Title: Book Review: Islam, Colonialism and the Modern Age in the Netherlands East Indies. A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914), written by Nico J.G. Kaptein
Abstract: Sayyid ʿUthman ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAqil ibn Yayah al-ʿAlawi, often referred to as Sayyid ʿUthman, was one of the most influential Islamic scholars in the Netherlands East Indies.His Hadhrami-Arab descent, including his genealogy that goes back to the Prophet Muhammad, his mobility between Southeast Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, his engagement in intellectual exchange across continents with representatives of different Islamic schools of thought, and his close relations to the colonial authorities certainly qualify him as a figure who deserves a detailed study.Thanks to the efforts of Nico Kaptein this lacuna in the study of Islam in the Netherlands East Indies has now been filled with a biography of Sayyid ʿUthman that not only locates this Islamic scholar in colonial history but also offers what Kaptein calls 'a view from within' .The first part of the book is dedicated to this insider perspective.It consists of biographical texts, that is, life stories published by close family members shortly after Sayyid ʿUthman passed away in 1914.These texts were originally written in Malay using Jawi, an adopted Arabic alphabet.One of the great merits of Kaptein's book is that he makes these important sources accessible to a larger audience by translating them into English and by a transliteration into Roman alphabet for readers of Malay (in the appendix).In the second, most elaborated part of the book he then develops an 'academic' biography of Sayyid ʿUthman.When Kaptein examines Sayyid ʿUthman's youth in Batavia, his longer stays in Mecca and the Hadhramaut, and his travels in the Middle East, he puts emphasis on the intellectual influences that had a lasting impact on Sayyid ʿUthman and basically made him into a representative of shafi'i orthodoxy.In this respect, the first chapter of the second part of the book prepares the reader for the following discussion of Sayyid ʿUthman's return to Batavia (at the age of forty), his rise to a prominent scholar and publisher there, his reaction to newly emerging Islamic currents, his close relations with colonial authorities, and the subsequent critique that was directed towards him.Kaptein carefully traces the details of how Sayyid ʿUthman became involved in colonial affairs, starting from his condemnation of Islamic mystical movements that the colonial administration also saw as a threat, to his role as assistant to the Dutch orientalist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje