Introduction
Islam and education are tightly connected, and trying to separate one from the other makes both meaningless. Islam historically is committed to activities of propagation (da’wah) and acquiring Islamic knowledge (‘ilm). For Muslims, educational institutions are the medium for the transmission of ‘ilm.
Islamic knowledge covers a wide variety of disciplines, such as Qur’anic exegesis, Hadith, law, theology, Arabic language and poetry, literature, logic, and medicine. This wide range of knowledge is consistent with the character of Islam which envisions a comprehensive world view unified under God. The transmission of this knowledge takes place mainly via person-to-person interaction, and the location of transmission is the Islamic educational institution, popularly called the madrasah.
Unfortunately, Islamic educational institutions in Southeast Asia are increasingly being viewed as a source of Islamic radicalism. According to Zachy Abuza, Islamic educational institutions are a product of Islamic radicalism, and used as a recruiting ground for new, radical members:
In their pursuit of the creation of an Islamic state, many Southeast Asian jihadis established Islamic schools to indoctrinate, propagate, and recruit. The leaders of many militant groups in Southeast Asia, including Laskar Jihad, Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, and Jemmah Islamiya, returned from Afghanistan and established a network of madrasahs as the base of their operations and recruitment. And madrasahs are increasingly beyond state control. Of the 37,362 madrasahs in Indonesia, only 3,226 (8.6%) are run by the state; and 81% percent of the 5.6 million students enrolled in madrasah attend privately funded and run Islamic schools. In the Philippines only thirty five of the 1,600 are controlled by the state, with alarming consequences. As one education official put it, the privately funded madrasahs ‘tailor their curricula to the wishes of whoever subsidizes them’… There is now a critical mass of students studying in Islamic universities and madrasahs who are reinforced in their conviction that Malaysia, Indonesia, and Mindanao must become Islamic states in order to overcome the myriad socioeconomic and political woes that secularism has wrought.[2]
In a similar line of argument an American journalist Maria Ressa, former Cable News Network (CNN) Manila correspondent turned media executive in the Philippines, provides a chilling picture of Islamic educational institutions as a part of the Al-Qaeda network:
…all that is exactly what al-Qaeda creates in its global network: from the schools known as pesantrens and madrasahs, which begin to train young minds of four or five years olds, to the training camps hidden around the world, to the terrorist cells that carry out its plots.[3]
The contrast between religious radicalism and terrorism with that of education, which seeks to turn innocent children into socially responsible adults is so stark that it begs for an accurate analysis of madrasahs and other Islamic educational institutions in Southeast Asia.
One pesantren, called Pesantren Al-Mukmin in the city of Solo in Central Java, Indonesia, is seriously caught between these acutely contrasting images. The school’s two founding fathers Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and the late Abdullah Sungkar are mentioned as spiritual leaders repeatedly by a number of radical Muslims including those arrested for bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia. The school’s thousands of pupils are obviously not terrorists, and to delete the negative image, the school's management even invited foreign embassy officials in Indonesia to the school to hold dialogue.[4] Atho Mudzhar, who in 2003 headed the research centre and development of Indonesia’s Ministry of Religion, asserted that one could not generalize the ideology of Islamic schools based on a few radical schools.[5] In an effort to respond to foreign suspicion of the school, the same Ministry conducted in 2003 a study to examine the extent of radicalism in the Al-Mukmin school, but the study found no evidence that the school taught terrorism.[6]
This paper asserts that examining madrasah in the context of “the war on terror” point of view misses the real undercurrent of social transformation that is currently going on in educational institutions in Southeast Asia: the battle for control of education between the state and society. It also claims that this battle, which is not unusual in the process of nation-state building in post-colonial states, has a renewed meaning because of the age of the war on terror. In other words, the key assertion is that the current transformation of Islamic schools in Southeast Asia should be viewed within the context of the state-building process, or the state’s attempts to control Islamic education. What's more is that the “the war on terror” is being treated as an opportunity by both sides to take control of the educational transformation processes. The significance of “the war on terror” variable is overblown in describing Islamic education institutions just as Abuza and Ressa did. The author believes that the impact of the war on terror is still yet to be seen clearly in a uniformed manner, and furthermore, it is difficult to assess the impact of only the war on terror, given the variable cannot be easily separated from other variables of locally specific conditions.
Therefore, this paper first provides the political background of the existing Islamic educational institutions in Southeast Asia within the context of state-society relations in order to better understand the complex nature of their existence. The proposed approach, which explains the political background of Islamic educational institutions, starts from a typology of four overlapping Islamic groups based on different world views: traditionalist, modernist, fundamentalist, and jihadist. Through this typology, this paper proposes that different groups have different responses to the state’s attempts to reach out for more control.
The state control is measured by the following aspects. The first aspect is the degree by which the state defines and implements the school curriculum. The second aspect is that the degree by which the state controls the management and finance. Both management and finance are inseparable as one who controls finances controls management including personnel, and vice versa. Then, by placing the school types with this proposed typology, this paper speculates the responses of the Islamic educational institutions to the state’s attempt to control education.
It is difficult, however, to have a grand overview of areas as diverse as Southeast Asia. Therefore, this paper examines the political conditions of educational policies of Indonesia as a case study in order to highlight the position Islamic educational institutions hold in the Muslim majority yet ethnically diverse state of Indonesia. Indonesia is chosen for the following reasons. First, Indonesia holds by far the largest number of Muslims and Islamic educational institutions among Southeast Asian countries. Second, Indonesia has been hit by a wave of terrorist attacks that started in 1999, and as a result Islamic educational institutions are now under intense scrutiny. Third, I argue that Indonesia's current condition and the future of its Islamic educational institutions influence the conditions of neighbouring countries. By doing this, I hope to shed light on a significant trend in implementing Islamic educational policies, and later speculate on the conditions of Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
I argue in the concluding section that the modernist schools are the most likely group to come closest to the state’s education agenda among Muslim groups due to their ideological orientation and management capability. Due to this closeness to the state, the modernist schools deserve special attention as they are producing the national leaders that most influence the policy options of the state in times of national crises such as terrorist attacks and war.
Southeast Asian Muslims
We first need to look at the Southeast Asian Muslim societies. The number of Muslims in Southeast Asia is estimated to be more than 220 million and growing. This is at least one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population, and more than the Arab Muslim population. Indonesia has by far the largest number, about 200 million Muslims, followed by Malaysia’s 14 million, the Philippines’ 4.3 million, Thailand’s 3 million, Myanmar’s 1.7 million, Cambodia’s 700,000, Singapore’s 660,000, and Brunei’s 300,000. Laos and Vietnam also have small Muslim populations. Of these countries, Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia constitute the majority, whereas Muslims in the other countries mentioned are minorities.
Southeast Asian Muslim Population
| | Total Population | Muslim Population | Majority/ Minority | Muslim’s Geographic Concentration |
| Indonesia | 230 million | 200 million | Dominant majority (86%) | Everywhere but less densely in the east |
| Malaysia | 24 million | 14 million | Majority (58%) | Everywhere but less densely in the east |
| Philippines | 76 million | 4.3 million | Small Minority (5%) | Densely in Western Mindanao, Manila |
| Thailand | 61 million | 3 million | Small Minority (5%) | Densely in the south, Bangkok |
| Myanmar | 49 million | 1.7 million | Small Minority (3%) | Densely in the west |
| Cambodia | 12 million | 0.7 million | Small Minority (5%) | Ethnic Cham, mostly in the South |
| Singapore | 4 million | 0.66 million | Small Minority (15%) | Everywhere, a few pockets in city state |
| Brunei | 0.4 million | 0.3 million | Dominant Majority (75%) | Everywhere |
The distinction between majority Muslims and minority Muslims is important as this distinction produces different educational policies. As might be expected, the majority groups get better political representation and in turn get greater political power. There are of course exceptions, such as colonial rule or colonial-like rule as seen in Apartheid South Africa. For Islamic educational institutions in Southeast Asia, this naturally means that in countries where Muslims constitute a majority, the madrasah, the most common form of Islamic educational institution, will receive considerable support from the government, as is the case in Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia. On the contrary, the Muslim minorities in the Philippines, Thailand and other states in Southeast Asia are pushed aside (or simply ignored) in almost all policy areas of government including policies related to the madrasah/Islamic education.
In addition, when there is a geographical concentration of Muslims in these countries (i.e. those where Muslims are the minority), the impact of this isolation on their day-to-day lives is mostly negative and often severe. The cases of the Philippines and Thailand, for example, show that the state educational policy toward madrasah education is characterized by suspicion of the Muslims and thus a reluctance to support these educational institutions.
The Case of Indonesia
The current Indonesian state is a product of colonialism, and its population is a mix of various religious and ethnic groups. Although Muslims are by far the dominant majority, minority groups are quite large in number, and cannot be ignored. For example, the Chinese Indonesians (whose religious belief is rarely Islam) number around 6 million or more, easily outnumbering the total population of predominantly-Chinese Singapore. This reality of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious population that is mixed with dominant Muslims and also an indispensable number of minority groups guided Indonesia’s course of state building along a secular route. Indonesia's official state ideology the Pancasila that displays no preference for any religious or ethnic group is a testimony to this reality.
The domination of Dutch colonial authority in the early 20th century increasingly imposed a centralized administrative system, and begun imposing regulation control such as licensing and curriculum on indigenous schooling. In responding to the colonial control of indigenous schooling, the Islamic leaders, who were hard pressed to provide quality education apart from colonial schools to their children, established madrasahs and Islamic schools as a way to provide Muslim children with a modern education with Islamic ideals. The leaders who established madrasahs were influenced by the Islamic modernist thinking of the late 19th century in the Middle East, and one representative of this group in Indonesia is Muhammadiyah.[7]
Colonial control increased the existing tension between the Dutch and Islamic groups, and this tension eventually converged into the struggle for independence. The role of madrasahs and Islamic seminaries called pesantren during the independence struggle is well described by many, as these schools led the independence movement against the colonial power.[8] This was also the time when leaders such as Islamic leader Muhammad Natsir and nationalist leader Sukarno worked together to win independence. However, the joining of Islam and nationalism at the time of the independence struggle diverged quickly once independence was won.
Indonesia’s education system also showed a similarly dichotomous character between nationalist and Islamic camps after independence. Along with the state established secular schools under the Ministry of Education (currently the Ministry of National Education), there existed a mostly privately-owned madrasah system under the supervision of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Meanwhile, there were large numbers of Islamic pesantrens, the existence of which appears to go back many centuries. Pesantren’s characteristics consist of a charismatic owner/Islamic teacher called Kyai, the students called Santri (who often board at the school), and the study of classical texts typically used in Java called Kitab Kuning. The pesantren is more than an Islamic boarding school – it is a community of Muslims with a mosque, dormitories, and classrooms being at the center in the property, and deeply embedded in the local community. These three systems, the state secular school, the madrasah, and the pesantren, still exist side by side in the Indonesian education system.
The overlap of the madrasah and pesantren has become increasingly blurred in recent times. According to Rahardjo, the madrasah system (graded and day-school modelled on the Dutch school system in the Indonesian Muslim context) of teaching Islam was introduced to pesantrens in 1929 by Moh. Ilyas and later spread to other pesantrens.[9] In a typical form, a pesantren establishes a madrasah on the central location of the property by formalizing the seminary into a graded day-school in order to attract more non-boarding children in surrounding communities. Another possibility is that a pesantren establishes a madrasah by creating an after-school course for children who, during the day, go to state secular school.
Reach of the State
The state policy toward Islamic education reflects the fact that the state cannot ignore the Islamic curriculum because Muslims are the dominant majority. During the secular Sukarno regime, the state’s policy had at least three strategies: to insert Islamic subjects into the secular state school curriculum, to insert secular subjects into the madrasah curriculum, and finally to train Islamic teachers from the newly established Religious Teacher’s Colleges (Sekolah Pendidikan Guru Agama). This three-tier strategy did not go far enough to integrate the madrasah under the state control. It was during the Sukarno years also that madrasah management was placed under the umbrella of Ministry of Religious Affairs. The position of minister for the Ministry was generally always reserved for a Muslim cleric and therefore the Islamic educational institutions were able to use the Ministry to protect madrasah interests.
The political turn came in 1966 when General Suharto took over as President; it was Suharto who further accelerated state control of Islamic education. The 1972 and 1974 presidential instructions (Keppres No. 34/1972 and Keppres No. 15/1974) to move madrasah management from the Religious ministry’s supervision to the Education and Culture Ministry’s supervision was seen by Muslim leaders as a major setback for their political strength. The appointment of the new Religious Affairs Minister Mukti Ali, an academic non-cleric, also reflected Suharto’s push for secular state-building.[10] This was the first time that the largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, failed to capture the position of minister. Although the subsequent protest by Muslim groups led to the return of the Ministry of Religious Affairs as the supervising agency in 1975, the state in return succeeded in imposing a 70% secular subjects/30% Islamic subjects rule in the madrasah curriculum in order for graduates to be qualified for admission to tertiary institutions in secular subjects.
Madrasahs grew also in their numbers as state penetration succeeded. At the elementary school level, called madrasah ibtidaiyah, the number of school establishments grew from 13,000 schools in the mid-1960s to 21,300 in the 1989/90 academic year, and to 34,800 in the 1996/97 academic year.[11] The number of pupils also grew significantly: from 1.9 million elementary level madrasah school children in the mid-1960s to 4.3 million children in the same grade level in 1996/97. The 1989 education law also required the madrasahs to participate in a government plan to make the first nine years of education compulsory.
The reach of the state also extended to the pesantrens. The pesantrens are, as mentioned earlier, typically owned by a landlord/Islamic teacher called a kyai. Although the curriculum is determined by the pesantren, some 4,284 pesantren (which are by the Religious Affairs Ministry categorized as “comprehensive [terpadu]”) generally adopt the madrasah curriculum with 70% secular/30% Islamic subjects.[12] Out of the total number of 14,361 pesantrens (2004 figure), a vast majority (11,664 establishments) are located in Java and mostly located in rural areas.[13] This remoteness, however, makes pesantrens unique in the sense that they are able to operate away from mainstream national policy.
As described above, the government control of Islamic education started with the standardization of the madrasah curriculum, and this curriculum which was mixed with secular subjects was adopted by the pesantren. After having been recognized as part of the 9 year compulsory system in 1989, a pesantren according to a national education law passed in 2003 was also recognized clearly as part of the national education system, and this made the pesantren eligible for financial support from the state as well as subject to control in terms of education quality and curriculum.
Thus, as described earlier, there are three different educational systems: secular government schools, madrasahs, and pesantrens. Today it is clear that the reach of the state is extending to Islamic schools, both madrasahs and pesantrens, albeit slowly. What should also be noted is that the war on terror has had some impact on the reach of the state with regards to Islamic educational institutions. How is this so? Below I will present a typology of Islamic society that describes the different types of Islamic schools in order to show the possible impact of the war on terror on Islamic educational institutions in the context of the reach of the state.
Typologies of Islamic Society
Presented below is a conceptual picture of what Islamic society may look like based on the ideological tendencies. This typology determined by each grouping's interpretation of Islamic principles (i.e. Flexible or rigid) and how these groups go about implementing or achieving their ideals. There are four types, namely traditionalists, modernists, fundamentalists, and jihadists.
Typologies of Islamic society
Traditionalists tend to blend well with local (often rural) social conditions. Traditionalist leaders are often local social leaders, landlords, and in the case of Indonesia, particularly in Java, the owners of property on which a pesantren is run. In addition to the local landlords who are Islamic teachers, the vast majority in this type are ordinary farmers, shop keepers, and those who receive Islamic teaching from local religious teachers and send their children to Islamic schools. Such children are often susceptible to the preacher’s interpretation of Islam, for he holds a monopoly of sorts over what the students learn. In the Indonesian context, Nahdlatul Ulama is representative of this group. Nominal Muslims who do not belong to any Muslim groups, generally categorized as “nationalists”, also belong to the traditionalist grouping.
The second group is the modernists who mostly view their role in society as the engine of nation-building. They are ambitious in their leadership outlook. This view is consistent with the early 20th century Middle Eastern modernists from which this term is taken. This group looks at the fate of Muslim fellows overseas from the point of view of national leadership. For example, they are very willing to capture state power, and feel that they should be educated in science and technology so that their state can compete against the advanced states. They run advanced educational institutions which give instructions in both Islam and secular subjects such as math and the sciences. In Indonesia, a representative of this group is Muhammadiyah, a loosely organized Muslim organization with millions of members and a vast network of modern madrasah schools. In addition to the vast number of madrasahs that carry the Muhammadiyah banner all over Indonesia, there are 36 comprehensive Muhammadiyah universities, and 126 colleges which offer majors in subjects such as accounting, economics, and nursing.[14] In other words, this group, compared to the traditionalist group, constitutes the opinion makers and their comments and expressions are very important in structuring the streams of public opinion.
The third type is the fundamentalists who are concerned with a scriptural, not substantial, interpretation and implementation of the precepts of Islam. The fundamentalist groups are not necessarily radical in action. Some of them are very moderate in action, or it may be more accurate to say that their action is inward-looking as far as social change is concerned. Their ideal form of polity is an Islamic state although there are different versions of it. They firmly believe that modern social decay is the result of the secularization led by the West. Many are concerned with the events in the lives of fellow Muslims and their lives in Palestine, Chechnya, and Kashmir. Thus, they do not pay much attention to what is happening in their local communities where they live.
Finally, the term jihadist refers to those who resort to violence in order to achieve their extreme views of social change. This group is tiny in number but gains the most attention due to their acts of violence. Some, but not all, leaders in this category have had overseas war experiences in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or the Philippines (Mindanao) in their youth, making them probably the youngest group of all. They reject the current form of democratic nation-states because they seek to establish an Islamic state, and thus do not participate in representative democracy by running for office. Most of them flatly reject cultural traits unique to a particular locale in Islamic social development in Southeast Asia. For them, Islam is entirely universal in both value and form, and transcends any diversity of different social characteristics.
The Jihadists do not admire great Islamic civilizations in the past, such as the Sufi tradition in Bukhara, or the great empires of the Ottoman and the Mughal under Akbar, but instead fantasize about the purity of Islamic life during the initial period of Islamic civilization in the Arabian Peninsula. They strongly despise what they perceive as the corrupt influence of the West, such as moral decay, corruption, and drugs. They feel that their world “Dār al-Islām” or “house (world) of peace” is constantly under attack by “Dār al-” or “house (world) of war” led by aggressive non-Muslims, particularly the United States. This view sees the world divided into good and evil. This dichotomous view of the world is so embedded in their thoughts that they fail to see the intricacies and characteristics of local uniqueness which improvises and enriches Islamic teaching within Southeast Asia.
The Typology Applied to Indonesian Islamic Education Institutions
Now let me apply this typology to Islamic schools in Indonesia as a case in point. First, the traditionalist schools are, as mentioned above, those affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama boarding schools (pesantrens), and other pesantrens in rural Indonesia. For example, Nahdlatul Watan on the island of Lombok, and Persatuan Umaat Islam are found in this category. The leaders see the rural society where they reside as the priority, and often the owners of pesantren (kyai) are members of local assemblies. This trend became much more obvious when during the 2004 elections these local leaders emerged as key persons in voter mobilization. The management of the pesantren is largely carried out by the kyai and his family members, and the leadership position of the kyai is hereditary.
Financial matters, such as the salaries for teachers, are not well defined, and the balance sheet if there is one, and other financial records are not open to the public. The income for the school comes mostly from fees paid by students, with some side income from local contributions, sales from kiosk shops, and selling agricultural produce. This reliance on tuition fees, as it is hardly enough for ensuring low teacher-student ratio, is probably the main reason for the very large class sizes. The curriculum is heavy on Kitab Kuning or traditional Islamic texts, and the method of teaching is mainly the memorization of texts. However, some large pesantrens in this category, for example Pesantren Darul Ulum in Jombang, East Java, adopt secular subjects as part of the curriculum in order to give students an opportunity for obtaining higher degrees in secular subjects in universities.
The second category of modernist schools is, as mentioned above, exemplified by Muhammadiyah schools. The leadership of these schools has a nationalist world view with the ambition to produce national leaders. Many schools are located in urban centres in regional cities and the school management and organization departs from the hereditary system common in traditionalist schools. The curriculum is heavy in Islamic subjects and natural sciences, and often they require students to do volunteer work as part of their civic education. This demonstrates that the modernist schools see social participation as an important element in the kind of education they provide. It must be mentioned however, that there are number of independent schools in this category which do not belong to any of the major Muslim groups in Indonesia. The giant in this independent modernist category is Pondok Modern Darussalam Gontor in Ponorogo, East Java. Gontor, known for its competitive quality, is a huge boarding school with 6,000 students from junior highs school to college. Gontor is famous because it produced prominent alumni, such as the current speaker of the upper house assembly (MPR) Hidayat Nur Wahid, probably the most prolific liberal Islamic scholar, the late Nurcholish Madjid, and the radical preacher Abu Bakar Ba’asyir. Another school in this category known for producing national leaders is the first madrasah solely for female students. Pondok Pesantren Diniyah Putri in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, was established in 1923 and the curriculum is heavily concentrated in science and Islam.
The third category, fundamentalist schools, includes those schools with a heavy emphasis on Islamic principles, action and form, and tend to train students to become preachers (ulama) and Islamic teachers (ustadz). The leadership in this category is acutely aware of Muslim affairs around the world and is committed to creating an Islamic community through the implementation of Islamic law. One example of this category is Pesantren Hidayatullah in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. This pesantren administratively adopts the curriculum designed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which consists of both secular and Islamic subjects but has a training program of propagation after school hours.[15] Students are also encouraged to follow the principles of the life of the Prophet and asked to establish branches of Hidayatullah School after graduation. As a result, there are about 140 branches of Hidayatullah pesantrens located in all over Indonesia. The school is also known to have mass marriages sponsored by the pesantren.[16] Two other examples in this category are Pesantren Al-Zaitun in Indramayu, West Java, and Pesantren Al-Mukmin in Solo, Central Java.
The final category is the jihadist schools. This group is difficult to sort out because the students studying in “jihadist schools” as such are obviously not all jihadists. The difficulty of assessing this group may come from the fact that the school education does not result in a uniform outcome for all graduates. This is the nature of an educational system where input (education) does not translate into the same output (quality of graduates), and conversely it is unfair to label a whole school based on a few graduates. Yet, it is safe to say that this group is, conceptually, part of the fundamentalist group: the distinguishing factor is the violence resorted to by some members of this category in order to achieve their goals. Thus, unless there is a specific instruction for direct and violent action in the name of Islam within the school environment, it is hard to list any schools in this category. One may be tempted to put the above-mentioned Pesantren Al-Mukmin, with many graduates having been members of the Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI) group, in this category. The same might be said of Pesantren Al-Islam in Lamongan, East Java, since some of the school leaders confessed to involvement in the 2002 deadly Bali bombings.
However, a check of the backgrounds of the perpetrators’ of numerous bombings in Southeast Asia shows different affiliations and do not point to pesantrens as the problem: members of jihadist movements such as the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines and Kompak in Indonesia, and others from JI do not have the same educational background. Furthermore, some Malaysians detained or sought so far have university degrees in secular subjects and lack a solid Islamic education.[17] Some key Indonesian jihadists are also graduates of state madrasahs.[18]
Now that descriptions of the schools along with the ideological typologies have been explained, it is time for us to assess the reach of the state based on these typologies. I asserted that education needs to be understood in the context of state-building, and view the current war on terror as an opportunity for the state to reach out to the Islamic education sector. The reach of the state as a result of the 2003 National Education System Law requires much more detailed study than this paper, but based on the typology, it is possible to speculate on the reach of the state.
Speculating the reach of the state
The state’s reach into Islamic education depends on the degree with which the state embodies Islamic principles, the state’s funding availability, and the responses from the educational institutions. The social responses are dynamic and may be both positive and negative responses depending on the circumstances and perceptions of the leaders of the educational institutions. In the Indonesian case, many of the madrasah and pesantren are privately owned[19], and the degree to which individuals have control over schools differs from school to school. It appears to be that the traditionalist and fundamentalist schools are more controlled by individuals than modernist schools, and this may be a critical factor as to whether the state can reach out.
The Indonesian state, with its secular character has avoided “Islamization”. The fall from power of Suharto in 1998, however, led to unprecedented political freedoms for Muslims and Islamic political parties have captured more than 30% of parliamentary seats in subsequent elections. As the Indonesian state has not had a policy of Islamizing the state school system, it is safe to say that so far the reach of the state aims at controlling the Islamic education under a secular state.
As far as the state’s reach in Islamic education is concerned, most of the 34,000 madrasahs and 14,000 pesantrens at the elementary school level (with about 6~7 million pupils) are private establishments and receives little financial support from the state. The curriculum is set by the state as 70% secular/30% Islamic subjects in a formal sense, but the actual implementation and enforcement mechanism does not exist. The market availability for graduates probably gives incentives to Islamic schools to include secular subjects.
With this background, let us consider the susceptibility to the reach of the Indonesian state by examining the circumstances of the school typologies. Here, I consider the above mentioned three major types (traditionalist, modernist, and fundamentalist schools) from two viewpoints: management and ideology. The jihadist is treated as insignificant in this overview paper although it does deserve attention as they are the loudest group in the time of violence.
First, let us consider management. The traditionalist schools are in a difficult position because they are sandwiched by the lure of the state funds while facing the threat of losing private control over the school. Pesantren leadership is strictly based on a hereditary system, and the legitimacy of the hereditary system comes from the kyai’s Islamic credentials. Introducing more secular subjects will likely erode the kyai/owner’s power since it is secular as well as Islamic knowledge that is critical to the student’s education. Thus the kyai will either be forced to share power with those who possess and can teach this secular knowledge, or the kyai will need to attain this secular knowledge himself. A modernized curriculum that includes, in particular, natural science courses requires more funding for new facilities and experimental laboratories, and the pressure for new funding for these facilities forces the management to look for state subsidies
Contrary to the problems facing traditional schools, the modernist schools are under much less pressure in the areas of management because they already have a modern management structure and budgeting system. For example, the salary structure for both teachers and office staff is well defined, and schools like Pesantren Gontor have an executive management office supervised by an advisory board.
Although the inner workings of the fundamentalist schools are not clear, they probably have similar problems to the traditionalist schools. The management structure is not well defined in the line of modern school structure because of the dominance of a charismatic leader. The inclination for the inclusion of secular subjects is less, compared to those of the traditionalist and modernist schools because of the heavy emphasis on Islamic subjects. Financially, the above-mentioned school Pesantren Hidayatullah may be doing well due to the income from small scale businesses and contributions from the public, but it is safe to assume most of the schools in this category are not financially well-off. There is, however, an extreme exception: the above-mentioned Pesantren Al-Zaitun has a huge campus with first class facilities, although the source of the income has never been disclosed by the school.
In terms of ideological orientation, the traditionalist and modernist schools have no hesitation to adopt a secular curriculum although the modernists tend to put heavier emphasis on natural sciences than traditionalist schools. The fundamentalists, on the other hand, are hesitant to depart from the Islamic curriculum. This can be seen from their efforts to provide organized propagation activities and recitation activities outside of the regular curriculum. After all, many of these schools are boarding schools where spare times after classes are used depending on the decisions of the leader. What distinguishes the modernist schools from the traditionalist schools is that the modernist schools are more ambitious in educating national leadership while the traditionalist school graduates tend to remain in the local community, and clearly lag behind in fostering national leaders. In this sense, the modernist schools are more susceptible to state control, or, it might be more appropriate to say that they aim to capture state power through education. In fact, the modernist schools have demonstrated their remarkable competence in adjusting their curriculum to the state’s agenda, and have fostered the education of many national leaders.[20]
Conclusion
This paper attempts to provide a map of Islamic schools based on a typology of Islamic groups, and speculated as to how these schools may be susceptible to the state’s reach for further control. Indonesia was chosen as a case study because not only does Indonesia have by far the largest numbers of Islamic schools in Southeast Asia, but it also is a Muslim majority society with large numbers of religious and ethnic minorities. This paper asserts that the modernist schools are the most likely group to come closest to Indonesia’s state education agenda compared to other groups due to its ideological orientation and world view, and management style. What is missing from this paper, however, is an explanation of why modernist schools do not fall into more radical Islamic educational agendas. One reason may be that the modernists are politically ambitious and find the secular nature of Indonesia as politically more viable than further Islamization. Or, it may be that the wave of Islamization may yet still come if social uncertainty continues.
To consider the future of Islamic education, we may examine briefly the cases of Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Malaysia is also a Muslim majority state and a creation of colonialism just like Indonesia. The Muslim majority have held political power since Malaysia’s independence from the British and the Government has always maintained control over the Islamic schools. But the Malaysian case exhibits much deeper and extensive state control over the Islamic school system due a much smaller number of schools in comparison to Indonesia. What is also different about the Malaysia case is the government’s inclination for Islamization for electoral purposes; the governing coalition Islamized itself in an effort to claim Islamic legitimacy over the opposition Islamic party.
Meanwhile, Muslim minority states such as Thailand and the Philippines have paid little attention to the Islamic schools. The minority Muslims tend to see Islamic education as a medium to preserve their Islamic identity under non-Muslim domination. This view is similar to Indonesia’s fundamentalist schools where they do not see the current secular government of Indonesia accommodating their Islamic aspirations. Hence Indonesia’s fundamentalist groups are not dissimilar to Muslim minorities in Thailand and the Philippines in this respect. This may be the very reason for the acute insistence to preserve Islamic subjects in schools of these states because Islamic subjects are the foundation of their identity. As a result, Muslim minorities have strengthened their madrasah (in the Philippines called Madaris, and in Thailand called Pondok) on their own by adding Islamic studies to the curriculum at the expense of secular subjects.
Some graduates from the Philippines and Thai madrasahs have sought an overseas education in Pakistan and Middle East for higher degrees in an effort to preserve their Islamic identity. Muslims in Mindanao, for example, in the 1950s travelled to Cairo, Medina, Riyadh, and Tripoli for tertiary education. This was not a necessity for many Indonesians since study opportunities in state-funded Islamic universities were plentiful.[21] Many Thai Muslims (in the case of Yawi speakers) still send their children to pondok rather than state schools.[22] Under these social conditions, the reach of the state into the Islamic educational institutions is much weaker in Thailand and the Philippines than in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Bibliography
Abuza, Zachary (2003), Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror. New York: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Azra, Azyumardi, Dina Afrianty, and Robert W. Hefner (2007), “Pesantren and Madrasa: Muslim Schools and National Ideals in Indonesia” in R.W. Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, eds., Schooling Islam: Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Gilquin, Michel, (2002), transl. by Michael Smithies, The Muslims of Thailand. Thailand: IRASEC and Silkworm Books, 2002.
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---------- (2005), “Depag: Ajaran Terorisme Berasal dari Luar Pesantren,” October 21.
---------- (2003), “Tak banyak pesantren yang ajarkan radicalism,” August 22.
Milligan, Jeffrey Ayala (2006), “Reclaiming an Ideal: The Islamization of Education in the Southern Philippines,” Comparative Education Review, vol. 50, no.3, p.410-430.
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Rahardjo, M. Dawam (1985) “The Kyai, the Pesantren, and the Village: A Preliminary Sketch,” in Ahmad Ibrahim, Sharon Siddique, Yasmin Hussain compl., Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 240-246.
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Tarmi (2001), “Kebangkitan dan Perkembangan Madrasah di Indonesia,” in H. Abuddin Nata ed., Sejarah Pertumbuhan dan Perkembangan Lembaga-lembaga Pendidikan Islam di Indonesia., Jakarta, Indonesia: Grasindo.
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Takeshi Kohno, Associate Professor of Political Science, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan.
[1] Takeshi Kohno is Associate Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan. This research is generously supported by a grant from the Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences.
[2] Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003, p. 13-14.
[3] Maria Ressa, Seeds of Terror: An eyewitness account of al-Qaeda’s newest center of operations in Southeast Asia. Free Press, 2003, p. 166.
[4] “Erasing the ‘Terrorist Stamp’,” Tempo August 16, 2004, p. 24.
[5] “Tak banyak pesantren yang ajarkan radicalism,” Kompas, August 22, 2003.
[6] Muhamad Ali, “Pesantren dan Terorisme” Kompas November 21, 2005.
[7] Tarmi, “Kebangkitan dan Perkembangan Madrasah di Indonesia,” in H. Abuddin Nata ed., Sejarah Pertumbuhan dan Perkembangan Lembaga-lembaga Pendidikan Islam di Indonesia., Jakarta, Indonesia: Grasindo, 2001, pp.187-212.
[8] Subhan S.D., Ulama Ulama Oposan. Bandung, Indonesia: Pustaka Hidayah, 2000.
[9] M. Dawam Rahardjo, “The Kyai, the Pesantren, and the Village: A Preliminary Sketch,” in Ahmad Ibrahim, Sharon Siddique, Yasmin Hussain compl., Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, p. 240.
[10] For Indonesia’s secularization effort during the early 1970s, see Muhammad Kamal Hassan, Muslim Intellectual Response to “New Order” Modernization in Indonesia. Malaysia: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia, 1982.
[11] Data from a table in Fuad Jabali and Jamhari eds., IAIN dan Modernisasi Islam in Indonesia. Jakarta, Indonesia: Logos Wacana Ilmu, 2002, p. 128.
[12] The numbers came from Amin Haedari, director of Religious Education and Pondok Pesantren in Ministry of Religion as reported in “Depag: Ajaran Terorisme Berasal dari Luar Pesantren,” Kompas October 21, 2005.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Majelis Pendidikan Tinggi Penelitian dan Pengembangan Pimpinan Pusat Muhamaddiyah, ed., Direktori Perguruan Tinggi Muhammadiyah 2006., Jakarta: Muhammadiyah, 2006.
[15] Arief Subhan, “Pesantren Hidayatullah: Madrasah-Pesantren Independen Bercorak Salafi,” in Jajat Burhanudin and Dina Afrianty eds., Mencetak Muslim Modern: Peta Pendidikan Islam Indonesia. Jakarta: Rajawali Press, 2006, pp. 212-213.
[16] Ibid., pp. 233-236.
[17] Ali Bakry bin Mohamed arrested in Johor in January 2002 has an engineering degree from Institut Teknologi Malaysia, Mohamad Nasri bin Ismail arrested also in January 2002 has an accountancy degree from Univesiti Putra Malaysia, Abdullah Daud arrested in 2002 has a Ph.D. and a faculty member at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Roshelmy bin Sharif arrested in 2002 has a Master’s degree from UTM, Azahari Husin killed in police raid in November 2005 had Ph.D. from Reading University in UK, Noordin Moh. Top currently sought after has an engineering degree from UTM.
[18] Imam Samurda, the 2002 Bali bombing planner, and Masrizal bin Ali Umar, arrested and sentenced for 2003 Marriot hotel bombing, are both state madrasah graduates.
[19] Azyumardi Azra, Dina Afrianty, and Robert W. Hefner, “Pesantren and Madrasah: Muslim Schools and National Ideals in Indonesia” in R.W. Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, eds., Schooling Islam: Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007, p.180.
[20] Azra, Afrianty and Hefner, p. 193.
[21] Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, “Reclaiming an Ideal: The Islamization of Education in the Southern Philippines,” Comparative Education Review, vol. 50, no.3, 2006: p.414.
[22] Michel Gilquin, (transl. by Michael Smithies), The Muslims of Thailand. Thailand: IRASEC and Silkworm Books, 2002, p. 57.
Diambil dari Studia Islamika 2009
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