THESAURUS OF INDONESIAN ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPTS

The Serat Cabolek is a document portraying certain tensions in the Javanese religious life resulting from particular developments in Javanese society after the acceptance of Islam. The principal tension described in this text is that between those  ‘ulamā who considered themselves the adherents and defenders of the sharī‘ah, and those who rejected the more legalistic form of religion and professed a traditional Javanese mysticism.

This text, on the other hand, is a document in which the writer overtly sides with the ‘ulamā who uphold the sharī‘ah as the necessary wadah (vessel) for religious belief. The author of the Serat Cabolek emphasizes again and again the importance of the sharī‘ah as an essential guide for the exterior life of man. At the same time, however, the author demostrates through Ketib Anom Kudus, the antagonist of Haji Mutamakin, the importance of the teachings of Dewa Ruci as the mainstay of the spiritual life of the Javanese (Soebardi 1975: viii).

In his critical edition, Soebardi uses seven, of ten, manuscripts of the Serat Cabolek in the Manuscript Sections of the Jakarta National Library (it was Jakarta Museum Library), four manuscripts in the Oriental Manuscripts Section of the Leiden University Library, and a printed version by Van Dorp & Co. in 1886. In addition, he makes also an introduction and english translation of the text.