Two worldviews of Islam and the impacts

Mochtar Buchori, Legislator, Jakarta

The Aug. 10 edition of Kompas daily and the Aug. 10-16 edition The Economist weekly told two contrasting stories about Muslims and Islam. Kompas featured a story about a very broad-minded and tolerant Muslim, Darwis Khudori, an architect, born and raised in Kotagede, Yogyakarta, and now living in Paris. The story in the London-based weekly was about Muslim migrants in Western Europe with serious problems in adjusting to the customs and cultures of their new home countries.

Khudori is a Muslim with friends from different religions and races. He considers himself a student of the late priest Y.B. Mangunwijoyo (Romo Mangun), and at one time he helped the latter in assisting the poor. Khudori was born into a Muhammadiyah family and raised within a Javanese environment, and gained many friends among the followers of Nahdatul Ulama. In 1999 he received his doctorate from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, studying the history of the Arab world and contemporary Islam.

The story of Muslim migrants in England and Western Europe cited how they maintain a distinctly anti-Western attitude. The article asked in its subheading: Is there something about Islam that makes it impossible for Muslims to fit into western, liberal societies?

Apart from Khudori, there are many other Muslims, both inside and outside Indonesia, who have succeeded in adjusting to the customs of the West, without abandoning or denying their Islamic identity. The puzzle faced by many Westerners and non-Muslims in witnessing this huge contrast is just what factors in Islam cause such a great divergence among its followers.

The issue here is whether the core abode of Islam absolutely rejects religious pluralism, which, according to professor of Islamic studies Bassam Tibi, is "comprehensive mutual respect of people differing in views and beliefs". More specifically, at issue is whether Islam rejects European cultural modernity, and therefore Westernization.

Muslims who position themselves within the cultural Islam camp think that there is nothing in Islam that prescribes such an anti-Western attitude. They refer quite often to the legacy of reformers within Islam who attempted to establish Islamic rationalism, which arose as a consequence of the rise of Hellenized Islamic philosophy, or that influenced by the ancient Greek.

On the other hand, those who consider themselves as proponents of political Islam think that accepting religious pluralism is secularizing Islam, which must be rejected by any means. This rejection is based on several reasons, among others that "Islam is the only right religion", and that Islam is "the Light" that must be disseminated throughout the world.

Thus those who follow cultural Islam are often called homo religious, whereas those following political Islam are referred to as homo politicus. The former stresses the spirituality of Islam, whereas homo politicus stresses the meaning of Islam as a political ideology.

This divergence among Muslims has very far-reaching consequences. We have Muslims who are actively engaged in globalization, and have tried to correct its shortcomings; but on the other hand we have Muslims who have tried to block globalization.

This group of Muslims perceives globalization as a superimposition of Western universalism. This must be rejected, and in its place they propose to establish Islamic universalism, which some scholars refer to as Islamism or politicized Islam. Here we see a clash between two politicized universalisms.

In the opinion of some Islamic experts, globalization as a format of Western universalism is primarily economic and penetrative, whereas Islamic universalism is culturally defensive and politically aggressive.

Many Islamic thinkers opine that such a great divergence could only be caused by differing interpretations concerning the basic meaning of "Islam". According to Muhammad Said al-Ashmawi, a former Egyptian chief justice, initially Islam meant "obedience to God (Allah)". And the "being" of God cannot be experienced intellectually, but only spiritually. Therefore "cultural-Islam" people emphasize the spirituality of Islam. To them theology is the most important aspect in Islam, not jurisprudence, or fiqh.

This basic and literal meaning of Islam has been altered and reduced by proponents of political Islam. They argue that the meaning of Islam is not only obedience toward God, but also obedience toward The Prophet as God's messenger.

Islam further came to mean obedience toward every ulema (scribe) who understands the messages of God revealed to Prophet Muhammad, and also toward every holder of state power. According to al-Ashmawi again, it was in this way that Islam underwent reduction in meaning, from faith in the oneness of God to "an ideology in the service of worldly power-holders in their pursuit of political objectives".

The politicization of Islam started, according to Bassam Tibi, not in 1977, but in 1967 as a reaction toward the Arab defeat in the June 1967 war. The birthplace of political Islam is thus the Arab world, and not Iran. It is thus quite understandable if, nowadays, political Islam or fundamentalist Islam or Islamic terrorism is, in the minds of many, automatically linked to Arab countries and their sympathizers.

Will this view bring a solution to the problem now faced by the entire world? And is there the likelihood that this brand of Islam and its militant expressions can be conquered or "domesticated" by physical power?

I don't know! I am just an ordinary Muslim who would like to see Islam contribute to the rise of a global civilization that is more just and more humane than the one we now have. I would also like to know what the future is of Islam in Indonesia, within the larger context of Indonesia's future.

With a lifetime dedicated to education, I have repeatedly asked myself in which direction is Islamic education in Indonesia heading. All those engaged in Islamic education in Indonesia should reflect on this question. We might then learn the essence of Islamic education in Indonesia, within the context of democracy building and creating good governance.