ABDURRAHMAN WAHID ON ISLAM, DEMOCRACY, AND THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA A.INTRODUCTION B.DISCUSSION Abdurrahman Wahid on the Relationship between Islam and State 1. There is no concept of an Islamic State 2. Abdurrahman Wahid, the Fiqh Paradigm, and the Nation State 3. Abdurrahman Wahid’s Ideas on the Mutual Legitimacy C. CONCLUSION

POLITICAL APPROACH TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ISLAM AND THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA ISLAM --  DEMOCRACY  -- STATE (QUASI-NORM) ISLAM --  MUTUAL LEGITIMACY  --STATE ! CIVIL SOCIETY LEGAL FORMAL APPROACH: ISLAM --  ISLAMIC STATE

A. There is no concept of an Islamic State 1.The basic concept of societal system in Islam is a law (al- hukmu), not a state (al-daulatu): not on the form of state but on its arrangement 2.Qur’an does not mention the term daulah Islamiyah. Daulah with the meaning ‘rotate’ or ‘circulate’. refers to sociological context of a good state 3. Muhammad PBHU did not formulate a successive mechanism 4. Muhammad’s actions were not of a political characters, but moral. Wa ma arsalnaka illa rahmatan lil ‘alamin Caliphate is not a religious system but a worldly system. Ali bin Abi Thalib acted as the advisors of the first three caliphs.

5. God does not ordain explicitly political system of the state: 3:159: wa syaawirhum fil amr; wa amruhum syuura bainahum Muhammad was not to build a state but to spread humanity amongst people. 6. Community is t most essential for implementing Islamic law. Muhammad did not order the Muslim minority in Ethiopia to establish an Islamic state. 7. The collapse of caliphate did not mean the end of Islam.

A. INTRODUCTION 1.Marginal Role of Islam in the Republic of Ind : mismatch between Islam n Modern Political System 2. Secular paradigm dominated Ind political system 3. The Failure of Secular Paradigm in Muslim countries; Indonesia : Lack of political participation 4. The Failure of other paradigms to counter Islamic radicalism such as JIL and JIMM

WAHID’S EFFORTS TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEMS 1.Substantial Islamic Values  democracy not legal formal Shari’a 2. His thought of democracy is to challenge the Western concept of democracy …….is to relate democracy to Islamic tradition 3. His thought of Islamic democracy is to encourage Muslims participating in modern political system 4. Wahid offers Fiqh paradigm to counter Islamic radicalism

Wahid develops Fiqh-plus paradigm: not only recognizing Islam n the State as different entities, but proposing democracy as quasi-norm which should be agreed by both Muslims and the ruler. Fiqh paradigm works through negotiating Islam as the ‘norm’ and the social systems, including state political system. Fiqh paradigm advocates a mutual legitimacy Wahid challenges: 1.Bureaucratization of culture by Soeharto 2.Bureaucratization of Islam, advocated by the Islamists

A. Wahid, the Fiqh-plus Paradigm, n the Nation State Backgrounds: 1.NU party was not an Islamist party, but Soeharto tried to marginalize it. 2. Wahid was worried about the cooperation between the regime and the modernist Muslims b it was a kind of ‘a marriage of convenience’ Accordingly, He tried to unify Muslims into one front in the effort of controlling the regime.

What did Wahid do? 1.He followed the Sunni tradition of NU which developed the Fiqh paradigm as a tool for providing legitimacy to the RI Islam should accommodate the culture in which Islam develops its missionary targets. 2. He developed the Fiqh paradigm into the Fiqh-plus paradigm and offered democracy as a ‘quasi-norm’. He did not want to establish Islamic state in Indonesia b: a. some Sultans ruled autocratically b. Islam as the gift from God, n the state as the creation 3. Fiqh paradigm is truly Shari’a. NU differentiates ‘religious practices’ from ‘non-religious practices’.

4. Islamic state is a phenomenon of 19 th C when Muslims encountered with some modern ideologies. 5. The failure of Reformism by the Islamists b it did not tolerate the plurality of Shari’a. 6. He opposed the idea of bureaucratization of Islam. 7. He aspired to the idea of religious communities playing the role of civil society. 8. Muslims practices Islam in community under the guidance of clerics. 9. They practice the substantial Shari’a within the national political system.

C. Wahid’s Ideas on the Mutual Legitimacy 1.Secularists failed to modernize the countries b they neglected Islam as the source of values; beside ruling undemocratically. 2.Fiqh paradigm recognizes Islam n state as different entities, but both should develop mutual legitimacies. 3.Fiqh paradigm justifies the existence of a state as a tool for implementing public order 4.He offers democracy as a quasi-norm 5.Islamic state does not guarantee the state run democratically 6.He traces the conception of control social from classical Muslim scholars.

7. al-Mawardi developed the idea of the caliph’s rights and obligations. 8. al-Ghazali proposed the idea of the ‘basic needs model’ 9. Wahid evaluated them as not questioning the principle of governing mentioned in the Q, namely syuro. 10. His idea of mutual legitimacy was to respond to the Soeharto autocratic regime which clearly broke the Constitution. 11. Soeharto manipulated the interpretation of Constitution in the guise of protecting the national ideology of Pancasila. 12. Regimes tried to control the bureaucracy and governmental institutions. 13. Wahid made use of Pancasila to counter the monolithic interpretation of Pancasila by Soeharto