Dari Tasawuf Falsafi ke Tasawuf Sunni: Membaca Ulang Kontroversi Syekh Siti Jenar dan Wali Sanga dalam Islamisasi Jawa

Abstract

The controversy between Shaykh Siti Jenar and the Wali Sanga is one of the significant discourses in the history of the Islamization of Java, often understood as a conflict between philosophical Sufism and Sunni Sufism. This understanding has frequently given rise to a dichotomy in which Siti Jenar is portrayed as a representative of metaphysical mysticism, while the Wali Sanga are positioned as representatives of Islamic orthodoxy. This article aims to re-examine the controversy by analyzing the development of Sufism, the teachings attributed to Siti Jenar, and the preaching strategies and spirituality of the Wali Sanga in the process of Islamization in Java. This study employs a library research method using historical and historiographical approaches. Data were collected from various relevant primary and secondary sources, including books, journal articles, and research findings, and were subsequently analyzed using content analysis and comparative analysis techniques.

The findings indicate that the differences between the Sufism attributed to Siti Jenar and the Sufism developed within the Wali Sanga tradition are not merely concerned with questions of religious right and wrong. Rather, they reflect different epistemological orientations in understanding the relationship between human beings, God, Islamic law (sharia), and spiritual experience. The Wali Sanga developed a form of Sufism that situated mystical experience within the framework of Islamic creed (aqidah), sharia, and social life, whereas the teachings attributed to Siti Jenar placed greater emphasis on metaphysical reflection concerning human nature and divinity through the concept of manunggaling kawula-Gusti (the union of the servant and God). This study also finds that the sources concerning Siti Jenar are diverse and historiographically problematic; therefore, various narratives about the conflict between Siti Jenar and the Wali Sanga need to be examined critically. Accordingly, the Islamization of Java is more appropriately understood as a dialectical process involving negotiations among Islamic spirituality, local culture, religious authority, and the construction of Islamic knowledge, rather than as the triumph of one form of Sufism over another.