Talk:Sultanate of Gowa

Untitled

Why is this redirecting to the Regency? The kingdom of Gowa was a major regional power with an extensive history all of its own and deserves its own page. AdventurousMe (talk) 03:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Flag?

@Samhanin: Hi, i've seen you are the creator of the flag's image. Can you confirm or do you have any reliable source to support that it's actually the state for subject of this article? Thank you Nyanardsan (talk) 13:02, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

The Islamic wars

I believe that recent edits by Josepherino (including this one) slighlty misinterpret sources and make somewhat novel conclusions based on that. For one thing, the user seems to severely downplay or even ignore the economic and political factors behind the so-called Islamic wars (the religious aspect was very much there so there is no denying that). For example the text added by the editor reads "The Islamic wars were a highly religious act for the Gowa sultans, which they saw to be their duty as muslims to conquer the non-Muslims and reduce them to the status of slaves. They use this source. A look at the source actually gives the situation more nuance that goes against what is written. The article further elaborates that reducing conquered states into vassals and enslaving them is a phenomena that predates Islam in the region so the religious identity of the conquerers is not the only ideology at play. The article says "This [process] was in accordance with a tradition which existed in South Sulawesi long before the the coming of Islam". The portrayal of Gowa only wanting to conquer and enslave others just due to religion is unfounded by the sources. Perhaps the editor mainly interpreted the primary sources used in the article but not what the scholar has to actually say about, which led to this misconception.

The editor also removed this source by Indonesian historian Ahmad Sewang which covers the Islamization of Makassar and South Sulawesi in general which states that the Islamic wars also consisted of economic and political factors. Chapter four in particular touches upon the topic. Additionally, the editor seems to have misinterpreted this source which I added. The source is very explicit that the Islamic wars were also caused due to economic reasons and the quote the editor added to the source oddly ignores that in the same it page it also states "...the 'Islamic wars', as ostensibly their purpose was to convert the peoples of the territory to Islam; but, significantly, the conquered states were also brought into an economic union with Makassar." It next states that the defeated population and its rulers were not forced to convert but those that resisted considering converting did face political vassalage, which further undermines the claim that the wars were driven purely by religion and further strengthens how important other factors were as well. The editor connected these two sources to make a novel conclusion not attested in the sources. Also, the scholar (Howard Federspiel) does not corroborate the claim that that Gowa wanted to reduce non-Muslims into slaves, it only stated that resistance against their forces and refusal to consider converting led to vassalage, and even then, he implies the severity of it varied by the "degree of resistance" the other states offered. It only supports that the spread of the religion was clearly important to Gowa as state policy but not the only reason behind the conquests and occupation.

To summarize, the editor is inappropriately removing text that clearly mention that the campaigns were not exclusively religious in nature while adding text that slightly misinterpret the sources to make it make seem so. The religious impetus were clearly there and can be considered important but far from exclusive. SlackingViceroy (talk) 05:05, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@SlackingViceroy: Thank you for mending the one-dimensional narrative and bringing the text more in line with the source. Nice job. You might also want to have a look at the latest edit in Mandailing people which conveys the same simplistic narrative. The discrepancy between text and quoted sources is even more marked there. The omission of the word "some" in the sentence based on Lubis (2005) is very telling. –Austronesier (talk) 17:58, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@Austronesier, I appreciate your comments and thank you for making me aware of the edit in the Mandailing article. I've stumbled across similar issues in other articles both related or not directly related to Southeast Asia in regards to its religious history. (which I feel is more pronounced if Islam is involved). It seems that even when good sources are used, they sadly don't always adequately or accurately reflect what the source state. Again, thank you for your comments. I also appreciate your contributions towards these topics, it's quite invaluable. SlackingViceroy (talk) 21:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)