Author: Nabila Ananada*
Social media was enlivened with news addressed to the Government accompanied by the title “Ban on adhan using loudspeakers or speakers”. Various sentences were chosen to make netizens believe that President Jokowi through the Minister of Religion had ratified the ban on adhan with the speaker. Even more extreme they blaspheme Jokowi and his government as PKI or Satan because they feel disturbed by the sound of the call to prayer.
Then, as is generally the habit of haters, at the end of the sentence they spread massively included invitations and hashtags # 2019 Change President. Not only that, in addition to including the clipping of newspapers with unclear media names and the date on which the news was released, they also presented a video clip of the Minister of Religion, Lukman Saifuddin when clarifying the issue of old rules (not prohibitions) on the use of loudspeakers in mosques. The news was intentionally posted and distributed as if the loudspeaker rules were made this year to discredit the other party. This is spread across many groups, both Facebook, Instagram or WhatApp.
Muhammadiyah Amin, Director General of Islamic Education, explained that the rules for guiding the use of loudspeakers in mosques, langgar, and mushalla had existed since 1978. The rules were stated in the Director General of Guidance for Islamic Community Guidance Number Kep / D / 101/1978. In 1978 the Director General of Islamic Bimas, Ministry of Religion, issued a Director General of Islamic Community Guidance Instruction No. Kep / D / 101/1978 concerning the Use of Loudspeakers in Mosques, Offices and Mushalla. In a letter signed by Kafrawi, the Director General of Islamic Military at that time, there were a number of rules regarding the use of loudspeakers in mosques, langgar, or mushalla. Here are the rules:
- Care for the use of loudspeakers by people who are skilled and not trying or still learning. Thus there is no noise, buzzing which can lead to antipathy or irregular assumptions of a mosque, violation or musala
- Those who use loudspeakers (muezzin, priest of prayer, reciters of the Koran, etc.) should have a voice that is fluent, melodious, tasty not shrill, discordant, or too small. This is to avoid the notion of outsiders about the orderliness of a mosque and even far more than cause a feeling of love and sympathy that hears other than annoying.
- Fulfillment of the conditions specified, such as not allowed too to raise the voice of prayer, dzikir, and prayer. Because the violation did not cause sympathy but rather the astonishment of the religious community itself not to obey the teachings of their religion
- Fulfillment of the conditions under which the person listening is ready to hear it, not in a state of sleep, rest, worship or in a ceremony. In such circumstances (except the call to prayer) it will not cause people’s love or vice versa. Unlike in the villages where the community is still busy, the religious voices from inside the mosque, langgar, or musala besides means the call for piety can also be considered entertainment to fill the surrounding loneliness.
- From the guidance of the prophet, the sound of the call to prayer as a sign of the entry of prayer must indeed be exalted. And therefore the use of loudspeakers for him is not debated. What needs to be considered is that the sound of the muezzin is not discordant and is otherwise tasty, melodious, and serene.
The instruction also regulates the procedure for installing good sound loudspeakers during five daily prayers, Friday prayers, also during takbir, tarhim, and Ramadan.
The emergence of slander and hoaks news accusing the government in the Jokowi era of issuing rules prohibiting adhan with speakers originated from news about the residents of Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, named Meiliana. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for protesting the sound volume of the call to prayer. The verdict also drew controversy until it became the highlight of world news. Not to forget, the Minister of Religion, Lukman Saifuddin Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, through his Twitter account, again reminded of the rules for using loudspeakers for the call to prayer in places of worship. The message he delivered a few moments after the verdict to Meiliana.
The rules for using loudspeakers for the call to prayer or adhan apply to mosques, prayer rooms and violations and the rules for using loudspeakers for the call to prayer are valid several years ago. Actually the Ministry of Religion through the Directorate General of Guidance of the Islamic Religion Society has issued a regulation on mosque loudspeakers. But the rule was made in 1978 and the rule is still valid because there is no successor. So what the opposition is doing to bring down the current government intentionally by linking the issue of SARA against polemic the sound of the call to prayer and it is clearly slander or hoax because of the fact that the rules for using loudspeakers are not made in Jokowi’s era but have been around since the New Order. Let’s be a wise Indonesian society and not be affected by issues that can divide this nation.
*) Islamic Economics Students UIN Sunan Kalijaga