Interpreting Tajdid

Lately, the drive for tajdid (reform movement) in Indonesia arises following the “Islamic phobia” which has blown all over the place. The echo of tajdid reverberates after 9/11 incident, terrorism, discrimination toward minorities like Ahmaddiyah, the growing demand of enforcing Islamic law, anarchic reaction upon some problems such as Prophet Muhammad’s cartoon and the issue of pornography in Indonesia. 

Tajdid generally means reformation, enlightenment and renaissance. However, one question remains: to which direction will this reform lead theoretically (nazhariyah), practically (amaliyah) and morally (sulukiyah)? What kind of Islam should it be: liberal, moderate, or fundamentalist one? Will it be conservative or progressive Islam? The paradox of interpreting and implementing tajdid becomes an interesting debate now.

For the conservative-fundamentalist Muslims, the Islamic reform will be achieved by brainwashing the Muslims off secularism, pluralism and liberalism. They perceived that it is the only way to return to the right path of God. Therefore, purification of the Islamic teachings in accordance to the texts of Quran and hadith, and rejection of the non-Islamic tradition are required. Peter L. Berger captured this phenomenon as “the sacralization of faith”.

Of course, that is not the tajdid we want. We will not attain the philosophical content of tajdid, which is to honor Islam, as long as we use the extreme and radical way of understanding Islam. What we need is a new interpretation of tajdid as a step and movement toward “enlightenment” by maximum attempt to build the bridge of “dialog”.

The term “enlightenment” contains Muslims’ reorientation from Theo-centrism toward rational-anthropocentrism. This manifesto has been proposed by some intellectuals such as Hassan Hanafi in al-Yasâr al-Islâmî (The Islamic Left), Muhammad Arkoun in Naqdul Aqlil Islâmî (Criticique of Islamic Reason), Abid al-Jabiri in Naqdul `Aqlil `Arabî (Critique of Arabic Reason), and Nasr Hamd Abu Zayd in Naqdul Khithâbid Dînî (Critique of Religious Discourse).

To those muslim scholars, Islam is not only purposed as “divine religion” (al-din al-samawî), but also as religion of earth (al-din al-‘aradhî) which have to respond and solve the humanitarian problems. Through this enlightenment, muslims will release themselves from the shackle of ritual symbols and legal rules and understand Islam through its moral value.

In the western history, renaissance refers to the 17th-18th century when the “truth seekers” were deeply involved in science, ethic and esthetic based on rationality. Immanuel Kant (What Is Enlightenment, 1990), an important figure in the renaissance, defined enlightenment as man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s reason without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. In the prior time, man’s reason and activity were always “driven” by the external authority; which is either church or state.

Therefore, “enlightenment” is the key to liberate human reason from the external authority namely religious institution, authority, and authoritative sacred text. This should not be the opposite, like stuffing Muslims with religious symbols and forgetting the religious substance. Muslims have to realize the importance of a plural, humanist and progressive understanding about Islam. 

Through this “enlightenment”, Muslims will put aside the extremist’s truth claim and the misleading exclusive reasoning, because many of them were trapped in the past romanticism and doubt in facing innovations which break out the thinking stagnancy.

On the other hand, tajdid would not happen without dialog, as the construction of a dialogist Islam-West relation. West is the key holder of today’s civilization, and therefore it should be taken as a good dialog partner for achieving the Islamic development, particularly in the field of science and technology. 

Although recently we feel uncomfortable with the bad relation between Islam and West, particularly in regard terrorism and publication of prophet’s cartoon in western media, there have to be an attempt to minimize the effect of clash of civilization as presumed by Samuel P. Huntington. Muslims have to learn from the process of western’s learning from Islam while the medieval age trapped them in myth and ignorance.

Adelard of Bath, who translated the Arabic sources into Latin in the medieval age (Abid al-Jabiri: 2003), admitted the superiority of Islamic rationalism and European (western) backwardness in that time: “Trained by Arab scientists ... I was taught by my Arab masters to be led only by reason, whereas you were taught to follow the halter of the captured image of ancient authority.”

For this reason, there is no harm for Muslims to orient themselves toward the west as long as it is based on a good filter. They must build dialog instead of dreaming and romanticizing on the history of Islamic victory and glory without doing anything. That is because Islamic glory in the past was the result of interaction with the rational Greek civilization that delivers prominent intellectuals such as Ibn Rusyd (Averroes) who influenced the west in the beginning of renaissance.

In his book “Der Islam als Alternative” (Islam as alternative), Dr. Murad Wilfred Hoffman, a muslim convert, believes that Islam is the most possible alternative for the rotten western civilization. However, looking to the factual condition of Muslims particularly in muslim majority countries, Hoffman is pessimistic about the Islamic development. In the introduction of Trend Islam 2000, Hoffman wrote: “if I conveyed anything about Islam, it is none other than a bitter fact about Islam.” He afterward observes that it is likely that an Islamic reform will take place in non-Muslim countries.

Therefore, all muslims must strive for a tajdid from today, be mature, and release themselves from religious symbols and religious anarchism!