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.We know little about the“ruler for worship” at the national center other than that he had a sizeable organization of specialists presumably concentrating on ceremony and recording important events at that level of operation.There was an unfavorable reaction to this political system in some quarters, especially those engaged in mercantile activity.Their criticism related directly to unsafe marketplaces, poor roads, and pervasive banditry.Importantly, it was Muslim leaders from the large, private religious centers that sought to bring order to this chaos through efforts to introduce Islamic commercial law.While there were various official and private efforts to curb brigandage on the trade routes, the major effort at instituting societal reforms to address the entire problem of trade came only with the Paderi movement at the opening of the nineteenth century.The Paderi movement was an adaptation of Wahhabi ideology from Arabia, which called for close attention to the basic rules and teachings of Islam and ridding religious practice of tendencies they regarded as “non-Islamic,” such as saint worship and mysticism.In west Sumatra the Paderis began by seeking converts in target villages and, at the same time, moved against villages that allowed their members to rob merchants moving goods between the upland markets and the two coasts.The Paderis insisted on adherence to the Muslim commercial code, which provided guidelines for free trade, ethics in the marketplace, and the right of merchants to move their goods across territory free of interference.The Paderi were also moral-ists, regarding market towns as lax in good Islamic behavior.In particular, they loathed gambling, cock fighting, and opium use, which were common in most major market towns.The value system of the Paderis was societal in scope as well as economic, and consequently the entire matrilineal system espoused by customary law also came under attack.While they dominated a wide number of villages at the height of their power in the 1830s and 1840s, in most cases their reforms were not long-lasting.Apparently Paderis were themselves deeply imbued with the values of the established Minang system and were not ready to do harm to their own female family members by destroying the matrilineal order of society.But they were more successful in persuading the population to devote greater attention to religious practice and thereby increased prayer and Islamic observances.While their efforts to change the local governmental structure were only partially accepted, the Paderis unhinged the political system by deposing the Minang ruler in 1821 and installing their own leader as ruler in his place.The Paderi success in establishing itself as controller of considerable territory, and its attempts to bring other areas under its jurisdiction, pro-3Fed_89-158 10/29/06 10:21 AM Page 105The Political Situation105duced a strong reaction from people outside the Paderi zone of influence.The deposed general ruler, representing the views of large numbers of the local chiefs, approached Dutch authorities, asking them to intervene in the war and remove the Paderi presence.In the war between 1821 and 1838the Dutch ultimately won a bitter campaign, but only after a series of military expeditions into the Paderi-held territory.Fighting as guerrillas, the Paderis garnered support from the local population for a considerable period of time by claiming that the war was a campaign against “disbelievers” (kafir).In truth, it became evident in the latter half of the campaign that the Dutch were seizing political control that would not be relinquished at the conclusion of hostilities.Even the reinstated general ruler of the Minangs, who had been in favor of Dutch intervention in the first place, found Dutch attempts to control the region too invasive; he was removed by the Dutch in 1833, never to be replaced.Imam Bonjol (d.1864), the last major leader of the Paderis, used the anti-disbeliever theme quite effectively in the final wave of resistance to Dutch operations; indeed, the legend he created through that resistance ultimately led to his “canonization” as an early “nationalist” leader by the Indonesian Republic in 1945 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]