Sufism and the Sacred Feminine in Lombok, Indonesia: Situating Spirit Queen Dewi Anjani and Female Saints in Nahdlatul Wathan

On Lombok, Indonesia, indigenous notions of a sacred feminine shape Sufi practice. Through long-term fieldwork, the author shows how Dewi Anjani, a spirit queen and holy saint ruling from Mount Rinjani, along with a living female saint and Murshida, influence the Sufi praxis of the largest local Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Wathan, and its Sufi order. From a Sufi feminist standpoint, the integration of indigeneity into mystical experience gives meaning to the sacred feminine in both complementary and hierarchical ways, without challenging Islamic gender constructs that reproduce patriarchal expressions of Sufism and Islam.

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Abstract

This article is a feminist ethnographic exploration of how ‘indigenous’ notions of a ‘sacred feminine’ shape Sufi praxis on the island of Lombok in the eastern part of Indonesia in Southeast Asia. I demonstrate through long-term immersive anthropological fieldwork how in her indigenous form as Dewi Anjani ‘Spirit Queen of Jinn’ and as ‘Holy Saint of Allah’ who rules Lombok from Mount Rinjani, together with a living female saint and Murshida with whom she shares sacred kinship, these feminine beings shape the kind of Sufi praxis that has formed in the largest local Islamic organization in Lombok, Nahdlatul Wathan, and its Sufi order, Hizib Nahdlatul Wathan. Arguments are situated in a Sufi feminist standpoint, revealing how an active integration of indigeneity into understandings of mystical experience gives meaning to the sacred feminine in aspects of Sufi praxis in both complementary and hierarchical ways without challenging Islamic gender constructs that reproduce patriarchal expressions of Sufism and Islam.