Abstract
Islamic education has become an integral part of the secular education system in West Sumatra in the post-Suharto era. Although it has traditionally been managed by the local office of the Ministry of Religion, regional governments now also have a role to play in providing Islamic education and determining the form it takes in a particular province. They also help shape community expectations about the level of religious knowledge individuals should possess. This chapter examines the interaction of local, national and transnational Islamic influences in Islamic education in West Sumatra historically and since decentralisation, with a particular focus on local government intervention in debates around Qur’anic literacy and Pesantren Ramadan, a compulsory religious activity for public school children during the fasting month. The chapter argues that, in discursive terms, the regional government has sought to identify Islamic education with regional culture (which must be maintained), while also using it as a policy tool in response to community demands for moral renewal in the face of rapid social change.
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Notes
- 1.
The Islamic jurisprudence introduced by the Shafi’i School is designed to respond to day-to-day Islamic issues by looking to the Qur’an and the Prophet’s messages for answers to contemporary dilemmas faced by Muslims. If no direct reference to contemporary issues can be found, analogies are drawn from other issues found in the Qur’an and the Prophet’s messages. If there is no analogy to be drawn, Muslim judges turn to the decisions made by previous Muslim judges, customs, and historical precedents for inspiration.
- 2.
See Laffan (2004) for a detailed discussion of the importance of Cairo, as a centre of thought and learning, for Indonesians wishing to study Islam.
- 3.
Most early formal educational institutions were created by the relocation of informal Islamic educations from mosques and surrounding buildings. Today’s Islamic educational institutions build mosques as part of their educational facilities.
- 4.
There is little information available on the role of Iran in Southeast Asian educational institutions, perhaps because, although Shi’a communities do exist in Southeast Asia, the majority of Southeast Asian Muslims are Sunni.
- 5.
Shi’ism continues to be denounced in books distributed at mosques (Prokop 2003: 81).
- 6.
Since the Islamist Justice and Development Party came to power in Turkey in 2002, Islamic education has been combined with secular Western influences, resulting in a syllabus that devotes 40Â % of class time to Islamic subjects such as Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence and rhetoric and 60Â % to secular subjects (Pak 2004: 327).
- 7.
According to Pigeaud (1967: 76), this form of Islamic educational institution has its roots in pre-Islamic educational institutions including the Hindu mandala and ashrama. Similarly, Fokkens (1886, cited in van Bruinessen 1994) argues that they were influenced by the ‘education villages’ (desa perdikan) and taxation-free status accorded to teachers in pre-Islamic Java.
- 8.
In another example of accommodation, the Dutch introduced public holidays for Islamic festivals in general schools in 1925 (Ali 2007: 62).
- 9.
Private Islamic schools for teachers and judges were also established in the 1950s in Sulawesi and in Kalimantan (Yunus 1979).
- 10.
In 1960, the academy became a faculty of the Islamic Institute of Yogyakarta before becoming the Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic institute of Jakarta in 1963. It has been known the State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta since 2002.
- 11.
Five IAIN became State Islamic universities (Universitas Islam Negeri, UIN) in the 2000s. These public tertiary Islamic educational institutions, which were supervised by the Ministry of Religion, were of three types: State Islamic Universities (Universitas Islam Negeri, UIN); State Institutes for Islamic Studies (Institut Agama Islam Negeri, IAIN) and State Islamic Colleges (Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri, STAIN). The difference between these three types of institution is that while STAIN has disciplines such as Islamic Principles (Ushuluddin), Islamic Law (Sharia) and Education (Tarbiyah), these disciplines constitute separate faculties in an IAIN. IAIN and UIN differ because UIN also has faculties in general subjects such as pharmacy, information technology and psychology.
- 12.
Since the advent of the Internet, Muslims have been able to search online for scholarships offered by universities in Islamic countries. Global Islamic organisations, such as the Islamic Development Bank, also advertise scholarships for Muslims on their websites. Moreover, the Internet provides information about education in various Islamic countries. Islamic universities now have official websites that make educational information available worldwide, while global Islamic organisations such as ISESCO circulate information on Islamic education through the new media.
- 13.
Law No. 20/2003 also recognises informal Islamic education as having an equal status with other types of informal education in the national educational system, such as playgroups. An important example of the government’s efforts to control informal Islamic education is that of Ahmadiyah. Although the Indonesian Ministry of Justice acknowledged Ahmadiyah in 1953s, the organisation has become controversial since global Islamic organisations such as the OIC and the Muslim World League (Rabitah Alam Islam) declared that it was not a recognised Islamic organisation. Pressure from the international level led organisations such as the Indonesian Council of Ulamas to declare that Ahmadiyah was blasphemous on several occasions in the 1970s, 1980s and 2000s and to push the Indonesian government to consider it as a new religion (Nasution 2009).
- 14.
The founder of the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia, Maulana Rahmat Ali, was invited to West Sumatra by graduates of the Sumatra Tawalib schools who had attended an Ahmadiyah school in India in 1920s (Ahmadiyah Indonesia 2008). Subsequently, Padang became the centre of Ahmadiyah in Indonesia before it moved to Java in the 1930s. Evidence of the sect’s presence includes a mosque and a madrasa in the centre of Padang.
- 15.
This is not to say that Muhammadiyah had always had good relationships with the colonial government. In 1930, its Tabligh (Islamic mass preaching) activities were banned after an anti-government speech was given at its Congress (Abdullah 1971: 95).
- 16.
Unlike other local Islamic schools, the first Muhammadiyah school was supported financially by West Sumatrans living outside West Sumatra (perantau).
- 17.
The enrolments in the government school rose again in the following year (Abdullah 1971: 77). With the increased demand for formal education, ultimately both schools remained viable.
- 18.
- 19.
This initiative reveals the Mayor’s personal interpretation of Islam. Influenced by tarekat Islam, he believed that singing the Islamic names would be a positive influence on individual students’ daily lives.
- 20.
Although the implementation of policies on Islamic education in West Sumatra has seen an increase in the number of hours assigned to Islamic subjects, the change is insignificant when compared to the increased number of Islamic subjects in public schools in other parts of the Islamic world (Rivard and Amadio 2003: 214–215).
- 21.
See their website: www.djpp.depkumham.go.id.
- 22.
The meaning of surau has been transformed from a literal reference to a traditional prayer house to a reference to schools and modern dormitory houses.
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Salim, D.P. (2015). Islamic Education. In: The Transnational and the Local in the Politics of Islam. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15413-8_5
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