Sunan Giri

Sunan Giri (1442–1506), also called Raden Paku and Muhammad Ainul Yaqin, was one of the nine Wali Songo of Java and the founder of Giri Kedaton, the school near Gresik that grew into a religious and political power. From Giri his influence spread Islam to Madura, Lombok, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Maluku. ¹ His life is known from Javanese chronicle tradition, and its dates are recorded as tradition. ²

Tradition relates that he was born at Blambangan in 1442 to Maulana Ishak, a missionary from Melaka and brother of Maulana Malik Ibrahim, and to Dewi Sekardadu, a daughter of the Blambangan ruler; blamed for a plague, the infant was set adrift on the ocean in a small boat, rescued by sailors, and raised at Gresik by the widowed merchant Nyai Gede Pinatih, who named him Joko Samudro, "the ocean child." ^{1 2} The Indonesian article discusses the variants of the tradition — the Serat Walisana names the father Sayyid Ya'qub where Sunyoto's Atlas Wali Songo names Maulana Ishaq — and the Arabic article's genealogy likewise makes him a son of Ishaq. ^{2 3}

As a young man he studied in the school of Sunan Ampel, whose daughter he later married, and where Raden Patah was his fellow student. ¹ On a journey toward Mecca with Raden Paku's companion Makdum Ibrahim (Sunan Bonang), the two reached only Malacca, where his own father Maulana Ishaq taught them, Sufism among the subjects. ² He then founded his school on a hill — giri — at Sidomukti in the Kebomas district south of Gresik, taking his name from it. The school became a centre not only of religious study but of civic life, and the king of Majapahit granted him authority that grew into political leadership; as Giri Kedaton it endured as a small kingdom for generations. ^{1 2}

The English article describes him as a proponent of orthodox Islam who disapproved of innovation. ¹ A genealogy preserved at Gresik names Maulana Ishaq and Raden Paku as teachers of the Shattariyya order, a Sufi affiliation the Indonesian article records for his line. ² The creation of Javanese children's games and toys — Jelungan, Jamuran, lir-ilir and Cublak Suweng — and of the gending Asmaradana and Pucung is attributed to him, works in which pre-Islamic forms show the marks of gradual Islamisation. ¹ He died in 1506 and was buried at Kebomas, Gresik; the Indonesian article's infobox preserves a later variant range for the death, 1506–1521. ^{1 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; Wikidata's religion value is Islam without qualification. ^{2 3 4} No second independent source names a legal school for him, so this record preserves the Shafi'i attestation without adopting it.