Imams, the good and the bad

Muhamad Ali, Manoa, Hawaii

Imams, religious leaders and scholars, with all their different names -- ulama, syeikh, mufti, kiyai, ustaz, guru -- in different parts of the world, play important, yet-changing roles among Muslim societies. They are involved in the transmission of religious knowledge and help shape the behavior of different Muslim communities, with implications for the non-Muslim public. With their knowledge and status, imams are symbols of the moral capital of their societies.

In predominantly non-Muslim areas such as Europe and the United States, the role of imams remain crucial and as religious spokespeople they should act like secular politicians in liberal democracies. They should use persuasion, not coercion, to explain their views and rhetoric, not force, to channel people's aspirations.

In Indonesia, generally speaking, the role of many imams seems to be more ritualistic, formalistic, and often artificial. Here the faces and voices of imams are frequent on TV programs and some are more popular than even the President or his ministers. One illustration, of such popularity is cleric A'a Gym who appeared in an advertisement lending his support to the controversial fuel price hike, but many other imams seem less concerned about promoting the common good (al-maslaha al-amma).

One of the often-neglected aspects of the positive function of imams is their important role in strengthening public piety and morality. Problems such as widespread corruption, violence and terrorism, social diseases caused by communal disintegration, backwardness and ignorance, are often ignored or only figure marginally in many imams' sermons.

The word "imam" was originally translated to mean "the one who leads prayers", but imams have assumed a wider and more general role society. The term imam also implies followers (ma'mum) and indicates their public roles, either in religious fields or other more general areas. Since the terrorist attacks of recent years perpetrated by religious extremists, many people have now begun to talk about "good imams" and "bad imams".

In the public sphere, "good imams" are those who promote peace and harmony, those who encourage the use of reason and those who motivate their followers to learn without end. The bad imams are those who incite intolerance, hatred and violence, those who demand absolutist obedience without reasoning, those who discourage their followers from learning.

Those militant-minded individuals convicted as terrorists have often simply followed their imams' instructions.

They look to their teachers, and if their teachers are bad they become bad also. In other cases, it is the followers who tend to misinterpret their imams, and the former became bad because of their own doing -- but this too can be seen as a failure of teaching.

It should be the task of imams to emphasize the importance of good public morality, rather than just personal religious piety. They should, of course, refrain -- and if necessary be constrained -- from promoting uncivilized or intolerant behavior.

Another much-debated crucial issue is the relationship between imams and political power. Many imams have long had close connections to local and national politicians and many have become politicians themselves.

In some cases when imams enter politics their religious authority is diminished, or destroyed completely if they get too close to the machinations of power and get caught stealing from the state. Others use religion to divide and rule people, and create, rather than solve, conflicts.

Then there are the responsible imams who warn and criticize the government when they see it acting wrongly. They serve as a useful check and balance on the power of the state.

Given their religious authority, it is important for imams to teach their audiences to pay a greater attention to public morality. It is the duty of imams to learn their religious texts more seriously, to understand their context more closely, and to teach these ideas to the wider public.

Because the imams are still listened to by their constituencies, they have to be careful about what they say and how they behave.

While it is perhaps God alone who finally decides who good imam and bad imams are, sometimes imams are likely to be both good and bad at different times.

In a pluralistic society like ours, what we really need is more religious leaders who can play constructive roles in promoting the common good for as many peoples as possible.

The writer is a PhD student in History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa under East-West Center scholarship and is a lecturer at the State Islamic University Jakarta. He can be reached at muhali74@hotmail.com.