Abangan (Javanese "red") is a term popularized by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (b. 1926) to describe the rural Javanese Muslims whose Islam is blended syncretistically with older animist and Hindu-Buddhist beliefs. The term has...

The Abangan are the population of Javanese Muslims who practice a more syncretic version of Islam than the more orthodox santri. The term, apparently derived from the Javanese word for red, was first developed by Clifford Geertz but the meaning has...