Communal Feast Slametan: Belief System, Ritual, and the Ideal of Javanese Society

This paper focuses on the Javanese Muslims religious belief and its ritual, slametan, which is prevalently performed in Java. This ritual is of great significance to the Javanese Muslim community, and is counted as syncretistic ritual of Islamic and the Javanese traditions. The ritual is though analysed in relation to the society ideal of unity and harmony as the standard set for the indicator that the life of people is in order and in a slamet condition or ‘nothing happens'. This paper argues that this ceremony is the main ritual among Javanese Muslims which to a large extent reflects and symbolises the religious belief, slamet principle of the people living together, and having strong awareness of others. This ideal in the end conceives some element of sacredness which has the influence on the relationship between individual and social behaviour.