Bandit Saints of Java Quotes

“According to Javanese tradition the Nine Saints believed the deep heart of Islam must be fenced off from ordinary people because if the esoteric secret were known the knower would lose their faith and become a kāfir, an unbeliever. Unmistakeably this says that Islam has no substance at its core. Religion is purely outward, ritualistic, an array of symbols and practices, a cultural style, a social and political order.”
― George Quinn, Bandit Saints of Java: How Java's eccentric saints are challenging fundamentalist Islam in modern Indonesia