Constitutional Justice Wahiduddin Adams delivering an academic oration at the inauguration of South Sumatera provincial branch managers of the Indonesian Islamic Student Movement (PMII), Saturday (6/25/2021). Photo by Humas MK.
Sunday, June 26, 2022 | 05:10 WIB
JAKARTA, Public Relations—Constitutional Justice Wahiduddin Adams delivered an academic oration at the inauguration of South Sumatera provincial branch managers of the Indonesian Islamic Student Movement (PMII) on Saturday, June 25, 2022 at Griya Agung, Palembang.
He explained that scholars were narrowly defined by the majority of the community as those who have finished formal education, from basic education to higher education.
“Currently we live in an era that has developed so rapidly. Knowledge obtained from eras in the past has been collected and codified. Mankind has also found ways and methods to make scientific measurements to fit knowledge to established standards. The knowledge acquired is then taught in educational institutions. If a student who is involved in teaching and learning activities in an educational institution succeeds in exceeding the graduation standards set by the institution, they are given a graduation certificate,” he said.
Not Just from University
In conclusion, Justice Wahiduddin said, a person who holds a certification from an educational institution deserves to call themselves a scholar and will be considered by the public as such. On the other hand, there is a lot of knowledge not taught in school but might bring humankind closer to God.
“Therefore, I would like to encourage and urge students who are PMII members to just sit still and be amazed by the knowledge taught in college. There is knowledge, when studied in depth, will only keep students from learning from God. There might be knowledge learned from school, for example Greek philosophy, which could actually distance us from Allah SWT,” he said.
He revealed that Imam Al Ghazali heavily critiqued philosophers of their foolishness or confusion in his book Tahafut Al-Falasifa. However, this does not mean that we should not study philosophy in general. In fact, a branch of philosophy is also studied in pesantren, for example mantiq or the art of logic. In the days, Islam spread very rapidly even since the era of Caliph Umar bin Khattab to the Middle East, Palestine. However, it was followed by the distribution of knowledge about the religion through literature. It was spread in limited extent orally, at a time where writing was rare and Google had not existed. In the past, religious knowledge was dominated by oral traditions spread by friends, tabi’in and tabi’ al-tabi’in that were limited in number.
“Therefore, to find out the law or fiqh, many people relied on scholars. For scholars who in the Arabian Peninsula, the interpretation of the laws in the Quran benefitted from the knowledge of the history of the hadith conveyed by the Prophet. However, for Muslims who lived far from the Arabian Peninsula where the hadith had not been compiled properly, to interpret the laws in the Quran, tools were needed. They opted for the logic, or the mantiq,” he explained.
Two Schools of Thought
Justice Wahiduddin added that in the early days of Islam, there were two schools of thought of interpreting Islamic law. In areas close to Mecca and Medina, the Quran was interpreted using the memories of the tabi’in and tabi’ al-tabi’in of the Prophet’s sunnah. In other areas, they used philosophy or the art of logic.
“I need to emphasize that this happened in the early days of Islam and the spread of knowledge was not evenly distributed. However, after that, when the tradition of knowledge, literacy, and the desire to study Islam was so great, scholars developed various scientific methods to collect knowledge and there were exchanges of knowledge. For example, the knowledge of the hadith was no longer dominated by Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula. There were hadith experts thousands of kilometers from Mecca who came from Bukhara city in the today’s Uzbekistan. This scholar was known as Imam Bukhari. He lived two centuries after the Prophet Muhammad, around 200s AH, where the exchange of knowledge about Islamic law was growing rapidly,” he explained.
Justice Wahiduddin then talked about people’s fascination of western concepts, which he often observed in his daily activities relating to judicial review. He said that if observed and studied properly, similar concepts also exist in Islamic laws. Therefore, he often finds the Arabic equivalents for these concepts.
“For example, I prefer the word maslahah mursalah over ‘proportionality’ because basically both involve the same formulation, that is, trying to find balance among conflicting interests, both personal and public, and find which one to take precedence,” he said.
Writer : Nano Tresna Arfana
Editor : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 6/28/2022 14:52 WIB
Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian versions, the Indonesian version will prevail.
Sunday, June 26, 2022 | 05:10 WIB 221