Miracles and Material Life
Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya

Sevea reveals a universe of miracle-workers in Islamic Malaya, connecting the supernatural to material life, socioeconomic activities and production.

Teren Sevea (Author)

9781108702126, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 October 2022

292 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.429 kg

'In this subtle and evocative work, Terenjit Sevea links the world of religiosity and wonders in colonial and Islamic Southeast Asia with the material world of agriculture, mining and hunting. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, some very unusual, he brings together material and cultural histories in ways that will be profitable for scholars of many other world regions. His analysis takes us far beyond the 'disenchantment' paradigm that long dominated colonial histories.' Sanjay Subrahmanyam, University of California, Los Angeles

In this ground-breaking new study, Teren Sevea reveals the economic, environmental and religious significance of Islamic miracle workers (pawangs) in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Malay world. Through close textual analysis of hitherto overlooked manuscripts and personal interaction with modern pawangs readers are introduced to a universe of miracle workers that existed both in the past and in the present, uncovering connections between miracles and material life. Sevea demonstrates how societies in which the production and extraction of natural resources, as well as the uses of technology, were intertwined with the knowledge of charismatic religious figures, and locates the role of the pawangs in the spiritual economy of the Indian Ocean world, across maritime connections and Sufi networks, and on the frontier of the British Empire.

The magic of Islam and modern Malaya: an introduction
1. Compendia of forest patois and agrarian 'Iimu
2. Pawangs and Munshis in Muhammad's ricefields
3. The Pawang's 'wonderful nose' for ore
4. An 'ilmu of violence: the elephant bomohs of modern Malaya
5. Gun gurus and Sufi shooters
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Mysticism, magic & ritual [VXW], Economic history [KCZ], Islam [HRH], Asian history [HBJF]