AT one point in the 19th century, a Javanese poet anxiously asked himself: where does my heart most lean, to Allah or the King?

For a while, he could not reply. But finally, as the Wedatama tells it, he decided: in this matter, his allegiance was directed more towards the one who ruled on earth. Allah was not his first choice.

Today we would consider this a controversial choice. But as I mentioned, this was the 19th century. The writer of this long