Shaykh Yusuf al-Makassari

Indonesian scholar and Sufi; founder of the Yusufiyya branch of the Khalwatiyya in South Sulawesi, leader of the resistance against the Dutch in Banten, and regarded as the first true founder of Islam in South Africa, where he was exiled. His full name was Abu al-Mahasin Muhammad Yusuf Hadiyyat Allah Taj al-Khalwati al-Maqassari.

He was born on 3 July 1626 in the village of Moncong Loe in the Gowa region of South Sulawesi (Celebes). According to local traditions his mother was the daughter of the village head and his father a farmer or a village head of modest means; he himself names his father as 'Abd Allah in one of his works. After learning to read the Qur'an he studied Arabic, jurisprudence, creed, hadith, exegesis and Sufism with Sayyid Ba 'Alawi b. 'Abd Allah Tahir, a teacher of Arab origin. At the age of fifteen he continued his education in Cikoang with Jalal al-Din al-'Aydid. As a young man he married the daughter of Sultan 'Ala' al-Din of Gowa.

In September 1644 he left the port of Makassar for the Hijaz. On the way, in West Java, he met important figures close to the royal family and the court, stayed for a while and then went on to Aceh. He could not reach Nur al-Din al-Raniri, from whom he wished to study, there, since Raniri had been forced to leave Aceh at the time; he probably met him in the city of Ranir in the Gujarat region of India. Indeed, in one of his works he speaks of Raniri as his shaykh and teacher and says he received from him a licence in the Qadiriyya. After meeting 'Umar b. 'Abd Allah Ba Shayban in India as well, he went to Yemen; in Zabid he received a licence in the Naqshbandiyya from Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Baqi al-Naqshbandi and in the Ba 'Alawiyya from Sayyid 'Ali al-Zabidi. He performed the pilgrimage in Mecca and went on to Medina; his years in the Hijaz coincide with those of the Sumatran scholar 'Abd al-Ra'uf al-Sinkili. Safi al-Din al-Qushashi, Ibrahim al-Kurani and Hasan al-'Ajami may be named among his teachers there. In Medina he entered the Shattariyya through Ibrahim al-Kurani and received his licence. Then he went to Damascus, where he took initiation from Abu al-Barakat Ayyub b. Ahmad al-Dimashqi al-Khalwati, imam of the Ibn al-'Arabi Mosque, and in his works he speaks with praise of this shaykh, who gave him the title Taj al-Khalwati. It is recorded that while in Mecca he taught students of Malay-Indonesian origin.

It is suggested that Yusuf, who evidently lived for at least twenty years in the Ottoman-ruled Hijaz and Damascus, may have returned to his country in 1664, 1668 or 1672. On his return he found that Islamic rules were not fully applied in Gowa and that drink, gambling and hashish were widespread; he asked that they be banned, but when the ruler rejected his proposal on the grounds that it would cause financial loss, he left his homeland and settled in Banten. There he married the daughter of the new sultan of Banten, Ageng Tirtayasa, an old friend of his. Dutch sources present him as the highest-ranking religious figure of the sultanate, a man with a voice in religious and political matters. When Sultan 'Abd al-Jalil of Gowa invited him back through a delegation he declined, and sent in his place his blind pupil from Makassar, 'Abd al-Bashir al-Darir, to whom he had given licences in the Khalwatiyya and the Naqshbandiyya. He spent his first years in Banten in learning, guidance and writing; among his students were children of the royal family and the notables of Banten, including the crown prince 'Abd al-Qahhar.

Beginning in time to intervene in political matters, Yusuf found himself in the midst of dynastic strife; he also had to struggle against Dutch pressure and interference in Banten. While 'Abd al-Qahhar seized the throne and pursued a pro-Dutch policy, Yusuf sided with the former sultan Ageng and his son, Crown Prince Purbaya, who sought the removal of the Dutch from the region. As a result of the military operations 'Abd al-Qahhar organised together with the Dutch in 1682, Sultan Ageng was exiled to Batavia (today's Jakarta) in 1683. Yusuf continued the struggle with an armed band of some 4000 men from Banten, Makassar, the Bugis and Java; at last he was forced to surrender through a Dutch ruse, was declared a prisoner of war in Cirebon and imprisoned, and the Banten resistance came to an end.

Fearing his influence on the Muslim population, the Dutch authorities exiled him on 12 September 1684, together with his two wives, children, servants, twelve disciples and close companions, to Sri Lanka (Ceylon). There Yusuf devoted himself to scholarly work and wrote most of his works. In 1689 the petition of Sultan 'Abd al-Jalil of Gowa and the notables of the sultanate for his release was rejected by the Dutch governor-general in Batavia. When the sultan of Gowa persisted, it was decided on 7 July 1693 to exile Yusuf, who kept up his ties with his compatriots, this time to Cape Town in South Africa. Brought to Cape Town on 2 April 1694, Yusuf and his companions were settled at Zandaliet, a farm at the mouth of the Eerste River; the place is known today as Macassar. Against the Dutch, who did not allow Muslims to worship, forced Malay slaves to become Christians and even pressed him too, he worked so that the Malay and Indonesian Muslims, a small minority, might preserve their faith; he also brought some of the local people to accept Islam. It is accepted that the Qadiriyya, the Shattariyya and the Rifa'iyya spread in the region through him.

He died in Cape Town on 22 May 1699 at the age of seventy-three and was buried at Faure, near the place where he lived. At the request of Sultan 'Abd al-Jalil of Gowa to the Dutch government, earth and fragments of bone taken from his grave were brought to his homeland Gowa in April 1705 and buried at Lakiung, where the graves of the royal family lie. Sultan 'Abd al-Jalil granted certain exemptions to his descendants and married one of his daughters, Sitti Labibah, to the crown prince Karaeng Anamoncong (Sultan Isma'il).

His Circle of Influence — Yusuf, who spent much of his life in exile, was a scholar and Sufi who contributed to the growth of Islam both in his homeland and in his places of exile, and at the same time a leader and man of action who guided the Muslim community. His struggle against the Dutch and his exile led to his being remembered as a national hero in his country, and in 1995 he was declared a national hero of Indonesia. He left a very strong mark on South Africa, where he stayed five years; the Muslims of South Africa celebrated 1994 as the 300th year of his arrival in their country, President Nelson Mandela praised his service to South Africa, and on 25 September 2005 the government of South Africa declared him a national leader. The chain of the Yusufiyya branch of the Khalwatiyya in South Sulawesi, named after him, has continued to the present day.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — According to the source his understanding of Sufism is not an ascetic one; he followed a moderate, middle way that kept the balance between this world and the next. He places divine unity at the centre of his Sufi thought and likens it to a tree whose branches and leaves are gnosis and worship. He states that a believer who does not fulfil the rules of the Shari'a cannot rise to the rank of the perfect human being. Although he adopts Ibn al-'Arabi's Sufi views, he is not a full follower of his doctrine of the unity of being; he sees Sufism as a system of thought that helps to strengthen servanthood and to beautify character through righteous deeds and dhikr. From his use of the expressions "tariqa Muhammadiyya" and "tariqa Ahmadiyya" in his works it has been argued that he represented an innovative Sufi outlook in his time. He received licences in the Qadiriyya, the Naqshbandiyya, the Ba 'Alawiyya, the Shattariyya and the Khalwatiyya.

His Works — More than twenty works of his have been identified; most are in Arabic, a few in the local Indonesian languages Bugis (Makassar) and Banten (Sundanese). They concern Sufism, ethics, jurisprudence and creed; he also has treatises on the relation of Sufism to theology. In his treatises he often treats the concepts of divine unity, gnosis and the Shari'a, and frequently cites Ghazali, Junayd al-Baghdadi, Ibn al-'Arabi, 'Abd al-Karim al-Jili and Ibn 'Ata' Allah al-Iskandari. He wrote all his works in Banten and in his Sri Lankan exile; some of those written in Sri Lanka are also known by the name "Saylaniyya". Most of the manuscripts are in the National Library in Jakarta, and twelve are in the KITLV Library in Leiden. Among the twenty-three works identified by Nabilah Lubis are al-Barakat al-Saylaniyya, Bidayat al-mubtadi, Fath kayfiyyat al-dhikr, Habl al-warid, Matalib al-salikin, al-Nafahat al-Saylaniyya, Qurrat al-'ayn, Safinat al-najat, Sirr al-asrar, Taj al-asrar, Tuhfat al-abrar and Zubdat al-asrar, counted among his most important. Twenty-one of his works were translated into Indonesian by Tudjimah (Jakarta 1987), and Suleman Essop Dangor translated Zubdat al-asrar into Indonesian and English (Durban 1990).

His Tomb and Complex — Over his grave in Cape Town a large tomb was built in 1903-1913 by Hajji Sulayman Shah Muhammad, a Cape Town Muslim of Indian origin; its surroundings, together with the graves of four of his students and other buildings, were later rearranged. Regarded as national heritage, this tomb is today one of the most important places of visitation and the centre of the Malay-Indonesian Muslim community there. In Gowa, the grave of his Gowanese wife was later moved beside his grave at Lakiung, where the bone and earth fragments were buried; Sultan 'Abd al-Jalil began the tradition of holding a ceremony of visitation every year at his grave and his wife's.