SUMMARY OF TODAY’S LESSON

“Muhammad and The First Four Caliphs”

Syarifah Isnaini/19200013006

When studying historical facts, we must look at it from the perspective

of someone who wants to examine history, and regardless of our status as
Muslims or non-Muslims. Don't look at history from the perspective of faith,
but we must examine it from the perspective of science.

All aspects related to historical research are objective. In addition to

being objective, we must also be critical thinker in questioning why a history
can occur. Learning the history of Islam also means knowing who the author
of quality books is, for example Karen Armstrong and John Esposito. Why are
Karen Armstrong and John Esposito being referred? It is because when they
research a history, they don't care about the faith in islam or Judaism. What
they research is accurate knowledge. Thus, we don't need religion in research,
we only need knowledge.

Sometimes Muslims are more emotional when discussing Islam. They will be
angry if we talk bad about Islam, especially if it is related to violence.
Speaking of violence, Youssef Ziedan, a director of the Egyptian Manuscript
Center and Museum writes an interesting article about violence in Islam.
Violence is an inseparable aspect of Islam, especially in the early Islamic
period. Youssef Ziedan states that many people actually commit violence in
the name of religion.

In practice, many people take Islamic teachings partially. They use the law of
murder but forgot that there was an aspect of peace in Islam. This is why
history is important. If we record the traces of history correctly, we will know
that what we consider as Islam is sometimes actually just culture. History will
bring us to knowledge, and what we know from the history must be the basis
for learning more about history.

Perhaps what we criticize today is that some historians only use the Qur'an as
a guide to literature without using the traditions of the prophet Muhammad.
In fact, historians are reluctant to use traditions of Muhammad because they
are not always accurate and risky. There are some traditions that are weak
and even fake. While history must be accurate. That is why historians tend to
only use the Qur'an as a reference. And we know that the traditions were
written long after the Prophet Muhammad died. There is concern from
historians about the accuracy of the traditions referred by them.

For a long time, religion was closely related to politics. Many people use
religion for political purposes. An example that can be seen today is the
Iranian government which uses a religious basis as a tool for political gain. In
Indonesia, we can see from the case of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama who was
ousted from government in the name of religion.

What we learn today is our investment in the future. We have to learn to read
a lot of historical references. So that when we have some opinions about the
history we will know its references. Perhaps when graduating from a
doctoral program many people will accuse us as kafir. Do not care about
them, we just need to be focus on our research.
 History

Student Non-Student

Subjective
Objective
Moslem/Non-
Moslem

Examining the
informations
Emotional

Collecting the
references

Recording the process

Investing the
knowledge