Mark R. Woodward’s Islam in Java: Normative Piety and Mysticism in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta (1989) was one of the most important work on Indonesian Islam of the era. This new volume, Java, Indonesia, and Islam, builds on the earlier study, but also goes beyond it in important ways. Written on the basis of Woodward’s thirty years of research on Javanese Islam in a Yogyakarta (south-central Java) setting, the book presents a much-needed collection of essays concerning Javanese Islamic texts, ritual, sacred space, situated in Javanese and Indonesian political contexts. With a number of entirely new essays as well as significantly revised versions of essays this book is a valuable contribution to the academic community by an eminent anthropologist and key authority on Islamic religion and culture in Java.
From the book reviews:
"Woodward's Java, Indonesia and Islam offers an invaluable corrective to Orientalist depictions of Javanese Islam. While it will no doubt continue to generate debate among scholars of Indonesian Islam, the volume is a critical resource for those attempting to understand not only Islam in Indonesia but Islam in any local context." (Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Contemporary Islam, Vol. 7, 2013)
"Woodward's Java, Indonesia and Islam offers an invaluable corrective to Orientalist depictions of Javanese Islam. While it will no doubt continue to generate debate among scholars of Indonesian Islam, the volume is a critical resource for those attempting to understand not only Islam in Indonesia but Islam in any local context." (Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Contemporary Islam, Vol. 7, 2013)