When Fuqaha Triumphs Over Scientists

The increasing need for acquisition of technology and modern sciences has been making traditional institutions of religious education losing more and more admirers. These institutions are often regarded as something backward, providing no contemporary knowledge needed for the current life, and thus producing generation who does not have enough compatability compared with those graduated from modern one. However, bahtsul masa’il meeting held in Jepara yesterday provided example that that is not the case. In the event, graduates from pesantren, Indonesian style of traditional moslem boarding school, proved to be in the supremation of logics over leading scientists from Jakarta.

Bahtsul masa’il, literally means discussing problems/issues, is a forum in the organization of Nahdlatul Ulama (the largest traditional moslem organization in Indonesia) to discuss social-contemporary issues exclusively from the perspective of fiqh (Islamic law). For NU followers, it is such a significant forum where they can have fatwa or hukm on certain (important) issues based on the agreement of majority of ulama’. In the organization of NU itself, it exists from national up to sub-district level. It even has its own special body, called Lajnah Bahtsul Masa’il (Body of Bahtsul Masa’il, commonly abbreviated as LBM) within NU structure. Since it is very related with fiqh which is considered quite significant in moslem’s daily life, the forum is usually prepared well. Days before the commencement of forum, issue(s) to discuss and questions to be answered are already distributed, attached to the invitation letter. This is intended to give opportunity for participants to study the case and collect ta‘bir, or reference or quotation from great ulamas to support their arguments. In the forum itself, there will be a moderator and a secretary who will write down all the discussion traffic, mustasyar team consisting of several leading old kyais, perumus team who will formulate the hukm agreement, and participants whose job is to give comments on the discussed issue and submit their takbir to the committee.

Yesterday, to commemorate NU’s Harlah (NU’s anniversary), Pimpinan Cabang Nahdlatul Ulama (Board of NU at district level) Jepara held two important formal events related with the government’s proposal of nuclear power plant which is planned to build 35 kilometer away from the district capital (besides these formal events, there was also a mass protest of thousands of villagers marching from the village of the planned sites against the proposal). Those events are a public discussion with distinguished speakers officially coming from Ministry for Energy and Mineral Resources, Badan Tenaga Atom Nasional (BATAN, National Agency for Atomic Energy), Agency for Monitoring Atomic Energy representing pro-nuclear party, and individuals and academics such as George Junus Aditjondro, Iwan Kurniawan, and Budi Widianarko representing the contra-party; and bahtsul masa’il which is held afterwards. Public discussion with those distinguished speakers was held first with supposed aim to provide basic informations needed for discussing the nuclear issue from fiqh perspective. However, the information seemed to be insufficient for them, and this is where the forum became interesting.

For these fuqâha (fiqh specialists), information provided by the scientists, either from the pro party or from the contra, is not quite firm to be a base for making fiqhiyyah decision on the questions provided in the forum. In answering the question of whether, from a fiqh perspective, PLTN, an abbreviation stands for Pembangkit Listrik Tenaga Nuklir (nuclear power plant) is a maslahah (a goodness) or mafsadah (badness), it is clearly showed that these pesantren graduates are working hard to discern the issue, and not easily convinced by high technical explanation from the scientists. From the standpoint of both scientists, who were invited again to give additional explanation at this forum, the PLTN issue seems to be already clear. For the sourceperson from BATAN, PLTN means maslahah because it will provide additional energy so to prevent energy crisis in the country in 2020s. While for the anti-nuclear, PLTN means mafsadah because it could make disastrous impacts such as what happened in Chernobyl. But for these fuqâha, who try to make reliable hukm, the issue was not as clear as the scientists see. The scientists from both parties looked struggling hard to give rational, sensible, and easy-to-discern explanations to gain religious support for their position. And it is very hard to do so, especially if the fuqâha have their own logics of thinking.

Despite the agreement that the principle of dar’u al-mafâsid muqoddam ‘alâ jalb al-masôlih (leaving things disastrous is more urgent than making goodnesses) should reign, those fuqâha are arguing about the degrees of both maslahah and mafsadah and questioning the factuality of scientists’ explanations. Though there are some participants who tended to arbitrarily pick up religious reference to support his argument, nearly all participants were working hard to find firm logical foundations complemented with religious reference to make decision. To satisfy their logical foundations, the forum was even going back and forth from participants to scientists for some clarifications. The forum process proves that the issue seems to be more complex, not as necessarily maslahah or mafsadah as the scientists think.

In the head of these fuqâha, maslahah is divided into three levels, which are maslahah tahsiniyyah (tertiary maslahah, the lowest level), maslahah hajiyyah (secondary), and maslahah dlaruriyyah (urgent maslahah; this has to be done soon, otherwise, there will be disastrous impacts). As long as it is not dlaruriyyah, something which is considered of having maslahah must not be done at all costs. In this case, after hearing scientists’ explanations, PLTN is believed to do have maslahah, but not necessarily maslahah dlaruriyyah, because there are still other available energy resources to supply power. On the other hand, on the reason that there is not yet precedent of PLTN (it will be the first of its kind in Indonesia), some participants said that mafsadah scientists believed to be inherent in it is still included as mafsadah mauhummah (still predicted), not mafsadah muhaqqaqah (proved or empirical mafsadah). While all the participants agreed that PLTN has maslahah, disagreements were still arising from the identification of its mafsadah. In identifying this, participants seemed to be divided into the materialist group and the immaterialist. The materialist think that to judge PLTN’s mafsadah, there must be factual, visible and sensible impacts on human (body), while the other think that mafsadah should not only be looked at the (human) body but also at the social unhappiness. This disagreement stopped when KH Aniq (mustasyar of the forum from Pati), concluding from the implicit agreement from the pro-nuclear party that PLTN has dangerous waste, showed that PLTN’s waste is something muhaqqaqah.

After discussing for more than three hours up to midnight, the forum finally reached an agreement that, from a fiqh perspective, PLTN is not allowed (“tidak diperbolehkan”) to build in Jepara. For some, that agreement is the most favourable decision at the moment and is believed to contribute in reducing current social unrest. However, that agreement is not the only important thing to see in the forum. The dynamics of the forum showed something which is not less interesting: graduates from pesantren managed to maintain their thinking quite independently, relatively free of interests. They even proved that the quality of pesantrens are not as low as most people think they are.

Jepara, 1 September 2007

Cherry Blossoms in Tokyo

“You are lucky, you will be there at the right time,” says Kana, a Japanese friend right after she knew that I am going to her country in the end of March. I didn’t really feel that she really meant it until I spent a day in Tokyo.

Weaking up very early in the morning is now something difficult for me to do. But, that day, Sunday, 30 April 2008, I managed to do it. I needed to leave Kobe, the place where I had a conference for the last two days, for Osaka where I could buy JR Pass and catch shinkansen, the fastest train in the world. And I needed to get on shinkansen scheduled to leave for Tokyo by 7 AM.

Even though it turns out that I was not eligible to buy 7-day JR Pass, an economical way to take shinkansen and any other JR transportation within seven day-visit in all over Japan, I decided to take shinkansen still when I arrived in Shin-Osaka. The ticket price? Oh, I wasn’t thinking about it. I felt that I needed to be in Tokyo by 11 AM to meet my two Japanese friends, Hibiki and Nozomi, whom I met in Indonesia 5 years ago. Besides, I planned to spend only one night there. Later, when I was doing financial report of this trip for my university, I realized that it is very expensive. I paid 14,250 yen for a single trip. It is almost 75% of monthly bill for gas, water and electricity of an average apartment in Kobe.

It wasn’t bad anyway. The trip from Osaka to Tokyo, whose distance is about 550 km or 341 miles, was completed only in 2 hours and half. And you can even charge your laptop in the train, of course if you bring also your japanese-style socket. It seems that it is designed for rich people, bosses and executives who have to travel hundreds of mile in very short time and probably have to go back on the same day.

I was very excited when shinkansen train I took finally stopped at tokyo station. Seeing friends and visiting some places I already put on my list were bringing that feeling of excitement in me. I found out later on that such excitement would not be easily fulfilled, especially if you have no cellular phone in a huge station like Tokyo. “You can’t live without mobile phone in Tokyo,” said Mike, a Taiwanese friend I just knew that day from Nozomi. Maybe he is right. I was lost in that huge station with thousands of people and I could only contact Nozomi and Hibiki, who had been waiting for me in the designated exit, through public phone. (I thought having a simcard from developed country like Netherlands is guarantee that you will have your cellular network in another developed country like Japan. It turns our that it is not always true!!). We were looking each other for almost 1 and half hour! Pffff!!

Feeling of desperation was finally gone after seeing two familiar faces in front of Marounouchi Underground Central Entrance. Hibiki, now an air traffic controller at Haneda airport, and Nozomi, who is working at Sumitomo company, still look the same. I still remember exactly how they looked like five years ago when I made them lost in their translation during their field research in Yogyakarta. Their hospitality and friendliness soon evaporated my desperation. With them, I spent my best time in Japan.

Hibiki took me to some interesting places. First to a park near Ueno station where we joined the crowd enjoying cherry, or popularly known as sakura, blossoms. “It’s the first day we enjoyed cherry blossoms this year,” said Hibiki. Yes, blossoming sakura is not happening all the time. I heard that it blossoms only for two weeks in a year, in the beginning of spring. What made it very special was that it was on Sunday where everybody is free of work. Under the blossoming pink sakura mats were displayed where everybody was drinking, eating and looks very happy. The other thousands of people were just walking down through all the park area. There were also some free entertainments such as juggling and traditional japanese performance, which was look like a chinese liong-liong on the yard of Shinto temple.

Another place I visited was Harajuku, a term refers to a street where japanese youth with their own distinct fashion style usually gather. For indonesian youth, this harajuku thing is quite familiar because it was inspiring the outward appearance of Ratu, a female band which used to be very famous in Indonesian pop-music. That afternoon, I met some female tenagers dressed in extra-ordinary pink girl clothes full of broideries and typically western female cap as we’ve seen in little house on the prairie tv series. Some others dressed in quite innovative rock-style fashion. They looked very confident going from one place to another, it looked like the surrounding area is their catwalk. But, even for those who did not dress in a very extra-ordinary way, for me, japanese youth (both male and female) are generally fashion-stylist.

The last impressive place we visited is Bochi-Bochi, a traditional osaka style restaurant, where three of us had dinner. It is relatively a small place, with its carrying capacity no more than 20 people. Its interior is totally fit with my imagination about japanese houses, I gathered from Oshin tv series and some other images. They have a sliding door with its square motives, curtains whose length is half of the door, and relatively low ceilings. When we entered the restaurant, the chief chef says something like an announcement in japanese, and the other chefs were simultaneously replying quite aloud. Another interesting thing is the way they serve the meals. In each table, there is an electric stove which exhaust third quarter of the table. The remaining table is where we put a small traditional japanese plates, each with its japanese “knife” to cut the food. It is on the electric stove that chefs put his cookings And to pick up foods, of course, we use chopsticks.

While we are eating okonomi-yaki, a pan-fried batter cake usually referred as japanese pizza, and takogarlic, octopus with strong garlic taste, we were chatting about what kind of life has been going on in the last five years. “I still can’t believe that you are here,” says Nozomi at last. But, their hospitality was not ended here yet. Later that night, they took me to the place of Nozomi’s friend, Mike the one I mentioned in the beginning, where I spent the night. Hibiki helped me in calling the bus agent for the bus ticket to go to Kyoto the next morning, and Nozomi bought me and Mike some snacks and foods for breakfast. And Mike, apart from giving me a place to stay, gave me another hand for the sake of my future academic life. Yeah, he allowed me to use his laptop for the whole night to work on my essay to be submitted the next morning.

Kana is right. I am lucky, I am coming at the right time. Not only for sakura, but also for coming to see good friends like them.

The Hague, The Netherlands

5 April 2008