At Hotel Bidakara, Jakarta, in late July, there was a scene perhaps\ndifficult to find in many Muslim countries. Kiai, ulama, intellectuals,\nstate officials, leaders of Islamic organisations, academics and\npesantren administrators sat together in a single forum.<\/p>\n
Some recite qunut at dawn prayers, some do not. Some perform eight\nrakaat of tarawih, others twenty. Some determine the start of Ramadan by\nmoon-sighting, others by calculation. Yet there was no news of them\nfighting over prayer mats because of these differences.<\/p>\n
They came for the eighth Indonesian Muslim Community Congress (KUII\nVIII). More than 400 participants, including representatives of 87\nnational-level Islamic community organisations, gathered under a grand\ntheme: \u201cA United Community, a Sovereign Nation, a Strong State.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chairman of the KUII VIII steering committee, KH Marsudi Syuhud,\noffered two more operational terms for the theme: taswirul manhaj, the\nalignment of mindsets, and tansiqul harakah, the coordination of\nmovements.<\/p>\n
But the theme raises a question: after eight congresses and decades\nof organisation among Indonesian Muslims, is the community\u2019s biggest\nproblem today still \u2018unity\u2019?<\/p>\n
It once was, because its meaning was easier to recognise. Relations\nbetween Muslims were once consumed by debates over furu\u2019iyah matters:\nqunut, tahlil, talqin, mawlid, grave visits, the number of tarawih\nrakaat, even the determination of the start of Ramadan and Eid\nal-Fitr.<\/p>\n
Differences in jurisprudential methodology, rarely understood by\nordinary Muslims, transformed into social identity. Mosques sometimes\nhad an \u2018organisational madhhab\u2019, even if it was not written on their\nsignboards.<\/p>\n
Even when KUII VI was held in Yogyakarta in 2015, the need to\nstrengthen ukhuwah and consolidate the community remained part of the\natmosphere of discussion. Yet at that time the congress agenda had\nalready moved far towards politics, economics, socio-cultural issues,\nand strengthening the community\u2019s role in national life.<\/p>\n
More than ten years later, many of those fences have lowered. A\nMuhammadiyah member can pray in an NU mosque without an ideological\ninspection at the door. A Nahdliyin travelling does not need to find\nanother mosque because the imam does not recite qunut.<\/p>\n
Families even live with mixed religious traditions: a Muhammadiyah\nfather, an NU mother, children schooled in another institution, while\nthe grandchildren may one day choose their preacher from YouTube.<\/p>\n
What still regularly appears is the difference in determining the\nstart of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr. Even that is no more than a difference\nin the method of determining \u2018times of worship\u2019, not a difference in\nworship itself. All still fast during Ramadan and pray the Eid prayer.\nWhat sometimes differs is only when to start cooking opor.<\/p>\n
So KUII VIII confronts us with a new question: if the qunut quarrels\nare fading, where exactly are Indonesian Muslims now divided? I believe\nthe fault line has shifted.<\/p>\n
Their divisions are now no longer primarily on the prayer mat, but in\n\u2018institutions, economics, politics, human resources, technology, data,\nmedia, and the capacity to organise strength\u2019. We have increasingly\nsucceeded in building ritual ukhuwah, but we do not necessarily yet\npossess institutional ukhuwah.<\/p>\n
The number of Indonesian Muslims is extraordinarily large: more than\n240 million people. Almost every major issue of the community is\nautomatically an issue of the nation. The community is the nation. The\nnation is the community.<\/p>\n
But numbers are not identical to strength. Mancur Olson long ago\nwarned in The Logic of Collective Action that large groups are not\nautomatically better at achieving common interests. The larger the\ngroup, the more difficult coordination can become.<\/p>\n
There is a long road from \u2018many\u2019 to \u2018strong\u2019. Let me formulate it as\nan arrow diagram for easy understanding: \u2018Numbers \u2192 Unity \u2192 Organisation\n\u2192 Capacity \u2192 Strength\u2019. Now, the theme of KUII VIII already has its two\nends: \u2018a united community\u2019 and \u2018a strong state\u2019. What is often missing\nis precisely the arrow in the middle.<\/p>\n
Look at Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama. Both are extraordinary\ntreasures of Indonesian civilisation, but they grew with different\ninstitutional architectures.<\/p>\n
Muhammadiyah is relatively easy to count. The organisation\u2019s own data\nmention thousands of schools, hundreds of pesantren and universities,\nmore than a hundred hospitals and hundreds of clinics.<\/p>\n
They have a term that embodies an organisational philosophy: \u2018Amal\nUsaha Muhammadiyah\u2019 (Muhammadiyah\u2019s charitable enterprises). A\nuniversity does not belong to its rector, a hospital does not belong to\nits director.<\/p>\n
All of Muhammadiyah\u2019s wealth forms part of an institution that can be\ninherited beyond a human lifespan. KH Ahmad Dahlan passed away long ago.\nBut his schools keep growing. That is one of the miracles of\ninstitutions: \u2018people die, but the organisation is not buried with\nthem\u2019.<\/p>\n
NU has a different ecology. Among the Nahdliyin there is a network of\npesantren, Ma\u2019arif schools, universities, hospitals, clinics,\ncooperatives, mosques, endowed land and various very large economic\nactivities.<\/p>\n
But a pesantren that is culturally very NU is not necessarily an\n\u2018asset of PBNU\u2019 (NU\u2019s executive board). It may be owned by a foundation,\na kiai\u2019s family, a separate legal entity or a local waqf. Its cultural\nties are strong, while its ownership structure is dispersed.<\/p>\n
Therefore, comparing the value of Muhammadiyah\u2019s assets with those of\nPBNU outright is like \u2018comparing an apple with a mango orchard\u2019.<\/p>\n
Muhammadiyah resembles a federation of institutions whose assets are\neasier to identify. NU more closely resembles a giant social ecosystem\nwith thousands of autonomous nodes. One fits more easily into a\nspreadsheet; the other must be sought out village by village.<\/p>\n
It is precisely that difference which brings us back to the great\ngathering at Bidakara. If even the two largest organisations have\ndifferent architectures, imagine the 87 organisations gathered at KUII\nVIII.<\/p>\n
What do they actually possess if all their strengths were mapped? How\nmany schools, universities and pesantren? How many hospitals and\nclinics? How many hectares of land and waqf assets? How many\ncooperatives, BMTs and companies? How many media outlets? How many\ndoctors, professors, researchers, engineers, economists, legal experts,\nentrepreneurs and artificial intelligence specialists?<\/p>\n
The more unsettling question: \u2018does anyone actually know the answer?\u2019\nIf not, the community\u2019s problem may not be a lack of resources. I want\nto state it plainly: what we lack is a \u2018resource map\u2019.<\/p>\n
A general may have a million soldiers, but if he does not know where\nthey are, their skills, their logistics and who can mobilise them, then\nstatistically he does indeed have an army; operationally, he merely has\na crowd.<\/p>\n
This is where unity needs a new meaning. Robert Putnam distinguishes\nbonding social capital, the ties that bind people within a group, from\nbridging social capital, the bridges that connect different groups.<\/p>\n
Indonesian Muslims are rich in the former, bonding social capital. NU\nhas its NU network, Muhammadiyah has its Muhammadiyah network, likewise\nPUI, Persis, Al-Irsyad, Al Washliyah, Hidayatullah, Mathla\u2019ul Anwar, and\nfeel free to name any other organisation.<\/p>\n
But in my view, and perhaps you will agree, the next challenge is not\nto dissolve those houses, but to \u2018build bridges between the houses\u2019.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/the-api-of-the-muslim-community-1784980396", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }