Sunan Gunungjati

Sunan Gunungjati was a Javanese "wali" who founded the city of Cirebon and the Banten Sultanate. Born as Syarif Hidayatullah in AD 1448, he was the son of Nyai Rara Santang, who was the daughter of Prabu Siliwangi (the ruler of Sunda kingdom). His father was Syarif Abdullah Maulana Huda, a leader in Egypt of Hashimite descedent from Palestine.

Sunan Gunungjati worked at Demak and Banten, and was the founder of Banten Sultanate. Many stories say that he was originally from Pasai in Aceh, others say that he was from Pajajaran (the capital of Sunda Kingdom) in West Java. He married the sister of Sultan Trenggono of Demak, and led military expeditions for Demak against Banten, a port of Sunda Kingdom (which was still Hindu at that time). As "Fatahillah" he defeated the Portuguese when they tried to take Sunda Kelapa (now Jakarta) in 1527.

Some stories have Sunan Gunungjati active around the 1470s and 1480s, under the name "Hidayatullah", other stories have him active around the 1520s, and associate him with the name "Fatahillah". In the 1480s he would have been the grandson of the king of Sunda Kingdom from Pajajaran; in the late 1520s he would have fought the Portuguese near what is today Jakarta. The problem is that some stories say that he passed away in 1568, by which time he would have been as old as 120 years! Some scholars think that there may have been more than one Gunungjati. [ [http://www.gimonca.com/sejarah/walisongo.shtml Sejarah Indonesia: Wali Songo] ]

Ancestry

As for his ancestry, another source from the Hadhramaut ulamas' (religious scholars) has it that Sunan Gunung Jati, who is also identified as Syarif Hidayatullah was born around 1450.

His lineage is traced through a descendant of Hadhrami sayyids who had started to migrate to India possibly at about the 12th and/or 13th century. References can be obtained from the Arabic genealogy books "Shams Al-Zahirah", "Mushajjar al-Ansab" and "Khidmat al-Ashirah" among others.

Syarif Hidayatullah @ Sunan Gunung Jati bin Abdullah (Cambodia) bin Ali Nur al-Alam (Siam) bin Jamaludin Akbar @ Syaikh Jamaluddin Akbar (Gujerat, India) bin Ahmad Jalaludin Khan bin Abdullah Khan bin Abdul Malik bin Alawi Ammil Faqih bin Muhammad Sohib Mirbath.

Muhammad Sohib Mirbath is a descendant from Ahmad Al-Muhajir bin Isa, who is in turn a descendant of Ali Zainal Abidin bin Al-Hussain the son of Ali bin Abu Talib and Fatimah binte Muhammad the Messenger of Islam. Ahmad bin Isa migrated from Baghdad, Iraq to Medina/Mecca first before proceeding to Hadhramaut, Yemen around 898.

This seems to be more plausible lineage compared to the proposal that he is a descendant of a Hashemite clan from Palestine. One reason is that the Islamisation of Indonesia, in fact of the whole South East Asian region, is often accompanied by traders mainly from the Indian continent. Indian influence on South-East Asia especially Indonesia prior to the spread of Islam is also a well-known fact.

As is most Indonesian adopts the Shafii sect just like the Hadhramis.huh Traditions like visiting tombs of saints, known as ziarah wali, is also one that is practised in large scales in India and Hadhramaut especially.

Genealogical record keeping has also been a strict discipline among the sayyids of Hadhramis, even if they have migrated to India as in the past, or to Indonesia.

Education

Syarif Hidayatullah studied Islam through venerated scholars in Egypt during his fourteen years of living and travelled to many countries including Indonesia. Egypt is not his only place of learning, as naturally he must have done his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and at the same time, met and studied under the various scholars which must have included Sufis.

Leadership

During the dawn of the Kingdom of Bintoro in Demak, he, under the patronage of the ulama established the kingdom of Cirebon known as Kingdom of Pakungwati. He was the only Sunan to have become a king. Gunungjati fully utilizes his kingship to propagate Islam along the coastal area of Cirebon to the most remote area of Pasundan or Priangan. [http://geocities.com/setyo79/setyo15.htm Sekilas Tentang Wali Songo] ]

Dawah

In his dawah he uphold the strict methodology propagated by the sheikh in middle east but still he remain close to the local people by developing basic instructures for them and built road connecting the isolated provinces.

He and his price Maulana Hasanuddin went into several expeditions particularly in Banten. The leader there then voluntarily submit the leadership to him but eventually was appointed as the new leader of the province which later became the kingdom of Banten.

During his 89 year old age he started to focus on dawah and began appointing a new successor. Pangeran Pasarean later became the new king.

Death

In 1580 Sunan Gunungjati died at the age of 120 in Cirebon. He was buried in Gunung Sembung, Gunung Jati, around 15 kilometer from Cirebon to the west. [http://geocities.com/setyo79/setyo15.htm Sekilas Tentang WALI SONGO ] ]

References