I am really worried that there will be a wave of anti-religion and even new atheism in the Middle East after the bloody Arab Spring, especially with the emergence of "cold-blooded" militias in the name of Islam, said this friend who did not want to be famous, even though he had a lot to share the truth. helpful.
Let us look at Europe towards the renaissance, the end of the Middle Ages. When religion became a slaughterer, scientists continued to have horizontal conflicts between the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed Churches. The bloody battle for three hundred years involving the grassroots with 7.5 million dead, caused Western society to choose to be secular, deist, agnostic, and even atheist until now. The historical trauma continues, until today many churches are empty of the congregation, many have been closed and even sold because they no longer hold services.
This was also what happened in the past after centuries of Hinduism and Buddhism developed in Indonesia. Although Hinduism only developed among the wong Njero (Agus Sunyoto's term) who were elitist within the Kraton, it had survived for a long time. Until when the Majapahit rulers were busy fighting over the throne of power in the Paregreg war that lasted for generations. The teaching brought by King Kertanegara, the last king of the Singasari kingdom, was the Bhairawa Tantra. In the Shiva-Buddhist belief, it is in great demand by state officials. This is a shortcut to moksa with a ritual known as Ma-lima.
According to Prof. Rasyidi, the ma lima ceremony consisted of Matsya rites (eating poisonous mackerel), Manuya (eating the meat and drinking the blood of the girl who was used as a sacrifice), Madya (ritual ceremony by drinking liquor until drunk), Mithra (ritual dance until ecstasy of unconsciousness), and Maithuna (mass Copulation). The ceremony is carried out in a field called Setra).
Prof. Opinion. De la Valle Poussin, who stated that Maithuna's practice was not carried out seriously was denied by Prof. Dr. H. M. Rasjidi, because Maithuna was practiced in a concrete way. Maithuna is not considered a sinner because the culprit is considered to have become a god. Ma five for the coronation of a king requires more victims, sacrifices can reach hundreds of people.
"Adityawarman, a Radja from the Malay kingdom (who became the son-in-law of the king of Majapahit) received his ordination in the middle of the carcass field while sitting on a heap of carcasses, laughing drinking blood, facing human sacrifices that emitted a foul odor, but to Adityawarman the smell was very fragrant".
The death rites were no less gruesome. When a husband dies, he will be burned in the Ngaben ceremony. But it does not stop there, the risk of a woman who lives in the philosophy of swarga going through hell, obliging her wife to be burned alive with her husband's corpse. The biggest Sati ceremony took place at the death of the king of Blambangan, Tawang Alun.
Tawang Alun II was written a lot in the Dutch archives, even at the end of his throne. Namely, when the Ngaben corpse ceremony was held spectacularly. Once upon a time, in the ceremony, 271 of Tawang Alun's 400 wives burned themselves (Sati).
In the atmosphere of the "moral collapse" of religion like that, said Dennys Lombard, Javanese people really need a new religious touch. If the post-bloody conflicts of Catholics and Protestants in Europe resulted in a massive wave of secularization, and the way of thinking that removed God became the new religion of the people. So in Java, this Tantrism then produced a mass Islamic wave of the population. Islamic body said Zamakhsyari Dhofier in the Islamic Boarding School Tradition. The important thing is Islam first.
The ulama then laid the foundation of a new morality in Javanese society, namely Nglakoni ma lima (don't do ma lima), at first this was a call from the ulama to Javanese people not to do this Bhairawa Tantra ritual anymore. Because rituals are not only evil to God but also evil to humans. As for the term Nglakoni ma lima, which means Madat, just Madon, just drinking, just playing and playing thief (don't smoke opium, don't commit adultery, don't get drunk, don't gamble, and don't steal) the basic standard of Javanese morality is the translation of ma. five after Javanese society experienced Islamization.
A moral revolution that caused the propagators of Islam to become role models for all Javanese society. For matters of endurance, religion, and prayer, the abandons leave it to the ulama or at least the Santri. According to Nakamura and CC Berg, this is a manifestation of the success of the Islamization process in Java.
"It is precisely at the religious heart of the abandons, that is, in their ritual life, they really depend on the help of the Santri. Only the Santri can lead prayers in the most central rite of the Abangan people, namely the Slametan. It is also the Santri who can lead the ceremony when an Abangan experience, what Malinowsky calls the foremost and most final crisis in life, namely: death.
Not only the Islamization of religious rites, language, patterns of relationships in society, leadership patterns have also undergone fundamental changes. The change from the Javanese Sanskrit language which adopted many Islamic terms, such as fair, thoughtful, people, Sultan or the Islamization of the meaning of prayer which means prayer, Pasa means Shaum, Suwarga means Jannah and such are evidence of the existence of Islam which is the foundation for the new Javanese society which more civilized.
It is very reasonable when Prof. Syed Naquib Al Attas stated that the arrival of Islam to the Malay archipelago (including Java in it) was the most important event in the history of this archipelago. This was agreed by Dr. H. Roeslan Abdulgani who stated that Islam came to the archipelago to bring Tamaddun (civilization), progress, and intelligence. A conclusion that is diametrically opposed to the opinion of colonial Javanologists and their followers that Islam is diametrically opposed to Java because, in fact, it was the Javanese people who voluntarily converted themselves to Islam.
It's just that, when later, as time went on, Islam was presented as a mere hubbub of political power conflict, I really became worried, as my friend earlier, that there would be community groups that would slowly leave their Islamic identity. A naked example of this is when the Santri had only a single face, namely politics, in the Old Order. Masyumi for modernists and NU for traditionalists, which then came into conflict with the Abangan political power (PKI) with high conflict intensity and even bloody. Finally, due to the bloody conflict, said Avery T. Willis, two million Abangans chose to leave Islam and convert to Christianity / Catholicism. If we travel around Merapi-Merbabu, the villages and the Christian population there, 90% of them are Christians after the PKI crackdown in 1965. So, fighting for power is fine, but remember, when you bring religion as jargon. very explicitly, your misstep can be detrimental to religion itself.
