Tentang Ahmadiyah, secara pribadi saya tidak sependapat dengan sedikit saja doktrin mereka, tapi saya tidak akan pernah melarang mereka apalagi memaksa mereka untuk berkeyakinan seperti saya. Menurut pemahaman Al-Quran dan Sunnah yang saya pelajari, dan syahadat yang saya ikuti, tidak ada larangan bakal ada reformis kah, Nabi kah, rasul kah, dan sebagainya setelah Nabi Muhammad.Toh Ahmadiyah masih mengikuti Quran dan Sunnah. Mereka juga masih mengikuti mazhab fiqh Sunni. Definisi nabi yang kita pahami adalah konstruksi ulama; begitu juga definisi "wahyu". Pemahaman tentang wahyu, Nabi, bisa berbeda-beda, dan saya menghormati perbedaan penafsiran itu.
Alasan "meresahkan" yang dialamatkan Ahmadiyah sama sekali tidak benar. Itu fitnah luar biasa terhadap mereka. Saya kenal ketuanya, saya kenal banyak anggota Ahmadiyah di Indonesia, di London, dan di beberapa kota lain. Meresahkan itu kan definisi menurut siapa? Ahmadiyah, sudah ada sejak tahun 1920an. Sejarah Ahmadiyah itu luar biasa. Mereka ikut berpartisipasi dalam dakwah Islam. Banyak orang luar Islam tertarik dengan Islam karena Ahmadiyah yang memiliki jaringan yang cukup baik di mana-mana. Menurut kalangan garis keras itu loh, yang sukanya ngamuk, yang suka main Allahu Akbar, yang suka rusak-rusakan, yang suka desak-desak dan maksa pemerintah untuk ini dan untuk itu. Alasan 'meresahkan' itu baru muncul sekarang, dan itu dilakukan kelompok-kelompok yang suka mendesak ini dan itu.
Keyakinan keagamaan itu tidak bisa dipaksakan. Nabi sendiri tidak bisa meminta pamannya untuk "beriman", tapi bukankah pamannya yang justru membela Nabi? Dalam Al-Quran sendiri jelas sekali diberikan kebebasan beriman dan tidak beriman, dan kalo beriman, juga diberikan kemungkinan beda caranya.
Alasan lain kelompok pemusnah Ahmadiyah adalah begini: "Kita akan toleran kalo Ahmadiyah tidak bawa-bawa nama Islam, bikin agama baru saja." Ini pandangan yang sungguh rancu dan parah. Masak mereka mau memaksa suatu kelompok harus keluar dari Islam? Masak mereka mau mengambil hak Allah untuk menentukan siapa Islam dan siapa tidak Islam? Kalo ada perbedaan mengapa tidak diserahkan saja kepada Allah nanti? Bukankah ayat bicara soal ini jelas sekali?
Yang paling penting adalah fastabiqul khairat.... Berlomba-lomba dalam kebaikan, dalam membawa kedamaian, kesejahteraan, bebas dari kemiskinan, kebodohan, keterbelakangan, ketidakadilan, kekerasan. Fastabitul khairat, bukan dengan cara ganjal- sana ganjal sini, bunuh sana bunuh sini. Masak ada ustaz ceramah "bunuh Ahmadiyah!" Ustaz apa an seperti ini?
Terakhir, Indonesia itu negeri yang dari dulu sudah majemuk. Banyak orang/kelompok yang berpartisipasi: mulai dari penganut animis, Budha, Hindu, Islam (dari berbagai jenis), Kristen, Konghucu dan sebagainya. Eh tau-tau ada saja yang mau menjadikan Indonesia seperti Pakistan, atau Saudi Arabia; yang maksa mau menjadikan syariat Islam agama negara, yang maksa Islam jadi agama formal dalam perda, dalam hukum, dan seterusnya? Syariat Islam yang mana? Syariat Islam yang dianut kelompok tertentu tidak berarti akan cocok untuk kelompok-kelompok Islam lainnya.
Dalam pemahaman saya, Islam itu rahmat bagi siapa saja; bagi mereka yang percaya dan tidak percaya. Bagi yang sama dan bagi yang berbeda. Disitulah keindahan Islam. Itulah kenapa saya merasakan nikmatnya berIslam.
Berita
Survei PSIK: Mayoritas Akui Keberadaan Ahmadiyahhttp://www.kompas. com/index. php/read/ xml/2008/ 04/22/15200662/ survei.psik. mayoritas. akui.keberadaan. ahmadiyah
Selasa, 22 April 2008 15:20 WIB
JAKARTA, SELASA - Sebuah survei yang dilakukan Pusat Studi Islam dan Kewarganegaraan (PSIK) Paramadina menunjukan bahwa mayoritas warga menyatakan Ahmadiyah berhak untuk hidup di Indonesia dengan damai. Hasil survei tersebut disampaikan Ketua PSIK Yudi Latif saat diskusi "Perlindungan Hak-Hak Konstitusional Warga Negara" di Indofood Tower, Plaza Senayan, Jakarta, Selasa (22/4).
Survei tersebut dilakukan melalui pembagian dan pengisian kuesioner dalam kurun waktu 9 April 2007 hingga 8 Agustus 2007 lalu yang dilakukan pada 18 kota antara lain Jakarta, Jambi, Banjarmasin, Aceh, Gorontalo, Ambon, Ternate, Samarinda, Palangkaraya, Pontianak, Bogor, Surabaya, dan Makasar.
Total responden yang disurvei 296 orang dengan komposisi laki-laki 183 orang dan perempuan 113 orang. Rentang usia responden berkisar 17 tahun hingga 74 tahun. Pekerjaannya beragam, mulai dari mahasiswa (144 orang), dosen (68 orang), pegawai negeri sipil (35 orang), pekerja sosial (7 orang), peneliti (6 orang), guru (4 orang), pendakwah (3 orang), pengamat, pengarang dan pelajar (masing-masing 2 orang), serta pensiunan pegawai negeri sipil, seniman, rohaniwan, wartawan, dan ibu rumah tangga (masing-masing 1 orang).
Dari satu pertanyaan yang diajukan yakni 'apakah penganut Jamaah Ahmdiyah atau Ikatan Jamaah Ahlul Bait Indonesia (IJABI) berhak hidup di Indonesia dengan damai?', sebanyak 24 persen mengatakan tidak berhak, dan 13 persen mengatakan tidak tahu. Mayoritasnya yakni sebanyak 63 persen mengatakan bahwa Ahmadiyah atau IJABI berhak hidup damai di Indonesia.
Negara lakukan pembiaran
Sebelumnya, Yudi Latif mengkritik sikap negara dalam menangani Ahmadiyah, berkait dengan tindakan dan tuntutan sejumlah lembaga dan komunitas lain yang untuk membubarkan Ahmadiyah. Menurut Yudi, komunitas agama harus memahami seberapa jauh otoritas keagamaan bisa masuk dalam urusan kenegaraan. Jangan meminta negara cepat-cepat ikut campur dalam persoalan komunitas.
"Boleh saja komunitas berpandangan berbeda, misalnya MUI menyatakan Ahmadiyah sebagai aliran sesat, dan Ahmadiyah merasa benar, namun tidak berhak meminta pembubaran yang lain, jika tidak ada pelanggaran konstitusi dan hukum yang dilakukan," ujar Yudi.
Senada dengan Yudi, Ray Rangkuti mengatakan, Bakorpakem yang menggunakan pendekatan destruktif dalam menilai keyakinan masyarakat tidak bisa dibiarkan. Pasalnya, dalam demokrasi yang dikembangkan saat ini, hanya pengadilanlah yang berhak membubarkan suatu lembaga dan paham tertentu."Pengadilan yang berhak pun bukan pengadilan umum, tetapi Mahkamah Konstitusi. Dan dalam konstitusi, pembubaran organisasi itu dikaitkan dengan paham marxisme," ujarnya.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Ahmadiyah
Mainstream Islam and Ahmadiyah in Indonesia
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta Wed, 09/14/2005 11:57 AM Opinion
Muhamad Ali, Manoa, Hawaii
Tolerance is not always easy for many Muslims because they tend to reinforce differences and boundaries, rather than commonalities.
They have tended to set theological boundaries according to their interpretation of religious texts to maintain their claim of ultimate truth. Muslim groups, as other religious and non-religious peoples, have long disregarded historical and sociological (thus contextual) understanding of the belief systems, including Ahmadiyyah.
The Ahmadiyyah was founded in British India, not in a historical vacuum. As other millenarian movements, the Ahmadiyyah emerged out of social problems facing the Indian Muslim community at that time. They wanted to reform the Muslim community and to attract others by promoting compatibility of religion and modernity, entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency.
Historically in Indonesia, the early leaders of Muhammadiyah (established in 1912) and of the Ahmadiyyah (which arrived in Indonesia in the early 1920s) in Java used to coexist and even were about to collaborate in the educational and social fields, but then came the rupture and hostility between the two since the late 1920s onwards.
As Herman Beck argued in his scholarly article Rupture between the Muhammadiyah and the Ahmadiyyah, the initial cordial relationship and mutual tolerance soon shifted into the rupture and disagreement, which was then reinforced by the 1984 national fatwa by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which stated that the teachings of Ahmadiyyah were deviant.
As Herman Beck suggested, the Muhammadiyah in particular and the Lahore Branch of the Ahmadiyyah initially had cordial relations.
Even after the 1929 rupture, the Muhammadiyah adopted a rather tolerant attitude toward the Lahore branch of the Ahmadiyyah.
The Muhammadiyah and the Ahmadiyyah felt they shared some similarities: Both wanted to prove that Islam could be compatible with modernity; both introduced modern concepts of education; both shared the defensive comprehension of jihad, and both wanted to check Christian missionary activities at that time. The son of K.H. Ahmad Dahlan, the founder of the Muhammadiyah, even became an Ahmadi, while Ahmad Dahlan himself did not demonstrate an aggressive attitude towards Christians. It was only later that Muhammadiyah leaders started having stricter attitudes against the Ahmadiyyah.
Long established in Indonesia, the Ahmadiyyah remains marginal in the country as it is elsewhere in the world. Scholars try to explain why this has been the case. One of the factors was the cooperative attitude of both the Lahore and the Qadiyan Ahmadiyyah towards the Dutch colonial government.
The politics of non-cooperation with the colonial government that the Islamic parties such as Partai Sarekat Islam pursued did not accord with the Ahmadiyyah's policy not to get involved in politics, as Herman Berk argued. Thus, they tended to be quietist and therefore exclusive from the perspective of the others (such as their refusal to perform prayers behind a non-Ahmadi imam, their inter-marriage, and their social and economic activities).
As a result of the exclusive tendency of the Ahmadis, mainstream Muslims have tended to ignore the positive sides of the Ahmadiyyah as a movement: That the Ahmadiyyah helped to develop Islam in the Western world because they wanted to combine Islam, reason and modernity and that their activities are carried out peacefully.
Based on the previous fatwas, the Muhammadiyah (and the Nahdlatul Ulama), Ministry of Religion, the MUI and some other Islamic organizations have expressed an intention to marginalize and outlaw Ahmadiyyah in Indonesia. This shows the Muhammadiyah and these institutions do not believe in freedom of religion as signified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They hold that there should be limits to tolerance, limits which they and only they decide. Here they tend to become ""aggressive"" towards religious organizations, which they regard as deviant, heretical or heterodox.
The fact that Muhammadiyah (and others) have shown antipathy of Ahmadiyyah, also shows their lack of interest in resuming theological dialogs on such matters as the notion of prophethood and Messiah, of the Jesus Christ, of the Koranic interpretation and of the concept of jihad. For them, that there is no prophet (and even a reformer) after the Prophet Muhammad should be believed without any qualifications whatsoever and it is thus final.
More importantly is a serious legal-political matter: Whether or not the government has the authority to ban a religious denomination regarded by a majority to be deviant. The government actually does not have a constitutional basis to intervene into theological disputes. If non-governmental organizations such as the Muhammadiyah and others have to put pressure on the government to ban the Ahmadiyyah in Indonesia, then this would become a pretext for other organizations to put similar pressure against a religious denomination they regard as wrong or deviant.
It is a test of tolerance in Indonesia. The basic principle of tolerance is this: If you do not want to be harmed by others, do not harm them. If you deserve to ban others, then you deserve to be banned as well on a similar basis.
The government (the Ministry of Religion, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Home Affairs) should consider equally the perspective from all parties, rather than listening only to the predominant voices and neglecting what the minority have to say about the issues. If social order and public stability are the criteria in which a decision will be made, many variables and a holistic view should be taken into consideration.
For example, is it true that an organization harms society? If, for example, it is true that in a time and in a particular place one organization has incited hatred or harmed the neighborhood, this cannot be generalized in the organization's behavior in other times and places.
The government needs to make it clear that there are fundamental differences between theological interpretations and public disorder. The government should not just demonstrate objectivity and neutrality. The primary task of the government is to ensure respect and tolerance, rather than to take sides and further incite hostility among groups within civil society.
Therefore, the best possible and rational solution in the matter of the Indonesian Ahmadiyyah Movement is to pursue more serious and genuine dialogs between different religious organizations, facilitated by the government if necessary.
The various religious groups should resume sincere discussions and talks on different theological and ethical matters so that it becomes clear what the similarities and differences are. Theological disputes should be discussed in a theological, rather than political, manner. Tolerance is crucial from mainstream Islam and the government if we are to make Indonesia a better place for diversity and peace.
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta Wed, 09/14/2005 11:57 AM Opinion
Muhamad Ali, Manoa, Hawaii
Tolerance is not always easy for many Muslims because they tend to reinforce differences and boundaries, rather than commonalities.
They have tended to set theological boundaries according to their interpretation of religious texts to maintain their claim of ultimate truth. Muslim groups, as other religious and non-religious peoples, have long disregarded historical and sociological (thus contextual) understanding of the belief systems, including Ahmadiyyah.
The Ahmadiyyah was founded in British India, not in a historical vacuum. As other millenarian movements, the Ahmadiyyah emerged out of social problems facing the Indian Muslim community at that time. They wanted to reform the Muslim community and to attract others by promoting compatibility of religion and modernity, entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency.
Historically in Indonesia, the early leaders of Muhammadiyah (established in 1912) and of the Ahmadiyyah (which arrived in Indonesia in the early 1920s) in Java used to coexist and even were about to collaborate in the educational and social fields, but then came the rupture and hostility between the two since the late 1920s onwards.
As Herman Beck argued in his scholarly article Rupture between the Muhammadiyah and the Ahmadiyyah, the initial cordial relationship and mutual tolerance soon shifted into the rupture and disagreement, which was then reinforced by the 1984 national fatwa by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which stated that the teachings of Ahmadiyyah were deviant.
As Herman Beck suggested, the Muhammadiyah in particular and the Lahore Branch of the Ahmadiyyah initially had cordial relations.
Even after the 1929 rupture, the Muhammadiyah adopted a rather tolerant attitude toward the Lahore branch of the Ahmadiyyah.
The Muhammadiyah and the Ahmadiyyah felt they shared some similarities: Both wanted to prove that Islam could be compatible with modernity; both introduced modern concepts of education; both shared the defensive comprehension of jihad, and both wanted to check Christian missionary activities at that time. The son of K.H. Ahmad Dahlan, the founder of the Muhammadiyah, even became an Ahmadi, while Ahmad Dahlan himself did not demonstrate an aggressive attitude towards Christians. It was only later that Muhammadiyah leaders started having stricter attitudes against the Ahmadiyyah.
Long established in Indonesia, the Ahmadiyyah remains marginal in the country as it is elsewhere in the world. Scholars try to explain why this has been the case. One of the factors was the cooperative attitude of both the Lahore and the Qadiyan Ahmadiyyah towards the Dutch colonial government.
The politics of non-cooperation with the colonial government that the Islamic parties such as Partai Sarekat Islam pursued did not accord with the Ahmadiyyah's policy not to get involved in politics, as Herman Berk argued. Thus, they tended to be quietist and therefore exclusive from the perspective of the others (such as their refusal to perform prayers behind a non-Ahmadi imam, their inter-marriage, and their social and economic activities).
As a result of the exclusive tendency of the Ahmadis, mainstream Muslims have tended to ignore the positive sides of the Ahmadiyyah as a movement: That the Ahmadiyyah helped to develop Islam in the Western world because they wanted to combine Islam, reason and modernity and that their activities are carried out peacefully.
Based on the previous fatwas, the Muhammadiyah (and the Nahdlatul Ulama), Ministry of Religion, the MUI and some other Islamic organizations have expressed an intention to marginalize and outlaw Ahmadiyyah in Indonesia. This shows the Muhammadiyah and these institutions do not believe in freedom of religion as signified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They hold that there should be limits to tolerance, limits which they and only they decide. Here they tend to become ""aggressive"" towards religious organizations, which they regard as deviant, heretical or heterodox.
The fact that Muhammadiyah (and others) have shown antipathy of Ahmadiyyah, also shows their lack of interest in resuming theological dialogs on such matters as the notion of prophethood and Messiah, of the Jesus Christ, of the Koranic interpretation and of the concept of jihad. For them, that there is no prophet (and even a reformer) after the Prophet Muhammad should be believed without any qualifications whatsoever and it is thus final.
More importantly is a serious legal-political matter: Whether or not the government has the authority to ban a religious denomination regarded by a majority to be deviant. The government actually does not have a constitutional basis to intervene into theological disputes. If non-governmental organizations such as the Muhammadiyah and others have to put pressure on the government to ban the Ahmadiyyah in Indonesia, then this would become a pretext for other organizations to put similar pressure against a religious denomination they regard as wrong or deviant.
It is a test of tolerance in Indonesia. The basic principle of tolerance is this: If you do not want to be harmed by others, do not harm them. If you deserve to ban others, then you deserve to be banned as well on a similar basis.
The government (the Ministry of Religion, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Home Affairs) should consider equally the perspective from all parties, rather than listening only to the predominant voices and neglecting what the minority have to say about the issues. If social order and public stability are the criteria in which a decision will be made, many variables and a holistic view should be taken into consideration.
For example, is it true that an organization harms society? If, for example, it is true that in a time and in a particular place one organization has incited hatred or harmed the neighborhood, this cannot be generalized in the organization's behavior in other times and places.
The government needs to make it clear that there are fundamental differences between theological interpretations and public disorder. The government should not just demonstrate objectivity and neutrality. The primary task of the government is to ensure respect and tolerance, rather than to take sides and further incite hostility among groups within civil society.
Therefore, the best possible and rational solution in the matter of the Indonesian Ahmadiyyah Movement is to pursue more serious and genuine dialogs between different religious organizations, facilitated by the government if necessary.
The various religious groups should resume sincere discussions and talks on different theological and ethical matters so that it becomes clear what the similarities and differences are. Theological disputes should be discussed in a theological, rather than political, manner. Tolerance is crucial from mainstream Islam and the government if we are to make Indonesia a better place for diversity and peace.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer
I have planned to write a journal article on Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer's thought of secularism. He visited UCR for a week; I had productive meetings and chats with him. More later.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Teaching about Islam in America
I have been in the first week now teaching Islam in Southeast Asia and Reading the Qur'an, both being upper-division undergraduate courses with few graduate students, each having about 30 students enrolled. I love education and I find it my world. I designed the syllaby in ways that are hope to be effective and interesting. I asked the students in the first meeting to look at the syllabus and to give them a sense of what to expect. One among other things I emphasized was this course using an academic approach to Islam, as opposed to a normative/theological approach to it; Students are encouraged to ask any questions or make comments that they may have during the lectures and discussions. There are no stupid questions, nor foolish comments. I would appreciate their participations in a variety of ways. Teaching about Islam, rather than teaching Islam, or indoctrinations about certain views or religious belief. The goal is comprehension, and the method is critical.
The first day I had some questions about why I am interested in religion. I explain that religion is complex and not monolithic and it can be viewed and analyzed from various perspectives. These complexity and multiplicity would make religion a never ending subject of inquiry. Religious studies, and Islamic studies included, would develop in ways that are unexpected because of new findings. And so on...
I had some students identifying them as "Muslim", even though I didn't ask any to say about their religion in our introduction. One of them say she was not affiliated with particular religion, but is interested to know religion as a personal and spiritual phenomenon. The students vary in terms of their majors (math, bio, poli science, anthro, religious studies, psychology, business). They talk about their reasons why they are interested in the course.
To be continued...
The first day I had some questions about why I am interested in religion. I explain that religion is complex and not monolithic and it can be viewed and analyzed from various perspectives. These complexity and multiplicity would make religion a never ending subject of inquiry. Religious studies, and Islamic studies included, would develop in ways that are unexpected because of new findings. And so on...
I had some students identifying them as "Muslim", even though I didn't ask any to say about their religion in our introduction. One of them say she was not affiliated with particular religion, but is interested to know religion as a personal and spiritual phenomenon. The students vary in terms of their majors (math, bio, poli science, anthro, religious studies, psychology, business). They talk about their reasons why they are interested in the course.
To be continued...
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