Secular Education Curriculum in Indonesia
Generates the Hypocrites amongst the Ummah

The momentous 212 rally or action to defend Islam and stand for Quran (December 2, 2016) has clearly exposed the sincere Muslims in Indonesia who defend the Quran and discern them from the hypocrites. It is because the Quran is al Furqan (discriminant) which separates the truth from falsehood. The fact that religion is pushed away far from the people's life, including in schools, has made Muslims not completely love and know the Quran. Ironically, the hypocrites even exist among the well-educated people. This phenomenon is absurd, and actually is the fruit of a long journey of secularization of education in this country. This article tries to analyze the relationship between the existence of the hypocrites and the far distance of religion in education field.

Secularization of education in Indonesia may be as old as the Republic was established. Structural secularization has been lasting intensively in the realm of formal education, in which this country had separated the lanes of Islamic education from general education under two different ministries since the beginning of its establishment. Islamic Education is under the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) and general education is under the Ministry of Education, and this applies to all levels from elementary to higher education.

Westernization of Islamic Education Qibla

Since the last six decades, the trend of learning Islam formally in Indonesia has switched its qibla from the Middle East countries to the Western countries. The West has not only imposed its hegemony on the mastery of science and technology, but also has penetrated into the field of Islamic knowledge and Islamic thought. Each year, the enthusiasts of it is not in small number, rather it's getting more and more, especially among Muslim students who studying at Islamic universities.

The latest event, the MORA is committed to further enhance cooperation in the field of higher education with the Government of Canada, especially in a project initiated by the Government of Canada i.e. Supporting Islamic Leadership in Indonesia/Local Leadership for Development (SILE/LLD), that has been ongoing since 2011. The cooperation of MORA with the Government of Canada in the education field has gone through a long history. Hundreds of doctorate degrees in Islamic Studies as well as the social sciences and humanities have been generated, since the 1950s. At any particular period, the governments of both countries maintain the partnership model, though with different nomenclature and focus. (Kemenag.go.id, January 2017)

Data from the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Islamic Universities in 2005 shows that sending of students to study Islam to the West began in the 1950s. There were three people, namely: Harun Nasution, Mukti Ali, and Rasyidi. They were studying at McGill's Institute of Islamic Studies (MIIS), Canada. And now, the development is much larger and more powerful. Generally, the majority of graduates of Islamic studies in the West are influenced with the Western liberal and secular thinking. For 2015 alone, the MORA has sent 82 lecturers of Islamic universities abroad which consisted of 54 men and 28 women, but the destination countries are dominated by European universities than Islamic universities located in the Middle East.

The rapid westernization of Islamic university as external factor, added with internal condition of the Ummah that have been suffered a trend of decadency due to loss of wealth of their unique thoughts and method of thinking. Up until the nadir level, only to study Islam, today's Muslim Ummah direct their qiblah to the West to refer orientalist method in studying Islam. Ironic!

There has been a systematic liberalization process against the Islamic universities. And it was admitted by the actors and policy makers in Islamic Education. Consider the book entitled: IAIN and Modernization of Islam in Indonesia (Jakarta: Logos, 2002); it was published by the Directorate of Islamic Higher Education (Ditbinperta) of MORA in cooperation with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This book conveys the history of changes of IAIN (State Institute of Islamic Studies) campuses, from da'wah institutions become academic institutions oriented to the West.

Lutfie Assyaukanie, an activist of Liberal Islamic Network (JIL) once said, "The joy of learning Islam in the West." This was sharply criticized by Dr. Syamsudin Arif who stated that if someone wants to learn the intricacies of Islam seriously and deeply, with the goal of becoming the scholars as the heirs of the Prophet (saw) in the real sense, thus the universities in the West are not the places to go. How could a man who does not believe in Allah and the Last Day, never had ablutions, and never performed prayers, can be called as hadith scholars, experts of commentaries, or jurists? How could someone who is in a state of junub (impurity) for all of his life aligned with Imam al-Shafi'i, Imam Ahmad, and Imam al-Ghazali?

Secularization through the Moderate Islam Curriculum

Infrastructure of Islamic education in Indonesia, which is under the MORA, has assets of 76,000 madrassas with 9 million students, 30,000 boarding schools, and 700 colleges. Islamic education in Indonesia started in 2016 using the new curriculum of Islamic education, named Islamic education of rahmatan lil'alamin for Islam emphasizes the peaceful, tolerant, and moderate understanding. Minister of Religious Affairs added that the new curriculum of Islamic education is the government's response to meet the needs of religious instruction that promotes peace amid the escalating violence and the spread of radical doctrines at academic institutions.

Precisely in the same year, on December 2016, the MORA has also facilitated the synergy forum of Ulama and Boarding School of Southeast Asia named Halaqah of ASEAN Scholars in 2016 to promote moderate Islam. Minister Lukman reported that this Halaqah activity is motivated by demands of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to spread Islamic moderatism values embraced by the ASEAN community.

With this policy of revision of the curriculum of Islamic education along with the consolidation of boarding schools to spread a moderate Islam in order to dampen religious radicalism, the secularization of Islamic education at all levels has now complete, though it is executed under the name of moderate Islam. Previously in higher education the efforts have been more extreme and intensive, by the penetration of Liberal Islam idea since a few decades ago in the Islamic university level.

Adopting Moderate Islam as a spirit in the Islamic education curriculum in this largest Muslim country in the world is not only misguided, but it is dangerous and misleading. Because the idea of moderate Islam and liberal Islam are actually a construct of secular ideas that meet the definition of problematic and dangerous since it is not extracted from the reference source of Islamic law itself, but from the Western values with orientalist method.

Moderate Islamic idea is actually not the original understanding of Islam and has no historical science among jurists (fuqaha). Even Hizb ut Tahrir classifies this idea as dangerous understanding used to strike Islam and impose the Western civilization.

In the political context, the idea of moderate Islam is indeed one of the important strategies to control the change in the Islamic world so it is far from the awakening of Islam. As clear from the old recommendation of RAND Corporation in 2007 that in order to prevent what they call a radical Islamist, it needs to make moderate Islam networks in the Muslim world. It is a well-known research report of RAND titled "Building Moslem Moderate Network" which resulted in important findings that "the United States needs to give and provide support for the activists of moderate Islam by building an extensive network, and to provide material and moral supports to build a fortress to protect against fundamentalist network." Obviously this is the agenda of the US to maintain its hegemony in the Islamic world.

Attachment of the Characteristic of Hypocrisy

"What I feared most on this Ummah are the hypocrites who have knowledge." (Umar ibn Khattab)

Let the secularization of education is to revoke the blessing from the knowledge.
Allowing secularization of education is tantamount with depriving the blessing of Allah from the knowledge, which eventually poisoned the mindset (aqliyah) of students, due to the elimination of revelation of Allah (swt) as the academic authority. Student thoughts that are far from Islam certainly affect the pattern of behavior (nafsiyah) and overall personality.

On the other hand, secularization of science also facilitates poisonous foreign thaqafah (culture) and secular liberal ideas to permeate the minds of the intelligentsia. So naturally nowadays the hypocrites among the Ummah are clearly shown. It is because foreign thaqafah which contrary to the Islamic Aqeedah is the fuel of hypocrisy. Besides, the principle of secularism also has become an entrance for the capitalization of education, which has been fostered increasingly the birth of the materialistic pragmatists, as a result of education as a business commodity.

Exactly as described by Sheikh Taqiuddin al-Nabhani that the hypocrite intellectuals are the intellectuals who separate from the people, their feelings separate from the thought and sense of their people, and they - naturally - be those who become and are isolated from the people. This is why at a time when the majority of the Ummah in Indonesia were defending the Quran and anger with the insults, a few scholars have defended its insults the Quran in the name of pluralism and tolerance. Through the case of Ahok's (Chinese non-Muslim governor) blasphemy of al-Maidah verse 51, Allah (swt) has exposed to this Ummah about the identity of each person; who belongs to the true Muslims and who belongs to the hypocrites. Thus the existence of the hypocrites can be seen by this Ummah in various places of the Muslims and the media. Allah says:

(وَلَوْ نَشَاءُ لَأَرَيْنَا كَهُمْ فَلَعَرَفْتَهُمْ بِسِيمَاهُمْ وَلَتَعْرِفَنَّهُمْ فِي لَحْنِ الْقَوْلِ)

“And if We willed, We could show them to you, and you would know them by their mark; but you will surely know them by the tone of [their] speech. And Allah knows your deeds.” (QS Muhammad [47]: 30).

Prof. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, in his book "Islam and Secularism", theorizes that the purpose of education is to produce a good man. Said al-Attas, "The aim of education in Islam is therefore to produce a good man... the fundamental element inherent in the Islamic concept of education is the inculcation of adab (manners)." Who is a good man or the civilized man? In the view of Islam, like this man is a man who knows his Lord, knows himself, make the Prophet Muhammad as uswah hasanah, following the path of the heir to the Prophet (Ulemah), and a variety of other criteria of a good man.

This is the point wherein the failure of today's secularism-based modern education. Having failed to produce civilized men, the good men with Islamic personality who are the perfect men (insan kamil). Moreover, it is deeply flawed from the principle.

Indeed, Western-style education has attached the characteristic of hypocrisy even from its fundamental character. Let us take a look at a few contrast illustrations on the intellectual profile produced by the West compared to those produced by Islam. Oxford and Cambridge are important symbols of education in Britain. Oxbridge (Oxford-Cambridge) has been the center of research of science and technology that has supported the British civilization over the centuries. The alma maters of many Nobel laureates are in both cities. Their names are also very prestigious.

Madinah was a city of education which was more powerful than Oxford and Cambridge. Not because of the facilities, rather education in Madinah produced civilization of knowledge that united Aqeedah (creed), knowledge ('ilm), practice ('amal), and jihad.

A professor at Oxbridge could be very expert in physics or ethical philosophy, and at the same time he could be a homosexual, an alcoholic, as well as he may humiliate the church. He would remain respected for his mastery of science. Meanwhile in Madinah, if a scientist separated Aqeedah and akhlak from the science he is mastery of, then his piety is denied. Someone who was one of the chain of narrators for sanad of hadith, but he had ever lied once, his name was be recorded until the end of time in the book of musthalahal hadith as a kadzab (liar) whose narration was not valid. Moreover if he ever neglected prayer (salah) and committed maksiyat.

The knowledge tradition of Islam is rich with examples of Ulemah that posses a high level of knowledge and at the same time they have a high level of taqwa. Imam al-Shafi'i, Imam Ahmad, Imam Malik, Imam Hanafi, al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyah, and so on are examples of Ulemah who have been the role models for the Muslim Ummah until today. In the social system of Islam, there is no opportunity for a highly knowledgeable person who does not practice his knowledge. Therefore, he would be labeled zalim and fasik, and he would automatically be excluded from the social order of Islam for his testimony is rejected and his notice is doubtful.

Conclusion

Thus the contrast illustration above shows us that there is intimately rooted relationship between secularization of education in Indonesia with the emergence of the hypocrites. This is because the Western-style secular education has really eliminated Islamic revelation as the supreme and sublime knowledge to be understood by every Muslim, so that it has degraded the Islamic personality of the learners of knowledge. Secularization of knowledge has transformed into an internal enemy of Muslims that has gnawed the faith and identity of the Ummah, and it has fertilized the hypocrisy amid educated people with many faces and categories.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fika Komara
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir