In the 1950s, anthropologist Clifford Geertz theorized that selamatan was the central act of Javanese religion, which he said combined Islam with Hindu-Buddhist-animist practices.Geertz divided Javanese society into two major categories: santri and abangan. Santri more closely followed Islam as it is known internationally. Abangan mixed Islam with local practices (adat).However, both of these sides of society participate in selamatan. In other words, selamatan transcends Islamic identity; it is part of Javanese life itself.While we can see selamatan as therefore having resonance in Indonesian animism, it is also locally understood by practicing Muslims as a truly Islamic event, albeit grounded within Indonesian society.While many slametans are attended only by men from the local community, others do involve women as well.Typically participants come together after the time of the Muslim evening prayer (one of the five daily prayers).Spiritual cleansing? In this case, the participants dress in overtly Javanese clothes, suggesting that this particular event is being carried out in a local Javanese style (as opposed to transnational Islam) . The food will be offered to spirits before the people eat.Here is a selamatan to mark that a baby is 40 days old. It involves reading passages from a Muslim holy text.So we can see that selamatan extends across a wide scope of ritual settings—some more overtly Islamic and others more in line with the Javanese variant of Islam, in which some Hindu or animistic traditions are included.The name for slametan comes from the Javanese word “slamet,” or peace, which itself is derived from Arabic (hence the common Islamic greeting: “Assalam alaikum”).