Kiai Dahlan and the Face of Our Religiosity

Religious expression in Indonesia has never been as vibrant as it is today. Religious symbols fill the public sphere, rituals are increasingly festive, and religious identity is ever more asserted in various aspects of life. Yet, amidst these phenomena, an irony emerges: a society that appears increasingly religious is confronted with a range of moral problems such as corruption, injustice, and criminality. Many religious figures are also mad for power, wealth, and lechery.

This situation indicates that our religious practice tends to be superficial. Religion is present as a symbol of identity to be worn, but has not yet become a deeply internalised value. Religion is loudly professed, but not yet lived out in action. When religion has not yet manifested as integrity, empathy, and morality, what is strengthened is not the substance of religion. Our challenge today is how to make religion increasingly meaningful and transcend mere formality.

Gordon Allport distinguished between extrinsic religiosity and intrinsic religiosity as two basic orientations in religious experience. Extrinsic religiosity refers to an instrumental form of religiousness, where religion is positioned as a means to achieve other ends, such as social status, psychological security, political legitimacy, or group recognition. In this orientation, religion works as a functional ‘tool’, so its transcendent values are vulnerable to being reduced to pragmatic mechanisms that follow the subject’s external interests. Conversely, intrinsic religiosity indicates the thorough internalisation of religion within the structure of an individual’s consciousness and life orientation. Religion becomes the principle that directs all ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.

This distinction helps explain the paradoxes that often arise in social life. A person can appear very religious formally, yet their social behaviour does not reflect the religious values they claim. In such a situation, religion functions more as an extrinsic ‘garment’ than as an intrinsic transformative force. Religiosity becomes visible on the surface, but does not sufficiently permeate the structure of consciousness and daily character.

In Paul Tillich’s framework, the essence of religion cannot be reduced merely to ritual, institutions, or doctrinal systems. Religion points to the deepest dimension of human existence, namely what becomes the ultimate concern that totally binds a person’s life orientation. Every human being is always driven by a centre of meaning they consider most decisive, of absolute value, and therefore, worth fighting for even beyond all other interests. The problem lies not in whether or not an ultimate concern exists, but in what occupies that position within the structure of our consciousness. Whether that position is filled by a transcendent value that liberates and humanises, or by something immanent that is falsely deified, thus forming a distorted life orientation.

In modern life, the position of ultimate concern is often occupied by worldly things such as power, money, popularity, position, or self-image. When something finite is treated as the ultimate goal of life, humans are essentially constructing a new form of idol worship. Therefore, for Tillich, authentic religion is when a person’s deepest orientation is directed towards the Absolute, and from there all actions derive their direction and meaning.

In Islam, the most fundamental issue is not merely a verbal acknowledgment of God’s existence, but whether God truly becomes the centre of human life orientation. The deepest meaning of tawhid is a revolution of consciousness that places Allah as the centre of meaning, value, and life’s purpose. Tawhid is related to the issue of existential orientation. Those who practice tawhid believe that only God is the sole creator, while everything besides God is His creation. Humans have no right to demean fellow creatures because all are equal before God; there must be no exploitation or tyranny. A person of tawhid will not act with inferiority or arrogance. They are aware of their duties and roles in the world as servants of God and caliphs who prosper the earth.

This profound understanding of tawhid finds practical articulation in Kiai Dahlan’s reading of the Al-Ma’un surah. Unlike interpretations that limit the surah to an encouragement to give charity to the poor and orphans, Kiai Dahlan read it as a theological critique of a religiosity that has lost its tawhid orientation. In his perspective, the deniers of religion are not those who reject God’s existence, but those who acknowledge Allah through word and ritual, yet fail to manifest divine attributes of justice, compassion, and social care in real life. Al-Ma’un asserts that the validity of tawhid is not measured by the intensity of ritual worship alone, but by the extent to which the acknowledgment of Allah’s oneness transforms the way humans view and treat their fellow beings. If Allah is the sole owner and ruler of all life, every form of exploitation, oppression, accumulation of wealth, and neglect of the weak constitutes a denial of the ethical consequences of tawhid.

On this basis, Kiai Dahlan transformed Al-Ma’un from a mere text to be recited into a paradigm for a movement. Tawhid, thus, became a transformative force that dismantles structures of injustice, builds human solidarity, and presents religion as a civilisational energy. Within this framework, faith does not stop at verbal confession or ritual compliance, but becomes an ethical praxis that defends human dignity, especially that of the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalised.