ABDURRAHMAN WAHID ON ISLAM,
DEMOCRACY, AND THE REPUBLIC OF
INDONESIA
A. INTRODUCTION
B. DISCUSSION
Abdurrahman Wahid on the
Relationship between Islam and
State
1. There is no concept of an Islamic
State
2. Abdurrahman Wahid, the Fiqh
Paradigm, and the Nation State
3. Abdurrahman Wahid’s Ideas on
the Mutual
POLITICAL APPROACH TO THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN ISLAM AND THE REPUBLIC OF
INDONESIA
ISLAM --
DEMOCRACY
--
STATE
(QUASI-NORM)
ISLAM --
MUTUAL LEGITIMACY
--STATE
!
CIVIL SOCIETY
A. There is no concept of an Islamic
State
1. The basic concept of societal system in Islam is a law (al-hukmu), not a state (al-daulatu): not on the form of state but on its arrangement
2. Qur’an does not mention the term daulah Islamiyah. Daulah with the meaning ‘rotate’ or ‘circulate’.
refers to sociological context of a good state
3. Muhammad PBHU did not formulate a successive mechanism
4. Muhammad’s actions were not of a political characters, but moral. Wa ma arsalnaka illa rahmatan lil ‘alamin
Caliphate is not a religious system but a worldly system. Ali bin Abi Thalib acted as the advisors of the first three
5. God does not ordain explicitly political system of the
state:
3:159:
wa syaawirhum fil amr
;
wa amruhum syuura
bainahum
Muhammad was not to build a state but to spread
humanity
amongst people.
6. Community is t most essential for implementing
Islamic law.
Muhammad did not order the Muslim minority in
Ethiopia to
establish an Islamic state.
A. INTRODUCTION
1. Marginal Role of Islam in the Republic of Ind
: mismatch between Islam n Modern
Political System
2. Secular paradigm dominated Ind political
system
3. The Failure of Secular Paradigm in Muslim
countries; Indonesia
: Lack of political participation
WAHID’S EFFORTS TO RESOLVE THE
PROBLEMS
1. Substantial Islamic Values
democracy
not legal formal Shari’a
2. His thought of democracy is to challenge the
Western concept of democracy
…….is to relate democracy to Islamic tradition
3. His thought of Islamic democracy is to
encourage Muslims participating in modern
political system
Wahid develops Fiqh-plus paradigm: not only
recognizing Islam n the State as different entities,
but proposing democracy as quasi-norm which
should be agreed by both Muslims and the ruler.
Fiqh paradigm works through negotiating Islam as
the ‘norm’ and the social systems, including state
political system.
Fiqh paradigm advocates a mutual legitimacy
Wahid challenges:
1.Bureaucratization of culture by Soeharto
A. Wahid, the Fiqh-plus Paradigm, n the
Nation State
Backgrounds:
1.NU party was not an Islamist party, but Soeharto
tried to marginalize it.
2. Wahid was worried about the cooperation
between
the regime and the modernist Muslims b it was
a kind of ‘a marriage of convenience’
Accordingly,
What did Wahid do?
1. He followed the Sunni tradition of NU which developed the Fiqh paradigm as a tool for providing legitimacy to the RI Islam should accommodate the culture in which Islam develops its missionary targets.
2. He developed the Fiqh paradigm into the Fiqh-plus paradigm
and offered democracy as a ‘quasi-norm’.
He did not want to establish Islamic state in Indonesia b: a. some Sultans ruled autocratically
4. Islamic state is a phenomenon of 19th C when Muslims
encountered with some modern ideologies.
5. The failure of Reformism by the Islamists b it did not tolerate
the plurality of Shari’a.
6. He opposed the idea of bureaucratization of Islam.
7. He aspired to the idea of religious communities playing the role of civil society.
8. Muslims practices Islam in community under the guidance of
clerics.
C. Wahid’s Ideas on the Mutual
Legitimacy
1.Secularists failed to modernize the countries b they
neglected Islam as the source of values; beside ruling
undemocratically.
2.Fiqh paradigm recognizes Islam n state as different
entities, but both should develop mutual legitimacies.
3.Fiqh paradigm justifies the existence of a state as a
tool for implementing public order
4.He offers democracy as a quasi-norm
5.Islamic state does not guarantee the state run
democratically
7. al-Mawardi developed the idea of the caliph’s rights and obligations.
8. al-Ghazali proposed the idea of the ‘basic needs model’ 9. Wahid evaluated them as not questioning the principle of governing mentioned in the Q, namely syuro.
10. His idea of mutual legitimacy was to respond to the Soeharto
autocratic regime which clearly broke the Constitution.
11. Soeharto manipulated the interpretation of Constitution in the guise of protecting the national ideology of Pancasila. 12. Regimes tried to control the bureaucracy and
governmental institutions.
