Islam-state relations suffer setback: Scholars

Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The current uncertain relationship between the state and Islam stems from the Soeharto regime's unclear vision about how it dealt with extremist movements, Muslim scholars say.

Ulil Abshar Abdalla of the Liberal Islam Network (JIL) said the concept adopted by Soeharto's New Order regime, under which the state ideology and religion were separated, actually resembled the vision of progressive groups.

"(These groups believe) that Islam should exist, but not as a political power nor as an ideological force," he told a discussion during the launch of a book titled Islam, Negara and Civil Society (Islam, the State and Civil Society).

Despite the frequent government repression of Muslims of all beliefs, Muslim progressive intellectuals also emerged at that time, such as Nurcholis Madjid and former minister of religious affairs Munawir Sjadzali, he said.

In the so-called reform era, however, everyone was free to speak out and the pendulum was swinging further to the right, with more people behind the idea of imposing Islamic sharia law.

"Islamic teachings are spreading widely but they are still superficial. More people are aware of Islamic teachings but they understand them only in black-and-white terms."

Progressive ideas about Islam were often prejudged and their initiators labeled infidels, he said.

One example was the alternative draft for the Islamic code (KHI) aimed at accommodating contemporary issues and women's rights, which conservative figures blasted as either laughable or satanic.

"Protests against the KHI are very rude and uncivilized, and the critics are getting personal as well," Ulil said.

Islamic jurisprudence was being falsely mixed with sharia, and therefore becoming perceived as God-sent law.

"Whereas the whole idea of jurisprudence is a human product, so it's OK to have different opinions. Yet, what is happening is the opposite (a lack of tolerance)," he said.

The challenges being faced by progressive groups were bigger now because few people, including the government, were brave enough to stand up and defend these ideas.

"All prominent Muslim scholars are getting older. Cak Nur is physically ill, while Gus Dur is more involved in politics. There are no such other Muslim intellectual defenders anymore," Ulil said, referring to Nurcholis and former president Abdurrahman Wahid.

It was worrying, Ulil added, that the intellectual and liberal resources in Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Muslim organization, were following in Gus Dur's footsteps and switching into politics.

The teachers left in NU's Islamic boarding schools were now conservative figures, he said.

"The intellectual legacies from the progressive thinkers are on trial now."

The 40 million-strong NU has produced many progressive Islamic thinkers, many who have joined the National Awakening Party (PKB) and other political groups.

Scholar M. Dawam Rahardjo said the state ideology of Pancasila could conceptually bridge the gap between the state and religion.

"The state is a worldly matter, not a religious one. Muslims may establish a state but this should result from ijtihad (exertion). If the most suitable ideology is Pancasila, then (we should) just follow it," he said at the forum on Wednesday.

Islam as a religion was one thing and ideology was another, and they were not opposites or rivals, he said.

Dawam said sharia did not talk about social relationships, and there were no clear concepts of succession or how to choose leaders in Islam.

"All of these (ideas) are the domain of human thought. Besides, there is no guarantee that sharia law will be upheld if a country is based on it," he said.

What happened usually, he added, was hypocrisy, such as the criticism of some Muslims regarding bank interest rates.

"People are against bank interest, saying it is not acceptable in Islam. But, they still keep their money in the banks they criticize," Dawam said.