Ulumuna

205-228

Authors: Aksin Wijaya

The Holy Qur’an, theoretically, is God’s holy book which is for human being. But, Qur’anic exegesis domination, which extends for centuries, gets the exegesis to be covered by theological concepts. The Holy Qur’an forgets about its dimension of humanity, and just focuses on its theological dimension. Exegesis discourse revolves around moslem communities so far tells much more about God than about human being; it cares much more of God the Almighty than of human being, the weak. It, therefore, needs theoretical interpretation that is able to explore humanity dimension of Qur’an without forgetting about its God dimension, in order that holy Qur’an as a main source of Islam could care of human being. It is a holy book from Allah to Human being.

249-264

Authors: Mhd. Syahnan

مستخلص: ومن أخطر المناقشات التي يتحدث بها خلال القرن الثالث من الهجري هي البحث عن معجزات القرآن الكريم استجابة عن استمرار الرد من الوحي التي تلقاها النبي ص.م. منذ ذلك القرن قامت الدراسات المختلفة على جوانب الإعجاز القرآن. هذه الرسالة تناقش على الرأيين الإمامين الكبيرين الزمخشاري وسيد قطب حتى انكشفت أبواب التشابه والاختلاف بين الرئيين عن الإعجاز. لقد وجد الكاتب في البحث هذه الرسالة على أن مزايا الزمخشاري في نهج القرآن من قبل فهم اللغة والبلاغة التي تدل على مميزة النص القرآن لا مثيل لها. وعلى العكس، شدد سيد قطب في إعداد الخصائص الرئيسية المهمة من قبل العلماء والفقهاء مسلم لأن هدفهم الرئيسى ليس لاثبات صحة الإعجاز. ومع ذلك، النهج في القرآن عندهم يدل على أنهم مؤهل في هذا المجال بأسلوبهم الجديدة في فهم القرآن الكريم. Abstrak: Salah satu perdebatan paling serius tentang al-Qur’an adalah mengenai kemukjizatannya yang muncul pada abad ketiga Hijriah sebagai respons terhadap penyangkalan berkelanjutan terhadap wahyu yang diterima oleh Nabi Muhammad saw. Sejak itu berbagai studi dilakukan tentang aspek i’jâz. Tulisan ini mendiskusikan pendapat al-Zamakhsyârî dan Sayyid Quthb, sehingga akan terungkap sejauhmana persamaan dan perbedaan pendapat mereka terhadap i’jâz. Penulis menemukan bahwa keunggulan pendekatan al-Zamakhsyârî terdapat pada aspek pemahaman bahasa dan retorika yang menunjukkan keistimewaan teks al-Qur’an yang tiada tara. Sebaliknya, Sayyid Quthb secara eksklusif menekankan pada elaborasi karakteristik penting al-Qur’an yang terabaikan oleh ilmuwan dan ahli hukum Muslim, sehingga tujuan utamanya bukan untuk pembuktian validitas i’jâz. Pendekatan mereka terhadap al-Qur’an membuktikan metode baru dengan kualifikasi masing-masing.

291-312

Authors: Usman

Isrâ’îliyyât, mostly, known as non-muslim based narration, particularly Jewish, which is later inserted into Islamic tradition and thoughts. Some mufassirs utilize this narration as a method of interpeting Qur’an and it unavoidably arises controversy between the classic muslim scholars and the modern one. However, the dispute between both groups should be carefully discussed and wisely selected. In doing so, their debate could contribute some positive and negative points for Islam and muslim developments.

335-352

Authors: Nyayu Khodijah

Analysis of Al-Qur’an on all facts on violence is related to the Qur’anic concept on human being, the concept of “Fitrah” and “behaviour”. Based on the interpretation of the Qur'an, the violence is not stated as a basic human nature as expressed by psychoanalysis, because all humans are born with the condition of “fitrah”. But during its developments, the fitrah is much influenced by the environment so that people do the violence. The factors are as follows: family, film, television including angriness—all make people aggressive and tend to do the violence—are claimed by Islam as something unaccepted. To avoid the harsh, people are asked to control their character and to do their religious obligation; such as praying and fasting.

375-390

Authors: Emawati

The second source of Islamic law is the sunnah or hadîts. This is not something new and disputed again by all Muslims, but the issue is whether the two terms have the same sense? Western as well as Islamic scholars question the definition of both terms and its use because it has implications for the nature of authority and authenticity of both as a foundation in Islamic tradition. It will be revealed in this paper in historical perspective the development of definition and use of the terms, hadîts and sunnah, since the early generation, time of the Prophet Muhammad, until now. A variety of referral sources originating from Western and Islamic scholars are traced and studied in order to find the meeting point of difference of views developed on these two terms.

1-28

Authors: Syukri

All verses Quran are opened to be interpreted in various science contexts, including education. This article focuses on study at reconstructing the instructional concept of Quran. Results of this study indicate that instructional concepts own sturdy bases in al-Qur’an. A lot of verses of Quran give indication of people to learn more about thinking than memorizing. The past occurrence mirrors the instructional dynamics of human learning. The instructors are not only Allah, but also people, bird, and nature. Al-Qur’an always learns human being based on concrete media support even if the items are eschatology and theology. The instructional conception of Quran must not only use term ‘allama-yu‘allimu, but also yuwâri, yatafakkaru containing instructional elements. This reality shows that instructional concepts of Quran put more nuances of concrete-media than abstract-verbal ones.

53-72

Authors: Ali Mudlofir

Teachers are one of the important factors in the success of education including Islamic Education. Hence, teachers are considered as respected profession-bearing consequences of standardized characters and ethics as part of teaching competence. Teachers are not only considered as instructors but also spiritual facilitators leading to the students to be insân kâmil, integrated human being. Considering such an important role, it is not wondering that studies on profession and teaching ethics have been profoundly found. This article studies those aspects from the perspective of Abû Ishâq al-Kannânî reconstructed from his work, Tadzkirat al-Sâmi‘ wa al-Mutakallim fî Adabi al-‘Âlim wa al-Muta‘alim. The writer relates al- Kannânî’s thoughts to Indonesian contexts.

227-248

Authors: A. Khudori Soleh

Irfani, which has been developed and used in Sufism, is one of Islamic epistemologies well known in Islamic tradition in addition to bayani and burhani. Unlike bayani, which is based on scripture, and burhani, which is built on reason and logic, irfani builds on gnosis as its method of acquiring knowledge. The knowledge is transmitted directly from God and implanted in one’s heart without intermediary of logic and analysis. Such transmission occurs only through spiritual paces (maqâmât) and inner experience (hal). The irfani knowledge is classified into two categories: the unsaid and the said knowledge. The unsaid knowlege can only be exclusively understood by the person gaining it as extraordinary spiritual experience. Meanwhile, the said knowledge can be acquired through two ways: qiyas irfani and shattah. Unlike qiyas bayani that puts scripture as the origin and empirical experience as the branch, qiyas irfani places scripure as the branch of empirical spiritual experience

271-298

Authors: Mutawalli

In any discourse of religion, the existence of God is central because God is the ultimate Being, from whom all creatures come to exist. However, religious perceptions of God have never been unified. In Islam, especially Sufis believe that God is present in all creatures because they are regarded to be the manifestation of God. This stance leads to a divinely-dominated view. This Sufi perception deviates from the maintream thought of Muslim who reject such a view since it reflects pantheism. As the view is common in Sufism, Ibn Arabi, one of the greates Sufi, holds the similar view and introduces a new concept of wahdat al-wujûd. This essay examines the conceptual framework of Ibn Arabi’s Sufi theology and reveals his epistemology. It begins by tracing Ibn Arabi’s socio-intellectual background. It then proceeds to explain his method and view of the union of existence and the concept of God.

323-240

Authors: Hamidah

Sufism is an esoteric dimension of Islam, which differs from the outer aspect of Islam known as shari’a. This view did not emerge at the early time because Sufism was not regarded as the inner manifestation of Islam, as it is so now. Rather, it was seen as Islam itself. Tarekat in its initial phase constituted associations of people who wanted to escape from a worldly life. However, this orientation shifted since the associations broadened their roles into socio-political life by engaging in revolts against colonialism as it occurred in Banten in 1888. This peasant revolt movement was not an independent move without a significant contribution from the sufi brotherhood since actors in the revolt were members of tarekat. According to Banten Residen, almost all of the employees in his office including police were the members of tarekat. One salient feature of the movement is concerned with the xenophobic spirit that rejected the presence of foreigners and advocated a holy war.

1-20

Authors: Abdullah Sattar

Many muslim leaders deal with philosophy, and became a philosopher. Unfortunately, many Orientalists deny their ability to philosophize. Tenneman and Renan is of the orientalists who deny, at least question, the ability of muslim philosophical thinker. There are three reasons they stretcher; first, the Qur'an negates the freedom of thought, secondly, the character of Arabs who can not philosophize; and third, the Arabs are a Semitic which belong to races that have low reasoning power. Meanwhile, another orientalist believes that Islamic philosophy is Islamicised Greek philosophy. This paper tries to elaborate muslim thinkers to address concerns with an intense orientalists on the ability and independence of muslim thinkers in the philosophical. They show that the muslim philosopher is not merely duplicate the philosophy that has been established previously, but its main source of creativity itself through the Qur'an.

39-62

Authors: Suhermanto Ja’far

Among themes in the studies about God is about problem of existential relationship between God, humans, and nature. The problem has spawned various perspectives, either normative-theological or metaphysical-ontological. Panentheism which is included in the second perspective is a concept that emphasizes the divinity of all in God, not all is God as in the view of pantheism. This paper aims to examine the concept of panentheism by comparing its views developed in the West with those in Islam. West panentheism, as developed by Whitehead, views God as an infinite conceptual reality of absolute possibilities. His existence is not a creation, but He exists with all creations. While in Islamic panentheism, as stated by Iqbal, human pantheistic experience with God does not vanish human ego, but human ego even will be more authentic and powerful as it is in the Lord. He rejects pantheism view that all is God.

101-120

Authors: Slamet Muliono R.

This article aims to describe the basic philosophy of the hermeneutics view about how to interpret al-Qur’an using the modern science. In the modern life, we find many problem which has not happened in the past. Tafsir method is supposed not to be able to solve the social problems which should be looked for an immediate solution while the social problems are so much. Hermeneutics supposed that by using hermeneutics, we can interpret al-Qur’an according to the modern challenges which could not be invented in the early of Islam. Hermeneutics method has been acknowledged as a new vision about Islam. But hermeneutic view, if we are not careful, could destroy the basic values of Islam which has participated for the Islamic civilization. The negative effects of hermeneutic method are, deconstructing writings of the ‘ulama, infiltration of West values, absolute value of Islamic will be lost, and making al-Qur’an as human product.

239-254

Authors: Dedy Wahyudin As-Sanusy

Kalam is included in genuine Islamic sciences. The birth of Kalam is affected by the dynamics of history of thought resulted from interaction between Islam and other religion and civilization. This paper is trying to capture the internal and external dynamics of the birth and development of the Kalam and also roles of mutakallimin (masters of Kalam) to maintain and develop Islam. Al-Qur’an internally gives Muslims the urge to think about the problems of divinity. The encouragement gained new momentum when it tangent to the internal political conflicts of the Muslims and reach maturity through its interaction with Greek philosophy. In the internal and external dynamics, the mutakallimin play a strategic role both in asserting the power of science, maintaining purity of Islamic teachings from attacks of other religions, and elaborating themes in Kalam that becomes an established Islamic science.

277-304

Authors: Makrum

The main factor that brings Muslims backwardness is resistance to change which so called in Arabic term as jumûd, means frozen state. When Muslims were trapped under such conditions a prominent reformer, Muhammad Abduh, came to reform Islamic thoughts of the divine. This paper attempt to examine his thought about God that made him popularly known as rational theologians and neo-Mu'tazilite. The style of Abduh’s rationalism is indicated in his very high appreciate to intellect. Intellect in Abduh’s view is not only able to know four things (God, obligations to God, good and bad, and the obligation to do good and avoid bad deeds) as in the Mu'tazilite theology, but also capable of knowing the existence of life-happiness and misery in the Hereafter, and making the laws. He even stated that intellect is also able to know the nature of God’s characters, though not all of them.

333-350

Authors: Aswadi

The aim of liberal theology was, basically, to promote the freedom of thought. However, it also can be trapped into an authoritarian system leading to tyranny when the aim is forced. It was true in the case of Mu’tazilite, a sect that is considered the symbol of liberalism in Islamic theology. The sect, in one side, campaigned freedom of thought, but in other side, it also applied mihnah, a tool of measuring the state theology. Yet, when mihnah was applied, the people had no freedom, even the caliph also participated to impose the idea that the Qur'an was created. As a result of the implementation of mihnah, there was the emergence of a gap, prolonged anxiety and tension among the Islamic society. Hence, their opponents increased which in turn encouraged the Caliph al-Mutawakkil to launch a new policy to cancel the mihnah, then ordered the people to follow muhadditsīn, the majority people believing in the Hadits, as well as a forerunner to the birth of the term ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama’a.

381-406

Authors: Mukhlis

Ali Syariati, a Syiah moslem intellectual and a doctor in sociology of Islam, has written books and articles that are inspired by his Islamic internalization as a Syiah moslem. This article, through social theological perpective, is aimed at grasping sociological ideas of Syariati’s by tracing its theological and philosophical basis and his world view. It is found that his ideas are more an expression of islamic thought which are articulated in sociological terms. His ideas aimed to break the opressor-oppressed relation of Iran people at his time. The spirit of his ideas is to vanish the first and, then, awaken the second so that they are able to quit of the shackle of oppression. Those are responsible to do such a hard duty are rûshanfekr, enlightened intellectual. Qs. 28:5 and Qs. 30:1-4 and 30 are among al-Qur’an verses that inspired him and became theological arm rest of his ideas.

433-466

Authors: Fawaizul Umam

Ulama (Islamic scholars) play important role in culturally paternalistic societies. Their prophetic role is theologically idealized as successors of prophets’ risâlah, mission. However, historically speaking, history yet often features reality that differs from their normative role. This paper aims to reevaluate the prophetic role of ulama in Lombok, called tuan guru, in the context of religious freedom praxsis. It is found that what is held by tuan guru in the realm of socio-politico-cultural tend to differ from his own existential theological spirit as one of socio-religious institutions. In the context of the praxis of religious freedom, tuan guru in general tend to play a role as a breeder and booster of anti pluralism discourses. Considering the theological claims of Islam itself as a spreader of mercy for all as well as political-cultural claims that Lombok is religious island, the island of thousand mosques, the realm seems ironic.