ASKURI

Ph.D Student at ICRS - Gadjah Mada University of

Yogyakarta

FINAL PAPER | Submitted in the Class of Religion and the Politics of

Multiculturalism

Role of Quranic Literacy as a Communicative Competence among Javanese Muslim

RANIC LITERACY IN
ULTICULTURAL MUSLIM SOCIETY

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Introduction
Ahead of Presidential Election of 2014, the Indonesian public was
preoccupied with imagery and campaign tactics between the two
Presidential Candidates: Prabowo Subianto and Joko Widodo. One of the
problems that was quite prominent during the campaign was the issue
of literacy: Joko Widodo was rumored to be unable to read the Quran.
This rumor turned out to be disquieting for Joko Widodos supporters. It
was feared that it would undermine his popularity. Therefore, a video of
Joko Widodo engaging in Muslim prayer was uploaded to YouTube. To
further counteract the issue, Vice President Candidates Jusuf Kalla
proposed a Quranic Literacy Competition between the two Presidential
Candidates. This issue became a hot conversation topic in various
media, and continued as a trending topic in various social media all the
way up to the day of the Presidential Election itself. It was a very
unique phenomenon: how could the problem of Quranic literacy can be
a campaign issue that could alarming the voters in Indonesia? In the
Indonesian context, the issue has a very strong historical roots in
religious traditions in this country.
Molly Bondan (1995) in her book "In Love with a Nation"
revealed that when the Japanese occupied Indonesia in 1942, the
number of literate population was less than 7%, and in 1945, when
Indonesia became independent, approximately 90% of the people in
this country were illiterate. Faced with this reality, Sukarno Government
launched a Literacy Program on March 14, 1948. The government
thought that one of the obstacles of the nation's progress was a low

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literacy rate. This situation was not uncommon in many post-colonial

countries.
In June 1948, the Ministry of Education and Culture intensified
the literacy movement. Many literacy courses were opened intensively
in a number of residencies (political districts), such as Malang,
Surabaya, Kediri, Madiun, Bojonegoro, Semarang, Pati, Surakarta, Kedu,
Yogyakarta, Banyumas, and others. The number of literacy courses that
were organized by the Government amounted to 18 663, with 17,822
teachers and 761,483 students. In addition, several courses were held
independently, and these totaled 881, with 515 teachers and 33,626
pupils.
However, at the same time as the literacy program was
spreading, high levels of Arabic script literacy was already in place,
having been transmitted from generation to generation among Muslims
in Java since the 17th century. In the 1940s, and even long before that,
there were many Islamic schools (Pesantren) in Java, and they used the
same writing system, i.e. Arabic script, whether in Arabic or Javanese
written in Arabic script (Pegon). This writing system was inherited from
generation to generation in Pesantren. This script has become a
collective memory and cultural identity for many in the Muslim
community, particularly in the north coast of Java. Before any school
system taught Latin script, writing pegon has been widely used as a
written language in Pesantren, Islamic books, Islamic media,
inscriptions, and also correspondence.

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Although the nationalist literacy program was something noble,

the introduction of Latin literacy, conducted since colonial period,
actually carried a psychological burden for the majority of the Muslims
at that time. The introduction of Latin literacy at that time indirectly
divided society into two groups: literate and illiterate. By default, the
people who were educated in Pesantrens were considered as illiterate
people, even though they could read and write in Arabic alphabet.
While the people who attended Dutch schools were regarded as literate
people, just because they could read and write in Latin letters.
The difference of abilities between Arabic literacy and Latin
literacy, indirectly, actually split multicultural segment of Muslim
society in Indonesia, and helped strengthen the thesis of Geertz (1960)
about the trichotomy of religion in Java: Santri, Abangan, and Priyayi.
The literate people in the Arabic script could be categorized as Santri,
the literate people in Latin script could be categorized as Priyayi, dan
the illiterate people in Arabic and Latin script could be categorized as
Abangan. Geertz's thesis applied even long after Indonesias
independence. Assumptions of contemporary politics is even now
considering the relevance of the dichotomy of Santri and Abangan,
even though many years have passed.
In the post-tragedy of human rights of 1965, known as the
G30S/PKI, there has been a dramatic change in the policy of literacy,
with mandatory religious teachings at schools and universities under
the rule of the New Order. Previously, religious teachings were only
carried out voluntarily by the schools based on request from students

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or their parents. With any obligation of religious teachings in schools,

automatically Quranic literacy for Muslim students become one of
important part of religious teachings, because it is one of the tools in
Islamic learning and teaching.
Under the New Order, many scholars believe that under the
leadership of President Suharto Indonesia is dominated by Abangans,
because the background of President Soeharto himself was a follower
of Kejawen (Stange 1980), as well as repression of political Islam was
so strong (Feillard 1995). Until the 1980s, the assumption was still
going on until a new perspective by scholars recognized an "Islamic
resurgence in Indonesia" (Hefner 2000; Hefner, 2010; Liddle 1996).
Many scholars provide an analysis that the Islamic resurgence
was caused by the dissemination of religious education in schools and
universities (Hefner 2000), which coincided with the spread of literacy
(Jones and Manning 1992), higher education (Hefner 1997; Hull and
Jones 1992) and the rise of a booming market for cheap Islamic books
and newspapers (Atiyeh 1995). At the same time, the state took
measures to restrict religious expression by only recognizing five
official religions, so the less orthodox Islamic groups (such as Abangan)
were required to present themselves as supporters of normative Islam
(Stange 1986).
In this paper I question whether it is true that the less orthodox
Islamic group (Abangan) took a position that was diametrically against
the normative Islamic groups (Santri) as Geertz analyzed that in the
1950s they openly promote themselves as an alternative to Islam

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(Geertz 1973; Hefner 1987)? Also, I ask whether it is true that religious
education, higher education, and media literacy could suddenly push
the revival of Islam in this country? I'm trying to build a different
analysis from the great scholars with an analysis based on linguistic
ethnography that emphasizes communicative competence in
multicultural communication (Hymes 1972). This theory emphasizes
that communication between the various parties can work if each has
the same competence.
In the context of multiculturalism among Muslim society in
Indonesia, the fundamental communicative competence is Quranic
literacy. I judge that there is a leap of logic of the scholars in analyzing
the rise of Islam in this country. By using the theory of communicative
competence, I judge that the great scholars fail to take account of
Quranic literacy as a fundamental basis in Islamic learning. Therefore,
this paper attempts to answer a fundamental question about the role
of Quranic literacy in multicultural Muslim society in Indonesia.

Quranic Literacy
Quranic literacy should be understood in rather broad terms: the
ability to read, write, understand, and even interpret the verses of the
Quran. However, the definition of Quranic literacy, as is the subject of
this paper, is based on an understanding of reading the Quran that is
being introduced through religious education. As described by Scribner
and Cole (1988: 246), Quranic literacy is learned initially by rotememorization since the students can neither decode the written

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passages nor understand the sounds they produce. But students who
persevere, learn to read [that is, sing out] the text and to write
passages still with no understanding of the language. As Rassool
(1995) said that a student of Quranic literacy himself in his early
years, he recall that whilst he did not know the language (classical
Arabic) he, nevertheless, did learn soundsymbol correspondence, he
did learn to decode and he also learned about the rules and
conventions of classical Arabic script. Technically, then, he did learn to
read as described by experimental psychologists. But he learned really
only to bark at print. The reading purpose (prayer) did not require
comprehension, as textual interpretation is traditionally performed by
the Ulama (learned scholars). This bears out Cole and Scribners (1981)
view that specific uses of literacy have specific implications, and that
particular practices promote particular skills.
In the classical Islamic tradition, Quranic literacy learning could
not be done carelessly, because the Quran is God's revelation given to
the Prophet Muhammad through the intercession of the Angel Gabriel.
Therefore, the Prophet Muhammad was the only man who had the
authority to convey knowledge of the Quran. Prophet Muhammad
taught the science of the Quran to his companions, then passed his
teaching to the second generation (tabi'in), subsequently forwarded
again to the third generation (tabi 'al-tabi'in), constantly so until the
current generation. That is, Quranic literacy learning must have a clear
chain (sanad) and can be accounted for validity. Therefore, teachers
who teach Quranic literacy must have ijazah (recognition or licensing)

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of previous scholars (ulama), and if traced its chain, it should lead to

the Prophet Muhammad. This tradition has implications on the classical
method of Quranic literacy: listening, reading, and memorizing verses
of the Quran, and pronouncing firmly, as the way of the Prophet
Muhammad dealing with the Angel Gabriel when he received the
revelation.

Literal Segregation
In 1960, Clifford Geertz (1960) described the religious conditions
in Java as segregated into three groups: Santri, Abangan, Priyayi. The
Santri were described as a pious social group according to the
teachings of Islam (prayer, fasting, zakat, hajj, and others), and usually
had a background as merchants who made a living from the market.
While the Abangan was described as a Muslim social group, but one
that did not perform ritual according to the teachings of Islam. Their
religious orientation is Javanese, running various ceremonies
(slametan, tingkeban, mitoni, etc.), a complex of beliefs toward the
spirits (memedi, lelembut, tuyul, demit, etc.), as well as a whole series
of magical practices and medications. They generally live in rural areas
as farmers and engaged in manual labor. Meanwhile the third group,
the Priyayi, was described as an aristocratic group who had a style of
Hindu-Buddhist religious, working in Dutch coloial government, and live
in urban areas close to the center of government.
However, not far from the area where Geertz completed his
remarkable research work a construction that was somewhat different

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was going on at the same time. In the border region of Tuban and
Lamongan (north coast of Java), approximately 80 kilometers north of
Mojokuto (the name that was used by Geertz to disguise the town of
Pare Kediri where he did research in the 1950s), religious segregation
in the region was mapped into NU, Abangan, and Muhammadiyah
(Syam 2005). In contrast to Geertz, the three categories of social
segregation was not separated territorially. In coastal villages, these
three social groups coexist dynamically in the same political, social,
and religious space. Culturally, there is a cultural closeness between
NU and Abangan (Syam 2005: 231). The cultural closeness was
characterized for example by the similarity of local traditions
maintained. This is certainly a very different relationship between
Abangans with Muhammadiyah, where Muhammadiyah tends to desire
to eliminate local cultures that are considered incompatible with the
teachings of Islam (in terms of the Muhammadiyah called TBC:
tahayyul, bidah [herecy], and churafat [superstition]).
In the midst of the cultural closeness between NU and Abangans,
Syam actually failed to construct a clear distinction between them. If
they both maintain local traditions which both perform the same
traditional practices, such as slametan, the distinction between them is
not too obvious. Moreover, the local tradition that originally is an
Abangan tradition, like slametan, can be reproduced in such a way that
it resembles Islamic tradition due to the linguistic changes in the
prayers recited: from Javanese into Arabic.

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In some rural areas in Lamongan, especially the southern part, I

find the distinction between NU and Abangan segregation quite clear,
from the context of Arabic or Quranic literacy. More clearly, the NU can
read Arabic (especially reading the Quran), while the Abangans cannot
read Arabic or the Quran. This distinction can be seen from some of
the social and cultural practices that prevailing in some rural areas in
Lamongan. First, the practice of slametan tradition itself shows a clear
segregation between the literate and the illiterate to read Arabic. In a
slametan event in someone's home who organized the event, those
who can read the Quran are usually seated inside the room. They are
commonly referred to as Santri. While those who cannot read the
Quran automatically sit outdoors. They usually come later when the
students were already seated in the room. The procession of slametan
event will not start if the Santri do not come yet, because only they are
the only ones who can recite prayers in Arabic (which usually is tahlil
and surah Yasin).
Secondly, in the practice of marriages, the Santri families usually
consider Quranic literacy skills of the suitor, especially male suitor.
There is a sort of joke among Santri families, if a young man cannot
read "alif bengkong" (it is about the long pronounciation of letters in
the Quran that supposedly symbolized by the letter of alif, but
symbolized by the letter of ya), then he is not worthy to marry. The
term "alif bengkong" also became a kind of subtle allusion to the
Abangan youth who want to marry girls from Santri families. The
matchmaking practices give a clear boundary between the Santri

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families who Quranic literate and the Abangan families who Quranic
illiterate. Both of them have difficulties building new family
relationships through marriage. Third, the Arabic literacy events in the
village clearly differentiate between Santri religious groups and
Abangan; for example in tadarrus (Quranic recitation) in Ramadan
month, Manaqib reading, Barzanji reading, and others. Abangans who
cannot read Arabic, automatically do not participate in such Arabic
literacy events.
Thus, Arabic literacy can be a differentiator that distinguishes
between Santri and Abangan in the rural Lamongan region in the era
before the 1960s. However, the segregation between the two became
salient when religious education became compulsory at public schools
following the implementation of the TAP MPRS No. XXVII/MPRS/1966, a
law designed to erode communism after the crisis in 1965.
Nevertheless, in some specific cases such as the Indonesian
presidential elections in 2014, the issue of Quranic literacy reappeared
as a result of negative campaign for presidential candidate Joko Widodo
who was rumored to be unable to read the Quran. Although it has not
been proven whether the people in Lamongan noticed this issue, the
issue obviously became a significant conversation among grassroots
Muslim populations in Indonesia.

Quranic Literacy: A First Rung to Learn Islam

One of the dicta in the TAP MPRS No XXVII/MPRS/1966 is as
follows: Changing the dictum of TAP MPRS No. II/MPRS/1960 Bab II

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Pasal 2 ayat (3), by striking out the word, "..... with the understanding
that students are not eligible to participate, if the parents/adult
students objected ....." so that the sentence reads as follows: "set of
religious education into subjects in schools ranging from elementary
school to public universities". On the basis of the TAP MPRS, religious
teachers are sent to all corners of the country to teach religious
education. In the context of Lamongan in the mid-1960s, although
there are many alumni of Pesantren, almost all of them do not have a
formal teaching certificate and not interested in becoming school
teachers. Therefore, teachers of religious education in Lamongan were
taken from Islamic Teachers College (PGA) graduates who were already
certified.
Enforcement of religious education in all schools become an
entry point for Arabic literacy, especially Quranic literacy. Unlike the
children of Santri who also get the Quranic literacy in their families,
the children from Abangan families never had much exposure to
Quranic literacy. Therefore, the contact with Quranic literacy resulted
in a major impression for Abangan children. Most of them developed a
passion for learning to read the Quran. The teaching of Quranic
literacy was promoted with a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad that
those who read the Quran will be rewarded as much as 10 times of
virtue for each letter. With packaging like this, children who were first
learning to read the Quran became very excited.
For Abangans in Lamongan, the teachings of Islam actually is not
something alien, because while they are officially part of the Muslim

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community, they do not strictly obey the teachings of Islam (the local
term is "Islam KTP" or census Muslims.). When the formal education
in schools has not accommodated religious education, some rural kyais
religious teachers have pioneered the implementation of religious
education in madrasahs, known by the term of "National Arabic
Schools". This is in contrast with Hefner (2000), who argued that
religious education in Abangan villages in East Java at the time was
conducted recklessly by paying the Javanese Abangan to teach Islam.
In addition, the Abangans also witnessed religious practice performed
by their Santri neighbors every day, and even engage in ritual
traditions that have converted to Islam. However, they are not
motivated to learn to be a "real Muslims" because the path to it is a
"long road".
One of the longest roads is Quranic literacy. Literacy in the
Quran is difficult but this is a key tool for the understanding of Islam.
In the 1950s, Quranic literacy was still a long way off for most
Indonesians, because to learn it, one must come to the kyais and learn
it from them until one received an ijazah (according to the classical
Islamic tradition) as a Quranic literate. Kyai were almost the only
source of authoriy for the teaching of Quranic literacy, because at that
time the learning methodology for Quranic literacy was still
undeveloped. Although at that time the Islamic books in Indonesian
language had begun to be used, they were not sufficiently widespread
and focused on the learning of normative Islam.

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Abangans actually have a "shortcut" in reading the Quran

through transliteration in the Latin alphabet, especially transliteration
of surah Yasin and Juz 'Amma. However, the shortcut did not have a big
influence on Abangans who wished to learn Islam more deeply. The
shortcut only served as a cultural shortcut for those following the local
traditions that were still preserved in Arabic and Quranic verses
preserved as readings and prayers.
Different conditions were experienced by the younger generation
who were required to learn Islamic education in schools since the end
of 1960s. Islamic education mandatory in public schools brought with it
the learning of Quranic literacy. It became a shortcut that went a long
way toward learning Quranic literacy. Students no longer need to come
to the kyais to learn the Quran. In some Santri cities in East Java in the
early 1970s, students began to use al-Barqy method that was
developed by Muhadjir Sulthon, a lecturer of IAIN Sunan Ampel
Surabaya. There were many religious teachers in Lamongan who had
been the pupil of this lecturer, and applied the methods of al-Barqy in
the learning of Quranic literacy in schools. This method was quite
effective to cut the time interval in Quranic literacy learning, in
comparison those that were previously using the turutan method that
took many more years to learn Quranic literacy.
This short road to Quranic literacy apparently triggered the
interest of Abangan children in learning about Islam. In turn, the spirit
of Islamic learning opened a new chapter of Islamic revival. In contrast
to Geertz (1960), who mentioned that the kyais are "cultural brokers"

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who control the resources of Islam and became decisive in Islamic

revival, in fact it was the spirit of children who explored Islam and who
experienced a religious education that caused the Islamic revival and
thus require a reversal of this Geertzian analysis.
The growth of considerable interest in the study of Islam among
the younger generation does raise curiosity among scholars. Hefner
(2000) argues that the great interest in learning about Islam has been
a blessing in disguise, resulting from the application of religious
education at all levels of schooling. While between 1965 and the early
1990s, the percentage of young children with basic literacy soared
from about 40% to 90% (Jones and Manning 1992: 399), the increase in
the percentage of people who completed high school went from
approximately 4% in 1970 to more than 30% in the 1990s (Hull and
Jones 1994: 162). Objectification of Islamic knowledge occured
together with the expansion of higher education and the rise of a broad
market for cheap Islamic books and newspapers (Atiyeh 1995).
Indeed, a variety of factors that are disclosed by the scholars
cannot be ignored in analyzing the rise of Islam in this country.
However, if religious education was given only a share of 2 hours a
week, some doubted if it could generate a strong ethos of Islamic
learning among Abangan children. Also, media literacy and higher
education does not necessarily increase the degree of religiosity, as
indicated by Robert Wuthnow (1988), who showed that literacy and
education in the West could encourage the secularism in society.

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I have tried to introduce an ethnographic approach to Quranic

literacy among the Lamongan children. The process of Quranic literacy
then bring them face to face with the sacred texts of the Quran,
something they have never experienced before. For Abangan children,
Quranic literacy learning was more dramatic, because they never got
it in the family. This is in contrast with the children of Santri who were
taught to read the sacred texts of the Quran at home or in the
mosque.
The text is never neutral. It always brings in it an ideology
(Lehtonen 2000; Fairclough 1989). Ideology is always present in every
text, whether in the realm of oral, written, audio, visual or a
combination of them (Fowler, 1996). Likewise, the sacred text of the
Quran, it contains the teachings of Islam. Therefore, the Abangan
children who eventually had direct contact with the sacred texts of the
Quran experienced a character and spirit that was different from the
previous generation: their parents. They become open to learning
Islam more deeply.
Following Fowler, various linguistic features, such as: (1) lexical
processes, (2) transitiveness; (3) syntactic devices; (4) modalities; (5)
acts of speech; (6) implicative; (7) shifts said; (8) greetings, names,
and personal references; and (9) phonology, can be the basis for
structuring the ideational features of society (Fowler 1986). In this
context, although the Quranic literacy concerned the basic literacy
aspects, namely recognizing letters, vowel, and read the text of the
Quran, it could also open the way for further deepening perspectives

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on Islam. They do not stop at learning the basic Quranic literacy, but
they also intensified Islamic learning in a broader context.
Some research on a small scale has at least showed a positive
correlation between Quranic literacy with the motivation to learn
Islam. Yumira (2004) outlines that Quranic literacy has a effect for
spiritual fulfillment. Bashiroh (2007) also wrote that the Quranic
literacy affect the peace of the soul. Aslamah (2008) also added that
Quranic literacy has had an effect on learning discipline. Meanwhile
Luqman (2006) illustrates that Quranic literacy has an effect on
mental health. Some of the examples above may have had an impact
on the Abangan children as they engaged in Quranic literacy learning,
which then triggered the spirit of Islamic learning even further.
Some individuals (coming from Abangans and who developed
Quranic literacy toward the end of 1960s) have confirmed to me the
impression that they have developed a passion to learn Islam more
deeply when they are able to read the Quran from the original text,
instead of the Latin transliteration or translation. For example,
Sukiman, a son of a peasant family in an Abangan village, Desa
Kacangan, Lamongan explained that Quranic literacy which he learned
47 years ago was the beginning of knowledge about the real Islam. He
acknowledged that his family was Islam KTP, and his parents never
did prayers or fasting for Ramadan. They diligently did nyadran, i.e.
Javanese traditional ceremony or visiting the ancestral tombs, burn
incense, and strongly believe in neptu and pasaran, namely a Javanese
belief that uses calendar logic and certain days to determine one's

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fate. Meanwhile Mardi Wiyata, a descendant of a Javanese aristocrat

family (teachers family), recognized that Quranic literacy in the late of
1960s became a kind of stepping stone to change his way of thinking.
He just moved to SMP when Islamic Education became compulsory in
school. As a child of a teachers family, he has been trained to read (in
Latin script) since childhood, so many books from his father he had
read in childhood. One of the books was about the history of the
prophets. However, he was not so interested in studying Islam in more
depth. Only later when he could read the Quran at the junior level, he
felt encouraged to learn more about the teachings of Islam, to the
point that he decided to enter the College of Religious Education (PGA)
to become a teacher of Islamic religion, something he did not imagine
as a family of Abangan which almost never implemented the teachings
of Islam, except to celebrate Idul Fitri.
Both Sukiman and Mardi Wiyata mention that they've had the
confidence to learn about Islam deeply when they were able to read
the Quran. Their confidence to learn Islam grew when they already
had the Quranic literacy competence, because they feel liberated from
the fear of mistakes in reading the Quran that could result in sin. In
addition, after having Quranic literacy competence, they were eager to
learn Islam deeper and wider because of the motivation of their
religious teachers in school who cites a hadith from the Prophet
Muhammad about the existence of merit or reward for each reading of
the Quran (one letter will be rewarded 10 goodness).

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Although Islamic books in Indonesian and Javanese were initially

easily obtained, they did not have the confidence to learn about Islam
through Islamic books, let alone studied with kyai or ustadz. This of
course contradicts what is argued by Atiyeh (1995) and other scholars
that the objectification of Islamic knowledge occurred together with the
expansion of higher education and the rise of a broad market for cheap
Islamic books and newspapers. I believed they were premature in their
assessment, and ignored altogether the Quranic literacy skills as a
starting point of objectification of Islamic knowledge which in turn
encouraged the growth of Muslim piety and the rise of Islam in this
country. Without Quranic literacy skills, young children do not have the
confidence to learn Islam further. There is a kind of ladder in Islamic
learning, and the first ladder is Quranic literacy.

Quranic Literacy as a Touch Point among

Muslims
Eickelman and Piscatori (1996: 5) brilliantly looked at the
important characteristics of political Muslims throughout the world
today that indicate a seizure interpretation of religious symbols. The
feature of the most prominent debate is the objectification of religious
knowledge and at the same time the pluralization of religious authority
(page 38). This is in contrast to the centuries when Islamic knowledge
monopolized by a small number of scholars (ulama), today the
knowledge and practice of Islam became the object of interest for a

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number of people that increased over time. The social structure that
has long guided the society became weak and at the same time the
ulama lost their monopoly on religious authority (Hefner 2000). As a
result, throughout the Muslim world, the populist preachers (Antoun
1989, Gafney 1994), the neo-traditional Sufi teachers (Launay, 1992,
Mardin, 1989, Villalon 1995) and "new Muslim intellectuals" who get a
secular education (Meeker, 1991, Roy 1993) compete with the scholars
who get state support for defining Islam (Hefner 2000). In some
countries, the fragmentation of authority has led to social pluralism
and to the coercive power of democracy (Hefner 1997, Villalon 1995).
Along with it it has led to increases in neo-fundamentalism as opposed
to pluralism, women emancipation, and Islamic civil society (Fuller,
1996, Roy 1993).
However, who is the new force in Indonesian Islam who dares to
compete with the traditional ulamas to contest the authority to define
Islam? What capital do they have so to dare to compete with the kyais
who control the resources of Islamic knowledge? In my opinion, the
main capital of the new entrants to compete with the traditional
ulamas to define Islam is their reading of the Quran, either literally or
hermeneutically. Without this capital, they would not have the courage
to participate in defining Islam. Modern science is only a complement
to define Islam in the modern era. Without an adequate understanding
of the Quran, they will remain a "fringe" in the mainstream Islamic
thought, even in the modern era. They would be laughable if they tried

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to define Islam without understanding the Quran from the original

source.
My analysis can be rooted from many villages in Lamongan,
especially in the south part. The majority of the villages dominated by
Jam'iyah NU. With the traditional religious orthodoxy, they do religious
practice a la NU. When Muhammadiyah broke through several villages
in Lamongan in the 1950s, many villagers had not reacted to the
Muhammadiyah, because most of the initiator of Muhammadiyah in the
villages was precisely the people who were influential in NU that were
turning into Muhammadiyah. They are the children of rural kyais, has a
background of Pesantren, mastering in Arabic literacy, even some that
still has a structural position in NU. However, when Muhammadiyah
began to attract the sympathy of Abangan and new Priyayi: teachers,
civil servants, and others who did not have a Pesantren background, it
was hardly a laughing stock of society. They derail the term
"Muhammadiyah" with "Mukamandulah" to mock people who recently
became a member of Muhammadiyah, which they entered
Muhammadiyah just to cover up their incompetence in Quranic
literacy. If people who are new to the Muhammadiyah can read the
Quran, the people assume that they do not have an ijazah from the
competent teacher or ulama, a learning mechanism that refers to the
tradition of Islamic Sufism adopted by most members of NU.
Until the 1970s, people who are new to the Muhammadiyah have
not been fully accepted as pious Muslims. Recitations that were
conducted by Muhammadiyah (who were not graduates from

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Pesantren) were often derided as a result of the pronunciation of the

Quranic verses that are not fluent. Only in the 1980s, when the
younger generation of Muhammadiyah filled the positions in the
structure of Muhammadiyah, Muhammadiyah feel like they are getting
an injection of fresh blood. The young generation has fully mastered in
Quranic literacy through religious education in schools, and even many
who were graduates from modern Pesantren (such as Gontor,
Mu'allimin, Ngruki, and As-Salam Surakarta). They eloquently express
the verses of the Quran, so their preachings were no longer scorned
because of their incompetence in Quranic literacy. They could be
accepted in the wider Muslim community, although they have a
different understanding of Islam (NU and Muhammadiyah).
The emergence of a new generation of Muhammadiyah who fully
mastered in Quranic literacy opened the door of community
acceptance to Muhammadiyah as a Muslim organization, not as a
splinter. Lectures of Muhammadiyah preachers who mastered Quranic
literacy, despite having different religious ideas, were considered
eloquent. New ideas for institutional development from
Muhammadiyah also began to be accepted, such as schools, hospitals,
and orphanages. In fact, some people of NU in Lamongan donated land
to build mosques, schools, hospitals, and orphanages for
Muhammadiyah projects.
The up to date ideas of Muhammadiyah that has started to be
accepted widely is the program Ayat-Ayat Semesta. This program,
initiated by Dr. Agus Purwanto (ITS lecturer in the field of Quantum

25

Physics, also a member of Majelis Tarjih of Muhammadiyah), is a study

of the Quran which contains a science dimension. Schools and
Pesantren of NU actively invite the initiator to provide a lecture about
the Quran and science. In fact, a Pesantren in Jombang that is owned
by Gus Durs family (currently headed by his brother, Sholahuddin
Wahid) integrates this program into the school curriculum in the
Pesantren.
The idea of integration of Islam and science actually is not really
a new thing. ICMI has initiated this idea since the 1990s. However, why
only now has NU become interested in integrating them into their
school and Pesantren? For them, ICMI is represented as a form of
Islamic political maneuvering in the second half of the reign of
President Suharto (Hefner 2000), ICMI figures at the local level (based
in Surabaya) but not in Quranic literacy. NU looked at the idea of
integration among the Quran and science as absurd without
understanding the Quran from its original source. This is different to
the program Ayat-Ayat Semesta. One thing that makes this program
is widely accepted among NU is the initiator, Dr. Agus Purwanto. He is a
secular university graduate in Japan, mastered Arabic, and is
competent in reciting and interpreting the Quran. Among NU, he often
called Gus Pur, a typical label among NU supporters to describe
children of kyais (interview with Kyai Abdul Ghafur, October 9, 2014).
Thus Quranic literacy became an important component in the
lives of Indonesian Muslims. It played a major role in building a network
of understanding of Islam among a wide range of Islamic schools and

25

understanding of Islam, so that it became the most central point of

contact in the multicultural Muslim society in Indonesia. It became a
kind of communicative competence among Muslims to engage in
interaction, competition, dialogue, and mutual adoption of one another.
It makes the Muslim community in Indonesia became more passionate,
eager to learn Islam wider and deeper, and became one of the
important factors in the rise of Islam in Indonesia.

Conclusion
Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers
to a language user's grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology,
phonology and the like, as well as social knowledge about how and
when to use utterances appropriately. The term was coined by Dell
Hymes in 1966, reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Noam
Chomsky's (1965) distinction between competence and performance.
To address Chomsky's abstract notion of competence, Hymes
undertook ethnographic exploration of communicative competence
that included "communicative form and function in integral relation to
each other". The approach pioneered by Hymes which is now known as
the ethnography of communication.
In the context of Quranic literacy that is fully Arabic which is
foreign to Indonesian Muslims, they are not fully using the Arabic
language as a linguistic communicative competence. They only take a
few parts of the Arabic linguistic competence to demonstrate Islamic
piety, especially phonological aspects (related to fluency [fasih]) used

25

in Quranic literacy. The phonological aspect is emphasized in Quranic

literacy learning. The classical method of Quranic literacy teaching
strongly emphasize the importance of Quranic phonology through
learning tajwid and makhraj al-huruf, because of imprecision in the
pronunciation of Quranic phonological aspect would change the
meaning of the Quran. Therefore, the classical method in Quranic
literacy learning requires a long time to get an ijazah from a mursyid or
teacher. However, the new methods that are shorter in Quranic
literacy learning kept retaining phonological aspects of the Quranic
reading.
In Islamic doctrine, Quranic learning is the most fundamental
basis in a wider and deeper Islamic learning. Therefore, the language
of the Qur'an is Arabic, Qur'anic literacy learning starts from the
introduction of Arabic letters, punctuation (vowel), the long-short
readings, and all aspects of phonological that contained therein. Of
course, as Fowler (1996) and Fairclough (1989), each text is never
neutral. There is an ideological influence of the language that being
studied. In basic learning of Qur'anic literacy, it is emphasized utter
precision in Arabic phonology (mujawwad). Each mistake (though only
slightly) in Arabic phonological pronunciations can change the meaning
of the Qur'an, and in the doctrine of Islam, changing the meaning of
the Qur'an can lead to sin. Based on it, the Abangan children who
already have basic Qur'anic literacy competence have the confidence
to learn about Islam, because they feel liberated from the burden of
guilt from reading the Qur'an.

25

Of course, it is clearly different from Geertzian segregation

setting in Java (Geertz 1960) which construct religion in Java into
controversial 3 categories: Santri, Abangan, and Priyayi. These three
social categories do not stand diametrically, but exactly overlap each
other. In fact, with the Quranic literacy which is organized massively
since the late 1960s, the segregation actually melted in the late 1980s
when young people from the Abangans already have Quranic literacy
competence, and become a new generation of Muslims who encourage
objectification of Islam (Eickelman and Piscatori 1996).
In multicultural Muslim society, the Quranic literacy competence
is also a fundamental basis for every Muslim to speak of Islam as a
religion. Bases on it, the communication between Muslim groups can
be considered equivalent when each group has a Quranic literacy
competence. If a Muslim group does not have Quranic literacy
competence, then they are only considered as fringe, marginal,
alternative, not having orthodoxy, and are not taken into account in
mainstream communication between various stakeholders to Islam. At
least, the Abangans in rural Lamongan in the 1950s are being
subjected to as "Islam KTP", and thus, they are not recognized as an
Islamic entity that could be the subject of Islam in Indonesia. For the
Santris, they are only the objects of Islam. As Hymes (1966), the
Abangans do not have a communicative competence to talk about
Islam. Only after their children, or the younger generation has a
Quranic literacy competence, they are recognized as part of Islamic
society that is undergoing a revival.

25

In this context, I underlined that objectification of Islam which

became one of the characteristics of Islamic resurgence did not occur
suddenly based on social indicators in general. Not as Hefner (2000)
which analyzes the rise of Islam in Indonesia is caused by the
dissemination of religious education in schools and universities (Hefner
2000), which coincided with the spread of literacy (Jones and Manning
1992), higher education (Hefner 1997; Hull and Jones 1992) and the
rise of a booming market for cheap Islamic books and newspapers
(Atiyeh 1995), I affirm the existence of an Islamic objectification
process which is ignored by scholars in analizing the dynamics of Islam
in Indonesia, i.e. Quranic literacy. In fact, the Quranic literacy seemed
to be some kind of requirement for every Muslim to talk about Islam in
a multicultural Muslim society in Indonesia.

25

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