By: Raditya Rahman *
Of the 100 mosques in ministries, institutions and State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN), there are 41 mosques indicated to have been exposed to radicalism. Among them were 11 ministry mosques, 22 in the institutional environment and 21 mosques in the BUMN area. Of the 41 mosques there are 7 mosques in low category, 17 mosques are in the moderate category and 17 mosques are in the category of high radicalism. In addition, the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) also explained that there were around 500 mosques throughout Indonesia which were indicated to be exposed to radical understanding. Some mosques were also used to spread the ideology of radicalism, there were also those used for consolidation, even found that the mosque administrators were travel agents for anyone who wanted to go to Syria.
In addition, ideological degradation is also happening in the community. The main problem is the increasing social conflict such as SARA, as well as provocative content circulating in the mass media. Maybe mosque activists or mosque takmir need to reflect on an attitude of tolerance that had been carried out by the Prophet Muhammad. Where in the year 10 AH, the Messenger of Allah SAW came the arrival of Christians from Najran. The Prophet welcomed his guests cordially. But by chance the meeting took place in the evening and the Christian group needed to worship. So the Prophet invited his guests to hold a service at the Prophet’s Mosque.
Although at that time the companions gave a hard code to the Prophet so as not to allow Christians to worship at the Prophet’s Mosque. However, this was ignored by the Prophet Muhammad, until later the Companions understood that such a matter was allowed for emergency reasons. However, this event is a historical record of the practice of tolerance. Of course this was not done haphazardly by the Prophet, because after all the Prophet Muhammad SAW was a role model that consistently brought the basis of arguments referring to the text of the Qur’an.
With the existence of mosques exposed to radicalism, of course this is a very serious concern for all parties. If radicalism is found in 41 mosques in the ministries or state-owned enterprises, then it can be hypothesized that the ministry employees and the state civil apparatus are becoming the main targets of the spread of radicalism.
On another occasion, Minister of Home Affairs Tjahjo Kumolo had asked government officials, especially the sub-district head, to coordinate with the TNI – Polri and religious leaders to detect the existence of radicalism that could lead to terrorism, where this could potentially endanger the community. The threat of radicalism is a real danger. The movement can be latent, but destructive. While the threat is now strongly suspected of developing through mosques wherein there are state civil apparatus. His movement again through the mosque, a holy place that should be the center of the spread of the mercy of Allah, the Most Merciful, Most Merciful.
Radicalism and terrorism are serious threats. Its presence can endanger the safety of the nation and state and national interests. The threat of terrorism needs to be prevented by one of the programs, namely de-radicalization. Deradicalization is all efforts made to neutralize radical notions through interdisciplinary approaches, such as law, psychology, religion and socio-culture. Effective implementation of de-radicalization will not work if done individually. This requires synergies between related components to prevent and overcome the development of de-radicalization in Indonesia.
The responsibility of guarding the mosque from radicalism is not only the duty of the government. But every citizen has a constitutional right to defend the country. So that the mosque can return to its function, namely as a place to worship and pray to Allah SWT.
Ulamas certainly have a role to eliminate politicization efforts in mosques. The main role of the ulama can generally be summarized into a sentence, namely amar ma’ruf nahi munkar, which means to call for kindness and prevent it from being ignorant. Of course to carry out this role, the ulama must go beyond the reasoning of partisan politics. Namely not being an agent for the electoral interests of the opposition, also a mouthpiece for the political interests of the authorities. With the involvement of the ulama, of course the credibility of Islamic media can be increased so that radical sites can be muted.
- The author is a Observer of Political Issues