Old Islamic ritual held in Bali

Denpasar, NU Online
Emansyur, 68, stood near the entrance of the Assyuhada Mosque, the only one in the Bugis village of the Serangan sub-district, in the late afternoon on Tuesday.

In front of him, a number of people laid down a brown box on a short table. From within he pulled out a dilapidated Koran, its pages jutting out. A relic from the 17th century, according to a scholar from Udayana University, he said, the same age as the mosque he was standing in.<>

Emansyur, along with dozens of other villagers, was about to do the Magalici Koran (Buginese, which literally translates as "carrying the Koran around") ritual, during which they parade the Koran around the village while chanting prayers, stopping at the four corners of the village to sound the call for prayer, or Adzan.

"The point of this ritual is to protect this village from any harm, because I remember when this village stopped performing this ritual a number of decades ago, a smallpox plague fell upon us, killing people and destroying lives," Emansyur said Tuesday.

"But since we began doing the ritual again, no harm has befallen this village. In fact, it has prospered."

There are no records of such an outbreak in the Bugis village, but in Bali, where ancient Indonesian mystical roots have a firm grasp, age-old Islamic beliefs, rituals and artifacts, it seems, maintain a place in the hearts and minds of Muslims.

As reported by The Jakarta Post, Emansyur began to call on all the villagers using a megaphone, asking them to join him in carrying the Koran around the village.

Men and their children joined, chanting prayers together as women and Hindus, who were obviously familiar with the annual ritual, watched from their homes.

The Magalici Koran is celebrated every Muharram 9 on the Islamic calendar, the day before Shia and Sunni Muslims recognized the death of Muhammad's grandson, Husain Bin Ali, during the war of Karbala in 680 A.D.

Also known as the day of Asyura, it is celebrated in Shia dominated countries as a day of mourning. In Iran, it is notably celebrated with a parade of self-flagellating Muslims.

The carrying of the Koran is unique to this Bugis village, a small hamlet within the Serangan island that is dominated by Muslims of the Bugis ethnicity, one of the largest ethnic groups of South Sulawesi.

Emansyur himself was born in Bali, and could not recall when his ancestors first immigrated to Bali, nor could he recall when the 17th century Koran was brought over.

However, he is one of the few elders in the village who continues to preserve the ritual.

"This Koran is very important to us, and we've learned that it is important to continue performing our ancestors' ritual," Emansyur said.

That feeling has seemed to pass on, Loh Ali, 32, another native of Bugis village, said.

"I've been doing this since I was born. Whenever we have the Magalici Koran I join because I believe that it is important to maintain peace," he said.

But the age of modernity and progress has forced even this small hamlet to change its age-old rituals.

The entourage walked around the village three times, stopping four times on the village's corners to sound the Adzan on each lap, a change from about 30 years ago, Loh Ali said, when the entourage would walk around the village while carrying the Koran once a day for three days.

"It was changed because, apparently, they felt like people were too busy to spend three days for a religious ritual," he said.

The surrounding villages in Serangan have asked Emansyur, who is a noted elder in the village, to expand the ritual to surround the island.

When asked whether the request was made to make the island more attractive to tourists, Emansyur said that, "it probably just means they approve of our ritual." (dar)