Table of Contents
This is a study of Pesantren[1] Daarut Tauhid in Bandung, Java, focusing on its role in the reinforcement of Islamic morality in a contemporary community of Muslims. As a pesantren, Daarut Tauhid is part of the pesantren tradition in Java and thus shares similar features with other pesantren. Yet as a newly emergent institution, it bears novel characteristics that reflect the influence of both local tradition and contemporary modern civilisation.
In a wider perspective, the rise of Pesantren Daarut Tauhid can be understood as part of the worldwide phenomena of Islamic resurgence. In this case, Daarut Tauhid demonstrates the dynamics of Islam and the flexibility these demand. Hence I argue that in undergoing resurgence, Islam accommodates both local and global cultures without necessarily losing its definition.[2]
In a more specific context, Pesantren Daarut Tauhid is part of the pesantren tradition in Indonesia.[3] The relationship of Daarut Tauhid to the pesantren tradition at large is just like its relationship to Islamic resurgence; it shows the dynamics and the subsequent flexibility of the pesantren tradition. Thus, I argue that Daarut Tauhid has enriched the diversity of the pesantren tradition.[4] The most fundamental contribution Daarut Tauhid makes is its efficacy in the reinforcement of Islamic morality among urban Muslims.[5]
Professor Clifford Geertz concludes, in his latest work, After the Fact (1995:165), that “what is happening both in those places [Sefrou in Morocco and Pare in Indonesia] and elsewhere to “Islam” [original quote]…is losing definition and gaining energy.” This suggests that Islam, in Indonesia and elsewhere, is now in revival but, to achieve this, it has to lose its definition. This judgment of Geertz’s is based on his observation that
secularism, commodification, corruption, selfishness, immorality, rootlessness, general estrangement from the sources of value, all the ills attributed to the modern form of life as it has taken shape in the West (and especially, everyone’s hard case, in the United States), loom, or seem to, as imminent threats, and the risk of havoc looks at least as real as the promise of ease (1995:142-143).
My question, in response to this Geertzian conclusion, is which definition of Islam does Geertz observe Islam to be losing? Geertz seems to uphold his narrow cultural definition of Islam which has been much criticised from as early as his first masterpiece, The Religion of Java (1960). That is his narrow definition of Islam which excludes so many Islamic features from Islam. Marshall Hodgson, the most fundamental critic of Geertz’s view in this regard, criticises Geertz for “labelling much of the Muslim religious life in Java ‘Hindu’…[and for identifying] a long series of phenomena, virtually universal to Islam and sometimes found even in the Qur’an itself, as un-Islamic” (1974:551n). The narrowness of Geertz’s definition of Islam was put clearly by Nakamura who shows how Geertz reduces Islam. According to Nakamura (1984:72), what Geertz conceives of as the core values of Javanese tradition, i.e. sabar, iklas, and slamet, are all Islamic in origin and are understood by Javanese people as they are in their original Islamic meanings.[6] Regarding these values as un-Islamic thus means reducing Islam.
Moreover, since those values are rooted in the Qur’an, they are also, in fact, commonly applied among modernist Muslims. Hence, Geertz’s definition of Islam is, to me, even narrower than that which is perceived by the modernist line of Islamic thought. Therefore, I see the weakness of this Geertzian definition to be more than what Hodgson and Nakamura accuse him of as having the modernist bias. It is, instead, a categorical bias. By this I mean that Geertz, in categorising Javanese Muslims into his trichotomy, santri-abangan-priyayi,[7] excludes some traditions from Islam in order to include them in the less or non-Islamic traditions of abangan and priyayi. As Nakamura (1984:72) has shown, the abangan core ritual, slametan, and the priyayi core values, as mentioned above, are Islamic in origin. And Hodgson (1974:551n) considers that Geertz’s comprehensive data in The Religion of Java demonstrate the complete triumph of Islam in Java, so that very little from the Hindu past has survived even in inner Java.
It is however misleading to assume that the Hindu past and local beliefs have completely disappeared from Java. Surely, animism, deism, and overall spirit beliefs do still persist in Java. Geertz would have been right if he had elaborated these kinds of local beliefs when discussing the Javanese outlook (Koentjaraningrat 1963:191). But with the coming of Islam to Java those beliefs have mixed considerably, influencing each other. While Hodgson finds these local beliefs have been Islamised, Geertz, on the contrary, finds Islam has been localised. Geertz thus argues that Muslim religious life in Java looks more Javanese than Middle-Eastern (1976:367–368). And now, after four decades, Geertz goes further to argue that not only has Islam been Javanised but it has lost its definition, so much so that he puts the intactness of Islam in doubt by way of putting the term between quotes (1995:165).
As a matter of fact, Islam as a world religion has been and will always be in dialogue with both local and global cultures. In the light of this assumption, what is happening to Islam may not be seen as a Geertzian loss of definition but can be better understood as the inherent flexibility of Islam, a necessary feature for its cultural dialogue.[8] This is in accordance with the Muslims’ belief that Islam is a universal religion. Universality requires a great deal of flexibility in regard to local cultures. While Geertz, in observing Balinese religion, was quite right in viewing this kind of religious flexibility as the dynamics of religion (1979), he failed to see the vigorous development of Islam today, in Java and elsewhere, as an example of this dynamism.
The dynamics of Islam has been recognised throughout the world particularly by its inclination for resurgence.[9] By this resurgence, following Muzaffar (1987:2), I mean any attempt to reinforce Islamic morality entirely in its personal and social practices. This resurgence is not necessarily political in nature.[10] It can be and often is a flexible and capable creativity of the Muslim community to adopt and adapt both global modernity, with its inherent technology, and local cultures.
Pesantren Daarut Tauhid, with which this study deals, may be a good example of a Muslim community of this kind. It flexibly adopts and adapts the current inclination of world civilisation. At the same time, it genuinely incorporates local cultures. It has thus successfully avoided any conflict between the two realms and in so doing, it has not departed from Islam.[11]
[1] Pesantren are generally known as Islamic training centres for advanced studies and, more specifically, as traditional Islamic educational institutions in Java (Dhofier 1980a:viii). However, as my present study will show, its use here means a religious and socio-cultural institution, which thus embraces more functions than mere education.
[2] Thus Tebba (1985:268) assumes that the extraordinary survival of the pesantren tradition over centuries is a result of its ability to respond to every new reality of community development in Indonesia.
[3] The pesantren tradition has cultural features that are not found in other parts of the Muslim world save in Indonesia (Tebba 1985:269).
[4] In consequence, this also denies the assumption that the pesantren tradition is in a state of decay, due to the changing preference of Muslims today to choose secular educational institutions.
[5] Nearly all pesantren are located in rural areas of Indonesia. The pesantren’s moral force is thus more felt in these areas than in urban areas.
[6] In fact, as Nakamura has pointed out (1984:72), the terms sabar, iklas, and slamet can be easily found in the Qur’an. The term iklas, for example, is even the title of Chapter 112 of the Qur’an. This term appears frequently in other chapters such as 2:139, 4:146, and 10:23.
[7] It is widely known that Geertz (1960) introduced abangan, santri, and priyayi as three variants of various Muslim traditions in Java. The abangan variant, dominant in the villages, is conceived to hold spirit beliefs and to practise curing, sorcery, and magic, with the slametan ritual feast as its core (1976:5). [The abangan people are even considered by Alice Dewey (1962:33), Geertz’s fellow researcher, as non-Muslims.] The santri variant, predominant at markets, is marked by “a careful and regular execution of the basic rituals of Islam…[and] a whole complex of social, charitable, and political Islamic organisations.” The priyayi variant stresses Hindu aspects and is related to the bureaucratic element (1976:6). This Geertzian categorisation has drawn much criticism. Bachtiar (1985), Hodgson (1974), Koentjaraningrat (1963, 1984), Muchtarom (1988), Nakamura (1984), Pranowo (1991), Suparlan (1976), and Woodward (1989) are among the fundamental critics. Yet, Geertz’s fame, particularly as an anthropologist, is said to owe much to the flood of criticisms addressed to him. Like Marx, Geertz’s popularity began only after massive criticism of his work (Jamhari 1994:14)
[8] See Kurshid Ahmad (1983:226) for an example of the flexibility of Islam.
[9] For the study of Islamic resurgence in the past two decades, see Voices of Resurgent Islam, edited by J. L. Esposito (1983).
[10] I am aware that Islamic resurgence seems most generally to be political. Dessouki (1982:4) thus sees it as the increasing prominence and politicization of Islamic ideologies and symbols.
[11] On a seminar on this pesantren on 12 October 1995, Professor J. J. Fox judged that none of Daarut Tauhid’s features departs from Islam.