Sunan Bonang

Sunan Bonang (1465–1525), born Raden Makdum Ibrahim, was one of the nine Wali Songo, the saints credited with establishing Islam as the dominant religion among the Javanese. He was a son of Sunan Ampel and, with his brother Sunan Drajat, is said to have carried his father's work across Java; he is also remembered as the teacher of Raden Patah, founder of the Demak sultanate. ¹ The dates of his life come from Javanese tradition rather than contemporary records. ²

Tradition places his birth at Lasem (the English article's infobox gives Rembang) and his death at Tuban in 1525, where the Indonesian article gives his resting place as Kutorejo. ^{2 1} He learned religion from his father Sunan Ampel, studying at Ampel Denta alongside Sunan Giri, Raden Patah and Raden Kusen, and the Indonesian article also names Maulana Ishaq and Shaykh Ismail of Malacca among his teachers, the former met on a journey toward the Hajj that reached Malacca. ²

Bonang is famed for making ordinary Javanese familiar with Islam through its arts. He is credited with composing the tembang "Tombo Ati" ("Remedy of the Heart"), still sung today, and the Suluk Wijil; with giving the Javanese gamelan the bonang kettle-gongs that named him and reshaping its Hindu-tinged aesthetics with a new dhikr-laden character; and with performing as a dalang who reworked wayang stories with Islamic interpretation. ^{2 1} The Javanese babads also relate wonders of him — diverting the Brantas river against villages that refused his preaching, and defeating the bhairawi Nyai Pluncing, a follower of Calon Arang's black magic; these are told here as the tradition tells them, not as documented events. ²

A sixteenth-century Javanese Muslim text, the Book of Bonang (Het Boek van Bonang, also called the Lontar Ferrara), has long been attributed to him. As read by Bep Schrieke, it records his criticism of bid'a (innovation) and his defence of orthodox Islamic teaching. ¹ The Indonesian article, following G. W. J. Drewes, treats the attribution itself as doubtful and the work instead as ascribed to him. ²

The Indonesian article's infobox gives his denomination as Sunni, with the jurisprudence field blank; the Arabic article, resting on the Ba'alawi genealogical tradition, gives his creed as Sunni and his madhhab as Shafi'i, and the pairings 869/1465 and 931/1525 for his birth and death. ^{2 3} No second independent source names a legal school for him, so this record preserves the Shafi'i attestation without adopting it; his documented work is that of a saint and teacher who spread Islam in Java. ¹