VISUAL ICONOGRAPHY AND PERFORMATIVE SEMIOTICS IN A PEGON JAVANESE NAQSHBANDĪYAH AL-MRIKIYAH MANUSCRIPT

A 1954 Javanese Sufi manuscript written in Pegon script within the Naqshbandīyah al-Mrikīyah lineage articulates Naqshbandī metaphysics through Javanese mystical idioms. Using a hermeneutic–semiotic framework that combines Ricoeur's textual configuration model with Peircean triadic analysis, the manuscript's lexical formations and sixteen doctrinal and contemplative diagrams were examined. Pegon terminology and Javanese expressions such as kemrenthek operate as affective-semiotic modulators in dhikr and murāqabah. The diagrams function as epistemic icons that formalize interior states and encode sequential logics of Naqshbandī contemplative praxis. The work advances understanding of how Pegon texts vernacularize Sufi metaphysics into localized semiotic architectures.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study investigates a 1954 Javanese Sufi manuscript written in Pegon script within the Naqshbandīyah al-Mrikīyah lineage. Addressing a gap in existing scholarship—which has concentrated predominantly on pre-20th-century Pegon Qur’anic exegesis—this article analyzes a modern non-exegetical Pegon Sufi text that articulates Naqshbandī metaphysics through Javanese mystical idioms. Methodologically, the study employs a compounded hermeneutic–semiotic framework, integrating Ricoeur’s layered model of textual configuration with Peircean triadic analysis to examine Pegon's lexical formations and the manuscript’s sixteen doctrinal and contemplative diagrams. The findings demonstrate that the manuscript generates a linguistic-performative matrix in which Pegon terminology and Javanese expressions such as kemrenthek operate as affective-semiotic modulators in dhikr and murāqabah. The diagrams function as epistemic icons that formalize interior states and encode the sequential logics of Naqshbandī contemplative praxis. The study advances current understandings of Javanese Sufi manuscript culture by elucidating the epistemological role of Pegon texts in vernacularizing Sufi metaphysics into localized semiotic architectures.