BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPH OF A BUGIS FAMILY, THE CHILD (RIGHT) WEARS A KAWARI OVER HER CHEST. PHOTO: RICHTER, A., 1980, THE JEWELLERY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA, FIG 100 – TAASA Review September 2021

F ew other devotional objects in Islam have stimulated such mixed reception or dynamic cultural appropriation throughout the faith’s 1400-year history as magic amulets and talismans (Arabic: tamīma, ta’widh, or hafiz).

From serving as revered expressions of piety and a means of evoking Allah’s protection to being decried as heterodoxies of true Islam, the contentious nature of talismans is evident in over a millennium of vigorous intellectual, cultural and political developments across Islamic societies.

A late addition to this tradition, the matching pair of talismanic discs (Indonesian: kawari) held by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) not only highlight the theological complexity of Islam itself but also attest to the social and religious flexibility of Southeast Asian cultures...