The Palestinian Issues

Question: What is the way to proceed regarding the Palestinian issue, which has, as the days pass, escalated in terms of complexity and violence?

Response: Certainly, the Muslim(s) feel much pain and great sadness at the deteriorating situation in Palestine, with matters going from bad to worse, escalating in complexity as the days pass, such that it has reached where it has (today). This is due to the differing (occurring) between the neighboring countries, and their lack of united resistance against their enemy, and (likewise) their lack of adherence to the Sharee’ah which Allah has linked to victory (and success). (This is also in addition to) the enemy vowing to oppose (the Palestinians) and remain upon the (Palestinians’) land. And this entails great danger and adverse consequences. 

The neighboring countries need to rush to unite in their resistance (against the enemy) and adhere to the Sharee’ah in confronting this issue, which concerns them and all of the Muslim world.

And that which is worth mentioning here, is that the Palestinian issue is an islamic issue from the beginning (right through) to the end. However, the enemies of Islam have strived immensely to distance it (this issue) from the lslamic path and convey to the non-Arab Muslims that this is an Arab issue, and that it does not concern the non-Arabs. It appears they have succeeded in this to a certain extent. This is why I feel it is not possible to reach a solution regarding this issue unless it is deemed an lslamic issue, and the Muslims support one another in salvation, and make jihad against the Jews in an Islamic manner, until such time the land (of the Palestinians) is returned to its (rightful Palestinian) owners. (In addition to) the trespassing Jews returning to their (own) lands where they dame from, thereby leaving the true Jews to remain in their lands under the rule of lslam, and not communism and nor secularism. Thereby, truth shall prevail and falsehood will be abandoned, and all rightful owners shall return to their lands under lslamic rule, and not under any other (rule).

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And Allah is the Expounder of Success.

Ahmadiyah, is it Islam? (Hasrul)

Ahmadiyah is a religious movement which was built by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. It is widespread in several countries in Asia. Ahmadiyah is becoming a phenomenon nowadays. But, this paper is going to argue whether Ahmadiyah is a part of Islam or a deviance from Islamic teaching.

Ahmadiyah is a part of Islam.  A lot of evidence are supporting it. Such as, they do say A syhadu anlaailaaha illallah, Wa asyhadu anna Muhammadarrasuullah Rasulullah has been admitted by them as the last messenger of God. Al-quran is trusted as the holy book by follower of Ahmadiyah. Those are evidences which are able to encourage Ahmadiyah become a part of Islam.
On the other hand, Ahmadiyah appeared in India aim to uphold and encourage Islam back to Qurani’ah Syariat because regarding to the history of Ahmadiyah there were some cases that happened in india. One of them, India was marked by retreating of Islam. It because of the influences of Christian in 1804 as missionaries, especially when British and foreign Bible society was formed, and the Hindu’s movement was more and more vicious in influencing their beliefs to the society of India as a pure land of Hindu. Therefore, Mirza&Hulam Ahmad attempted Ahmadiyah as a weapon to defend the existence of islam in India.

However, some ulama have stated that ahmadiyah is a deviance from Islamic teaching. That is why it must be ignored among the society. It is proven by banning the Ahmadiyah follower from going to Mecca to do hajj. Because they think that doing hajj is only for rich man and it is not an obligation. Besides that, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad decelerated his self as Zilli prophet (shadow) and Ummati (as a Rasulullah’s follower). Whereas, in the holy Quran Allah commands us that Muhammad is the last messenger or prophet. In 1981, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad also proclaimed his self as a represeqtative of Isa Almasih and Imam Mahdi as well (jemaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia 1989, page xii). Both are people who have been trusted to come in the last period.

In conclusion, although followers of Ahmadiyah have proclaimed their selves as a part of Islam, but it is against by some ulama because it is a deviance from Islamic teaching. Therefore it needs to be anticipated by society. 

CULTURE APPROACH AS SOLUTION

A country which has a variety of natural resource, religion, culture, and also race, a country which has a long history, it has a defend their sovereignty by using bamboo as tool to fight the colonizer. Did you know it? Absolutely, it is our beloved country Indonesia. It is not just famous because of its natural resources, but also admired by other countries because of its complex society.

Although Indonesia has a complex society, it has one principle “BhinekaTunggal Ika”, although we are different but we keep our unity. But recently, Indonesia has experienced many problems and common cases about misunderstanding among tribes. Like in Kalimantan, there was a fight between the native race of Kalimantan and Batak. So as the author, I’ll try to show the role of culture in solving or minimizing the misunderstanding among tribes.

Culture comes from Sanskerta language “buddhayah”, which is the plural form of “buddhi” (budi atau akal) it means “a thing with relating character and mind” (wikipedia:2013), whereas according to Kihajar Dewantara, culture is a result from human buffetings toward two strong side-effect; period and nature which constitute evidence of human’s victory to overcome all challenge and hardness in their life. It has aim to safety and welfare come into being characteristic both discipline and peaceful. So based on the explanation above, it is known that the role of culture on people’s lives is great.

Because all human being require orderliness and peace, so culture is regarded as crucial thing. As well as the old philosophy “sirri’na pacce” in Bugis-Makassar society that content behavior, shame and morality and If sirri‘na pacce is not possessed by a person, then that person can exceed the animal‘s behavior, because it does not have a sense of shame and social concern. They also just want to win themselves and indulge their lusts. The term sirri ‘na pacce as a cultural value system is very abstract and difficult to be defined as sirri‘na pacce can only be perceived by adherents of that culture. For the Bugis - Makassar, siri‘ na pacce teach morality of decency in the form recommended, restrictions, rights and obligations that dominates human action to maintain and defend their selves and their honor. Sirri‘na pacce is a shame that decomposes the dimensions of human dignity as “something’s taboo” for the Bugis-Makassar in interacting with others. Meanwhile, ”pacce” teach a sense of solidarity and social care, unselfishly group is one of the concepts that make the Bugis-Makassar able to survive and respected when they leave their hometown,”pacce” is a compassionate nature, feeling the burden and suffering of others.

To sum up, we know that culture is able to solve the problem because it has a strong power to do that, if it really obeyed by its owner. Everything that our country has been facing; corruption, nepotism, and colution, etc by culture role, it will be reduced.

KAREN ARMSTRONG, A FREELANCE MONOTHEIST “GOD WITHOUT RELIGION” (Saddam Husain)

Before defining what “freelance monotheist” is, I would like to tell you a little about Karen Armstrong’s spiritual adventure. Well, Karen is a former nun in one of Rome catholic churches in England. In a very young age, 17 years old, Karen decided to be a nun in the church. In contrast to the mainstream at that time when Britons especially in Birmingham were extremely secular, they didn’t care about religion, became materialists and even put money as “god”, Karen sank her life into religious obedience in 14th September 1962. Seven years later, she surprisingly took a decision to stop her carrier as a nun and tried to be a common people. That was because of bad experience at church, stiff regulation, seniority, and some systems that were not constructive. Moreover, she didn’t find “God” in every liturgy for seven years. Next, she went to Oxford University and took English literature as her discipline. Unfortunately, being academician was not better than being nun; she failed in thesis assignment, fired from campus and got some diseases including epilepsy.

In short, Karen didn’t believe in god anymore, she thought that religion is a constitution that has been created by human, and the idea of god is only the result of neurosis so called neuro-theology, because she saw billion scientists in her environment that didn’t believe in god and how a billion people killed each other in the name of god. Obviously, she assumed that religions are ignorance and problem. But, her live changed when she decided to examine the same thing that exists in every single religion. She observed holy books and she came to the conclusion that every religion pray to one “God” and teach the good things. Karen finally wrote his work in a book titled “a history of god”. The work of “a history of God” was the starting point where she climbed out of the darkness and she returned to be a believer.

Now, Karen believes in God, she feels close to god more than she did in the past. But now she doesn’t declare herself as a Muslim, Christian, Jew or other terms for believer, she becomes a freelance monotheist. “Freelance Monotheist” means a person who believes in god without bounding on specific religion.

However, God for those who involve in one religion believed that the only one way to experience the spirituality is by dealing with religious liturgy. For example Muslims believe that the right path to go is Islam. Being Muslims automatically people follow what Allah regulates in holy Qur’an and avoid what Allah forbids to do. As a consequence, Muslim must pray to Allah through the way prophet Muhammad do and instructed in strong Hadist.

To be frank, I myself don’t have enough knowledge to criticize the idea of freelance monotheist because it deals with philosophical understanding, deep contemplation and complex research. Someone must take a long journey among religious diversity, think out of subjectivity, pray in a way other believer does in order to experience the ecstasy. But religion has been part of my life since I was born in the Islamic traditional environment, so religion cannot be separated from spirituality, because they come together and construct my understandings about God, human and universe.

In conclusion, claiming that Karen is right or wrong is not my authority but her work to make world better where people can live together and respect each other in what she call ”global community” by inviting people to build mutual understanding through the “golden rule” should be appreciated. 

Teacher, High Dedication Low Appreciation (Agus Putra Gowa)

Twelve years studying at school makes me know many things. I can write, read, count and speak. It’s because of dedication of a hero called Teacher. They are heroes in our nation. Because of their dedication, I, you, and all of us can enjoy this brighter life. Some of us become a trader, a doctor, a policeman, even a president. We realize it or not, teacher has given crucial contribution in our success. When we were in elementary school, teachers patiently taught us how to write and read. They educated and led us to be a better person. Thus, whatever you are, either farmer, doctor, minister or president, we will never get loose from the service of teacher.

Teacher has rendered a lot of service to this country, but appreciation given is not really satisfying. In fact, there still many teachers spend their spare time to find another job. Some teachers in remote areas become a farmer or tukang ojek to fulfill their daily needs and education for their children.

Looking at the fact above, the government should do improvement of the teacher’s prosperity. One of the ways to make teacher more prosperous is certification program. It is considered as the best solution to increase not only the quality but also the income of the teacher. Those who pass certification program will get double salary and automatically increase their income. However, this program just gives a negative impression. It is about the “integrity” of the teacher. Many people argue that teachers nowadays are not sincere anymore. In fact, many teachers more emphasized to arrange portfolio than prepare a good method for their students in the classroom. Yet, I think it is humane. Teacher is a human being. They need to eat, drink, and absolutely need money to fulfill their needs. On the other case, some teachers are being criminalized, reported to the police officers because of giving physical punishment to their students.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by the ally’s force, the government of Japan talked to his people. Neither shoulder nor minister he was asked, but He asked how many teachers remained. It indicates that the teacher has crucial contribution to develop a country.

In conclusion, teacher is a teacher. They are Hero in my life. We cannot do anything without them. Teacher is a normal human being. They need money to fulfill their needs. They need to eat, drink, to buy clothes, and so on. Thus, respect your teacher.

Dedication (n): Pengabdian
Patiently (adv): Dengan sabar
Prosperity (n): Kesejahteraan
AIly(n): Sekutu

The Women (Hasrul)

Every single religion and culture has an owned different premise about woman.  Even less, the history had told that before holy Quran was relegated, there were lots kind of big civilizations such us Greek, Romani, India, and china. And the world also knew some religions such us Jew, Christian, Buddha, and Zoroaster.

In Greek, the woman had got an intimidation from the ruling government; they could do whatever they would like to do. Such us, the women was put into the prison without any problem, the women could be sold by their husband, the sex relation at public place was fairly, the localization had become a central of politic and art. It is proven that the number of naked sculpture of women in Greek was increasing well.

The civilization of Romani, the parents of woman had proprietary right to sell their daughter. After marrying the proprietary right moved to the husband. In this situation the husband had authority to sell, to hit, to chase away, to kill, and to ill treat. These circumstances were occurring up to 6^th century of Masehi.

In my point view the story of Hindu and china were the worst story. Why? Because of the age of wife was determined by the age of husband. It means if the husband pass away of course the wife as well. The wife should be burnt while her husband was burnt too. It terminated in 17^th century of Masehi. At the time the women also became a ritual offering to which was named as the God. The ancient history says that the poison, the snake, and the fire are less evil than the women. Meanwhile the ancient of China says that you are able to listen to what the women say but do not trust what they are talking about.

In teaching of Jew, the status of women was like a servant. The father had a right to sell his daughter if she had no brother. In their thought of teaching that the women as a source of curse because the woman engendered Adam evicted from the heaven.      

On the hand, the Christian’s view the woman was devil’s tool in misleading human being. The 5^th century Masehi had been held a church council which was talking about whether the women had the soul or not, finally the women had no holy soul. It continued in the 6^th century Masehi was held the same activity which was talking about whether the women were human being or not. The conclusion was the women were created by the god only for being the servant of the man.   

To sum up, the living condition of women from the 5^th century up to the middle century were really concerning. The man did not think that if they were born by the women. And of course, behind the great man there is a great woman. Save the women from exploitation.  

Religion, Problem or Solution? (Saddam Husain)

Source: Charles Kimball, when religion becomes evil.

            Looking back to long history 4000 BC when people defined something as God, which was the time where people created religion and sacrificed many things to satisfy the God.  People’s perceptions about god evolve time and time and it causes many conflicts in the world. In this case, religion becomes a problem that frightens people to live together. But history has also proved that religion is a solution of human’s problems.

            In postmodern era, there are some experts of atheism who claim religion as a problem and criticize religion in their books, such as Richard Dawkins (the god delusion, 2006), Sam Harris (the end of faith, 2004 ), and Christopher Hitchens ( god is not great, 2007). They claim that material is the only reality that exists in the world, there is no abstract things like soul, spirit, love, and even god that believed as a creator of universe. Moreover, religion promises peacefulness but the fact is nonsense. Human tragedies which are done in the name of God have slammed human rights. For example sectarian conflict in middle east, holy war, and  11^th September 2001 tragedy that killed many innocent people in U.S. and other tragedies caused by religion.

                 But some experts like Huston smith the author of “The World’s religions” and Kenneth miller dispute those claims. They argue what atheists claims are the weakness of science. They think that the main crisis we face in 21^st century is the crisis of spirituality. Science that atheist offer as the way for better world precisely is not solution because we may see holocaust as the real example and some other anti – Semitism movements which kill many people such as in soviets and china. Otherwise, religion opens a way out to regulate the world through its teaching about love and compassion.

            Essentially, religion with its holiness is undisputed  truth but human make it complicated by mixing it with their own interests. Thus religion appears like a problem that causes many conflicts and disaster for people. 

Recognition of a Christian Philosopher to Islam (Hasrul)

Normally when we say we are Muslim, mostly because we are living in Islamic environment or in other words, we live in Muslim majority country. Beside, we can’t also deny that most of us are Muslims through inheritance from our parents who were Muslims as well. This paper is talking about the people who were Christians but admitting there is a religion superior to Christianity-

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After reading Murthada Muthahari’s book “Islam and Pluralism”. I am interested in a particular chapter of his book. That chapter describes about recognition of a Christian philosopher to Islam. He is Descartes. Descartes is one of the greatest philosopher in entire world who was farnous with his thesis “I think, therefore I exist”. In his biography, it was written about his philosophy of doubt, he doubted all that he knew and began from zero.

In that book, after proving his own existence he proved the spirit, and God became definite for him. Finally he chose Christian as his religion because it was the official religion in his country. Even though he was a Christian, he did not acknowledge Christianity as the best religion at the time. He also said “I do not say that Christianity is definitely the best religion in the entire world; perhaps there is a religion in other parts of the world that is superior to Christianity”. Incidentally, he mentions Iran as an. However, most Iranian is Muslim. So I conclude that it was his implicit remark of Islam.

To sum up, the writer is challenging the readers who are Muslim to acknowledge Islam as the truest or the best religion ever existed. We should also be jealous to people who are not Muslim but behave more like Muslim than Muslim ourselves.

SEPARATISM MOVEMENT IN INDONESTA (Saddam Husain)

Separatism movement is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy. That is the definition that quoted by Wikipedia. Especially in Indonesia there is some separatism groups such as OPM (Liberation of West Papua), GAM (Liberation of Aceh), and RSM (South Maluku Republic) that still struggle to segregate their districts from NKRI (The Unitary State of Indonesia).

It has been said that Papua, Maluku and Aceh have been colonized by Indonesia since Netherland left. They are very rich districts but unfortunately, Indonesia as the large country can’t manage the districts fairly. In Papua for example it is very Rich Island with its natural resources, beautiful panorama, and unique cultures but they are still static as if they stay in primitive era. Some of Papuan thinkers stated that government focus for Jakarta and java only, government seems treat Papua like a stepchild because the development doesn’t appear at Papua at all. GAM itself wanted to segregate because of ideological problem, moral value and also the historical survive. In 24th May 1977 GAM had been established by Hassan Asleh, Jamil Amin, Zainal Abidin, Hassan tiro and the others. They were dissatisfied with the government that never let them to regulate “Syariat Islam”. RMS wasn’t better than others because they wanted to be independent but never come true.

Indonesia never let the separatists be independent because of many reasons. In the very first time when the revolution happened and the liberty was proclaimed “Indonesia is from Sabang until Merauke” were justified for all of the nationalists, revolutionists and international world whether “dejure and defacto”. So Government committed to defend the Unitary State of Indonesia not only in territory but also in ideology, namely “Pancasila”. It’s quite clear that Indonesia has the right to fight against every separatism movement in the nationality.

As parts of Indonesia republic, separatism problem should be solved by the government as fast and good as possible. Because it is very danger, there are many victims such as anuies and society who were died because of some killings and tragedies. Government should understand what they want and then threat them properly as long as it doesn’t damage Indonesia. So far Government has taken the military and diplomatic way to solve it but the result is far from the 1nissio OPM, GAM, RMS still exist so maybe the solving problem doesn’t touch the root grass of it.

GUSDUR AND PLURALISM (Saddam Husain)

One of the most famous figures in Indonesia is Abdul Rahrnan Wahid (well-known as Gusdur), he was called as father of pluralism. When we listen to his name, of course there will be controversial argument, it’s because Gusdur’s thinking, idea, concept, and statement. Moreover, our understanding about his thinking influences our point of view about him.
The different view of this 4th president of Indonesia happened not only when he was still alive but also after passed away (posthumous). As the father of pluralism, the biological and ideological son of K.H. A. Wahid Hasyim, it influences many aspects of life in Indonesia. For example, when he equated Confucius with other religion and his protection for ” eks— tapol” civilian (former communist) that assumed as a second citizen in Indonesia. In this short essay, let’s see Gusdur in a holistic view, not for his disability just like many people stigmatize .his existence as disabled one.
In term of pluralism, Gusdur had his own concept about it. That was quite different with MUI and other people. It was more identical with humanism rather than religious perspective. Firmly, he emphasizes the only religion that in the right path is Islam. That’s understandable through three verses that he always used namely Al-baqarah: 256 “there is no compulsion in religion “, Al-imran: 19 “truly, the religion with Allah is Islam”, and Al-Kafirun:6 “to you be your religion and to me my religion (Islamic Monotheism).
In spite of those, in social context this Islam scholar spent his life with harmonious relationship with different ethnic, religion, race, and cultural society. He taught us that religion and humanity are inseparable things in life. They must be balanced out instead of dominating each other. When the religion dominates, it will humiliate humanity like many wars that happened in the name of god. On the other hand, the worst thing will happen when humanity dominates the religion as well.
In conclusion, viewing Abdul Rahman Wahid holistically and systematically will be better than stigmatizing him because of our misunderstanding about his teaching and his controversial statements. As a human kind, he must have mistakes but it doesn’t mean that all of his teachings are wrong. Furthermore, it’s very forbidden to prejudge someone else without knowing the real facts.

HOLOCAUST (Vee)

According to Wikipedia, “Holocaust was the mass murder or massacre of approximately six million Jews during World War II, a programmed of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, throughout German-occupied territory”. To put it simple, Holocaust was the genocide of Jews led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, who at the time believed that Germans were racially superior in contrast to Jews who were claimed to be racially inferior, thus need to be swept clean.
The massacre and genocide were carried out in stages; creating laws to remove the Jews from society including prohibiting Jews to own a company, form a community, go into the cinema and shop, etc; concentration camps were built in which Jews were forced to slave labor until they died of exhaustion, starvation, malnutrition, or disease; and extermination camps were built for a sole purpose of mass-killing. The Jews were put into overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to concentration camps or extermination camps. At the concentration camps, they were numbered by placing a hot-iron into their arms, stripped from their personal belongings, forced to work and eventually died of exhaustion. At extermination camps, some of them were subjected to "medical" experiments such as testing drugs on them, freezing them, attempting to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, and various amputations, while most of them were killed by being submitted into the gas-chamber where they will be poisoned to death.
On the contrary, holocaust denier (so-called “revisionist”) stated that holocaust was a myth spread by Jews to justify their regime on Palestine and to legitimate the State of Israel. They argue that the death toll of 6 millions of Jews was an exaggeration, that the gas chambers never existed, that the German Nazi never intended on purposefully kills Jews people, that the “Diary of Anne Frank” was forged and that Adolf Hitler was a best friend to Jews and worked hard to protect them instead. All of these claims proved to be misleading and fraud as the evidence of Holocaust was eligible and undeniable (such as records, survivor’s witnesses, documents, and testimonies from Nazi’s high-rank officials on trial). Holocaust denier even stated that the reason why millions of Jews found disappeared (which believed to be victims of Holocaust) after World War II were because they got somehow separated from their families but did not re-established contact with their families because they were in a bad marriages.
Personally, I think denying Holocaust means disrespecting the truth and assaulting the history itself, distorting history record on millions of victims will damage our ability to understand how to respect other people and their individual rights.