http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20070420.F05&irec=3
Don't blame those who don't trust Muslims Mohammad Yazid, Jakarta In a bid to enhance his understanding of Islam, my parents allowed my younger brother to participate in Koranic recitation and discussion sessions. After a few months, he began to make positive changes such as performing regular evening prayers, and zikir (chanting verses in praise of Allah), which he had rarely done before. However, about a year later, he started to demonstrate a different attitude. He began to argue about the interpretation of the Koranic verses and hadiths (words and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), also with my parents. He actively encouraged his friends to join his group's recitations, frequently neglecting the small business he had been developing for some years after high school. As a result of my brother's peculiar take on Islamic teachings, such as his refusal to perform obligatory prayers and Ramadhan fasting rituals by asserting that "the right time has not yet come", my father, a Muhammadiyah follower, found it difficult to accept my brother's attitude, although he tried hard to understand. Most regrettably, though, my brother grew intolerant of other people's views after almost two years attending the recitation group, without ever telling us who his teacher was or describing what the group got up to. Without any hesitation, he branded those not sharing his opinions as infidels. His closed viewpoint and exclusive beliefs also created tension within the family. He finally decided to leave home without saying anything, and closed up his business. By this stage, he was even refusing to see family members. "Why have his religious studies led to a family rift and his increased religious knowledge resulted in hatred?" was what I found myself asking. There is a fundamental difference between studying the right way to embrace a religion and the science of religion. The former aims at understanding the universal belief in God so that life can be approached with wisdom, which is helped by the support of religious science. The process involves personal and spiritual experiences of life. The outcome of this is a proper comprehension of the correct balance between hablum minalloh (the vertical relationship with God) and hablum minannas (horizontal relationships between human beings). The latter involves the study of religious teachings as written in the Koran and hadiths, which may give rise to conflicting interpretations against the backdrop of diverse levels of knowledge. It adopts a doctrinal system so that tension often arises along with different views as each interpreter claims to have discovered the exclusive truth. Amid high unemployment and difficulties in making a decent living due to the country's difficult economic situation and the low-quality of its human resources, conflict arising from religious issues can very easily trigger anarchy and intolerance. What happened to my brother and the attack on a Shiite group using sickles and cudgels in Sampang regency, Madura, on April 9 are examples of this type of intolerance. No bloodshed occurred in Sampang as the police had taken precautions to avoid a full-scale clash. But the incident, of course, contradicts the spirit of Muslim brotherhood. In Indonesia, intolerance toward fellow Muslims has frequently surfaced. Large numbers of Ahmadiyah followers around the country have been subjected to anarchic treatment by those adhering to other Islamic schools. Most notably, some 10,000 members of the Indonesian Muslim Solidarity Group assaulted the Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation (JAI) compound, the Mubarak campus, in Bogor, West Java, in 2005. Approaches and actions that tarnish the image of Islam undoubtedly reduce the confidence of non-Muslims when it comes to interfaith relations. They also indicate that Muslims are unable to draw lessons from the examples set by the Prophet Muhammad, who was able to live peacefully and amicably under the same roof with his uncle Abi Talib, who embraced a different faith. The same is true of the internal conflict in Islam between the Shiite and Sunni communities currently taking place in Iraq in the wake of the fall of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein four years ago, when the U.S. and its allies launched a military attack on that country. Many fence-mending attempts have been made to end the conflict, which has killed 37,000 people and left 471,000 others homeless. One of these was the meeting of Islamic leaders to discuss Iraqi reconciliation at the Bogor Palace on April 3-4, which recommended the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops, among other things. As a peace-seeking effort, this recommendation merits consideration as an alternative solution. Yet, what Muslims should also need to consider is who can guarantee security in Iraq following the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces, given Shiite-Sunni strife existed long before the U.S. invasion. It is also hard to deny the reality that when Saddam Hussein was in power, the Shiites in Iraq were badly treated by the Sunnis. Nevertheless, while the arrival of U.S. troops succeeded in toppling the dictator Saddam Hussein, the invasion has increased the misery of the Iraqi people and been widely criticized by the world community, as well as in the U.S. itself. Many Islamic figures maintain that the conflict in Iraq is not due to Shiite-Sunni rivalry, as shown by several countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Lebanon, where both groups are said to live in peace. However, Iraqi history shows that the Shiite-Sunni feud is deep-rooted, reaching its climax with the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, when he fought against the Sunni Muslims in the seventh century in what is now Karbala, Iraq. To be honest, Shiite followers still find it hard to forget the death of Imam Hussein, who is commemorated on Asyura day, Muharam 9-10. The writer is a staff member of The Jakarta Post. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . printer friendly
