The Sekaten Festival celebrates the birth of the Prophet Muhammad but it also serves a much greater role in the religion of Islam. The Muslims of Indonesia have a very grand and elaborate celebration to pay respect to Muhammad but they also realize that the main purpose of the Sekaten is to attract outsiders to their religion. The Sekaten Festival converts the people of Indonesia to Islam while it also has a significant impact on the social structure, politics, and economics of the country.
The Sekaten’s first strategy to attract the attention of non-Muslims is to break down the social stratification of Indonesia for the week that the festival occurs. There are Gamelan performances throughout the entire week of the festival and anyone is welcome to come and enjoy (the Gamelan are held specifically near the Grand Mosque in order to draw people near the religious headquarters of the city) (Wahyuni 2004: 1). There are food tents set up throughout the streets during the festival and they are open to the public. The parade of the palace guards through the streets of Yogyakarta is a colorful event that is among the most anticipated of the festival. By providing these amenities and attractions to all, the social standings of the citizens are put in the background for the week. It provides the people with a sense of equality and unity that is essential to recruiting new members to Islam.
People travel from all over Indonesia and the world to see the Sekaten Festival first hand. The present day festival is now a major source of tourism for the country that contributes immensely to the local economy. The festival also expresses many ideas that make up the countries politics and overall culture. In a country that is almost 90% Islam, their religion obviously has large effects on the policies and practices of the country and the Sekaten Festival is an integral part of the Islamic religion in Indonesia.
Victor and Edith Turner (1982) note that religion is social, public, and systematic. Dorson (1982) states that a celebration should fall at a fixed time and should involve sacred and symbolic elements. The Sekaten Festival is a near perfect illustration of a religious celebration. The festival is social in the fact that it connects people and it levels their status. It is public due to the many demonstrations in the host city of Yogyakarta. Victor and Edith Turner state that the systematic portion of religion represents a set of beliefs, sentiments, and practices that have powers a human group considers superior (Turner and Turner 1982: 33). The Sekaten Festival illustrates this systematic element in the fact that the participants acknowledge both the Gamelan and Muhammad as superior to them. The Sekaten always occurs from the 5th to 12th day of the month Maulud and the sacred Gamelan orchestras are involved. The Sekaten Festival is a very clear example of a religious celebration and what one entails.
The Sekaten Festival was founded in 1477 on the principles of celebrating the birth of Muhammad and most importantly, the spreading of Islam. Throughout the years there have been small evolutions to the festival and minor details have changed, but the principles have not. The festival still seeks to spread Islam to all that it can.
Today, at the end of the Sekaten Festival, those who wish to convert to Islam are led in the saying of the syahadatain, which is a profession of faith that says there is no other God than Allah and that Muhammad is His Last Messenger. The conversion of Islam also exposes the fact that the festival has elements of a Rite of Passage. The festival converts people to Islam and as they say the syahadatain, they are participating in the liminal stage of a Rite of Passage (Gennup 1960). They are communicated the myths and objects of Islam. There is also a fostering of communitas that occurs (Turner 1982). Communitas is a leveling and a sense of togetherness and unity that the new members of Islam feel as they are brought together to say the syahadatain (Turner 1982).
The real success that goes beyond a week of feasting, music, and celebration is in the number of people that the festival was able to convert. Spreading the ideas, principles, and membership of Islam is the most important function of the Sekaten Festival.