Table of Contents
The phrase Bengkel Akhlaq (Workshop for Morality) might remind students of religions that medical practice is often an important feature of Islamic tradition. In Java, in particular, this may be associated with Pesantren Suryalaya in Tasikmalaya, West Java, where Islamic healing is practised (Munawar-Rahman and Ismail 1991, Nurol-Aen 1990, Zulkifli 1994). Horikoshi (1980) has also recorded an Islam-based medical tradition among Sundanese Muslims in Garut town, West Java, that is well-known as Asrama.
Suryalaya and Asrama practise a rather similar form of Islamic medicine. Suryalaya has, besides wide ranging educational institutions, a centre for the treatment of narcotic addicts and delinquent youths. The patients camp here and thus have no opportunity to think of anything except God (Zulkifli 1994:111). Su’dan (1991:75-77) describes that in the camp the patients perform mandi taubat (baths for repentance), obligatory shalat five times a day, a series of recommended shalat such as sunnat tahajjud, sunnat tasbih, and sunnat witir at night, sunnat dhuha in the morning and sunnat rawatib performed before and after obligatory shalat. They also have to perform Sufistic dhikir (remembrance of God), both dhikir jahar (loud dhikir) and dhikir khafi (dhikir in a very low tone). Given these practices, Suryalaya appears to be a clinic that involves the restoration of both physiological and religious order in the patient.
Daarut Tauhid shares one feature with this Islamic tradition, that is, the restoration of Islamic values in its followers as a means by which to create righteous Muslims. However, compared to Suryalaya, Daarut Tauhid’s function as the workshop for morality is unique for several reasons. First, Daarut Tauhid does not practise physical healing such as the mandi taubat practised at Suryalaya. It practises, instead, psycho-religious healing in that it provides religious activities where Muslims suffering from immorality can indirectly “modify” their daily behaviour. Second, the “patients” at Daarut Tauhid are, as a result, more active than those at Islamic healing centres such as Suryalaya. They do not come to Daarut Tauhid to be cured as patients but to participate in religious practices that have the impact of psychological curing. The process of curing is thus, in a sense, an indirect one. Third, the object of the healing at Daarut Tauhid is the social and behavioural ills, some of which cannot be easily felt as an illness unless they are viewed from the Islamic point of view.[1] Here, Daarut Tauhid’s conception of moral decadence is crucial and thus deserves particular attention.
Before describing how Daarut Tauhid runs its mission as the Bengkel Akhlaq, it is important to understand what Daarut Tauhidians perceive as moral decadence. There are two reasons for this. First, what is viewed by Daarut Tauhidians as morally decadent might not be so in the view of others. Second, it would be difficult to follow a process of healing without knowing the problem that it attempts to rectify.
Moral decadence, to people at Daarut Tauhid, is none other than the decline of religiosity and the social disorder it engenders. People of the world today tend to be less religious and are heavily preoccupied by worldly business. They show little or no awe and indebtedness to God, who provides all worldly delights and who created all beings other than Himself. According to Aa Gym, this tendency of men and women today is due to the fact that they are preoccupied by their carnal desires. This can be seen through their daily behaviour.
First, people today appear to have a lust for prestige, praise, appreciation, pomp, honour, self-esteem and the like. In gaining these, they tend to follow the evil instructions which cunningly use these personal interests as a weapon to drive human beings away from the right path of Islam. For the sake of honour and self-esteem, for example, people try to impress others by wearing the most expensive suits and driving the most luxurious cars. They never hesitate to spend any amount of money just to realise their aim of being appreciated and esteemed, without thinking of any risk to their hisab (accountability)[2] in the hereafter.
Aa Gym clarified that this by no means signifies that people are not allowed to look nice because, he argued, looking good is good and Allah loves everything good. Syeikh Abdul Qadir Jailani, a great Sufi and a traditional ulama, tended to look clean and impressive. But, at the same time, he was fully aware of his hisab in the hereafter. He thus differed from people nowadays who ignore this hisab. These latter, while giving only a little shidqah (charity) or perhaps none at all for the sake of the poor, spend a lot of money shopping for themselves in the highest quality supermarkets. They seem to be heartless. They come only rarely, if ever, to religious centres whereas they routinely go on distant and thus expensive trips. They, in short, tend to pay nearly all their attention to worldly and short-term enjoyment, ignoring moral and religious values.
The lust for self-esteem and prestige often also makes one over-react. When angry, for example, a person tends to over-react, showing others that he is in charge and in power. He might also trivialise and underestimate others just to assert his own reputation. This is, Aa Gym pointed out, just a means by which “Satan brings misfortune to human beings, in that human beings become takabbur (haughty). The key to overcoming this is tawadhu’ (modesty) since honour generates not from takabbur but from tawadhu’.” Aa Gym also asserted that “as a matter of fact, people are resentful of one who is haughty, arrogant, and self-assertive by way of mentioning his superiority.”
Second, Daarut Tauhidians find that people of today tend also to give their passion free rein and enjoy their life to the fullest without thanking God, who provides the grace for all beings. People let their bodily senses relish all worldly things beyond the normal standard and without having any care for other beings. Indeed, Aa Gym realises that human bodily senses love to enjoy various things to the fullest. The sense of enjoying food, for instance, drives Muslims today to eat as many delicious things as possible, without any consideration of whether these things are halal or haram in accordance with Islamic teaching. In addition to this enjoyment of food, people also tend to use their mouths to talk too much. While talking too much, they often tell lies, gossip about others, sully the names of others, and talk about other matters that often engender inharmonious social relationships.
Similarly, in the view of Aa Gym, to satisfy the enjoyment of their ears people tend to love listening to music more than listening to pengajian or the melodious recitation of Holy Qur’an. Men’s eyes greatly enjoy watching beautiful sights and pleasant views, without remembering Allah as the Creator of the universe that amazes them. The men’s eyes particularly enjoy watching beautiful women, just for sexual satisfaction and thus often resulting in sexual abuse. Sexuality is also often the main interest of a young couple in love, with no thought of realising pure love in accordance with the religious guidance about love. In short, people nowadays, according to Aa Gym, tend to live a life that the Qur’an calls mata’ al-gurur (goods and chattels of deception) (3:185).[3]
According to Aa Gym, enjoyment should be in moderation without any inclination towards excess. “Following one’s passion in such enjoyment,” Aa Gym said, “is like drinking sea water; the more one drinks the more thirsty one will be.” To stop talking too much, according to Aa Gym’s advice, one has to do tadarrus (recite, usually loudly) the holy Qur’an more often. To stop over eating, one is recommended by Islam to fast. Other Islamic teachings deal similarly with social disorders.
But, unfortunately, this social impact of Islam has been obscured by the third phenomenon of Muslims today. This, according to people at Daarut Tauhid, is that Muslims tend to be reluctant to carry out Islamic teachings. For example, they seem to find it difficult to perform shalat, particularly midnight shalat. They also feel it is difficult to go to the mosque, either to perform shalat or to attend public talks or any other gatherings. They also consider it hard to read the holy Qur’an, so that they are far away from its guidance. They find it difficult to give shidqah or, if they do, they often do it with the underlying motivation of riya (doing things just for fashion) in the hope of human valuation. For Daarut Tauhidians, all this reluctance in applying Islamic teachings has been the chief factor that has caused current social ills to proliferate.
Further, they see that juvenile delinquency and overall social immorality today are primarily caused by the individual disorders of men and women. Their hearts and minds have been contaminated by the lust to gain the fullest enjoyment from living, which is often socially or personally detrimental. In this situation, iri-dengki (envy and hatred) is a commonly suffered ill. Aa Gym defined iri-dengki as a state when “one feels uncomfortable to see others achieve good luck and, conversely, one feels great happiness when they lose it or even suffer from bad luck.” Aa Gym maintains that envy is a psychological ill that often drives one to detrimental actions. He further identifies envy as “the basic character of iblis (devil, Satan). Iblis refused to perform sujud (prostration to pay homage) to Adam, when Allah asked him to, because iblis was very envious of the status given to Adam by Allah. One who easily becomes envious and spiteful has therefore adopted this basic character of iblis.”
In the view of Aa Gym, there are four main causes that can engender envy. The first is enmity or hatred. In this situation, one may easily feel disadvantaged by an opponent. Envy often easily arises here. Second is the personal interest in being the best. Aa Gym gave an example that “a person who has been wearing his most expensive clothes may be envious just because he sees a man wearing better-looking clothes. He may then feel defeated and hate the man just because of jealousy.” Third is personal ambition for leadership. This often drives one to hate others who have a good career as leader. “If he hears of a leader with a high reputation and who is greatly admired, he will be more and more envious, wishing to put him down,” Aa Gym explained. That is why, according to Aa Gym, the first group to enter hell will be “those envious ulama who are always ambitious to be leaders and always seeking popularity.” Fourth is that envy can be caused by other akhlaq buruk (bad character traits). One who is stingy, for example, might be jealous of someone who gains good luck as a result of his generosity.
Just like iri-dengki, there are many other social ills that are viewed by Daarut Tauhidians to be mushrooming among men and women today. Inferiority, anxiety, and overall uneasiness are now common feelings suffered by marginalised people. Arrogance, haughtiness, riya and sum’ah [4] are common characteristics among the people of high social status. Both groups tend to abandon their religious ethics, ignoring the role of Allah in their lives. As a result, each group has been trapped into bad habits such as prejudice, stereotyping, ghibah (gossip), and searching for each other’s humiliation. In short, people today are, in the view of Aa Gym and his followers, in severe moral crisis.
Aa Gym has been successful in convincing Muslims of this moral crisis. He convinces them through various religious talks at Daarut Tauhid and other Islamic gatherings, on radio programs, and through his writings in Daarut Tauhid’s weekly newsletter. These become his forum by which he can effectively use his rhetorical ability to disseminate his views on moral decadence and its Islamic resolution.
Aa Gym believes that the key to this resolution is ordering the individual mind and heart. The grand target of Daarut Tauhid is thus to restore Islamic morality in the hearts and minds of people today.
[1] Daarut Tauhid’s workshops for morality are thus more like church workshops and retreats for families and individuals, part of the Christian spiritual renewal that has flourished since the 1980s (Jensen 1989:94, 96).
[2] The word hisab evokes ideas of evaluating, counting, or measuring. Hisab in Islam is believed to be the “reckoning” that Allah will demand from all human beings on the Day of Judgement. Each will at the time be judged by way of accounting for their worldly actions. Those whose good deeds outnumber the bad will deserve paradise while the reverse will merit hell. This idea of rendering an account is actually comparable with that of Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian traditions.
[3] This view of Muslims at Daarut Tauhid on moral decadence is shared by many devout Muslims throughout Indonesia. For them, this decadence is symbolised by the Western life-style of nominal Muslims as observable through their provocative dress and their involvement in nightclub entertainment, pornographic film screenings, etc. (Kipp and Rodgers 1987:20; Muzaffar 1986:10-11).
[4] Riya denotes an intention to do something with the hope that others will see it and thus admire the doer. Sum’ah denotes actions performed in the hope that others will hear and thus praise the doer. Both connote the doer’s arrogance. Whereas the outward actions which Islam requires must be done not only correctly but also with the correct intention, ie. not for fashion or to fit with a certain group. It must all be solely for the sake of Allah.