The Jakarta Post | Fri, 06/25/2010 6:38 PM | Opinion
Luthfi Assyaukanie
For many, to study Islam means going to an Islamic institution. That's why some Indonesian students go to the Middle East or to local Islamic higher learning institutions such as the State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta or Yogyakarta.
This idea is partly justified if your understanding of the word "study" is to convert to a certain understanding of Islam. But it's certainly incorrect if by "study" you mean to explore knowledge.
Religion as a knowledge does not belong to religious institutions, but rather to secular higher learning colleges. And if we speak about qualified higher learning institutions, Western universities are the most competitive ones.
Thus, if you want to study Islam, particularly Indonesian Islam, it should not be at UIN or a Middle Eastern institution, but rather at such universities as in the Netherlands, the United States, or Australia. Let me explain why.
Like many other branches of disciplines, Islam has become a form of knowledge, even an industry. For some, it is not only a religion but also a career.
In the past, centers of Islamic studies were designed to produce imams or religious leaders, but also to produce professionals to fill bureaucratic posts, either in government owned institutions (such as the Religious Affairs Ministry) or in the private sector (law firms, think tanks, and research centers).
In other words, studying Islam is not merely studying its doctrinal aspects, but also exploring many aspects of related disciplines. Thus, apart from studying theology at centers of Islamic studies, students are also required to study sociology, anthropology, psychology and political science.
It is quite unfortunate that the traditional Islamic learning institutions in the Muslim world fail to understand this change. The world has changed and the way people perceive reality has also changed.
The idea that Islamic learning centers are the sole place to produce imams or religious preachers is no longer valid. Islamic learning centers cannot compete with the mushrooming imams and religious preachers who seem to come out of nowhere.
In Indonesia it is clear that to become an imam or religious preacher unfortunately has nothing much to do with knowledge.
It is more about oratorical skill and how smart someone in using religious rhetoric. People who have no background in Islamic studies could be imams or successful evangelists had they been able to attract audiences to listen to their speeches.
As a matter of fact, many of them have poor religious knowledge. But by citing one or two verses of the Koran and putting on Arabic garb they claim to have the authority of the religion. And naively, the public often listen to them.
Meanwhile, students who really studied Islam could rarely do that. Of course, some of them could manage it, but the number is still lower compared to the number of graduates the Islamic centers produce. After all, Islamic centers were not designed to produce religious celebrities or televangelists.
In the Western world, centers of Islamic studies are designed to produce scholars and experts. Whether in the future students will become imams or religious teachers is entirely up to them. Centers of Islamic studies are part of universities, and the role of universities is to inculcate science and knowledge to their students. No more, no less.
It is no wonder if then universities treat these centers in a highly professional manner. The University of Melbourne from which I gra-duated, for example, would promote its program of Islamic Studies like the department of International Studies or Anthropology or Media Studies.
The students of Islamic Studies, as its ads say, could go on to a career in areas such as "foreign affairs, international trade, immigration, ethnic affairs, journalism, social work or teaching."
What is fascinating and important about Islamic learning centers in the West is not only their treat-ment of the discipline, but also the way they handle the knowledge resources.
Nowadays, if you want to study Islam, it is not in Mecca or Cairo, but in Boston, Chicago or Oxford, where you can find the best resources (books, articles, audio-video materials, etc). Similarly, if you want to study Indonesian Islam, it is not in Jakarta or in Yogyakarta, but in Leiden, Manoa, Melbourne or Canberra.
Based on my recent findings, the best institution in terms of the size of its collection on Indonesian Islam is KITLV (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) at Leiden University. It has more than 10,000 books on Indonesian Islam in various languages and no less than 8,000 books written in Indonesian.
The library outnumbered the collection of the Library of Congress in the United States, whose collection on Indonesian Islam has now reached 4,928 titles of which 3,885 are in Indonesian (see table).
The United States remains a country whose universities have good collections of books on Indonesia. Cornell University used to be the Mecca for Indonesian studies.
Despite the fact that this role has been replaced by several Australian universities (particularly ANU, Melbourne and Monash), Cornell's library contains the best collection in the world on Indonesian Islam.
The Australian National University has also been recognized for having a large collection on Indonesian studies. It is widely regarded as the best university in Australia for studies on Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
So, anytime you are considering studying Islam, especially Indonesian Islam, you know where to go.
The writer is a Research Fellow at the KITLV, Leiden, and a senior lecturer at Paramadina University, Jakarta
— JP
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