Islam and Pancasila: Development of a Religious Political Doctrine in Indonesia
Oleh: K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid
Islam is widely acknowledged as a “religion of law”, and since the consolidation of its teachings as implemented in the city-state of Medina, in the second decade after its birth in the last quarter of the sixth century A.D. in the Arabian Peninsula, it is very much preoccupied with the problem of developing institutional frameworks for enforcing its religious laws in the concrete everyday life of its adherents. Efforts to develop such frameworks by necessity bring the problem of legitimacy for different forms of governance, since only by the government that those religious laws could be enforced effectively. Thus the discussion on the types, scope of authority, structure and mechanism of the “ideal state” that takes place continuously throughout Islam’s long history up the present.
Muslim constitutional scholars have developed very refined theoretical constructs dealing with different aspects of governing from the nature of the ruler’s authority to the different categories of taxation available to raise state revenues. The emergence of those aspects of the Muslim’s social life necessitates the proliferation of the political doctrine based on the religious postulates, all the intention of establishing a working legal system called Islamic Law or Sharia. This fact does not mean that Islam historically had developed within the constitutional context of the state. Apart from the much touted “Islamic political theories” offered by scholars and ideologies alike, communities of Muslims have developed different societal framework and participated in almost all types of social forms known to history in the past fourteen centuries.
By understanding the historical perspectives of Islam’s relation with the state, we would be able to identify types of response offered by Islamic political doctrines in the continuous dialogue with other political ideologies and systems. Information obtained from understanding that process would enable us to recognize main trends in the political thoughts of the Muslim polities throughout the world at present, and to predict rough estimates of future developments. Lessons taken from such reflections would bring us to respond in a positive way to the challenges placed on the doorstep of our global modern civilization at present by Muslim polities such as Khomeini Mullahs in Iran.
Indonesia presents a unique example in this respect. As the biggest Muslim nation in the world today, with more than 150 million adherents comprising 88% of its whole population, the country develops a unique relationship in current history, ie. the tug-of-war pattern of dialogue between Islam as a theocratic ideology and secular world ideologies on one hand, and between Islam as a universal ideology and the country’s national ideology of the Pancasila on the other. The continuous dialogue provides a good example of the impossibility of taking it for granted that Islam should always develop its own exclusive political ideology. Indonesia has shown that Islam could share a common ideology with other beliefs and political persuasions.
Islam came to the Indonesian (or more aptly the Southeast Asian) archipelago in different ways and times. It reached first the northwestern most tip of the region, the shore of Aceh, in the thirteenth century A.D. The small Muslim trading or fishingcommunities in the area then developed within a century into the kingdom of Pasai, Perlak and Samudra, which were eventually developed into a single strong kingdom of Aceh two centuries later. It is not a surprise that such an “orderly” pattern of development from small communities into a single kingdom brought with it also the Islamic nature of the kingdom itself with religious laws of Islam formed the content of its legal system.
The situation was entirely different in the West coast of Sumatera, the same Island where Aceh lies. The Minangkabau matriarchate society of the area had developed its own indigenous customary law, called adat Minang, before Islam reached it from Aceh in the sixteenth century A.D. However, that very society never developed a strong kingdom, so no credible authority could impose a lasting solution in the contention between Islam’s religious laws and the existing customary law. The dispute developed into the full scale sixteen-year-long Padri War between two communities led respectively by Muslim scholars (ulamas) and local “indigenous” dignitaries, from 1822 to 1838. Only when the colonial army arrived the war ended, with the Dutch administration imposing a compromise in the form of an adage: adat bersendi syara’ dan syara’ bersendi kitabullah (the customary laws should be based on religious ones, and the religious laws should be based on the Holy Quran). In fact, certain elements of the customary law are accepted by the religious laws of Islam up to the present, especially in decisions related to inheritance and marriage.
The third type of relationship between Islam and the system of power already existed before that religion reached the archipelago developed into the kingdom of Malacca in the Malay Peninsula in the fifteenth century A.D. and the kingdom of Goa in the sixteenth century A.D. In those kingdoms, Muslim foreign merchants and traders Islamized the community trough marriage with local women, and eventually gained entry into the palace hierarchy. Islamic teachings gradually developed into legitimacy-giving legal instruments side by side with old pre-Islamic traditions. The palace courts developed into Islamic system of governance with local colors, Sufism was the main integrative elements for both types of tradition
In the most important area, the most populous island of Java, Islam came into long and sometimes physical conflict with the pre- Islamic Hindu-Buddhist tradition of the Javanese kingdoms. With conquer of the great kingdom of Majapahit at the hands of several Muslim princedoms in the north-coastal areas of Central Java early in the sixteenth century A.D., a political compromise was achieved after about ninety years of military conflicts. A new kingdom, Mataram, was established, acknowledging Islam as the religion of the state with the rulers using religious titles as Executioner of Religious Teachings and God’s Caliph in the Land of Java (kalipatullah Ing Tanah Jawi). However, the palace courts were not obliged to observe Islamic teachings except for a few formalities. The palace courts were still allowed their pre-Islamic traditions beliefs disguised under the so-called Javanese culture or kejawen. However, the state conceded one important thing, ie, marriages were officiated in an Islamic way, according to its religious laws. Outside the central palace, Muslim scholars were allowed to lead the community in their religious ceremonies and to educate their children in Islamic religious disciplines through pesantren (a community learning center spread widely in the archipelago). A multi-tiered pattern of function-differentiating relationship developed over the centuries, with power holders at the power center gave nominal lip service to the teachings of Islam and Muslim scholars and leaders, sometimes even local prince, functioning in a peripheral way as the extension of the central government.
The emergence of the Dutch colonial rule, relatively blanketing the whole Europe-sized country since the eighteenth century A.D., brought with it new political horizons, including the introduction of modern world ideologies from liberal democracy an one end of the spectrum to the Marxist-Leninist version to Socialism at the other end. The birth of a modern Nationalism in Indonesia took the form of calling for the independence of the whole country from colonial rule. The struggle for independence developed in the 1930s decade into a fierce debate over the form of governance that should be established after independence from the Dutch rule, Conflicting demands of an Islamic state and a secular one were the main issues discussed among politicians, intellectuals and religious scholars alike.
The political debate between the Islamic and ‘nationalist’ political organizations continued during the Second World War occupation on the Indonesian archipelago by the Japanese military forces. Although political parties were banned, the debate continued in closed door meetings, which forced the Japanese occupation government no choice but to invite both sides to deliberate informal consultations toward the end of its rule in 1945. From those deliberations a compromises was achieved: Indonesia should not establish a theocratic state, but it should be not develop into a secular one either. The way of doing it was to formulate a set of principles, in which the first is the state and nation’s reassertion of their “Belief of One God”. In this way, the Muslim are not obliged further to establish an Islamic state, since the very acceptance of that very principle by the state denotes the freedom for the Muslim to follow the teachings of their religion (which would further be concretized by the article on freedom in the ensuing 2945 Constitution). The state is committed to protect all citizens regardless of their religion, sex or ethical origins; but the state would not commit itself to take action that might contradict religious beliefs on the nation. The set of five principles agreed upon by the participants were then declared as the Principles of the State, known popularly as Pancasila. They are embedded in the preamble of the Constitution.
However, subsequent debates on how Pancaila should be put into operation continued after Indonesia attained its independence in August 17, 1945. Coupled with military separatism, Islamic fundamentalist rebellions and Communists uprising, the political debate ended in the deadlock of the Constituent Assembly either to ratify the 1945 Constitution as the final basic instruments of the state or to promulgate another constitution in its palace. The constitutional deadlock prompted the then President Sukarno to dissolve the Assembly and to decree the 1945 constitution as the final basic instrument for the state. Subsequent Assemblies elected under the provisions of that constitution formalized that decree, and even made it almost impossible to introduce any amendments to it.
With the emergence of the theocratic political ideologies such as introduced by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, coupled with the ever present threat of the Communists’ comeback, the government proposed in 1983 that all political organizations and “social or mass-based associations should put Pancasila as the “sole base” in their constitution thus ensures their absolute loyalty to that “national ideology” of the Indonesians. The ensuing debate resulted from that proposal showed the acute dilemma faced by religious organizations and councils. The Islamic organization proposed to differentiate Pancasila as the ‘sole base’ in a sense of political ideology and another ‘base’ which would be cultural in nature. The government’s acceptance of that counter-proposal resulted in those Islamic organizations formulating Pancasila as ‘asas’ (ideological base) and Islam as ‘aqidah’ (faith) in their respective constitution.
The happy-ending note of that debate, concluded satisfactorily in 1985 when different Christian Church councils declared their acceptance of Pancasila as the ‘sole base’ of their organizations while retaining their commitment to the ‘true light of Jesus Christ’, does not mean fundamental question concerning the relationship between Islam and the state have been settled. There are still intriguing questions concerning the boundaries of the state’s jurisdiction over the religious life of its citizens or how far demands to formalize elements of particular religious teachings in the national law and governmental regulations remain to be tackled in fair solutions to all citizens.
A case exemplifies that situation. In 1973 the government tabled before Parliament a bill on marriage, which was in essence a secular one applicable for all citizens. Two aspect of it were anathema to the Muslim, i.e. the legal right of adopted sons or daughters to inherit from their adopted parents, as well as legality of unlimited inter-religious marriages. No religious law in Islam allows the right of adopted sons or daughters to fully get the inheritance. The only way for the adopted parents is to transfer a third of his property as a gift to their adopted sons or daughters during his or her lifetime, with the remaining two-third of the property inherited by different inheritors. Islam also disavows marriage of a female Muslim with ‘the people of the book” (Jews and Christians), although it allows male Muslim to do so. The bitter debate on that bill, dramatized by the occupation of the parliament building by Muslim youth for a few hours, ended with the bill withdrawn by the government another bill reflecting the teachings of Islam in full force enacted speedily early in 1974. The only ‘deviation’ from the traditional religious laws of Islam in the law are the obligation for a husband to obtain a written consent from his wife if he wants to marry another woman, and the binding legal effect on divorce is resided in the decision of the (Islamic) religious court, not just by the husband’s declaration as the old law books of Islam.
The non-Muslim, understandably, complain very much about the ‘special’ status of Muslim regarding the family law. According to them, a fair national law system should treat all citizens in different ways according to their ethical origins, sex, religion, culture or language is not national in its nature anymore. But the Muslim invoke the first principle of the state (Belief in One God) as a weapon against any secular law contradicting any religious law on other, is further aggravated by the fact that Supreme Court is not given by the 1945 Constitution the right to give any decision on the constitutionality of any single law. It could render decisions on cases related to governmental implementer regulations only.
But in 1978 another development took place. During the sessions of the People’s Deliberative Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat, MPR) the highest authority of the country with power to amend the Constitution and appointing the President as the head of government as well as of state, a draft was submitted by the government to formalize the Guidance for Understanding and Implementing Pancasila (P-4 or Pendidikan Penghayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila). The draft was rejected by the Islamic party since it contains acceptance ‘non-religion spirituality’ (aliran kepercayaan). The Muslim views any faith without any particular religion as paganism or polytheism, which are both condemned by their religion. That Islamic party denoted their objection to that draft by staging a “walkout” from the session assigned to make decision still sticks until today and the Muslim still abide by its provisions, since the decision is “legally binding”. Here is a case where a religious teaching or law is practically modified in practice through a legal instrument of the state.
Currently, the time of this paper’s writing, a great debate arise over the bill on the religious court (Rancangan Undang-undang Peradilan Agama), which formalized the implementing legal arm for the bitterly fought Act of Marriage of 1974, as well as three other “book of law” (Kitab Hukum) on inheritance, endowment and will. All formalization of the religious court, with its full jurisdiction over cases related to those laws, is seen by the non-Muslim as a violation to the principle of equality before the laws on those areas of life for them. Those laws are particularistic in nature, so they are applicable for the Muslim alone, not to the rest of the country’s citizens. Since those laws are specifically directed toward the Muslim, then it is natural that a specific court should be established to implement them effectively. The military have their own court for their members, so why not an (Islamic) religious court for the Muslim? This argument is replied by stating that the military court does not discriminate citizens according to their ethnical origins, sex, religion, language or culture. Although the Parliament is scheduled to debate the bill until the beginning of the fourth quarter of 1989, the government has declared it could not accept any fundamental modification to its provisions. Interestingly, the Hindus declare their support for the bill, and demand that a religious court should be established for them also. The main argument of this bills the imperative of the plurality of law sources for the very much diversified nation. Any opposition to that principle means the imposition of a single law source for the nation, i.e. the Westernized law code touted as “national” by their proponents.
The cases described above show that the tug-of-war between Islam as a “universal way of life” and Pancasila as the “national ideology’ of Indonesia still continues in a dynamic way and lively manner.
However, the status quo situation so far has given legal constrains and political limitations for the Muslim to pursue further their self- defined task of developing the religious laws not as legal decisions of the state, but as social ethics to be implemented by people through their own volition.
The “victory” of the proponents of the efforts to Islamize the law, such as proven in the battle for the 1974 Act of Marriage and the preclude result of the debate on the 1989 (Islamic) Religious Court, would bring with it the feeling on insecurity on the part of the non- Muslim minority. The perception of discrimination and segregation resulting from that kind of insecurity feeling would render Pancasila as battleground for narrow group interests, not the noble compromise to pursue national interests. Consequently, a necessity arises now among a group of Muslim intellectuals for stressing the importance of putting Islam and Pancasila in a complementary configuration, neither by opposing them to each other nor by manipulating one to a narrow and non-sided interpretations of the other. Seen from this perspective, the future dialogue between Islam and Pancasila in Indonesia promises a very interesting point for observation. The results would influence the course of the nation, but also provides an example, for better or worse, for other nations with any sizeable Muslims among their population.