The sholat prayers are usually performed only three times a day, instead of five times, when they are not entrusted to a local priest. There remains only the duhur noon prayer, the asyar “long shade” prayer, and the maghrib sunset prayer. These sholat prayers then number three instead of the normal five, which is the reason why this tradition is called “Islam Wetu Telu”, which means “Islam with three outings”.
    The fasting month of Ramadhan is also practised in its own way. The followers of Wetu Telu do not fast during the whole length of the Ramadhan as the believers should do, but only three times, at the beginning of the month, in its middle, and at the end of the holy month. The last duties and the zakat donation are usually practised as a mere offering of rice. The pilgrimage to Mecca is performed as a pilgrimage, but not to Mecca - instead to the tombs of the founding fathers of Islam in Java and Lombok, and in particular to Demak, the Mecca of the East.

A DIFFERENT ISLAM TRADITION
 These, then, are the general features of Islam Wetu Telu, to which are added a Moslem calendar, rituals such as circumcisions, and mystic speculations of the Sufi kind. All these features are Islamic in their system of reference, albeit in their own specific and deviationist ways.
    Seen in comparison with “orthodox” Islam, as depicted above, it is of course possible to see Islam Wetu Telu as an unlawful deviation from the “Truth”. This was the long-held opinion of the officialdom, which used this view as a pretext to suppress the faith.
    It is possible, however, to consider Wetu Telu from another point of view. It can be considered to be an altogether different tradition, Moslem only in name, in which the pre-Islamic Javanese, Sasak and Balinese elements play a prominent role.
    There appear to have been indigenous influences at the deepest layers of the tradition. The most important is that of the ancestors’ cult, similar to that found in many parts of the archipelago. In this cult, the soul is said to exist as an independent source of life, human and non-human. It may reside in objects as well as in the human body, which it may leave temporarily, such as during sleep. After death, the soul loses its human shell and roams aimlessly until it is placated by proper rituals and sent to its heavenly abode, which is said to be in the mountain heights. The ancestors’ cult is thus associated with the cult of the mountains, and people in quest of magical powers sometimes climb the slopes and sulfurous lakes of the Rinjani Mountain.
    Some aspects of the Wetu Telu tradition show striking similarities with Bali: the holy “Javanese” Coran is kept under the roof as a sacred book, as are the holy manuscripts of the Balinese. The scriptures are used as “magical” mantras rather than as a body of beliefs and prescriptions for the people to follow. The name of the Wetu Telu priest, pemangku, is sometimes the same as that of the Balinese temple priest. At another level, the three-times-a-day prayers, from which the Wetu Telu tradition derives its name, calls to mind the Trisandya or “three joints” of Balinese Hinduism. These include sunrise, noon and sunset, which are times of cosmic changes and thus danger.
    These facts, however, do not necessarily mean that Lombok was simply “Balinised” under direct influence from its neighbours, who occupied it from the 17th to 19th century. There are many variants of Wetu Telu, some of which were never influenced by the Balinese courts, which were dominant only in the westernmost part of the island. What is more probable is that, beside some Balinese and Hindu-Javanese influences, there is an old substratum of beliefs common to the two islands, to which were added many layers of outside influences.

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