secularism” and “open secularism.” Some would call it “negative secularism” and “positive secularism.” “Closed secularism” is a form of narrow sectarian secularism, which refuses to be sensitive to tradition and faith. An “open secularism,” while it puts questions to religion as any secularism should, listens to religious questions both from within and without. A secularism that takes religion and faith seriously will conform to democratic ideals, especially in a highly religious society.

The question may be raised whether it is possible to separate religion from politics. In Asian cultures, especially, it is difficult to disentangle the religious from the nonreligious and therefore practically impossible to separate strictly every religious from every nonreligious practice. The distancing of religion from state becomes necessary to protect individual citizens from their own oppressive, religiously sanctioned social customs. Thus secularism is related to individual liberty and equality. Secular states aim to end religious hegemony, oppression, and domination and to do so by separating them from religious structures.

There are two distinct values of secularism; one is the guarantee of religious liberty, and the other is the independence of citizenship from religious considerations. Religious liberty, when understood broadly, is one significant value of a secular state. It is important to note that religious freedom is not possible in the absence of other freedoms such as freedom of expression, and therefore the championing of religious liberty can be done only by championing all human rights. It also follows that full religious liberty ensures democratic freedoms. In multireligious societies, religious freedom can be guaranteed only in a secular polity.

A democratic framework is the most conducive climate for secularism. Democracy requires that there be no concentration of power in any one institution or any other group. If people who exercise authority in religious institutions begin to exercise power in political matters, then the democratic framework is undermined. Equally important is social justice. Without equality, democracy, and social justice, secularism cannot exist as a positive value in society.

The secular state faces challenges, especially after the end of the Cold War. One of the challenges is about the basis of nationalism. In many countries that struggled for independence, nationalism represented the aspirations of all the people in the territory. It is this nationalism that was called secularism in the postindependence period. But when the basis of a nation-state is interpreted in religious terms rather than in political terms, the secular state is threatened. A number of countries in the context of the collapse of the Soviet Union began to claim that a particular religion is the basis of their nationalism. This is especially true of situations where ethnicity and religion are coterminous. One of the features of the new world order—or rather, disorder—is the resurgence of identities based on ethnic and parochial religious allegiance. While the term “Christian states” is rather nebulous, the term Islamic in relation to a state clearly indicates that the basis is Islam.

In a way, secularism was offered to the non-Western world after the end of the Second World War as part of a package that also included modernization and development. Modernization was equated with Westernization and was rejected, and development failed to attain its promised objectives. This considerably weakened secularism.

The opposition to the secular state in many countries is that it is Western and Christian. That it is Western in its origin is not denied. But it has been conveniently adapted to particular situations and clearly accepted as an expression of indigenous sentiments. One prominent Christian theologian suggested long ago that the idea of secular state is not only culturally European, but specifically Christian. In Christianity and World History, Arend Theodor van Leeuwen argued that the separation of religion and temporal spheres for the political organization of the state was “Christianity’s gift to the world.”

In general, states in Southeast Asia can claim to be constitutionally secular in the sense that they do not ground the state’s legitimacy on beliefs that transcend the world. But their ethos is religious, as the secular framework often masks a religious spirit. The ruling elites in Japan, Thailand, and Indonesia, for example, follow practices that may be called religious. In situations where the nonreligious cannot be differentiated from the religious, it may be correct to say that traditional practices have religious content, even when they are presented in nonreligious terms. This is distinct from secularization, which is a marked decline in religious belief. Modernization in the Western sense has not affected these societies. There is a continuing interplay between the secular form and religious substance within these states.

A related issue is the influence or role of the dominant or majority religion in constitutionally secular states. The majority religion tends to insist that its traditional religious practices—at least some of them—are national. Often the dominant religion defines what nationalism is, and it is within that definition that the secular has to function. This can lead to tensions, as is the case in many Asian countries. People who belong to minority religions are the greatest beneficiaries of secularism. They should be vigilant about secularism and should do whatever they can to protect and promote them. Sectarian approaches by minority religious groups can only weaken the secular fabric.

Ninan Koshy

See also: Atheism/Agnosticism; Christianity; Ethnicity; Freedom of Religion; Fundamentalism; Globalization; Indonesia; Islam; Minorities; Nationalism; Religion and Society; Thailand.

SEXUALITY

Sexuality is an integral part of human culture and life. Sexuality is not only related to reproduction, but it has also been influenced by human customs, religions, arts, moralities, and laws. Sexuality is a fundamental aspect of human life, encompassing the physical, psychological, social, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and ethical dimensions of the human experience (Bruess and Greenberg 1994). Sexuality may include sexual development, human creation, sexual differences between males and females, desire, love, sexual expression, masturbation, sexual intimacy, premarital and extramarital sex, sexual orientation, abortion, contraception, circumcision, polygamy, contemporary marriage, and so forth.

In societies such as Indonesia, the texts of the Qur’an (the book of revelation that is believed by Muslims to be the Word of God) and Hadith (the practices and sayings ascribed to Muhammad, the last prophet of Islam) play a major role in understanding sexuality. These become sources of moral and practical guidance in Muslims’ daily lives. However, although the sources or texts are the same, Islam does not have a static or monolithic tradition, because like other religions, Islam has interacted with many sociopolitical, economic, and geographic conditions at particular times (Ilkkaracan 2002). Based on this history, Islam also offers diverse interpretations of the texts.

In general, Islamic culture recognizes the power of sexual needs and desires. The subjects of sexuality are discussed in the Qur’an and in the Hadith. The discussion about sexual behaviors and sexual intimacy in Islam always relates to morality and marital and family life. Some texts regarding sexuality indicate that men and women have to be treated equally and have equal rights. For example, some verses in the Qur’an mention that a man’s wife can be his garment and that he can be garment to her (Taqiyuddin and Khan 1995, 68). There are also verses that exhort the believers to live with their wives honorably (Taqiyuddin and Khan 1995, 168) and that a man’s wife has a right over him (Hadith). Prophet Muhammad himself described legitimate sex as a good deed even though sex with a “forbidden woman” is an act of sin (Athar 1995, 14).

Based on these texts, Muslim couples are encouraged to enjoy sex equally. It means that sexual satisfaction in the Islamic view is necessary for both partners because the “garment” in this text is a symbol of comfort and also equality, a symbol in which the wife is a “garment” for the husband and the husband is a “garment” for the wife. In the Qur’an, it is mentioned that both the husband and wife have the same rights to enjoy and express their sexual desires, but with some limitations. The Prophet Muhammad asserted that spouses should not divulge the secrets of their sex lives to another person nor describe the wife’s physical appearance to anyone. The Islamic faith also prohibits premarital and extramarital sex because sex in Islam always relates to marriage, and extramarital sex is perceived as hurtful. It means that Muslims cannot have sex with others when it will hurt the marriage partner. Therefore, faithfulness and loyalty in marriage are very important.

Similar to Muslims’ beliefs, Christians and Buddhists also believe that the acceptable sexual relationship is only within marriage. However, unlike the Muslims and Christians who perceive sex outside marriage as sinful, Buddhism sees sexuality in moderate ways, neither too conservative nor too liberal (Wijaya 2007). In Thailand, for example, where more than 90 percent of the people practice Theravada Buddhism, it is believed that people who enter monkhood have to leave their sexual desires, whereas women have no such option. Women in the Buddhist tradition are allowed to shave their heads, but they have no official place, and their action is seen only as an individual expression of cutting off from sexual emotion (Silverman 2004). After the Vietnam War, Thailand has become known as a sex tourism destination. Although prostitution is illegal there, it is a practice protected, and women may choose to believe that suffering as prostitutes is the result of their karma. Ninety percent of Thai prostitutes are from poor families (Silverman 2004). Research has found that 75 percent of the advertising of products in the media in Thailand is sex driven and that the companies benefit from that (Wijaya 2007).

The Islamic tradition sees sex and sexuality positively, which is part of the Islamic teaching. Sex and sexuality are not against spirituality, but they are signs of God’s mercy and blessings to humanity (Hassan 1991). In the Qur’an Arroom 30:21, it is mentioned that one of Allah’s signs is that Allah created mates for each of us and that we should find rest in them. Allah also put between us love and compassion (Shakir 2005). For the Catholics, on the other hand, sex and sexuality is good for peasants, but it should be avoided by priests (Sipe 1995). Although a sexual relationship is acceptable only within marriage, premarital sex in the Philippines has become more common.

The Javanese see men’s and women’s sexuality positively and affirm that both of them have the right to enjoy sexual pleasure. In the kakawin world, both men and women have the right to enjoy pleasure in a sexual relationship (Creese 2004). However, the sexual attraction of a woman is based more on certain types and sizes of the parts of her body than a man’s. In Serat Panitisastra, for example, it is described that a woman’s sexual drive and attraction derive from her slender body, full breasts, a pretty face, big eyes, pointy nose, and light skin (Munir 2002; Sukri and Sofwan 2001). A good smell from perfume is also part of women’s sexual attraction (Miharja 1960). A woman’s body is significantly linked to her degree of sexual attraction.

Sexual relationships have been symbolized in a hierarchal way. In the Serat Centhini, for instance, the ideal woman is the one who is always there when her husband needs her, always smiles even though she is upset, and is still loyal to her husband even though he may have as many as 40 wives (Hadijaya and Kamajaya 1978). In the Javanese wedding ceremony, there is a ritual called mijidadi in which the bride washes the groom’s foot after breaking an egg as a symbol of fertility. This ritual symbolizes the unequal sexual relationship between the wife and the husband (Munir 2002) because the Javanese epistemology of sexual intercourse, manuggaling kawulagusti—the union of servant and lord (Beatty 1999, 173)—also indicates inequality in the sexual relationship because the wife is a servant and the husband is the lord.

In terms of the contribution to conception, traditionally Javanese people see men and women equally. The creation and development of human beings, according to Riffat Hassan (1999), becomes a fundamental issue because it relates to the existence of women in the world. According to an old Javanese philosophical treatise, Teaching of Wrahaspati, men and women eat and drink the six tastes and then become life and body. A boy is born if there is more male essence than female essence. Conversely, if there is more female essence than male, then a girl is born. The male essence forms the bones, blood vessels, and marrow, and the female essence becomes the flesh, blood, and skin. Three come from the male and the other three come from the female (Creese 2004).

Alimatul Qibtiyah

See also: Buddhism; Christianity; Humanism; Indonesia; Islam; Philippines; Thailand; Vietnam; Women.

SHAMANISM

“Shamanism” emerged as a new concept in 1895, when Mihajlovski postulated the universality of the characters (shaman) described since the seventeenth century as ritual specialists in Siberian hunting societies (Hamayon 2010). With the growth of rationalizing observations and psychoanalysis, shamans have then been seen mainly as endowed with a pathological personality, giving them special skills in therapy. Mircea Eliade is the major author who contributed to reestablish these figures in the field of religion. He characterized shamans as mastering the techniques of ecstasy and made their practices known in Western societies through the American translation of his book in 1968. Insisting on the specific dimension of the communication established by shamans with spirits, as during their séances they are believed to leave for a journey into the spiritual world, Eliade also opposed it to practices of spirit possession, rather involving the coming down of spirits into their mediums. In this way, he contributed to the unawareness of practices of contact with the spirits in parts of the world where this reversed type of communication with the spiritual world was more present, including mainland Southeast Asia.

This could partly explain why mainland Southeast Asia was hardly noticed for its shamanic cultures until the 1990s—except for Hmong shamanism—although practices of establishing a direct contact with the spiritual world either through shamanic journeys or spirit possession were reported throughout the region. But there is another explanation for this undeserved neglect. Until the 1960s, knowledge of the region was dominated by an orientalist bias preventing scholars from looking at practices actually embedded in Buddhist and Confucian societies. At that time, very few specialists of religion would take seriously practices apparently so alien to the doctrinal content of the mainstream religion.

In the 1970s, the French anthropologist Condominas set up a research program on the distribution of shamanism and spirit possession in mainland Southeast Asia. The formulation of this program was the result of both new anthropological approaches of lowland societies pertaining to “great traditions” and of the formulation by de Heusch, in the African context, of the hypothesis that contrary to shamanism, spirit possession was more prone to be found in association with a world religion. While the findings of scholars published in 1973 and 1974 in the Journal ASEMI did not support the hypothesis that the distribution of shamanism and spirit possession was correlated to the expansion of Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia, Condominas (1976) was able to draw the first general picture of the forms of spirit possession in the region. There, spirit possession tends to occur from a plurality of entities belonging to a particular pantheon, coming down successively in their mediums in a culturally determined order.

Other studies of rural lowland societies followed, paving the way to further characterization of the religious configurations in which spirit possession practices are present. In mainland Southeast Asia, the embodiment of spirits allows various kinds of transactions with the community involved, according to different functionalities: from a therapeutic purpose to the quest for a general prosperity of the people. In many cases, the spirits can be attributed to an ancestral origin, combined or not with a linear definition of the cult group. In other cases, the territorial dimension of the cults has prevailed, evolving into institutionalization at the level of the polity in the case of Burma and Vietnam. Burmese Nat, Thai phiban, or Viet than are all tutelary spirits having command on a territorial division, settled in sanctuaries imagined as palaces in which they are served by mediums (natkadaw, nang thien, or ba dong) and embodied at regular collective rituals occasions.

Since Mircea Eliade characterized shamans as mastering the techniques of ecstasy and made their practices known in Western societies, mainland Southeast Asia was hardly noticed for its shamanic cultures, except for Hmong shamanism, although practices of establishing a direct contact with the spiritual world either through shamanic journey or spirit possession are pervasive in the whole region. More recently, the highly transactional nature of spirit possession made it possible for renewed forms of cult to flourish in modern and urban contexts.

Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière

The Cold War obstructed this type of anthropological studies on rural societies and affected practices linked to the spiritual world. In revolutionary Laos, phi were reported to have been sent in re-education camps; in Cambodia, the displacement of local communities caused the neak ta to disappear; in Vietnam, the cult to the Four Palaces recessed into clandestine practice; while in North Thailand, matrifocal cults shrank, due to the evolving social position of the women. This decline of traditional spirit cults was apparently supporting the then dominant Weberian view that modernity would develop parallel to a disenchanted world. But the end of the Cold War produced a reversal of the situation. The neoliberal globalization that ensued went on a par with a significant revival of spirit mediumship in modern urban contexts across mainland Southeast Asia, regardless of the countries’ political institutions (Jackson 2012). This resurgence of spirit cults had already been signaled by Comaroff in 1994 as a re-enchantment of the postmodern world.

A family at the Wat Tham Krabok refugee camp in Tham Krabok, Thailand, goes through a ritual as a shaman hands them strings to tie on their wrists during a “good luck” ceremony before leaving for the United States on August 5, 2004. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Since this turnaround, an ever growing number of scholarly studies have drawn attention to the renewed importance of mainland Southeast Asia for the understanding of spirit mediumship and shamanism as contemporary religious facts. In Vietnam, these studies have revealed, among others, the participation of “devotees-customers” in local festivals and the integration of commercial spirits in the pantheon of the Four Palaces (len dong), suggesting the growing commodification of spirit possession and the emergence of a new religious market. The sudden rise of one of the female deities present in southern Vietnam—known as the Lady of the Kingdom—has also been described, unveiling the hitherto unseen translocal quality of practices of Vietnamese spirit worship. Analyses have insisted on the modernity and the hybridity of the contemporary formation of spirit possession cults in Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), or on the prosperity cults that have multiplied in central Thailand around magic monks or spirit mediums. Throughout the whole region, the highly transactional nature of spirit possession made it possible for renewed forms of cult to flourish in modern and urban contexts.

Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière

See also: Ancestor Worship; Buddhism; Cambodia; Confucianism; Globalization; Goddess Traditions; Myanmar (Burma); Spirit Mediumship; Thailand; Uplanders; Vietnam; Women.

SHARI’A

The word shari’a means “the way to the watering place,” which indicates the clear and straight path to be followed. In Islamic literature, shari’a means the divine law, the totality of guidance that is contained in the revelation of God and the Sunna, the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Shari’a encompasses not only law, but also theology and ethical code. In terms of basic principles of Islam, moral values, and worship, shari’a provides clear injunctions. Likewise, shari’a sets definitive rulings on what is lawful (halal) and unlawful (haram). However, regarding civil transaction, economic and political matters, criminal law (with the exception of hudud, the prescribed punishment), shari’a is flexible and only provides general guidelines. Shari’a aims at safeguarding people’s interests in this world, and this is achieved by educating the individual, administering justice, and considering public interests (mashlaha). Over the time, however, the meaning of shari’a is narrowed down to include the body of legal rules with all legal scholars’ interpretations and opinions.

During the seventh century, the Muslim community became an independent political entity that needed Islamic rules in dealing with issues pertaining to devotion and civil transaction. This early generation referred legal issues to the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad for guidance. After the death of the Prophet, the first four Caliphs and senior companions continued this role. Notably, although there were numerous legal decisions given by the companions, the systematic Islam legal system was not yet established. Legal decisions were transferred between generations by means of oral transmission. It was at the end of the Umayyad period that the Caliphate established the office of the qadi (judge) in charge of overseeing the implementation of the government’s decisions and settling disputes.

Members of the Shari’a Police stop two young women who are wearing tights, which goes against the prevailing Shari’a Law in Banda Aceh, on June 3, 2014. The Shari’a Police took down their personal details and gave them the first warning out of three. Anyone who receives three warnings is consequently sent to a religious rehabilitation center. (Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images)

The Abbasid caliphate played a significant role in the development of shari’a into a comprehensive legal system that took place in the eighth century. The caliphate was the patron for the study of Islamic sciences. In order to understand Islamic law in a comprehensive mode, the science of law or jurisprudence known as fiqh was developed. Fiqh focuses on the understanding of the practical rules of shari’a. Jurists and scholars in Islamic centers such as Medina, Kufah, Damascus, and Egypt developed a coherent Islamic law system. This period also showed the formulation of the sources of shari’a and methods to explain principles contained in these sources.

The Qur’an, the Sunna of the Prophet, ijma’ (consensus of the community), and ijtihad (legal reasoning) are four sources of shari’a. The first two are revealed, and the rest are not revealed. All Muslims agree that the Qur’an is the revealed words of God to the Prophet Muhammad. It is the sourcebook of Islamic principles, values, and moral prescriptions. Although it contains legal codes, the Qur’an does not constitute a law book. Less than 3 percent of around 6,000 verses in the Qur’an deal with legal issues. In other words, the Qur’an gives Muslims general guidance of conduct rather than legislative rules. There are two rulings in the Qur’an: definitive (qath’iy al-dalalah) and speculative (zhanniy al-dalalah). The former consists of self-evident injunctions that require no interpretation. The latter are the ones conveyed in a language that needs further interpretation. However, Muslim scholars applied different approaches to the interpretation in the light of the Prophet’s tradition and individual analysis. This, in turn, results in different legal decisions.

The Sunna of the Prophet is the second and complementary source of shari’a. The Sunna (Hadith) consists of the words and deeds of the Prophet and the actions he permitted. The Muslims have to obey the Sunna since it is divinely inspired and stands on the same footing as the Qur’an. The function of the Sunna encompasses strengthening the injunctions in the Qur’an, clarifying the ambiguous parts and specifying general rulings in the Qur’an. In addition, the Sunna stipulated certain rulings on which the Qur’an is silent. By the ninth century, the Sunna was compiled by scholars applying tough criteria to scrutinize the chains of narrators and the contents. This is to ensure the hadith authenticity. The scholars classify the hadith into two types: firstly, hadith mutawatir, in which the sources are numerous and the testimony is continuous and recurrent. The second classification is hadith ahad, solitary reports of the narrators. This type of hadith is divided into authentic (shahih), good (hasan), weak (dha’if), and refused (mawdhu’) based on the chains of narrators and the contents. The Sunna compilation culminated in the emergence of the six authoritative Sunna collections, namely, Ismail al-Bukhari (d. 870), Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 875), Abu Dawud (d. 888), Al-Nasa’i (d. 915), Al-Tirmidzi (d. 892), and Ibn Maja (d. 896). The first two compilations are considered as the most authoritative collections.

The authority of ijma’ (consensus of the community) as the third source of shari’a is based on the Prophet’s saying that his community would never agree on an error. Ijma’ was conducted by the community of legal scholars who reached consensus in solving certain legal matters after the death of the Prophet. The Qur’anic interpretation and application on certain issues are considered valid as long as they are in accordance with ijma’. Hence, ijma’ is considered as “a check on individual jurist opinions.”

Ijtihad (legal reasoning) is the most important source of shari’a and the instrument to relate the Qur’an and the Sunna to the changing conditions of society. Ijtihad, with the meaning to struggle or to strive intellectually, constitutes the use of legal reasoning comprehensively by qualified individuals or groups (mujtahid, those who conduct ijtihad) to solve problems not found in the Qur’an and the Sunna. The use of ijtihad was legalized by the Prophet as one of the sources of shari’a as was shown in the hadith on Mu’adz ibn Jabal, who took a judicial post in Yemen. Jurists made use of ijtihad to maintain the continuity of the Islamic teachings and the reality of social changes. The jurists also employed some methods in ijtihad, such as qiyas (analogy), istihsan (juristic preference), urf (local custom) and, istishhab (presumption of continuity). Among the great jurists authoring influential works on Islamic law are Abu Hanifa (d. 767), Malik ibn Anas (d. 796), Muhammad al-Shafii (d. 819), and Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855). Their followers systematized their thoughts and established madzhab (Islamic law school), the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali, respectively. The Shafi’i school has many followers in Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Bambang Budiwiranto

See also: Brunei Darussalam; Indonesia; Islam; Malaysia; Philippines; Reform Movements; Religion and Society; Religious Discrimination and Intolerance; Singapore; Women.

SIDDIQUE, MUHAMMAD ABDUL ALEEM

Muhammad Abdul Aleem Siddique contributed tremendously, in the first half of the twentieth century, to consolidating Islam in Singapore and in spreading the message of peace and unity around the world. Born into a pious and devout family in Meerut, India, in 1892, he is a descendant of Sayyidina Abu Bakar As-Siddique, the first caliph of Islam. As a child, Siddique took a keen interest in the study of Islam and, by the age of four, he had memorized the Quran. He soon became known as an orator and, at the age of 16, obtained a degree in Islamic theology. He also studied non-Islamic subjects such as modern science and law.

In 1930, Siddique traveled to Singapore as a missionary. He worked long and hard among the Muslims there, and many were drawn to his personality and message. He took the leadership in establishing the Malaya Muslim Missionary Society in 1932, an institute for the study and spread of Islam. The society is now known as Jamiyah and has branches in all the states of Malaysia.

Abdul Aleem Siddique also became an exponent of interreligious harmony. For 40 years, he traveled all over the world spreading the message of spiritual reform and enlightenment. For his ceaseless travel and message of goodwill, he became known as the “Roving Ambassador of Peace.” In 1949, he took the initiative in establishing the Inter-Religious Organization (IRO) to build greater understanding between the various religions and to cultivate the spirit and message of peace.

The Abdul Aleem Siddique Mosque in Singapore remains as a lasting monument for Siddique’s contributions for the growth of Islam in Singapore and for fostering interreligious harmony and world peace. He died in 1954 during the hajj (pilgrimage) in Saudi Arabia.

Jesudas M. Athyal

See also: Diaspora; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Islam; Missionary Movements; Pilgrimage; Singapore; Study of Religion.

SIMATUPANG, T. B.

An Indonesian Christian leader, T. B. Simatupang had also served as a military leader of the Indonesia National Armed Forces. Born in Dairi in North Sumatra in 1920, he did his elementary studies at a Dutch colonial school and higher studies in Jakarta. After studies, he joined the army and steadily rose through the ranks to become, in 1950, the acting chief of staff in the Indonesian army (Angkatan Perang). However, Simatupang was accused of interfering in the political affairs of the country and, in 1953, was removed from his position as chief. During his public career, he had also served as an advisor to the nation’s Ministry of Defence and a lecturer at the Army Staff College and the Military Legal Academy.

As a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Simatupang was a key Asian presence in the ecumenical movement. He served as the chairperson of a subcommittee that drafted a statement leading to the establishment of a department to counter apartheid. The WCC Central Committee that met in Canterbury in 1969 adopted a resolution under which the Program to Combat Racism (PCR) and the fund for empowering groups fighting against racism were established. PCR played an important role in the overthrow of apartheid in several African countries in the 1970s.

Jesudas M. Athyal

It was in his postmilitary life that Simatupang became known as a Christian leader and thinker. As an Asian voice critical of Western colonialism, he joined those Indonesian Christians who believed in shrugging off the colonial tag to their religion so as to build a truly indigenous church. While Simatupang acknowledged the services of the missionaries in the areas of education and health care, he preferred to associate the legacy of Indonesian Christianity with the “folk churches” in the country that were not part of either the Islamic or the Hindu movement, rather than with any mission board. He also believed that the pietism represented by the Western missionaries did great disservice to the indigenous growth of Christianity. While the missionary-inspired rediscovery of the evangelistic élan was welcomed as a much-needed reform, Simatupang affirmed that the stress of piety in personal salvation and charity left little room for a broad social concern to tackle the manifold problems in the country. He firmly believed that, especially in the Asian context marked by poverty and social injustice, religion need necessarily involve a faith response aimed at alleviating the suffering of people. As a leader of the Indonesian Council of Churches (DGI), he grappled with the question of how to bridge the gap between theological thought and social realities.

As an Indonesian Christian leader, Simatupang participated in several meetings of the World Council of Churches. He was especially concerned with the relationship between church and society, and he moderated a session at the historic World Conference on Church and Society that met in Geneva in 1966. Simatupang died in Jakarta in 1990. In recognition of his service to the nation, in 2013, he was declared a national hero of Indonesia (Gelar Pahlawan Nasional Indonesia).

Jesudas M. Athyal

See also: Christian Conference of Asia; Christianity; Colonialism; Contextualization; Education; Hinduism; Indonesia; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Islam; Missionary Movements; Popular Religion; Religion and Society.

SIN, CARDINAL JAIME LECHICA

Born on August 31, 1928, in New Washington, Philippines, Cardinal Jaime Lechica Sin was a Filipino Roman Catholic cleric widely regarded as the most iconic spiritual leader in the postauthoritarian Philippines. He is remembered for the crucial role he played in affecting political change in his country, particularly with respect to emphasizing the church’s mandate as arbiters of social justice, morality and political integrity.

Born to paternal Chinese ancestry, he was ordained a priest at the age of 25, quickly rising the ranks in being appointed bishop of Obba (1967) and archbishop of Jaro (1972). In January 1974, he was elevated by Pope Paul VI to archbishop of Manila, where he served for just under three decades to 2003. Meanwhile, his elevation to cardinal in 1976, at the age of 48, made him the youngest member of the College of Cardinals at that time.

Cardinal Sin is remembered for the crucial role he played in denouncing political corruption. During the authoritarian regime of former president Ferdinand Marcos, he presided over a Philippine Roman Catholic Church that adopted a policy of “critical collaboration,” in which clerics worked strategically with Marcos’s social policies, even while Sin himself remained vocal against human rights abuses and political persecutions. This position became more pronounced as political volatility escalated in the early 1980s, following the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino in 1983, and the highly contested presidential elections in 1986. Sin famously made a call for the Catholic faithful to take to the streets in support of rebel military defectors, who were protesting against the excesses of the Marcos regime. He is credited as galvanizing over a million Filipinos in peaceful demonstrations known as the “People Power” revolution, which led to Marcos’s eventual overthrow.

Even throughout subsequent administrations, Sin continued to be outspoken about the role of the church as guardians of social morality, particularly relating to corrupt government officials, which drew criticism from politicians who thought that the church should stay out of politics. Clarifying his position on this matter, Sin reminded the Synod of Bishops in October 1987 that to shut oneself away from the demands of political transformation of Asia was, in a sense, a denial of Christian identity. The cardinal was a key figure once again in affecting major regime change, this time in 2001 during the second “People Power” revolution, which resulted in the removal of the then president Joseph Estrada from office.

In spite of his crucial role in Philippine politics, the cardinal was known for his engaging personality and sense of humor, famously referring to his official residence as “the House of Sin.” He retired as archbishop of Manila in 2003, and died in Manila of illness on June 21, 2005, at the age of 76, a loss commemorated by a state funeral and a national day of mourning. On the day of his death, Pope Benedict XVI, in a telegram to the Archdiocese of Manila, recalled the cardinal’s unfailing commitment to the spread of the Gospel and to the promotion of the dignity, common good, and national unity of the Philippine people.

Julius Bautista

See also: Christianity; Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences; Liberation Theologies; Morality; Philippines; Religion and Society.

SINGAPORE

Singapore is a city-state republic that lies to the south of the Malaya Peninsula. Its strategic geographical location and political stability make it a major economic and cultural hub for neighboring Southeast Asian countries, as well as a bridgehead of Western interests into the Asia Pacific. Similar to Hong Kong, the other leading financial center and competitor in the Asia Pacific, Singapore is a seaport, with a land area one-third less than Hong Kong. Both are predominantly ethnic Chinese and former British colonies. However, unlike Hong Kong, which is increasingly economically dependent on China’s support, Singapore has needed to rely on its own resources for survival since its founding in 1965. It has no hinterland. It is surrounded by Muslim- and Malay-dominated, and sometimes anti-Chinese communities. It relies on the ingenuity and consensus of its local population to maintain an economically striving and politically stable country in a multireligious and multiethnic population.

According to the 2010 Singapore census, five million people live in Singapore, of which 74 percent are Singapore residents. The residents consist of 74 percent Chinese, 13 percent Malay, 9 percent Indian, and “others” (according to government classification) that are made up of Eurasians, Europeans, and other racial groups. Of those aged 15 years and over, about 44 percent profess Buddhism/Daoism, 18 percent Christianity, 15 percent Islam, 5 percent Hinduism, and 17 percent who see themselves with “no religion.”

Singapore is a socially engineered state, with the active management of religion as a key concern. The rise of the Singaporean nation was punctuated by a series of political and ethnic crises in the 1950s and 1960s. Three riots stood out: the Maria Hertogh riots in 1950, the 1964 riot between Malays and Chinese on the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday, and the 1969 racial riots that spilled over from Malaysia to the newly separated island-state. These traumatic events have become Singapore’s institutional memory.

Devotees visit Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple on Waterloo Street in Rochor, Singapore. The traditional Chinese temple has existed since 1884. (catchlights_sg /iStockphoto.com)

The government does not attempt to homogenize religious diversities: ethnic and religious distinctiveness are affirmed. Rather, it ensures that ethnic and religious communities would not live their own segregated lives. To do this, the government aims to build up a common Singaporean national identity through several measures: the National Pledge that is rehearsed in the annual National Day Parade, and the mandatory two years national service for all 18-year-old Singaporean males. The Housing Development Board sets up a quota to ensure that no particular racial group lives together in a concentrated way and thus prevent the growth of sectarianism.

Singapore’s constitution, legislations, and policies reflect the proactive and directive role that the government assumes to safeguard the interests of religious communities and to ensure religious harmony. Articles 15 and 16 of the Singapore Constitution uphold the “Freedom of Religion” and the “Rights in Respect of Education.” The constitution pays particular attention to safeguarding the interests of the racial and religious minority groups. It sets up a Presidential Council for Minority Rights. The Malays receive particular attention because of their sensitive geopolitical status in the region. The Administration of Muslim Act makes provision for regulating Muslim religious affairs and for constituting a council to advise the president in matters relating to the Muslim religion.

Legislative provisions are in place to regulate religious activities and preempt public disorder. There are Penal Code sanctions against offenses relating to religion or race. The Sedition Act proscribes against seditious tendency. Religious societies must be legally registered in Singapore under the Societies Act. Group Representation Constituency (GPC) was introduced in 1988 to ensure the representation of the minority groups in the Parliament. Accordingly, at least one of the members of Parliament in a GRC must be a member of the Malay, Indian, or another minority community of Singapore.

With the rise of religious fundamentalism from the 1980s, Singapore increasingly saw the need to wrestle with the impact of globalization on social harmony. Clearly, the government can harness the altruistic spirit that religion can inspire for nation-building purposes. At the same time, transnational networks of religious groups can become a potential source for ethno-religious antagonism. In the mid-1980s, the government was especially alarmed with the adverse social impact of religious revivalism and aggressive conversion practices. In 1987, the arrest of several Roman Catholic social activists and the expulsion from the country of the Christian Conference of Asia underscored the government’s anxiety on the destabilizing impact of religious networks in a globalizing age. In response, the government enacted the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act in 1992. A Presidential Council for Religious Harmony was also established under the provision of the Act. Following the 9/11 attacks and the arrest of members of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network in Singapore in 2001, the government increasingly draws on the leaders of religious communities to regulate the conduct of their own adherents and to keep religious peace with one another. In 2003, the Declaration of Religious Harmony was issued by the national bodies of mainstream religious groups, with the affirmation that “religious harmony is vital for peace, progress and prosperity in our multi-racial and multi-religious Nation.” The Inter-Religious Harmony Circle, Inter-racial and Religious Confidence Circles, and the Community Engagement Programme are set in place to foster unity and resilience among religious and ethnic communities at different levels of the society.

Singapore’s genius lies in its ability to build up a harmonious society amid the complex religious and ethnic interplays in the region and in the nation. Singapore is a secular city-state: religion is strictly kept out of politics. However, Singapore has not enshrined “secularity” in its constitution. Local religious communities and peoples of diverse convictions are harnessed for nation-building. Religious leaders can run the risk of exercising self-censorship, especially on justice issues, in order to serve national interests. Singapore offers an interesting case study on how religious communities in decolonized states negotiate their social roles and find public expression of their beliefs in the present day.

Michael Nai-Chiu Poon

See also: Buddhism; Christianity; Colonialism; Daoism (Taoism); Education; Ethnicity; Freedom of Religion; Fundamentalism; Globalization; Hinduism; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Islam; Malaysia; Minorities; Nationalism; Religion and Society; Secularism.

SISTERS IN ISLAM

Sisters in Islam (SIS) is an organization in Malaysia that campaigns for gender equality and women’s rights. It was founded in 1987 and institutionalized in 1990. The group formally registered as “SIS Forum (Malaysia) Berhad” in 1993. The office is in Petaling Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur. Its members are mainly female Muslim professionals, many of them lawyers, academics, journalists, and activists. Zainah Anwar, a prominent Malaysian women’s rights activist, is one of the founders and served as the long-term executive director before a committee took over. The organization campaigns for changes on the legal and policy levels, offers legal advice, and conducts research and trainings.

The group’s original focus was to challenge laws and policies based on interpretations of Islamic traditions that the members considered discriminative against women. One of the group’s foci has been the Islamic Family Law within the Malaysian quasi dual legal system in which matters regarding family are handled by so-called shari’a courts. SIS argues that the Malaysian Islamic Family Law used to be one of the most progressive in the Muslim world regarding the position of women, but that women’s rights have been eroding since the late 1980s. A case in point are the polygamy laws: the fact that Islamic marriages are subject to state law rather than federal law makes it possible for men to travel to a neighboring state and marry a second wife without having to ask his first wife’s consent. SIS also campaigns against a shari’a law that entitles men to support their polygamous marriage using the matrimonial assets of the first (or any other) wife. Later, the group’s areas of work expanded to encompass larger issues of democracy, human rights, and constitutionalism. Their arguments are rooted in concepts of Islam as well as human rights and democracy. SIS members and supporters emphasize the need to reinterpret the Qur’an and Hadith. They interpret the Islamic sources within their respective historical contexts and work within traditions of liberal Muslims such as Abdullahi An-Na’im and Amina Wadud.

SIS has aimed campaigns at influencing amendments and claims some success in the field. Other areas of work are research, advocacy, legal counseling, public education, and publications. Between 2004 and 2010, SIS undertook a nationwide survey on impacts of polygamy on families, interviewing first and second wives as well as husbands of polygamous families. The organization also keeps an archive for local and foreign journalists and scholars. SIS has long used the media as one of the most significant parts of its advocacy work, issuing statements for the media, writing letters to the editors, and contributing regular columns. The group is domestically and globally well connected. In several of its campaigns, SIS has cooperated with a Malaysian coalition of NGOs known as the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality. It comprises six NGOs: SIS, Women’s Aid Organization, All Women’s Action Society, the Malaysian Trade Union Congress Women’s Committee, Women’s Development Collective, and Women’s Centre for Change, Penang. SIS also has strong transnational ties to Muslim women’s rights organizations in neighboring Indonesia. The similarity of the languages facilitates the exchange of material and expertise. SIS and their Indonesian counterparts such as the organization “Rahima,” occasionally organize educational trainings across national borders. SIS has also hosted the Secretariat of the Musawah-network, a network “For Equality in the Muslim Family,” connecting groups and individuals with similar interests from approximately 50 countries.

SIS has drawn criticism from religious scholars, from the Malaysian Islamic Development Department, other state religious bodies, and the Islamic opposition party Parti Islam Se-Malaysia. Many emphasize the members’ lack of formal Islamic credentials and argue against their right to speak for Muslims and on Islamic issues. There have also been attempts to ban the association. In 2008, a prohibition order of a SIS publication was gazetted on the basis that the book was prejudicial to public order. The ban was lifted two years later.

SIS is regularly criticized for elitism and for its closed, invitation-only membership. They are also criticized for accepting foreign funding from Western agencies and for being better known internationally than in Malaysia itself. They counter the criticism of foreign funding with attempts to increase their domestic financial ties. Other criticism has been aimed at the focus on the Muslim family, rather than on Muslim women per se, especially those deviating from gender norms. Members of the group argue that the focus and membership cannot be overly expanded without losing its potency.

Saskia Louise Schäfer

See also: Education; Indonesia; Islam; Malaysia; Reform Movements; Sexuality; Shari’a; Women.

SIVARAKSA, SULAK

Sulak Sivaraksa is a Thai academic, scholar, Buddhist layperson, author, social critic, and outspoken activist. Sivaraksa is best known for his outspoken advocacy for the poor (both rural and urban) in resistance to those in power. Sivaraksa has also competently joined Buddhist morals and ethics into a powerful message for empowerment and temperament within the context of political equality and social justice in Thailand.

Sulak Sivaraksa was born on March 27, 1933, in what was then Siam. He attended elementary and secondary school in a Buddhist monastery before attending university at St. David’s University College in Wales, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1958. Later in 1961, Sivaraksa earned a Barrister at Law from the Middle Temple, London. Sivaraksa was awarded a postgraduate grant from the Social Science Research Council in New York.

Upon returning to Thailand after finishing his formal academic training, he became involved in academics by teaching at prestigious universities in Thailand, such as the Mahidol and Chulalongkorn universities. He began his publishing career by founding one of Thailand’s most respected academic journals, Social Science Review (SSR), which gave voice to critics and academics of the time. Academic criticism via the SSR eventually led Sivaraksa to be persecuted, leading to his self-imposed exile after the violent military crackdown on student democracy protesters in 1976 (Sivaraksa n.d.). During his period of exile, Sivaraksa lectured at the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell University and University of Hawaii, among others. During this period of exile, Sivaraksa formulated extensive links with American advocacy groups, academics, and NGOs. Upon his return to Thailand in 1979, Sivaraksa began his engagement with Thailand’s rural population by forming various NGOs such as the Asian Cultural Forum on Development as well as Buddhist sanctuaries such as Wongsanit Ashram where people could become engaged with Buddhist teachings as well as educated towards ethical and moral activism.

In 1989, Sivaraksa founded the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), an umbrella organization that links Buddhist communities and centers in 23 countries around the world. Sivaraksa has twice been arrested, in 1984 and 1991, both times being acquitted (Amnesty International 1991). He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on two occasions and, in 1995, was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (considered the alternative Nobel Prize) by the Swedish Parliament. Sivaraksa is a practitioner and advocate of Engaged Buddhism, which seeks an alternative reading of Buddhist scriptures and strives to empower individuals with moral and ethical foundations to engage the world in which we live and make changes for the better. Engaged Buddhism advocates human rights, environmental sustainability, social justice, rights for the poor and dispossessed, nonviolence, and fighting racism and discrimination, among many other worthy social causes (Dhammahaso 2009). Sivaraksa advocates a strong approach to solving social ills and social injustice by maintaining the Buddhist ethics of mindfulness, compassion, duty to oneself as well as others, self-realization, and empowerment to fight those that seek to take advantage of those which are vulnerable or lack power and the ability to fight against being taken advantage of (Sivaraksa 2001).

William J. Jones

See also: Buddhism; Education; Engaged Buddhism; Hanh, Thich Nhat; Morality; Reform movements; Religion and Society; Religious Discrimination and Intolerance; Study of Religion; Thailand.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN RELIGIONS IN THE USA

For the first two centuries of U.S. history, almost all its people came from Europe. That has changed in the past generation. The Immigration Act of 1965, which was initiated by John F. Kennedy, dropped the quotas that formerly favored Europeans. This paved the way for an increase in migration from Asia, including Southeast Asia, and by the 1970s, there were as many Asians as Europeans coming to the United States to live and work on a permanent basis. By the 1990s, U.S. population growth was more than one-third driven by immigration, as opposed to one-tenth before the act. Ethnic and racial minorities, as defined by the Census Bureau, rose from 25 percent in 1990 to 30 percent in 2000. According to the 2000 census, roughly 11 percent of U.S. residents were foreign-born, a major increase from the low of 4.7 percent in 1970. Subsequent data indicates the number of Asian immigrants increasing from 19 percent of all new immigrants in 2000 to 36 percent in 2010.

Islam is the most widely practiced religion in Southeast Asia. Muslims number approximately 240 million, which translates to about 40 percent of the entire population, with majorities in Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Significant minorities are located in the other Southeast Asian states. Most Muslims in Southeast Asia, as also their counterparts in the United States, follow the path of Sunni Islam, with its accent on the Ummah, the community of believers, its external success and its hermeneutical rigor. Within this tradition, the Shafi’i school of religious law stipulates four sources of authoritative jurisprudence: the Qur’an, the Sunnah, or the way taught and practically instituted by the Prophet Muhammad as a teacher and best exemplar, ijma (“consensus”), and qiyas (“analogy”).

A generation ago, Islam in Southeast Asia had a greater reputation for pluralism flexibility, and tolerance than that is found in the Middle East, especially the literalist, strict, puritanical approaches of Wahhabist Islam. Even today, the picture of a fanatical, rigid, and militant Islam does not characterize the vast majority of Muslims in the region. Indeed, Southeast Asian Muslims are not only aware of, but identify with the global Islamic community. While sensing that Islam is a target of outside forces that want to weaken its place in the world, they practice their religion faithfully.

The Philippines has produced the most immigrants to the United States among Southeast Asian countries. The majority of them are Roman Catholics. Between 1981 and 1995, the totals by country were: Vietnam, 676,000; Laos, 180,000; Cambodia, 116,000; and Thailand, 95,000. Vietnamese immigrants came from South Vietnam, which the United States supported in the Vietnam War. Many were military or civilian officials of the defeated South, some of them were Roman Catholics whose families had fled North Vietnam when it had fallen to the Communists in the mid-1950s, and some others were of Chinese descent.

David C. Scott

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, significantly complicated relations between Muslims and the rest of North American society. When Southeast Asia was designated as a “second front” in the U.S. war against terrorism in late 2001, Muslims, including those of Southeast Asia, became the subject of much negative attention. The result was a plummeting of approval of the United States among Southeast Asian Muslims.

However, subsequent surveys found the number of U.S. mosques increasing dramatically in the decade since the September 11, 2001 attacks, despite protests against their construction and allegations that they have promoted radicalism. Current data from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America and other groups that track membership and various aspects of religious life in the United States indicate 2,106 mosques, a 74 percent increase since the year 2000, when 1,209 mosques were counted. Of these, 32 mosques are of Southeast Asian origin. A trend among Muslim congregations toward suburbanization and integration into American life was also noted.

The Philippines has produced the most immigrants to the United States among Southeast Asian countries. There are 1.6 million, 4 percent of all immigrants, foreign-born Filipinos residing in the United States.

Christians are in the majority in the Philippines, 80 percent Roman Catholic, and 10 percent other denominations. Initially, the vast majority of Filipino migrant workers in the United States were male and between 18 and 34 years old. Since they were young, single men and predominantly Catholic, U.S. church officials became concerned about the “moral rectitude” of these early migrants. A number of Filipino Catholic clubs were established to encourage Filipinos in the practice of their faith, as well as assist in making appropriate burial arrangements, finding jobs and suitable schools.

In the early 1950s, the Maryknoll and Columban orders, which had been involved in missionary activities in the Philippines, established parishes that catered primarily to Filipino Catholics. In general, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States was not actively involved in helping Filipino immigrants in those early years. There were Catholic churches that refused marriages between Filipinos and Caucasians, as also burials, particularly of poor Filipinos, education for the children of poor Filipino migrants, and even confessions involving non-English speakers. In spite of these forms of rejection, however, Filipinos remained Catholics and identified themselves as such even if they were not actively practicing the faith. Religious events like christening, novenas, and funeral wakes, became not just religious but cultural and social activities as well.

Other large numbers of immigrants from Southeast Asia can be traced from the Vietnam War. Between 1981 and 1995, the totals by country were (in thousands): Vietnam, 676,000; Laos, 180,000; Cambodia, 116,000; and Thailand, 95,000. According to the 2010 census, the Vietnamese American population had grown to 1,737,433 and remains the second-largest Southeast Asian American subgroup following the Filipino American community.

Vietnamese immigrants came from South Vietnam, which the United States supported in the Vietnam War. Many were military or civilian officials of the defeated South, some of them Roman Catholics whose families had fled North Vietnam when it fell to the communists in the mid-1950s, and some others of Chinese descent.

The majority of Vietnamese Americans are Buddhist, but more accurately practice a fusion of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and native animist practices, including ancestor veneration, that have been influenced by Chinese folk religion. There are approximately 160 Vietnamese Buddhist temples in the United States, with most adopting a mix of Pure Land (Tịnh Do Tong) doctrines and Zen (Thien) practices. Usually temples are small, consisting of a converted house with one or two resident monks or nuns.

Arguably the most prominent figure in Vietnamese American Buddhism is the Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, a practitioner of Engaged Buddhism in the West. However, it is widely held that his fame as a proponent of Engaged Buddhism and a new Zen style has little if any affinity with or foundation in traditional Vietnamese Buddhist practices. This, even though Thich Nhat Hanh often speaks of his early Zen practices in Vietnam during his Dharma talks, asserting that he continued and developed this practice in the West which has a distinctive Vietnamese Thien flavor. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist teachings have started to return to a Vietnam where the Buddhist landscape is now being shaped by a combined Vietnamese and Westernized Buddhism that is focused more on meditative practices.

Boston residents participate in a guided meditation led by international peace activist, author, and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh in front of Trinity Church in Copley Square on September 15, 2013. (Boston Globe/Getty Images)

Approximately 25 percent of Vietnamese Americans are Roman Catholic, while a smaller but increasing percentage are Protestant. Monsignor Luong, well known in Catholic circles for his work among Vietnamese immigrants, in 1983 founded a parish in New Orleans. This began a decade-long boom in the area’s Vietnamese population, as immigrants who had been settled in other parts of the nation began to move here. The Archdiocese of New Orleans claims 20,000 Catholics of Asian background, primarily Vietnamese. Other big centers for Vietnamese Catholics are Houston; San Jose, California; and Orange County, California.

Immigrants from Laos were mostly animistic tribal people from the mountains of Laos, who were isolated from modern technology. These Hmong people sided with the Americans against the leaders of their country, who in turn had been installed by their more powerful Vietnamese neighbors. Lacking the affinities that were helpful to immigrants from the Philippines and Vietnam in adjusting to life in America, Laotian refugees as a group have needed considerable support.

Laotian American populations, largely urban, have constructed numerous Buddhist temples, called vat or wat. Usually devotees adapt local domestic houses for religious practices. Over time, with congregational support, the structure is enlarged and customized, adding ethnic artwork and craftsmanship. The result is a Laotian Buddhist temple that has some traditional features. Much of the chanting and ritual in these temples is conducted in Pali, the scriptural language of Theravada Buddhism. Though most laypeople do not understand Pali, the language sounds familiar enough that if they attend a temple where the vernacular language is used, the chanting and ceremony remind them of home.

Immigrants from Cambodia are primarily survivors of the infamous genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, the radical ideologues of the Communist Party of Kampuchea who were responsible for the death of untold millions. Coming from the better-educated parts of the Cambodian population, these refugees have adapted well to life in America.

In 1978, the Cambodian monk Venerable Maha Ghosananda began to establish Buddhist temples in refugee camps in Thailand and in 1981 came to the United States to head the Cambodian Buddhist community in Rhode Island. This became the center for establishing Buddhist temples in the Cambodian refugee community.

The number of Cambodian temples in the United States increased during the 1980s as the number of Cambodians in the country increased dramatically. Between 1983 and 1986, more than 80 monks came to Providence, Rhode Island, from Cambodia and were sent to the 41 temples that had opened in North America. Some of these monks came through centers that had been established in Thailand.

Theravada Buddhism, the predominant religious tradition in Cambodia, is strong among Cambodian groups in the United States. In the 1980s, Wat Khmer DC, home of the Cambodian Buddhist Society, was constructed near Washington, D.C., financed by a massive outpouring of donations from Cambodian Buddhists throughout North America. This wat is one of the few outside Southeast Asia that has the consecrated boundary within which ordinations may be performed.

Thai immigration to the United States began in earnest during and after the Vietnam War, in which Thailand was an ally of the United States and South Vietnam. In the decade between 1960 and 1970, some 5,000 Thais immigrated to the United States. In the following decade, the number increased to 44,000. From 1981 to 1990, approximately 64,400 Thai citizens moved to the United States. According to the 2000 census, there were 150,093 Thais in the United States.

Between 1970 and 1974, Thai immigrants began to organize temples in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In 1970, a Thai monk was invited to Los Angeles to teach and perform Buddhist ceremonies. The Los Angeles Thai community formed the Thai-American Buddhist Association that year, and three additional monks visited the United States to plan the founding of a temple. In June 1971, a mission of Thai monks arrived in Los Angeles, and laypeople began to raise funds to purchase land on which to build a Thai-style temple, which was completed and dedicated in 1979. Buddha images for the shrine hall and two sets of scriptures were carried to the United States by monks and laypeople from Thailand. Wat Thai L.A. has grown dramatically since 1971 and is currently the largest Thai temple in the United States, serving thousands of people per year. Not long afterward, a group of Thai lay people in Washington, D.C., began to raise funds for a temple of their own, and two Thai monks took up residence at Wat Thai Washington, D.C., in 1974. Vajiradhammapadip Temple in New York, Wat Buddhawararam and Wat Dhammaram in Chicago also were started before 1979.

Immigration continued apace in the 1980s resulting in the establishment of more than 40 Thai temples at the end of the decade, including temples associated with the Mahanikaya or Council of Thai Bhikkhus and the Dhammayut Order. Typically, a group of laypeople first formed a committee to consider the issues involved in building a temple. They often sought advice from the monks at Wat Thai L.A. or Wat Thai Washington, D.C., or from monks they knew in Thailand. Prior to committee collecting donations, often a monk came to visit and consult with local people. Typically, a single-family house or a former church building would be rented or purchased, and monks, ideally from Thailand rather than from another temple in the United States, would take up residence. Many temples remain in these original buildings now, while others, particularly those that continue to accumulate financial resources, purchase new buildings or land to build Thai-style buildings.

There is overwhelming evidence that Southeast Asians and their religious traditions have, over the years, been acculturated and played a significant role in the life of the United States.

David C. Scott

See also: Brunei Darussalam; Buddhism; Cambodia; Christianity; Communism; Engaged Buddhism; Ethnicity; Diaspora; Fundamentalism; Globalization; Hanh, Thich Nhat; Indonesia; Islam; Khmer Buddhism; Laos; Maha Ghosananda; Malaysia; Philippines; Thailand; Thien Buddhism; Vietnam.

SPIRIT MEDIUMSHIP

Spirit mediumship, often subsumed in the larger category of shamanism, pertains to an area of practice and representations involving particular forms of contact with the spiritual world. The specific feature of spirit mediumship is the way that its spiritual agents, whatever their origin and however the agency attributed to them becomes manifest, act in this world through the body of their human mediums. The relationship between medium and spirit may imply that the latter takes physical possession of the former, or that the former incorporates the latter. They may be linked to one another by sexual attraction, or the medium may simply be the vehicle through which the spirit communicates with humans. The spirit may be thought to exert a negative influence over the medium, who may fight against it ritually by means of an exorcism. Or it may be thought to have potentially beneficial effects, which the cult solicits and institutionalizes. Spirits may be summoned for therapeutic purposes or as part of a process of enhancing a polity’s legitimacy. Or the practice may, on the contrary, reflect subversive leanings. More generally, the practice may be said to seek life-giving effects at the societal level.

A spirit medium walks in a street procession through Phuket Town as part of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival in Phuket Town, Thailand. The event is held over a nine-day period in October, celebrating the Chinese community’s belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind. (Stephen J. Boitano/Getty Images)

The theatrical dimensions of spirit mediumship have also received much attention. Such an emphasis justifies analyzing the rituals as a performing arts genre. Yet we must be careful to note how the array of roles the practice entails may allow for more complex identifications and may require more extensive negotiation than straightforward theatrical events usually imply. In other words, among groups where it is found, spirit mediumship constitutes a complex practice, one taking on diverse forms and revealing specific aspects of these groups’ socioreligious life.

Although spirit mediumship, as a cultic institution in which spiritual beings make themselves manifest in this world, is to be found almost everywhere in mainland Southeast Asia, it received little attention in the region’s area studies literature until the 1990s. As George Condominas emphasized in a seminal paper (1976), the reason for this neglect may have been a then-prevalent Orientalist bias in favor of the study of “great traditions,” namely Buddhism and Confucianism. In his paper, the French anthropologist drew the first general picture, mainly grounded in rural ethnography, of the practice of mediumship in the region. But it was only after the end of the Cold War that the study of spirit mediumship in mainland Southeast Asia really took off. Countries that were closed for two or three decades (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), during which time authoritarian regimes kept cults under tight control, were suddenly reopened to field research just as religious practices started to blossom once again. Other countries that had not been subject to such repressive regimes (Thailand and Malaysia) nevertheless shared in novel developments whereby spirit possession became inscribed in contemporary dynamics of urbanization, the market economy, and globalization. Today, Western and Asian academics address a full range of topics reflecting the modernity of contemporary spirit mediumship in mainland Southeast Asia.

Monique Sélim’s study of spirit cults in a liberalizing Laos (2003) is particularly revealing of this new turn in the nature of spirit mediumship. While the Communist Party had completely banned the old autochthonous spirits and the royal cult they were associated with, the move toward a market economy has encouraged the appearance of new spiritual agents. These, along with their mediums, show greater conformity with Buddhist values while helping to effect complex transactions in the contemporary world of commerce.

However, it is probably in Vietnamese studies that these recent developments have generated the greatest wealth of new academic work, research inspired by the profusion of renewed practices of spirit mediumship responding to the novel sociopolitical situation as well as to the specific demand for rituals concerning the war dead. Since the implementation of the “Renovation” policy in 1986, the Cult of the Four Palaces, once reported upon by Maurice Durand (Techniques et pantheon des mediums vietnamiens [1959]), has come back into the light of day. This has given rise to paradoxical developments. Spirit mediums have revived their practice of venerating such spirits in private temples, but they are excluded from joining in public ceremonies honoring them. Gorgeous private possession séances have been described taking place, mainly in Hanoi (see Chauvet [2012] and Endres [2011] for instances). These are organized by enterprising spirit mediums reviving an old form of the Cult of the Four Palaces, which developed among the merchant classes during the nineteenth century. This development reflects both ambiguities surrounding practices whose efficacy deals with and depends on personal enrichment, and a more general commodification of religious traditions.

Furthermore, the long-standing tradition of venerating local deities links up with the contemporary dynamics of pilgrimage, resulting in such phenomena as the recent growth of the cult dedicated to the Lady of the Realm, a goddess who has a sanctuary at the boundary of South Vietnam, as shown by Philip Taylor (2004). In the complex cultural context of state margins, this single figure, free of lineage affiliation, had already been harnessed by imperial agents in charge of the boundaries. In the context of the state’s policy of “Renovation,” the Lady is now granted the role of a spiritual banker. A considerable number of women engaged in the informal sector of the economy come to her sanctuary; they do so along with spirit mediums who are drawn there both by their contractual relation with the spirit and by the entertainment the pilgrimage provides.

Paralleling these developments, other innovations have been observed in the Vietnamese religious landscape, especially by Heonik Kwon and Paul Sorrentino, giving rise to new spaces for mediumship, particularly the emergence of new forms of possession by the dead aimed at dealing with the ritually unsolved death toll of the war. A wealth of new studies helps show that, far from vanishing with the advent of modernity, spirit mediumship enjoys an important place in Vietnam’s many social worlds.

The same could be said of Thailand today where, far from having diminished, spirit mediumship has moved to urban centers, where it has flourished particularly in the marketplace. However, there are still very few comprehensive studies of Thai spirit mediumship. One of the first was Rosalind Morris’s description of a new type of spirit possession in Chiengmai formed out of diverse Northern Thai practices and arising as part of the process of modernization and centralization (2000). New urban spirit mediums are legitimated in their practice through appearances made by figures belonging to the corpus of historical Northern Buddhist stories, stories that relate resistance against the imposition of a normative Buddhism by the Thai state apparatus. In making these images of the past show up in today’s Chiengmai, spirit mediums also represent the city's ability to attract wealth while they share in modern practices of representation.

A study of popular Buddhism (2012) by the late Thai scholar Pattana Kitiarsa pertains to a different kind of approach, one seeking to renew the study of Thai religion by tracing how its historical components get hybridized in the midst of new markets and mass media. In the process, two contrasting figures emerge: the magician monk and the spirit medium. However, Kitiarsa writes, both of them operate at the same confluence of millenarian Buddhism, astrology, therapeutic cults, and amulet cults. In this way, spirit mediumship in his analysis becomes encompassed in the study of new Thai religious movements that have been dubbed “prosperity cults.”

Spirit mediumship in Chinese communities in Southeast Asia is a distinct tradition. In Penang (DeBernardi 2006) and other sites of the Chinese diaspora, Chinese spirit mediums have been reported providing frequent therapeutic consultations, and practicing divination and exorcism, since the end of the nineteenth century. In their practice today, Buddhist notions of karma are adapted to a Daoist ethos linking together prosperity, social status, and longevity. While spirit mediums describe their actions as intended to help people by means of various kinds of advice and religious teaching they provide, their actual practice consists mainly of dance performances through which they make Chinese gods and goddesses visible to their public.

In today’s Southeast Asia, spirit medium séances tend to be organized as sophisticated urban performances of danced theater. Spirit possession is occasioned by a wide range of entities who descend into their mediums. They do this in a culturally determined, hierarchical series. Spirit mediumship is an important vehicle for reaffirming past and particular identities, while at the same time constituting a performing arts genre. Spirit mediums act as individual entrepreneurs (Endres 2011), developing their own clientele in a highly competitive market and reproducing their practice among their own networks. Although in the past most Southeast Asian traditions of spirit mediumship, with the exception of Chinese spirit mediums, were predominantly women’s domain, more and more transvestites and homosexuals (both male and female) have been attracted to these practices in their recent urban developments. This form of urban spirit mediumship emerged first in Burma (Brac de la Perrière 1989) and North Vietnam, probably due to a historically earlier enlargement of social space. It is only recently, since the end of the Cold War and following the development of a market economy, as well as increasing globalization, that it has been reported more generally in urban communities of Southeast Asia.

Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière

See also: Ancestor Worship; Buddhism; Cambodia; Confucianism; Dance and Drama (Theater); Daoism (Taoism); Goddess Traditions; Laos; Malaysia; Orientalism; Popular Religion; Sexuality; Shamanism; Thailand; Vietnam.

STUDY OF RELIGION

The study of religion is surrounded by many conditions and limitations. First, there is the individual scholar’s motive for entering the field. Second, there is the availability of material and the extent to which the investigator is personally equipped to understand and analyze it. But given adequate motivation and access to relevant material, there remain several questions. How is the material to be organized and classified? What procedures for understanding are appropriate in a given instance? And can these procedures be elevated into general principles applicable in all studies? Further questions suggest themselves. To what extent do the personal presuppositions of the investigator affect the manner in which a given body of material is approached and analyzed? Ought the study of religion remain aloof from matters involving personal commitment, or may the student be permitted, even expected, to affirm the value of one religious tradition over against others? These questions, and many more of a similar kind, have been hotly debated in recent years. Taken together, they have virtually made of “methodology” an independent subdiscipline within the study of religion.

Specialization in the study of religion is necessary, but may become a danger when alternative methods and approaches go unrecognized and unappreciated, or when the range of religion’s expressions is narrowed down to what the specialist is capable of mastering. In such cases it is appropriate to speak of “reductionism.” To the extent that the study of religion actually is a meeting point of disciplines, it must accept a great diversity of possible approaches and methods. All of these are applicable to the study and classification of religious traditions in Southeast Asia.

David C. Scott

Religion is, itself, of course, notoriously difficult to define and circumscribe. This being so, it is only to be expected that there should be corresponding difficulties in respect to the study of religion. That religion functions at several levels—individual and collective, emotional, intellectual, social, and ethical—is universally recognized in theory, while being difficult to apply in practice. Depending on the limits set by the individual investigator, the study of religion may concentrate on a single function or aspect of religion, such as myth or symbol, to the exclusion of others. A prior conviction on the observer’s part that the “essential” component of religion is to be found in one of its functions rather than others has the effect of indicating that this function is primary among the range of observable phenomena. The sociologist examines one function, the psychologist another, simply as a matter of professional competence and personal choice. The philologist has been trained to interpret words and, if there is no textual material, may be completely disoriented. Specialization of this order is necessary, of course, but may become a danger when alternative methods and approaches are unrecognized and unappreciated, or when the range of religion’s expressions is narrowed down to what the specialist is capable of mastering; in such cases, it is appropriate to speak of “reductionism.” To the extent that the study of religion actually is a meeting point of disciplines, many of which enjoy independent existence in the academic world, it must accept a great diversity of possible approaches and methods.

Method in the Study of Religion

The American scholar Morris Jastrow (1861–1921) is an example of one who insisted on the significant importance of method in the study of religion. He argued that method is the principal protection against the “personal equation,” i.e., the assumptions and beliefs of the investigator that distorted the study of religion due to their own subjective biases, including “true believers” who study religions to laud the superiority of their own and belittle those of others and skeptics who start with the preconception that all religions are false. According to Jastrow, the cure for such naïveté and distortion was to adopt a historical approach, which consisted of gathering data from all times and places, arranging them systematically, interpreting them within a strictly natural and human framework, exploring their inner emotional aspects, and doing a comparative study to discover the essential laws of the development of religion. If one adds to this Jastrow’s insistence on a methodological reservation, i.e., holding back on one’s own views on ultimate truth and value as well as on a sympathetic understanding of other faiths and ways, one has a thumbnail sketch of the problems and concerns of the study of religion up to the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Evolutionary Theories of Religious Development

Scientific and intellectual developments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provided the model for new approaches to the study of religion. The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) discerned a progressive historical development of the sciences (from the simplest and most abstract to the most complex and concrete) and a corresponding development in society (from a theological-mythical stage to a positive-scientific stage). Although he may seem to have relegated religion to an infantile social stage, he saw it as a progressive force in previous ages and even proposed a “religion for humanity” for the modern scientific era.

The English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was another thinker proposing the theory of evolution from the simple to the complex in all fields of knowledge. Evolution was for him an “organic law,” operating uniformly in all types of phenomena. He saw the origin of religion in the belief in spirits or ghosts, which was derived from dreams. This led to belief in an unchangeable human soul and, later, in gods as eternal, divine personalities. From the belief in ghosts came ancestor worship, the original religious cult. Spencer considered religion to be a valuable social force, binding human beings together and conserving traditional values. Together with Comte, Spencer made an evolutionary approach to the study of religion possible.

Comparative Study of Religion

It is customary to set the beginning of the comparative study of religion somewhere in the third quarter of the nineteenth century with the work of the German-British specialist in languages F. Max Muller (1823–1900). Muller’s wide knowledge of Indo-European languages, his comparative approach to the study of languages, and by extension of that method to the study of religion, resulted in his proposing a predictable dependence of thought on language and a search for the origin of god-names, religious beliefs, and myths.

Anthropological Approaches

E. B. Tylor (1832–1917), an English cultural anthropologist, is generally regarded as the founder of the anthropological study of religion. Assuming that the customs and beliefs of contemporary primitive cultures, such as those found in Southeast Asia, described by Western travelers, missionaries, colonial administrators, and so on, were survivals of a prehistoric era, he concluded that they provide evidence of the original stage of religion. He also assumed that the stage of spiritual culture corresponded to the crude stage of material culture in archaic or primitive societies. Tylor is most noted for his theory of animism: the earliest stage of religion consisted in the belief in souls/spirits present not only in human beings, but in all natural organisms and objects. There is still an active practice of animism in Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia.

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) emphasized the social character of religion and totemism as the most elementary form of religious life. Totemism is a system of belief in which each human is thought to have a spiritual connection or a kinship with another physical being, such as an animal or plant, often called a “spirit-being” or “totem.” The totem is thought to interact with a given kin group or an individual and to serve as their emblem or symbol. Durkheim further associated totemism with the distinction between the realms of the sacred and the profane. The totem is concrete symbol of the sacrality of the group and its god, and hence the focus of the group’s cult. He proceeded from a definition of religion as a system of beliefs and practices regarding the sacred that unites human beings into a moral community. For him, religion is inherently a social reality.

An eminent proponent of firsthand observation was the Polish-British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942). He is best known for his practice of living with the people he was studying, learning their language, participating in their activities, getting to know the way they thought, and absorbing the intimate tone and color of their customs and ceremonies, as well as making a statistically documented analysis of their social organization and culture and recoding verbatim in the original language the statements, stories, folklore, and magical formulae of his informants. He is rightly noted for his heralding of “participant observation” as a key method in anthropological research.

Historical-Phenomenological Approaches

In contrast to the leading scholars in modern anthropology, many of the seminal scholars in the development of this new discipline were also theologians and deeply pious Christians. Rudolf Otto (1869–1937), a German theologian and specialist in the Hindu religious tradition, found throughout Southeast Asia, worked out a systematic relation between Christian theology and the world of religious experience, which he insisted possessed a unique quality irreducible to nonreligious categories, such as anthropological, sociological, economic, and so on. He found clues to this religious category in the idea of “the Holy,” a fundamental category of meaning and value, and in the sense of “the numinous,” i.e., awesome, extraordinary, mysterious, “wholly other” presence that evokes feelings of both fascination and fear. This is elaborated in his signal work The Idea of the Holy (1917) that has come to be recognized as a great founding work in twentieth-century phenomenology of religion.

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986), a Romanian-born historian of religions, produced a richly creative corpus of works on concrete subjects in the history of religions such as yoga and shamanism, and on the general patterns of religious experience, which culminated in an ambitious multivolume history of religious beliefs and ideas from the Stone Age to the Death-of-God era. Eliade sought the arche, or essential structure, of religion in its prehistoric and primitive forms. He saw these archaic expressions of religious experience as archetypal responses to the presence of the sacred in this-worldly objects and in events that are regularly repeated within a time frame that is cyclical rather than sequential. In contrast to isolated historical phenomena, Eliade’s emphasis was on the general patterns he observed. He examined, for example, whole systems of plant, or water, or moon symbols, claiming that only within the context of such systems can the meanings of individual symbols be understood.

Psychological Approaches

Psychological approaches to the origin and nature of religion go back as far as the ancient Greeks. The Roman poet Lucretius put into immortal Latin verse the idea of religion’s birth in fear. There is an obvious psychological component in Otto’s “sense of the numinous.” Moreover, the above survey of anthropological theories of religion should have made it evident that they comprise psychological as well as sociological viewpoints.

A great name in the psychology of religion is the American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842–1910). James approached religion from a basically pragmatic point of view. To find this, he focused on a descriptive survey and typology of personal religious experience, in keeping with his general view of the primacy of experience over thought and of the personal over the institutional. He viewed religious experience as involving intense human emotions and feelings directed toward some unseen order, reality, or power “out there,” to which the human beings adjust and surrender.

C. G. Jung (1875–1961), a Swiss psychiatrist, developed a psychological view of religion through his studies of images in classical mythology, gnosticism, which teaches that salvation comes through secret spiritual truths, and his observation of similar images in his patients’ dreams. This led him to the perception of a “collective unconscious” underlying individual consciousness. He concluded that the similar (or identical) themes and symbols expressed in ancient myths and in twentieth-century dreams were to be attributed to archetypes in the collective unconscious of the human race.

Sociological Approaches

As with psychological approaches to religion, thoughtful considerations of the relation between religion and society go back to the ancient Greeks. Eminent Christian thinkers, concerned both with the shaping role of religion on society and with religion’s response to growing secular power and influence, continued these reflections. Modern secular philosophers carried on the study of the relation from a strictly secular viewpoint, as evident in the thought of Comte and Spencer, noted above. We have also observed the marked societal focus of anthropologists of religion, such as Durkheim.

Rich and significant contributions to the sociological approach to the study of religion were made by German scholars, of whom the most influential was Max Weber (1864–1920). Weber emphasized the mutual influence of the economic and social spheres on one another, discerning a three-part typology of authority (traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational) in both areas. Weber’s specialty was sociological studies of specific historical religions, e.g., Chinese and Indian religion and ancient Judaism, focusing on the values, especially religious values, which are the dominant norms of social structures.

Joachim Wach (1898–1955) the German American historian of religions and sociologist of religion, won early fame for presenting the structure and agenda for a discipline of religious studies that would do justice to the task of describing the entire religious experience of humankind. He is also well known for his work on the sociology of religion, a discipline he regarded essential in the study of religion. The social for him is one of three basic expressions of religious experience, the theoretical and the practical being the others, and focuses on the relation of religious community to “ultimate reality.” He insisted on the distinctive character of religious groups as distinct from other social forms because of their essential focus on reality that is awesome, extraordinary, mysterious reality or “the numinous.”

The Current Situation

By the last quarter of the twentieth century, various new approaches in the social sciences and humanities had become the center of attention and inevitably influenced the study of religion. The new approaches may be summed up by the terms structure, symbol (or sign), and system. These had played a role in previous generations in human studies, but they assumed a different tone and direction in a new age. The notions of structure and system, for example, had previously been modeled on the biological concept of organism, but now they arose from linguistics, the study of language, with a corresponding shift from the generally biological to the specifically human and so to the operations of the human mind.

The central figure in this development has been the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009). He sees human culture, myth, and religion as basically sign-systems whose deep structures or underlying patterns, embedded in the human unconscious, can be discerned through systematic analysis. He breaks down his argument into three main parts: (1) meaning is not isolated within specific fundamental parts of the myth, but rather is to be found within the entire myth; (2) although myth and language are of similar categories, language functions differently in myth; and (3) language in myth exhibits more complex functions than in any other linguistic expression.

He finds order in the great variety of myths, rites, and kinship systems, which leads him to assert the fundamental rationality of primitive thought. Unlike Durkheim, who derived primitive classification from the primitive social order, Levi-Strauss finds the basis of social patterns in the structures of the human mind.

The American anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926–2006), who is highly acclaimed for his research in Indonesia, sounds a distinctly new tone, epitomized by his stress on the term meaning, both in its referential sense and in the sense of meaningfulness. He likens the cultures and religions he has investigated to works of art. This inevitably involves a semiotic approach to culture, an approach that studies the way in which people communicate through signs and symbols, since the anthropologist is confronted with strange cultural contexts that he can understand only by unpacking the meanings of their signs (or symbols). He defines symbol as “any object, act, event, quality, or relation which serves as a vehicle for a conception—the conception is the symbol’s meaning.” Geertz sees sacred symbols as possessing a unique double quality. On the one hand, they provide a representation of the way things are, and on the other, a guide or program for human action—an ethics or aesthetics. Sacred symbols express both an “is” and an “ought to be.”

David C. Scott

See also: Alatas, Syed Hussein; Christianity; Colonialism; Hinduism; Humanism; Ileto, Raymond C.; Missionary Movements; Myth/Mythology; Orientalism; Postcolonial Theory; Secularism; Shamanism; Spirit Mediumship.

SUFISM

Sufism (tashawwuf in Arabic) is the interiorization of Islamic teachings and practices that focus on the spiritual dimension. It is often contrasted to shari’a that puts the importance on the external dimension of Islam. Sufism uses the language of love, beauty, and mercy of God more than majesty, severity, and the wrath of God, commonly used in Sharia. From the Sufism perspective, Islam is perceived as the religion of love aiming at the unity of human and God and the actualization of God characters in the human’s life. The term sufi derives from suf (wool) as the coarse material that the sufi used for clothing, symbolizing ascetics and renunciation. Other etymology suggests that sufi comes from the word safa—“to be pure”—or from suffa—the raised platform in the Prophet’s mosque in Medina where poor people used to sit and exercise devotion.

A whirling dervish performs in a Sufi tradition involving music and dance. (logosstock/iStockphoto.com)

The rise of Sufism was stimulated by a reaction to the secular life and attitude of the new ruling dynasty of the Umayyad at their court, the majority of whom behaved in contrast to the simple piety of the four early caliphs. Moreover, reaction to kharijism (a radical sect in Islam) and its political controversies encouraged people to desist not only from politics, but also from public affairs. This trend was in the eighth century in which people like Hasan of Bashra (d. 728 CE), who influenced the spiritual history of Islam, deepened the inwardness of people’s ethical lives. Nevertheless, Sufism can be traced to the life of the Prophet and his companions who showed signs of the interiorization of the moral motive. One of the theological foundations of Sufism is the Prophet’s hadith (Sayings) on three elements of Islamic religion consisting of Iman (belief), Islam (submission), and Ihsan (doing the beautiful). Ihsan is the worshipping of God as if you see Him. For Sufi, the keynote for Muslim obedience is responsibility to the moral ideal. To be a Muslim, people have to “do the beautiful” by purifying their spiritual dimension in addition to having belief and submission.

Often, karama (divine distinction) and baraka (blessing) are part of the charismatic authority of Muslim leaders who are associated with Sufism. Karama is the quality of a saint on whom Allah has bestowed the ability to understand divine things hidden from human sight. The power such a person receives from God enables that person to transcend the normal human situation and transfer God’s blessing to the people. Baraka is the spiritual quality reflected through the saint who is gifted with karama. Baraka can be transferred to ordinary people through the saint’s prayers and by building a good relationship with him.

Bambang Budiwiranto

Rituals in Sufism are centered on dhikr and sama’. Dhikr means the remembrance and mentioning of God’s names and emptying the heart from anything but God and establishing the divine qualities in the human being. Sufis, under a master’s guidance, recite certain dhikr suitable to their condition. The second ritual is sama’, or listening to poetry and music. Poetry is an important means of Sufis’ expression of their love and longing to God and is written in different languages: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu. In sama’, the spiritual role of the listeners to the words of the poem that may be accompanied by the music is more important than that of the performers. Continuous dhikr and sama’ will transform God’s names in the Sufi’s mind and consciousness and leave no room for remembrance of others. This eventually leads to the “seeing of God” and actualization of the divine image in human behavior.

In the ninth century, Sufism formulated the methodology of its “inner way,” “spiritual itinerary” to God to standardize and objectify its practice. Dhu al-Nun of Egypt (d. 859) systematized the practice into stages (maqamat), that is stations the Sufi has to acquire to reach the peak of mystical path, and states (ahwal), psychological and spiritual transformation that Sufi undergoes in attempts to pass through the stations. This spiritual itinerary became definite and led to the doctrine of absorption and annihilation (fana) attributed to Abu Yazid al-Bisthami (d. 874) and al-Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922) who spoke ecstatic utterance (shathahat) in a state of intoxication such as, “I am your Lord” and “I am the Truth” (Ana al-Haq). These people are categorized as drunken Sufis that focused on experiencing God in this life (Gnostic, Irfan, unveiling God). Islamic orthodoxy considers intoxication as heresy and it was paid by al-Hallaj’s execution for the charges of having identified himself with God and of deceiving people with sorcery. In the period of ninth and tenth centuries, the effort to bridge orthodoxy and Sufism was led by Junayd of Baghdad (d. 911), al-Sarraj (d. 987), and Kalabadhi (d. 995), who proposed a moderate Sufism with a structure of ideas consistent with and even lending support to orthodoxy (sober Sufism). This effort was followed by Qushayri (d. 1073) and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) that synthesized Sufism and orthodox theology.

The interaction among fellow wayfarers through advice and counsel is essential for spiritual life’s progression. This evolved in more structured interaction between master and disciples who then reside together in a hospice called zawiyah (ribath, khanqah, tekke) that consists of the center of spiritual activities. This center was first established by the Karramiyya movement in Iran. Such social organizations then developed and became Sufi orders or thariqa (a method of spiritual practice). Thariqa reached its golden age in the twelfth century when Sufi masters attached their names to groups that signified certain spiritual methods such as Qadiriya (Abd Qadir al-Jilani; d. 1166) in North Africa and Southeast Asia, Shadziliyya (Abu Hasan al-Shadhili; d. 1258) in North Africa, Christiyya (Mu’in al-Din Christi; d. 1236) in South Asia, and Mevleviyya in Turkey, known as “whirling dervishes” using music and dance. Common to thariqa is a “chain” (silsilah) connecting disciples and masters with upward lineage to the Prophet as the first source of Sufi practices. Silsilah also functions as a means for the transmission of spiritual power and blessings and signifies the master’s authorization to disciples to practice the dhikr formula prescribed in his order.

Sufism entered Southeast Asia in the late sixteenth century, especially in Aceh Sultanate of North Sumatra. The two exponents of Sufism were Hamzah Fansuri (d. 1590) and Shamsuddin al-Sumatrani (d. 1630), who taught the Ibn Arabi doctrine of wahdat al-wujud (union of human with God) and of the seven stages of existence. Both of them belonged to the Qadiriyya and the Naqshabandiyya order, respectively, and served as religious advisors in Aceh Sultanate. From the seventeenth century, thariqa developed in Indonesia under the influence of more sober Sufi teachers in Arabia such as Ahmad Qushashi (d. 1071/1660) and Ibrahim Kurani (d. 1102/1691) through an intellectual network with Indonesian Archipelago students in Arabia. In 1957, Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest religious organization in Indonesia, established association with Jam’iyyah Ahli Tarekat Mu’tabarah, an association that united all Sufi orders in Indonesia whose work was suitable with Islamic orthodoxy. In the present time, Sufi orders in Indonesia serve not only spiritual purposes but also help in overcoming drug addiction and in focusing on mental health cure.

Bambang Budiwiranto

See also: Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-; Indonesia; Islam; Malaysia; Music; Nahdlatul Ulama; Popular Religion; Ritual Dynamics; Secularism; Shari’a.

SYNCRETISM

Syncretism can be defined as the combining or bringing together of different, often seemingly contradictory beliefs and practices, to create something new, which includes key elements of the streams that had come together. Syncretism happens in many areas such as art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and religion and has different connotations depending on how it is viewed. To some, syncretism represents openness and inclusivity; it is seen as a natural and even a necessary process in human development. Some others, particularly in the religious field, look upon syncretism as a problem and fear that it leads to compromises and watering down of the essentials of one’s religious beliefs. However, in the course of history, borrowing, combining and integrating happens, either naturally or intentionally; as a result, there are no “pure” cultures, philosophies, art, or religions.

This is particularly true of religion in Southeast Asia, which is predominantly Buddhist with the exception of Indonesia, with the largest Islamic population in the world, and the Philippines, which is predominantly Roman Catholic. In addition to Buddhism, Southeast Asia also has the other major Asian religions like Hinduism and Confucianism. They affirm plurality and multiplicity as the nature of reality and, therefore, have not been averse to syncretism. In fact, in Asian thinking, the influence, infusion, and even transformation of religious beliefs as a result of new insights or contact with another tradition is not seen as syncretism.

Syncretism is one of those words in the English language that has undergone many changes over the centuries in what it connotes. What is syncretism to some is enrichment for others. It is also of interest that a religion such as Christianity, which is the result of extensive syncretism with the Jewish, Greco-Roman, Middle Eastern, and European religions and cultures, is the one that most feared syncretism when it moved into Asia and Africa. It shows that there are many underlying currents to the fear of syncretism.

S. Wesley Ariarajah

In the Southeast Asian context, Buddhism is a good example of openness to syncretism. When Buddhism moved from its moorings in North India into Tibet, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Indochina, and beyond into Northeast Asia, it continually concretized into the religion of each of these lands by absorbing and integrating the cultures and religious practices of these countries. As a result, Buddhism in Asia manifests itself in many forms—into Tibetan, Chinese, Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese Buddhisms, each shaped by the language, culture, and local religious practices syncretized into the original teachings of the Buddha. The openness goes to the point of allowing for different canons of scriptures in the languages of the country where it struck roots. Buddhism in Thailand, Myanmar, and Indochina has many elements of Hinduism, which had a large influence in the region before the advent of Buddhism. More importantly, all expressions of Buddhism in Southeast Asia borrow and integrate heavily from the pre-Buddhist and existing traditional and tribal religions and their cultural practices.

Syncretism, however, has negative connotations, particularly to Islam and Christianity. As a religion based on the revelation given to the Prophet Mohammed, recorded as the Holy Qur’an, Islam has been keen to preserve the purity of the original teachings and the original practices developed for the observance of the Islamic faith in worship and life in community. The Indonesian Muslims, for instance, have significant cultural traits that they have inherited from the pre-Islamic period, which are different from the Arabic-speaking Muslims; but the religious beliefs and religious practices remain essentially the same in all Muslim countries. Any deviations in these areas are considered heretical and rejected.

Christianity is perhaps the religion that has struggled most with the question of syncretism as it moved into Southeast Asia. Again, as a religion founded at a particular period of time around the significance of the meaning of a particular person, Jesus, it had to struggle to preserve the “purity” of its faith as it moved into the world of other religions. However, since the New Testament is not understood as a direct revelation, as the Qur’an is believed to be, various interpretations of the significance of Jesus arose in the early church. After a prolonged struggle, the church put down some basic beliefs as the Creed of the church, marking the boundaries for interpretations of the meaning of Jesus. Anything that strayed too far from it was considered heretical.

There is no doubt that the Creeds are themselves the result of considerable syncretism of the original teachings of Jesus and beliefs about him in the Jewish context with the religions and philosophies of the Greco-Roman world into which Christianity had moved. Yet the Creedal affirmations constituted the orthodoxy of the Christian faith. When Christianity, with this background, came into Southeast Asia, which had long-standing religious beliefs that predated Christianity and had a strong grip on people’s religious, cultural, and social lives, the missionaries saw syncretism as the strongest threat to Christianity. This was aggravated by the sharply different analyses of the human predicament and the way out of it in Christianity and Buddhism. The inextricably close relationship between religion, culture, and the way of life in Southeast Asia led the Christian missions to create alternate communities that separated the converts to Christianity from their religious and cultural heritage. This had also often meant breaking away from their immediate family ties. As a result of the fear of syncretism, Christianity and Islam failed to integrate with the cultures of Southeast Asia and, in the view of others, remain “foreign” religions.

The Christian fear of syncretism, however, was somewhat mitigated in Asia by movements toward inculturation, indigenization, and contextualization. These involved the use and integration of Southeast Asian music, symbols, architecture, art, etc., for new forms of Christian expression. There were also attempts to use Asian religious and philosophical concepts to interpret Christianity in Southeast Asia. From one perspective, these constituted a form of syncretism, described in new terms, but they were seen to be important for the relevance of Christianity in Southeast Asia. Gradually, and in order to accommodate this development, in Christian thinking, syncretism was redefined as “uncritical” assimilation of elements from other religions or attempts to create a new religion by bringing elements from a number of different religious traditions. This development, however, did not completely resolve the Christian nervousness about syncretism. Christianity in Southeast Asia still remains isolated from the identity and culture of the masses of its peoples.

It should be noted that even though Christianity as a religious tradition did not make much headway into most of Southeast Asia, its educational services, the Dutch, Portuguese, French, Spanish, British, and Japanese colonization of different parts of Southeast Asia and the continuing impact of neocolonial and global forces have transformed and syncretized the religions and cultures of Southeast Asia. For instance, the contemporary movement within Buddhism, “Engaged Buddhism,” spearheaded from Thailand, is an instance of attempts to bring significant impulses from Christianity into Buddhist teachings and practice. Such movements are not understood in the Buddhist context as syncretistic.

In the postmodern context, many would see the fear of syncretism as outdated. All religions and cultures are considered hybrids shaped and constituted by a variety of different and even alien concepts and practices, resulting in overlapping of cultures and religious impulses. This certainly would be an appropriate description of the religious reality of Southeast Asia.

S. Wesley Ariarajah

See also: Buddhism; Cao Dai; Christianity; Confucianism; Contextualization; Education; Engaged Buddhism; Ethnicity; Hinduism; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Indonesia; Islam; Judaism; Melanesian Religion; Minorities; Missionary Movements; Music; Myanmar (Burma); Philippines; Religious Conversions; Thailand.

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SANTI ASOKE

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SANTO, IGNACIA DEL ESPIRITU

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SATHYA SAI BABA MOVEMENT

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SAYADAW, MAHASI

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SAYADAW, THAMANYA

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SECULARISM

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SEXUALITY

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SHAMANISM

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SHARI’A

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SIDDIQUE, MUHAMMAD ABDUL ALEEM

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SIMATUPANG, T. B.

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SIN, CARDINAL JAIME LECHICA

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SINGAPORE

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SISTERS IN ISLAM

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SIVARAKSA, SULAK

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SOUTHEAST ASIAN RELIGIONS IN THE USA

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SPIRIT MEDIUMSHIP

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STUDY OF RELIGION

Method in the Study of Religion

Evolutionary Theories of Religious Development

Comparative Study of Religion

Anthropological Approaches

Historical-Phenomenological Approaches

Psychological Approaches

Sociological Approaches

The Current Situation

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SUFISM

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SYNCRETISM

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