LOCAL PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ISLAMIC SUBJECTIVITY IN SOUTH SULAWESI: A RE-READING OF SHEIKH YUSUF AL-MAKASSARI

This article proposes a framework called “Local Psychoanalysis” to understand how Makassar-Bugis Muslims reconcile ancestral cosmology with Islamic doctrine, moving beyond the usual syncretism lens. Through a hermeneutic reading of the epic La Galigo, the Sinrilik Riwayat Tuanta Salamaka, and three treatises by Sheikh Yusuf al-Makassari, the authors identify a recurring three-stage pattern—Ininnawa, Wangkang, and Sompeq. They argue that Sheikh Yusuf’s Sufi teachings function like Lacan’s sinthome, a knot that sustains the relationship between local commitments and Islam without dissolving either. The study offers these categories as methodological alternatives for studying Islamization in the Indonesian Archipelago.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Studies of Makassar-Bugis Islam generally explain the relationship between Islam and ancestral cosmology through the lens of syncretism. However, this approach has not yet explained how individuals reconcile these two traditions in their religious experience. This article aims to examine how the Sufi teachings of Syekh Yusuf al-Makassari bridge the tension between Makassar-Bugis ancestral cosmology and Islamic doctrine, using a framework referred to in this study as “Local Psychoanalysis.” The method employed is qualitative with a hermeneutic approach, specifically a side-by-side reading of selected episodes from the epic La Galigo (manuscript NBG 188) and Sinrilik Riwayat Tuanta Salamaka alongside three treatises by Sheikh Yusuf: Zubdat al-Asrar, Sirr al-Asrar, and An-Nafhat al-Sailaniyah. Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts are explored in dialogue with three local categories: Ininnawa, Sumangeq, and Pemali. The results of the study reveal a recurring three-stage pattern in the analyzed corpus, which was subsequently formulated as Ininnawa, Wangkang, and Sompeq. These findings suggest that the teachings of Manyeʾrea Syekh Yusuf function analogously to the concept of the sinthome in Lacanian thought that is, a knot that sustains the relationship between local commitments and Islam without dissolving one into the other. The contribution of this study is methodological in nature, offering Ininnawa, Manyeʾrea, and Sompeq as alternative interpretive categories for the study of the Islamization of the Indonesian Archipelago, which are expected to complement the framework of syncretism that has been used in similar studies to date