Public Programs @ the Institute

Series: Southeast Asia, Bosch series

Logics of Localisation: Vernacular Islamic tombstone traditions of Sumatra

Thursday, February 19, 2026, 6:30pm

Lecture by Jessica Rahardjo, Research Associate at the Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford

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Tombstones – among the most abundant, datable forms of material culture in maritime Southeast Asia – are widely considered to be synonymous with the adoption of Islam in the region. This paper presents two distinct vernacular traditions of Islamic tombstones: one from Aceh in northern Sumatra and another from the Minangkabau highlands in western Sumatra. It explores the factors driving the adoption of specific tombstone forms and their subsequent transformations, focusing on the interaction between the incoming monotheistic belief and local immanentist modes of religiosity, as well as the impact of successive waves of religious reformism from the 17th to the 19th centuries.

Jessica Rahardjo is Postdoctoral Researcher on the Leverhulme Trust project Mapping Sumatra’s Manuscript Cultures, SOAS University of London, and Research Associate at the Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the material and manuscript cultures of Islamic Southeast Asia. She recently completed her DPhil at Oxford with a dissertation on batu Aceh, a Southeast Asian Islamic tombstone tradition (15th–19th centuries). Jessica was a recipient of the Getty Foundation Indian Ocean Exchanges fellowship (2021–23). She is also a committee member of Teaching the Codex, an initiative dedicated to developing pedagogical approaches to palaeography and codicology.