Islamizing Time in Seventeenth-Century Java: Calendrical Reform, Contested Histories, and the Negotiation of Authority

Abstract

This article investigates the Islamization of time in seventeenth-century Java by reading the calendar reform. This article examines the historical relationship between calendrical knowledge, religious legitimacy, and royal authority. The study employs a critical literature-based historical approach, comparing published analyses of the reform, studies of the Serat Widya Pradhana, and scholarship on Islamic Mataram. It argues that the calendar's combination of a lunar reckoning, inherited year numbering, and Javanese temporal cycles can be interpreted as a negotiated arrangement rather than a total cultural replacement. Attributing calendrical authorship to Sultan Agung and, later, to Sunan Giri II in a literary genealogy indicates competing modes of authorizing Islamic time. These accounts should not be conflated with contemporary evidence for the reform. The article proposes calendrical authority as a limited analytical framework linking knowledge, institutions, and social practice, while acknowledging that the absence of independently examined seventeenth-century manuscripts prevents claims about a uniform implementation throughout Java.

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