Babad Tanah Jawi

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Babad Tanah Jawi ("History of the land of Java"), is a generic title for a large number of manuscripts written in Javanese language. Their arrangements and details vary, and no copies of any of the manuscripts are older than the eighteenth century.

Due to the scarcity and limitations of primary historical records, Babad Tanah Jawi, is one of a number of accounts of Indonesian legends that scholars use to help illuminate aspects of the spread of Islam in Indonesia, the dominant religion in the Indonesian archipelago since the sixteenth century.

The texts attribute the first Javanese conversions to Islam to the Wali Sanga ("nine saints"), although their names and relationships vary across the texts to the extent that perfect reduction and agreement between them is not possible. Although most of the manuscripts accept the convention of nine saints, a number list ten. These names commonly appear throughout the Babad Tanah Jawi texts:

Sunan Ngambel-Denta
Sunan Kudus
Sunan Murya
Sunan Bonang
Sunan Giri
Sunan Kalijaga
Sunan Sitijenar
Sunan Gunungjati
Sunan Walilanang
Sunan Bayat (an oft-mentioned tenth saint)

[edit] The story of Sunan Kalijaga

In the Babad Tanah Jawi account of Sunan Kalijaga, there are no formal signs of conversion to Islam such that is is no clear if Kalijaga is not already Muslim at the time of his "conversion". In this story, he is said to be the son of Tumenggung Wilatikta, and in the service of the Majapahit empire, and Kalijaga whose religion is unspecified but has the Arabic name "Said". Following gambling losses, Said resorts to highway robbery on the north coast of Java. Sunan Bonang one day passes and is pulled up by Said. Bonang suggests it would be better for Said to rob a person who will later pass dressed in blue with a red hibiscus behind his ear. Three days later, this person passes, and is Bonang in disguise. Said attacks, but Bonang turns himself into four persons, traumatising Bonang such that he becomes an ascetic. He takes the name "Kalijaga", becomes a wali and marries the sister of Sunan Gunungjati.^[1]