fahmina institute Cirebon

KH. Husein Muhammad, the main speaker in the Mujalasah al-Ulama gathering explained: “the history of Islam from after the time of the Prophet Muhammad until the present day has continued to be tainted by tensions and violence across community groups. Some of these are either justified by religious texts, the word of God or other sources which are regarded as “true” or even "sacred". The bloody incident which later became known as al-Fitnah al-Kubro marks the beginning of the tension amongst Muslims. This incident then led to division amongst Muslims, creating a number of sects or groups which continues remain until the present day. Each group claims that they are the true believers of Islam and base their claim on verses of Al-Qur'an".  

The vicious face of Islam, as previously described, is in fact, "the result of a vastly literal (harfiah) and exoteric interpretation," added KH.Husein Muhammad. In his opinion, literal interpretation is the most dominant form of interpretation across Muslim communities worldwide. A great proportion of Islamic epistemology was and is formulated and designed based on this type of interpretation. As a result, any shift from this notion would no doubt face extreme social resistance. KH. Husein Muhammad gave an example of a number of Muslim scholars from classic Islamic history who were subjected to violence, detention and isolation because they had interpreted texts outside of the literal norm. Al-Ghazali, Ibn Rusyd, al-Hallaj and Ibn 'Arabi were amongst these Muslim classical scholars.  Ali Abd al-Raziq, Toha Mahmud, Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid and others like them, he said, are their counterparts in today's era. “Their understanding of texts was through substantive, in-depth, thoughtful, esoteric, metaphoric, humanistic and contextual interpretation,” said KH. Husein Muhammad.

Therefore, he said, "We need to reveal Islam’s friendly, gracious, peaceful, and democratic face. Islam teaches solidarity, peace, unity, love, affection and tolerance". This was the summary highlighted by both speakers at the gathering. Islam is 'rahmatan lil 'alamin' (a blessing for the whole universe) and it is the duty of all Muslims to make it a reality. One of the participants of the Mujalasah al-Ulama, Hj. Acih summarised this issue saying, "what we know is that, historically speaking, religions have always had a positive role in promoting humanity and brotherhood, however, the problem is that the followers themselves do not fully obey their religions”.  By the end, all of the participants seemed to be pleased by the concise and clear explanation of both speakers in the Mujalasah al-Ulama gathering. [MZ]

 

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