Page 271 - INDONESIA ISLAMIC CULTURE

style of education: the Hollandsch Cokroaminoto, Agus Salim, Kasman
Inlandsch School (HIS) for the primary
level, Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs
(MULO) for the junior intermediate level,
and Algemene Middelbare School (AMS)
for the senior secondary level. In the
following period it also established the
College of Engineering (Technische
Hogeschool/THS) in Bandung, and the
Rechtshogeschool (RHS) in Batavia.
In addition, since the end of the 19 th
century, there had been a medical high
school, the School tot Opleiding voor
InlandscheArtsen (STOVIA), and the
school of governmental science for the
native civil servants, Opleiding School
voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren (OSVIA).
Young Indonesian Muslim children
gradually started to enter modern
European schools, which slowly affected
their modern way of thinking.
The children who entered modern
public education were partly influenced
by a Western secular way of thinking
and some became anti-Islamic and
behaved like Europeans, while others
took advantage of rational thinking to
comprehend their religion (i.e. Islam)
better. Members of this group later
became the forerunners of Islamic
modernism and after Independence
they joined the Masjumi. Among them,
to mention some names, were H.O.S.
262 Indonesian Islamic Culture in Historical Perspectives
replaced by ijtihad and renewal (tajdid).
Singodimejo, Mohammad Roem, and
Mohammad Natsir.
It should be added that in Muslim
societies in Western colonies a sort of
secularization process had taken place
under the influence of the Western
educational system, both for those
who were studying in their homeland
and those who were sent to study in
the West. The reformer group of Islam,
as Western reformists, was open to
accommodation and assimilation. It
wanted to produce a new synthesis
between Islam and modern science
and technology. So, reformers tried
to distance themselves from two
orientations: old-fashioned and stagnant
Islam, and from admiring Western
secular civilization that only saw religion
as an individual phenomenon (Esposito,
1999: 647).
The emergence of the reform movement
in Indonesia was partly characterized
by the establishment of modern
organizations for structurally well-planned
activities. These organizations are the
Sarekat Islam (1911), the Muhammadiyah
(1912), Al-Irsyad (1915), and also
Persatuan Islam or Persis (1923).
According to the reformists, the religious
format of imitation (taqlid) had to be
formula from within Islam itself. Their
Ijtihad is none other than independently goal was that Muslims would get on the
making intellectual efforts by utilizing the path of progress, as they also became
power of reason and thinking optimally to politically freed from Western hegemony.
capture the essence of religion, to ensure
that being religious is to understand the The hallmark of the reform was the
basic arguments and the foundation confrontation with Islamic traditionalism.
beneath all doctrines, commands and The reform tried to detach itself from
prohibitions, as well as to discover the the past and at the same time to orient
methodological bases of the further itself to the future. ‘More than a reactive
development of religious knowledge. stance, reformism is generally assertive,
Tajdid is renewing a way of thinking to suggesting changes and developing
allow the discovery of the essence of the strategic action-plans to achieve the
religious truth, so as to create a pattern ideological objectives.’(Abdullah and
of diversity that does not lag behind Sidique, 1988: 2)
the progress of earthly life, but on the
contrary, being religious causes progress The Proponents of Islamic
on earth and in the here after. Reform
According to reformists, the Muslims’ Muslim scholars had in fact started to
backwardness and ignorance over the entertain thoughts of Islamic reformism
for a long time. As-Syaukanie (2009)
last several centuries was caused by a
false understanding of religion. According asserts that the roots of Islamic
to them, the closing of the door of ijtihad reformism can be delineated in the
was a major mistake and the cause medieval period of Islam. During the
of stupidity. The closure of ijtihad had middle ages, we find names like Abu
halted intellectual activities, while the Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) and
Western nations had been enlightened Taqiuddin Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328).
after their encounter with Islam and they Both are often regarded as the early
continued to progress. In the 19 century, reformers in the medieval period.
th
most of the countries with Muslim However, in the beginning, the reform
majority populations were under Western was limited to the realm of ideas but
occupation. This prompted the reformists without any movement. Further reform
to seek a new format and to find a new that began in the 19 century was not
th
Indonesian Islamic Culture in Historical Perspectives 263