Secular Muslims?

My short response to a question by a sister in Hawaii on who a secular Muslim is.

My short answers are like this. There are different ways to define secular Muslims. First, they are those Muslims who believe in Islam, become part of Muslim community, but do not practice prayer regularly, do not go to Hajj and other ritual practices. People in the West define them as "non-practicing Muslims". Second, Muslims who believe and practice most rituals, but do not hold an integration between Islam and politics, nor integration between Islam and science; they believe that politics, science, and other worldly affairs are "profane" and should not be part the religious, or the Islamic. Third, a secular Muslim can be anyone who views himself or herself as a secular Muslim. This is more personal view of the meaning of "Islam" and "secularism" by the person.

For the question whether Indonesian Muslims were secular, the answer would depend on which definition we use. If we use the first definition, historically Indonesian Muslims were secular because they were many local Muslims who didnot practice prayer regularly or didnot prayer at all; they might celebrate religious festivals as "social events" rather than "religious ones". If we use the second definition, Indonesian Muslims in the past can be said secular when they separate religion from politics, such as Soekarno and Hatta. But on the other hand, Muslim kings integrated and combined the matters of religion and adat (custom) through the parewa sara and the parewa adat in Aceh kingdomes, Makassar, Gowa-Tallo, Banten and others. Still, on other hand, it can be said, Muslim kings and local people were actually "secular" in the sense that they retained local beliefs and practices such as spirit offerings, magic, bissue, etc, despite identifying "formally" with Islam. Today, Indonesians are mixed: mostly religious, some secular, but many are in grey areas, somewhere in between. We know that any attempt of categorization is a useful simplification of a complex reality.

I have intended to write about a book on the origins and development of Islamic secularism in Indonesia. So much more later.

MUI dan Gedung Dana APBN

Aliran dana APBN untuk pembangunan gedung baru MUI di Jakarta menunjukkan relasi agama dan Negara di Indonesia sama sekali belum tuntas: neutral, full separation, equal recognition, atau apa? Kalo persoalan ini belum selesai, maka dana-dana semacam ini akan terus berjalan. Untuk kasus gedung MUI ini, kalo MUI dapat dari APBN, apakah PGI, WALUBI, MATAKIN, dan sebagainya, juga mendapat dana APBN? Masih kuat logika "mayoritas" Islam dan karenanya umat Islam "berhak" dapat dana mayoritas Islam, dan MUI mereka anggap "representasi" berbagai kelompok Islam. Saya tidak anti-MUI as such sebagai sebuah perhimpunan yang berhak bersuara di ruang publik Indonesia. Saya tidak setuju klaim kebenaran absolut sebagian besar tokoh MUI yang diwadahi Negara dan pakai uang negara?

Ada ketidakadilan dan diskriminasi struktural yang kacaunya tidak dipahami tokoh-tokoh kita. Saya percaya akar masalahnya ada di mind-set. Dari mana kah memulai untuk sebuah reformasi logika dan mind-set figur-figur agama dan politik kita?

Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) dan Ruang Publik Indonesia

Seringkali MUI tidak bisa membedakan antara "In the name of God" dan "On Behalf of God". Yang kedua ini yang terus terjadi, dan bisa merusak tatanan the Indonesian public sphere.

MUI tentu saja tidak sama dengan kelompok "islam radikal" dalam hal sejarahnya, para pemain didalamnay, dinamikanya, kekuatan dan pengaruhnya, namun belakangan, khususnya sejak 1998, bermacam-macam kekuatan penekan tampaknya berkolaborasi untuk menjadikan public sphere Indonesia tidak "telanjang" (naked). Kompetisi mencari "influence" dalam "naked public sphere" Indonesia dilakukan semua kelompok masyarakat, radikal, liberal, moderat, tradisionalis, modernis, neo-modernis, dst. The naked public sphere itu rentan (vulnerable) karena semua suara sah.

Di Amerika, perdebatan antar kelompok religious new right, conservatives, liberals, dan sebagainya masih terus. Perdebatan tentang wall of separation dan integration of religion and politics masih berjalan. Kelompok religious new right, biasanya juga disebut evangelical Protestant, percaya bahwa moralitas agama (private) bisa dan harus menjadi moralitas public (public virtue) juga. Lihat saja debat-debat yang belum selesai soal abortion, gay marriage, agama dan presidency, agama dan kebijakan luar negeri, dan sebagainya di Amerika. Banyak kalangan yang berusaha mencari a happy convergence antara religion and democracy, antara private morality dan public virtue, antara agama dan keAmerikaan. Saya sedang baca buku "The Naked Public Sphere" oleh Richard John Neuhaus, seorang Lutheran, tapi Catholic, ecumenical, economically pragmatic, culturally conservative, and politically devoted to the vital center of liberal democracy. Menarik sekali, antara lain, bagaimana dia melihat Amerika sebagai 'theonomous' society, yaitu masyarakat dimana agama dan aspirasi2 kultural mengenai Tuhan diberikan expresi publik. Bukan theocracy dimana agama mengklaim kebenaran absolut. Dalam theonomous society, agama bisa dan berhak menjadi "public" (mirip dengan gagasan "public religions"nya Casanova), namun religious morality bisa menjadi "public" dalam mekanisme demokratis; morality yang kemudian menjadi publik adalah morality of compromise.

Menurut saya, MUI dan berbagai kelompok Islam garis keras perlu mengikuti "workshop" dan pengajian "democratic citizenship" , bukan untuk memprivatisasikan agama (karena tidak historis dan tidak realitik dalam konteks Indonesia, sebagaimana juga dalam konteks Amerika), tapi untuk memposisikan agama dalam tempatnya yang lebih pas, demokratis, dan menyejukan berbagai kelompok masyarakat yang majemuk.

The Middle East Crisis and Obama

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080721/wl_mcclatchy/2997150

MuslimChannel.tv

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_muslimweb21.1156f7d.html
The Press-Enterprise

A Temecula group has launched a Muslim version of YouTube.

10:00 PM PDT on Sunday, July 20, 2008
By DAVID OLSON, The Press-Enterprise


MuslimChannels.tv aims to educate non-Muslims about Islam and provide an Internet site for Muslims to view videos without worrying about anti-Islamic tirades or sexually explicit content, said Tarek Ayoub, a volunteer for the site and for the site's nonprofit founder, Islam The Answer Corp.
"It's a way for Muslim users to feel safe," Ayoub said.
Story continues below

The site also includes non-religious programming, such as comedy, travel, sports and cultural videos, along with documentaries containing trenchant political commentary on subjects such as the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. The volunteer-run site will not accept advertising or donations, to avoid compromising its mission, Ayoub said.
Larry Slusser, secretary of the Southwest Riverside County Interfaith Council and a Mormon, praised the idea behind the site.
"I think it's great anytime someone can dispel misconceptions and promote understanding of and appreciation for a faith," said Slusser, who has not visited the site. "As a Latter-day Saint, I know many people have misperceptions about my faith. There's enough hatred in the world. We need more understanding of our differences."
Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said MuslimChannels.tv's nonreligious videos show how Muslims are culturally and ethnically diverse and cannot be defined solely by their religion.
Ayoub said the site was founded in part because he and other Muslims grew weary of seeing viciously anti-Muslim comments that YouTube users posted as reactions to Islamic-oriented videos. Some YouTube users e-mailed Muslim video-posters and threatened them with violence -- in some cases with warnings such as "We know your address" -- or made sexually demeaning comments toward Muslim women, Ayoub said.
Ayoub said he and others have met with FBI agents about the threats. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the agency does not typically confirm or deny investigations. Ayoub said YouTube did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails about the anti-Muslim comments or to allegations that the company suspended the accounts of some people who had posted videos critical of Israel.
In an e-mailed statement, YouTube said it does not comment on individual videos. The company said it relies on users to flag content that violates YouTube's prohibition on hate speech, defined as speech that demeans people based upon their religion, race, ethnic origin, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation or gender identity. YouTube staff reviews flagged material and usually removes it within minutes if it is deemed hate speech, the statement said.
Although Islam the Answer founded MuslimChannels.tv in part as an alternative to sites such as YouTube, volunteers with the group are also forming a team to better respond to the anti-Muslim comments on YouTube and other sites, said Cait Ramshaw, a Florida volunteer for MuslimChannels.tv and a sister site, MuslimBridges.org.
Muslims need to ensure that misrepresentations of Islam do not go unanswered, and that the responses are reasoned and factual rather than angry, said Ramshaw, who developed "Golden Rules for Muslim Bloggers."
MuslimChannels.tv is not only a way of allowing non-Muslims to quickly access factual information about Islam to counter misperceptions, said Muhamad Ali, an assistant professor of religious studies at UC Riverside who specializes in contemporary Islam. The site's features that allow video-sharing, online forum discussions and other interaction help unite U.S. Muslims, he said.
"It provides a better sense of community, of being an American Muslim, rather than a Pakistani Muslim, an Egyptian Muslim, a Palestinian Muslim or a South Asian Muslim," he said.

Graduation, UH Manoa, May 2008

Relaxing and Productive Summer

This summer, I teach, read, and write my book and articles, but also see movies, meet people, and visit interesting places with my beloved wonderful wife. I will conduct research in Indonesia from August to September before the beginning of Fall on the state, civil society and production of Islamic knowledge. I want to leave this Summer saying: What a relaxing yet productive time!

The Struggle for the Word ALLAH

This is an interesting phenomenon in Malaysia where the statist-formalist Muslims, the Christians and the Sikhs are struggling for the use of the word ALLAH. The conservative Muslims believe that the term is exclusively theirs as they read it only in the Qur'an without deep understanding about its terminological history. The Christians and the Sikhs have also used the term in their scriptures and ordinary usage.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/07/04/sikh-group-joins-protest-against-ban-use-word-039allah039-malaysia.html