Malang, 9 December 2017
Yesterday was Friday, where Muslims were having Friday prayer. My friend asked me whether I wanted to go to mosque for the prayer. I said no since it may come up with sadness and disappointment for listening to hateful Friday lecture (khutba). He said it won't be since Muslims in here are Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). NU is known as an Islamic organisation that its people are tolerant and moderate in their religious view.
Then I remembered about my father in my childhood. My father was so strict in practicing Islam. He never missed not only mandatory prayers but also all sunnah prayers. My father always said to us that there is no "Selamatan" (salvation) for the deceased in Islam. he also said there is no birthday celebration in Islam. He rejected all the things in local tradition that have never been taught by Islam.
In the school, my friends always compared people whether they are "NU" or Muhammadiyah. When I asked this to my father, he said there is no NU or Muhammadiyah in Islam. He said Islam is only one, which is Islam brought by Muhammad. In my childhood, I lived in two different Islam perspectives: Islam that my father who rejected impurities in practicing Islam vs Islam that NU (and most of my friends at school) practiced.
Now I can see the dispute between two are getting tensious. The people who cannot accept the assimilation of culture and religion tend to harshly judge the other group. They sometimes provoke large mass of people and cause chaotic situation for having clash with local traditions and with progressive ideas. They think traditions and modernisation are threatening their religion's genuineness.
To me personally, If they are too rigid with their understanding in practicing their religion, they will actually be stuck forever to live in 7th century. The world is changing fast. They are too literally in interpreting the holy book, they are too textual than contextual. What I see they have become God to other people. They think they are the rightest ones.
As the result, those people are getting rejected in may places in Indonesia. The case of Tengku Zulkarnaen in Sintang, Jonru in Flores, Felix in Malang, and recently Somad in Bali have shown that actually people in Indonesia don't like those people. What goes around comes back around. Their speeches are judgmental, hateful, and verbally attacking other group of people, now they taste their own pill.
