David, when I say that a keris is a jimat in the form of a dagger I am speaking only of keris hidup. Essentially the purpose and process to empower a jimat and a keris are identical (originally). A keris was often attached to the central post of the house to "protect" it in the same way a jimat is hung around the neck to protect the owner.
Has this "technology" survived in Islamic parts? that is an interesting question. As the nature of this subject is secret perhaps we can never know but my suspicion is that it has not (I am not here talking about blacksmithing, obviously the making of keris has survived in Islamic parts)
You can see that vedic jimat have been replaced with Islamic talismans in Muslim parts. I suspect the process of creating a keris has been similarly altered. Vedic mantra will be replaced by Muslim prayers and Rerajahan will most likely be replaced with verse from the Quran. As the science and efficiency of mantra is based on sound substituting for any prayer that takes your fancy in my opinion would not be equivalent.
Having said that as long as a person can go through enough mental gymnastics to convince themselves that what they are doing is rooted and originates in Islam then perhaps it can be retained. We see the same in Silat where for example the prophet Muhammad "was a great silat player" yet we can be quite sure he never knew a single silat jurus.
I have heard that Cimande balur oil is empowered by reciting vedic mantras over it despite the region being Islamic perhaps it was discovered that replacement with Islamic prayers did not work? As long as they can convince themselves that these vedic mantras came from Muhammad its all good
