people use the term silat imo to give it credentials and authenticity, without needing a heritage.. eg (and not necessarily in this case!) they learnt it from their father in a village.. no certificates etc.. sadly so many silat styles have become recognised because over time people dont know the true history of a style and the fake silat becomes mainstream.
I dislike Silat Mubai for how they market it. I used to think to know what silat is but after I met several practitioner of Silat from different school, I can't really define what Silat is. Thus, I can't really complain though. I think, most of practitioner of Silat here in Indonesia and Malaysia won't complain enough until the one which claim know silat, use famous style name as its name. I wouldn't mention the cases here but mostly are settled through silent-treat by the practitioner in native land. Silat Mubai or Sharaf, was not that case. So I think they wouldn't have that problem. Btw, a friend of mine said there was influence of Arab culture in Silat, especially in its blade handle from rencong (Aceh weapon), parang (machete), golok, kujang, to Javanese Keris. I have no knowledge of history so I just take his word for granted.
Me too. You're knowledge of history seems just fine ... judging from other posts of yours that I've read. However, it should be pretty simple to correlate when Islam/Arab influence to Indonesia and existence of weapons predating that ... like all culture that comes into the archipelago melting pot ... Islam influenced local culture just as it also experienced a change in the way it was expressed ... I've also heard stories from the wayang pantheon that has been Islamized , in fact I believe one of the Wali Songo (can't remember which one but think it might have been Sunan Kalijaga, altered some of the story in the wayang to reflect Islamic lore).
just ran across an ethnography on Islamic Mysticism (Sufism) and Silat in Malaysia: Shadows of the Prophet by D.S. Farrer. below is a link to the preview on google. The religious elements of Silat IMO are mystical in nature and mysticism is about a personal relationship with the supernatural rather than following a strict religious dogma. For example, I read a section of the preview where the author talks about going out to bars and drinking alcohol with the Muslim Silat students. Maybe they'll use their silat on the morality police i wish i could read the whole book but it costs about $200. Library exchange maybe. http://books.google.com/books?id=5H2pjzRD8RAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Shadows+of+the+prophet&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ouH4UMIO5-nZBfnogagJ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Shadows%20of%20the%20prophet&f=false
Good find nasigoreng. $152 on Amazon ... but still ouch My grandmother used to have a couple of bottles of arak ... local distilled ... that she used to have a thimble full for 'medicinal' purposes. I admit that I used to sample the stuff when I knew I wouldn't get caught ... for medicinal purposes as well .. of course .
The Javanese joke that they can drink beer bc it's only 5% alcohol and they're only 95% Muslim. hehe.
Exemplary logic wouldn't you say? Works for me anyway, but the numbers are back the front from my perspective ... meaning I'd be able to drink lots of beer ... if I wanted to!
