Nurcholish, for Islam and Indonesia

Nurcholish, for Islam and Indonesia

Fachry Ali, Bahtiar Effendy and Ichsan Ali-Fauzi, Jakarta

It is simply impossible for someone to discuss contemporary
Indonesian Islam, or perhaps even Indonesia in general, without
mentioning Nurcholish Madjid. For nearly three decades, scholars
have been writing books and dissertations on his ideas and
practices. His own articles and essays collected in several books
received remarkable responses.

Born 66 years ago in the small town of Jombang, East Java,
Nurcholish was a "biological child" of Indonesian society who,
through his parents, inherited the intellectualism and activism
of the country's two major Islamic organizations: The modernist
political party Masyumi, banned by the late president Sukarno in
1960, and the traditionalist socio-religious organization
Nahdlatul Ulama. He synthesized these two intellectual traditions
into a larger area of social and political concern.

The basis of this synthesis was theological: the Arabic saying
"conserve the old and the good, and accommodate the new and the
improved," is particularly apt here.

Nurcholish started his intellectual career at the State
Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN), often perceived as an
avenue for upward mobility among Muslims. But it was within the
Association of Muslim Students (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam, HMI) --
a modernist, urban Muslim student organization -- that he was
able to articulate his intellectual orientations.

During his time with HMI, he wrote its ideological manual, The
basic values of struggle. To this day, it serves as required
reading during leadership training programs attended by hundreds
of thousands of members of this largest student organization in
Southeast Asia. His natural stature -- also contributed to by his
mastership of Arabic, English, Urdu and French -- resulted in him
being elected to chair the HMI on two consecutive occasions
(1966-1969 and 1969-1971), something that no one else had ever
done.

What made him controversial was his electrifying speech
delivered to a gathering of four Islamic organizations on Jan. 2,
1970, in Jakarta. In his paper on "The necessity for renewal of
Islamic thought and integration of the Islamic community",
Nurcholish bluntly stated that Indonesian Muslims were suffering
from stagnation in religious thinking and had lost "psychological
striking force" in their struggle. The speech marked a watershed
in his career as for the first time in the contemporary
Indonesian Islam it offered an amalgam of theological,
sociological and hermeneutical analysis.

He not only deconstructed the structure of the theological and
ideological framework employed by most Indonesian Muslims, but
also proposed the possibility of viewing the Islamic situation
and the makeup of Muslims as objective facts that result from
living factors at work; not things that are theologically
determined.

The essence of Nurcholish's ideas was his observation that
most Muslims here were unable to differentiate values that are
transcendental from those that are temporal. He pointed out that
the hierarchy of values is often reversed; transcendental values
are conceived of as temporal and vice versa.

Everything was likely to be perceived as transcendental, and
therefore, without exception, valued as divine. As a result of
this type of religiosity, "Islam is [viewed as] equal in value to
tradition; and becoming Islamic is comparable to being a
traditionalist."

Reform was possible provided that Muslims were prepared to set
out on the path toward renewal -- even if this was at the expense
of the integration of the Muslim community. To undergo this
religious renewal, he suggested that Muslims liberate themselves
from the tendency to convert values that were actually profane
into divine values. As a consequence of the belief that Islam was
timeless and universal, there was an inherent obligation for
Muslims to engage in creative thinking that was relevant to the
demands of the modern age.

According to Nurcholish, this endeavor could only be realized
if Muslims enjoyed the confidence to allow ideas, however
unconventional they may be, to be expressed and communicated
freely. More importantly, given that Islam conceived of human
beings as naturally oriented toward truthfulness (hanief),
Muslims need to be open-minded. Furthermore, they should accept
and absorb all ideas, regardless of their origins, provided they
objectively spoke the truth.

The social and political implications of this statement are
profound. In particular, Nurcholish deconstructed the theological
basis of many Indonesian Muslims as reflected in their devotion
to an Islamic state, Islamic parties, Islamic ideology, and
legalistic and formalistic pronouncements.

Conversely, he encouraged his fellow Muslims to adopt Islamic
values that shared the notion of universal humanism. This idea
also had practical consequences for our daily lives. More
especially, it shed light on the necessity for Muslims to develop
tolerant attitudes about pluralism even if this originated from
secular sources or other worldly religions. For Nurcholish, only
God possessed the absolute truth.

Accordingly, self-righteous claims ran counter to the very
notion of Islamic monotheism (al-tawhid). In the Indonesian
context, characterized by such things as demographic plurality,
this idea has a major role to play not only in the nation's
endeavor to develop a harmonious relationship among adherents of
different religions, but also in the effort to lay the groundwork
for democratization in the socio-economic and political spheres.

In short, Nurcholish is the type of figure who believes in
inclusiveness, associating with various groups of people without
becoming attached to any of them. As a pious Muslim, he believes
that the victory of Islam is neither the victory of an
institution nor individual nor group of people, even if they wave
Islamic flags and symbols.

For him, the victory of Islam is the victory of ideas -- the
realization of the idea of justice (qadalah), equality (masawah),
and democracy (musyawarah) in the structure of our national life.

With his intellectual armory, wisdom, and commitment to
upholding high standards of morality and value, Nurcholish
emerged on the socio-religious and political stage of our
society, bringing with him fresh and liberating ideas.

This positions him as a unique Muslim intellectual in
Indonesia. A Western proverb seems applicable to Nurcholish: "To
avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing!" One
thing is for sure, Nurcholish never wanted to be nothing.

He never courted popularity, however. Rather, his involvement
in socio-economic and political intellectualism and
activism -- including his pioneering role in requesting then
president Soeharto to step down and to urge his fellow countrymen
to adopt the spirit of reform -- was mainly shaped and influenced
by his profound belief that it was his religious duty as servant
of Allah.

On Monday, Nurcholish passed away, leaving a rich and diverse
intellectual legacy to us. As he himself often suggested, what he
had endeavored to achieve over the last three decades will
continue in the years to come. His efforts need to be continued
by his contemporaries within Indonesia's Muslim community.