The idea of a network of ulama offers a powerful lens through which to read the history of Islam in the Indonesian archipelago. As far as I’m aware, Azyumardi Azra’s Jaringan Ulama (1993) stands as one of the earliest serious attempts to map this terrain. It’s no surprise, then, that the very notion of scholarly networks in the archipelago has become closely tied to his name.
Azra’s work shows how intellectual currents flowing between the Middle East and the Nusantara in the 17th and 18th centuries seeded a wave of Islamic renewal. The religious landscape of the time bore the imprint of neo-Sufism—a shift that gently steered local Islam away from a purely mystical orientation toward a more balanced synthesis, where spiritual practice and Islamic law moved hand in hand.
The Evolution of the Field
After Azra, the conversation didn’t stop—it widened. Later scholars began to revisit Islam in the archipelago through the same lens of scholarly networks. What Azra once described as a “neglected field” gradually found its footing. Not dominant, perhaps, but no longer overlooked.
Take Agus Sunyoto’s Atlas Wali Songo (2012). While not explicitly framed as a study of scholarly networks, it effectively maps one: the interconnected world of the Wali Songo. Sunyoto’s strength lies in restraint. He sidesteps the usual hagiographic tales of miracles and instead presents the Wali Songo as historical actors embedded in a living network—linked by shared missions, knowledge, and social ties.
Then there’s Amirul Ulum’s Al-Jawi al-Makki: Kiprah Ulama Nusantara di Haramain (2017), which, in many ways, picks up where Azra left off. Both explore networks formed in the Haramain, though across different centuries. Azra focuses on the 17th and 18th centuries; Ulum shifts the spotlight to the 19th and 20th. He frames this web as the al-Jawi al-Makki network—a continuation, not a repetition, of earlier scholarly exchanges.