Martin van Bruinessen

My first venture into academic life consisted of two years of anthropological fieldwork in Kurdistan (1974-76), which formed the basis for my PhD thesis Agha, Shaikh and State: On the Social and Political Organization of Kurdistan (Utrecht, 1978). I have kept returning to Kurdistan during the past half century and writing about various aspects of Kurdish history, society and culture. My second main academic interest, Indonesian Islam, emerged more or less accidentally through a postdoctoral fellowship at the KITLV (the Royal Institute of Anthropology and Linguistics, as it was then called in English) during 1982-86. My first fieldwork included living for a year in a poor slum in the city of Bandung but also visits to many places of pilgrimage, a study of the martial arts and especially the magical-mystical practices associated with them, and attending the classes of teachers of various 'syncretistic' mystical sects in West Java. Four years as a consultant for research methods at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and two and a half years as a visiting lecturer at the IAIN (State Institute for Islamic Studies) in Yogyakarta allowed me to continue pursuing these interests. My activities at these institutions and the friendships made there added a new focus on ulama, traditional Islamic schools and Sufi orders. Much of my research and writing of those years was published in Indonesian in three volumes : a survey of the history and dissemination of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, and two collections of articles: Kitab Kuning, Pesantren dan Tarekat (on Islamic schools, the books studied there, and Sufi orders) and Rakyat Kecil, Islam dan Politik (Common People, Islam and Politics).