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most people both in the East and at home are profoundly ignorant as regards the religious life of the native peoples.
We still meet every day in the newspapers and magazines of Netherlands India the most absurd misconceptions on this subject, even in regard to matters which could be cleared up by interrogating any of our native neighbours, not to speak of more complicated or general questions on the same head[1]. An equal amount of folly may be overheard in the conversations of Europeans respecting the religion of the Indonesians; this misinformation is no doubt partly inspired by the press, but to some extent the opposite is the case, and it is the speakers who inspire the journals.
Ignorance of the subject displayed by Europeans.Without even a distant knowledge of the conditions of the question, and without giving himself the trouble to get at the truth, each one confidently puts forward his solution of the problem. One tells you that there lurks under every turban a would-be rebel and murderer, a fanatical enemy of all things European; with the same degree of assurance another avers that not a single grain of fanaticism exists throughout the whole of the East Indian Archipelago, while a third declares that both are wrong and that it requires experience such as his (the
- ↑ This is characteristically illustrated by the feuilleton Abu Bakar, which appeared in the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad in the latter part of the year 1893. It is from the pen of Maurits (P. A. Daum), a writer of some repute, and it deals with subjects which cannot be handled without some knowledge of the first principles of the Mohammedan religion as professed by the natives of the Eastern Archipelago. Yet the author displays an absolute ignorance of almost every branch of his subject. He gives a penghulu the rôle of unctuous hypocrite and converter of Europeans, whereas the really typical pangulu is an official who can give himself no airs and is frowned upon by the "pious", and one who might be called anything rather than Pharasaical. He makes the convert Abu Bakar learn "texts from the Koran" by heart and constantly quote them, while as a matter of fact it is only finished students who attain so far, and the ordinary, nay even the more highly developed and prominent native never quotes from the Qurān. Perhaps however Maurits refers to his own copy of the Qurān; it seems to be a new edition for we find a quotation therefrom to the effect that "he who loves one of his wives more than the other, shall appear at the day of the Resurrection with buttocks of unequal size". There is nothing of the kind in the ordinary editions of the Qurān, and such a difference in the degree of affection of the husband for his wives is expressly recognized as permissible by the sacred books. Again it is stated that the married man who commits adultery must be punished with a hundred lashes of the whip (the Mohammedan law ordains the punishment of stoning for this offence), and that the wedding gift should consist of one hundred dinars—an entirely novel rule. Abu Bakar after his conversion is constantly spoken of as a Tuan Said, a title appertaining only to those descended from Ali; the confession of faith is given as al-illah allah, the haji performs his pilgrimage to Mohammed's tomb, etc. Nothing but the profound ignorance of the public can enable an author of reputation to perpetrate such blunders.
