History shows that pesantren (Islamic
boarding schools) have made a great contribution to the independence of
this country; most have also played a significant role in making
Indonesian Muslims moderate and tolerant. However, the condition of
pesantren, especially in rural areas, is deplorable. Most have been left
behind in comparison to other educational institutions in urban areas.
One reason is the lack of attention from the government on the
development of pesantren.
Thus, the government needs to create an
affirmative program to help the schools develop, and to support their
surrounding communities to face the influence of globalization. Only
about 7 percent of students from rural areas continue their studies to a
university level; most cannot study in major cities due to the high
living costs.
The affirmative program should include
affordable non-religious studies for people in rural areas. Such
programs would have a multiplier effect, which would improve their
competitiveness. Importantly, these programs would reduce urbanization
as well as reducing the gap between urban and rural areas; and they are
plausibly a good method of de-radicalization.
Not many understand that the oldest and
earliest education in the Indonesian archipelago was Islamic education,
particularly in pesantren. Islamic education started in the ninth
century in Barus, on the western coast of Sumatra, when many foreigners
including Islamic scholars arrived there. Foreigners were particularly
attracted to the camphor trees in the area, as their sap can be used to
produce kapur barus (camphor).
Historical records suggest that the
zenith of Islam in the archipelago occurred from 1400 to 1680. Modern
Malay civilization developed the use of Arabic script for writing
instead of the Latin alphabet; this became known as the Jawi script.
Well-known scholars during this time included Hamzah Fansuri, Syamsuddin
Sumatrani, Nuruddin al-Raniri and Abdurrauf al-Singkili.
Anthony Johns considered the Malay
people’s conversion into Muslims as a remarkable historical development.
Firstly, it happened during the setback of the Islamic imperium in the
Middle East. Secondly, the process was relatively rapid, in the absence
of political support from any military power. Thirdly, the number of
people converting from Hinduism to Islam was more than 89 percent of the
population. Indisputably, the key to this phenomenon was the existence
of pesantren.
The Walisongo (nine Javanese Islamic
saints) were the early figures who spread Islam in the future Indonesia.
One of the Walisongo, Maulana Malik Ibrahim, who died in 1419, is known
as the grand master of the pesantren tradition. Meanwhile, Java’s
oldest pesantren is Tegalsari in Ponorogo, East Java, which was
established 300 years ago by Hasan Besari. Ronggowarsito, a great
Javanese poet, was one of his students.
Several old pesantren that are still in
operation today include: the Sidogiri in Pasuruan, East Java, which was
first established in 1745; the Jamsaren in Surakarta, Central Java,
established 1750; Miftahul Huda in Malang, East Java, established 1768;
the Buntet in Cirebon, established 1785; Darul Ulum in Pamekasan,
Madura, East Java, established 1787; and Langitan in Tuban, East Java,
established 1830.
Several pesantren which are now
well-known were actually established at later times, such as the
Tebuireng in Jombang, East Java (established in 1899), Lirboyo in Kediri
(established in 1910) and Gontor in Ponorogo, East Java (established in
1926).
In the Minangkabau highlands in West
Sumatra, a similar institution to the pesantren exists, called the
surau, as does the dayah in Aceh.
Secular educational institutions were
established by the Dutch East Indies in the early 1840s at the
suggestion of Snouck Hurgronje. The main purpose was to attain more
educated employees for the Dutch administration and private companies.
However, the development of the secular educational institutions was
also believed to challenge the influence of pesantren which had begun to
irritate the colonial government.
According to Hurgronje, the culture of
the East Indies had to be combined with European culture. The Dutch
education system was thus expanded, making many more Indonesians
eligible to attend. This education policy, later part of the “ethical
policy” toward colonial subjects, was deemed the best political decision
to reduce and eventually defeat the influence of Islam in the Dutch
East Indies.
In 1919, the Bandung School of
Technology was set up, followed by the School of Law in 1924 and the
School of Medicine in 1926, the latter two both in Jakarta.
Interestingly, even though many students received a western education,
they did not lose their identities.
A number of them gathered in Jakarta in
October 1928 to hold the second youth congress, which then resulted in
Sumpah Pemuda (The Youth Pledge). That moment surely formed the embryo
of Indonesian independence. To achieve this vision, the future years saw
cooperation and understanding between our founding fathers, who
graduated from pesantren and western style education.
In 1950, the religious affairs minister
of the time, Wahid Hasyim, and the education minister, Bahder Johan,
signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to combine Islamic and
secular education. Furthermore, the pesantren also contributed to the
establishment of the Islamic Indonesian University (UII) as the first
private university in Indonesia. The proponents of Islamic higher
education further enabled many pesantren alumni to continue their
studies in any discipline they chose.
Nowadays, there are some 28,000
pesantren across Indonesia, mostly in East Java. In 1971 there were
4,200 such schools while, in 1998, the figure rose to 8,000, and rose
again to 22,000 by 2008. The increasing number of schools shows the
public’s appreciation as many citizens choose to send their children to
pesantren — which have continued their tradition, over hundreds of
years, of educating our society.
The writer is the director of Tebuireng Pesantren, Jombang, East Java.
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