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A New Qur’an for 'Arab' Muslims and Razm along the Straits of Melaka
Abstract
This paper focusses on Islamic manuscripts of peripatetic 'Arab' Sufis who were technological heirs of the prophet Muhammad and gurus of hand-held firearms along the modern Straits of Malacca. Particular attention is paid to how these 'Arab' Sufis and their texts serve as microcosms of broader social worlds wherein guns and their metals had attained distinctly religious definitions, and wherein Sufis were venerated and professionally employed for their esoteric firearms expertise, miracles, charms and supernatural negotiations. Heirs of Muhammad in the Malay world were ideally placed to mediate guns and warfare, as heirs of the Prophet's esoteric science and a 'new Qur'an'. As a range of extant Jawi manuscripts tell, Sufis were pivotal to propagating gun expertise, to employing and domesticating ‘foreign’ metals and western guns from Ottoman Turkey, Europe and America. Moreover, these Sufis who were plugged into circuits connecting them to gun-makers, smugglers, hunters and revolutionaries, were employed for their arts of bullet craftsmanship, Islamic marksmanship and hunting ‘kafirs’. This talk presents facets of my explorations into the economics of colonization, tapping and guns, and the performance of Sufi sainthood, across the early modern and modern Indian Ocean.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Indian Ocean Region
Sub Area
History of Religion