Padri War - Background

Background

It can be considered that the Padri War actually began in 1803, prior to Dutch intervention, and was a conflict that had broken out in Minangkabau country when the Padris started to suppress what they saw as unislamic customs i. e. the adat. But after occupation of the Pagaruyung kingdom by Tuanku Pasaman, one of Padri leaders in 1815, on February 21, 1821, the Minangkabau nobility made a deal with Dutch in Padang to help them to fight the Padris.

Adat, as customary law is called in Indonesia, includes indigenous, pre-Islamic religious practices and social traditions in local custom. The Padris, like contemporaneous jihadists in the Sokoto Caliphate of West Africa, were Islamist reformers who had made the hajj to Mecca and returned inspired to bring the Qur'an and shariah to a position of greater influence in Sumatra. The Padri movement had formed during the early nineteenth century and sought to purify the culture of traditions and beliefs its partisans viewed as un-Islamic, including syncretic folk beliefs, cockfighting and Minangkabau matrilineal traditions.

In the 1820s, the Dutch had yet to consolidate their possessions in some parts of the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia) after re-acquiring it from the British. This was especially true on the island of Sumatra, where some areas would not come under Dutch rule until the 20th century.