THE TRANSFORMATION OF INDONESIAN ISLAMIC LITERATURE: The Role of Arabic-Islamic Literary Tradition in Shaping Indonesian Spiritual and Cultural Thought

Abstract

Arabic–Islamic literary traditions have played a significant role in shaping the development of Indonesian Islamic literature, influencing its themes, forms, language, and intellectual orientation. Although the Islamization of the Indonesian archipelago has received considerable scholarly attention, the literary dimensions of cultural transmission between Arabic and Indonesian texts remain insufficiently examined. This study explores how Arabic–Islamic literary traditions contributed to the formation and transformation of Indonesian Islamic literature from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century. Using a qualitative research design that integrates historical and intertextual approaches, the study analyzes selected classical and modern Indonesian literary works alongside representative Arabic–Islamic texts. The analysis focuses on three interrelated dimensions: thematic influence, linguistic and stylistic adaptation, and the transmission of Islamic ethical and spiritual values. The findings demonstrate that Arabic–Islamic literary influence extends beyond the borrowing of vocabulary or narrative motifs. Rather, it constitutes a continuous process of cultural translation and intellectual exchange through which Indonesian authors appropriated, reinterpreted, and localized Arabic literary models. This process is evident in the persistence of religious and Sufi themes, the adaptation of Arabic rhetorical and narrative conventions, and the internalization of adab as a moral and aesthetic framework. The study argues that Indonesian Islamic literature emerged through sustained transregional literary interactions that connected local literary creativity with broader Islamic intellectual networks, contributing to the formation of a unique literary tradition in the Malay-Indonesian world.