TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - SUKIDI did not find real Islam in Indonesia. He found it in the United States instead, a country with a non-Muslim majority and the place of the three campuses where he researched Islam for almost two decades. It is also the place where the 47-year-old Muhammadiyah intellectual conceived a new approach to interpreting the Qur’an.
At Harvard, he wrote the dissertation titled The Gradual Qur’an: Views of Early Muslim Commentators that peeled away the layers of diverse views by early commentators of the holy book. It later became his foothold in his criticism against the views of today’s Islamic reformists including Muhammadiyah that was calling for a “return to the Qur’an and sunnah (the practices of Prophet Muhammad).” Sukidi also questions what he believes are fallacies such as the meaning of Idul Fitri as well and also the regulations for building houses of worship.
Sukidi once identified himself as Cak Nurian, a moniker for the followers of Nurcholish Madjid or Cak Nur, one of the three Islamic reformists nicknamed the Three Warriors of Chicago. However, following his studies in the US, he felt his views had shifted. “I found my own path particularly after I started at the Harvard Divinity School. I am totally different from Cak Nur,” he said during an interview with Tempo on Tuesday, April 11.
Your dissertation is about different interpretations of the Qur’an in the early days of Islam. What is so interesting about this topic?
A more urgent reason is about how we understand the past that was so far from the period of the revelation. How do we know for certain of a given event in the past? Islamic reformist groups in Indonesia would immediately jump back to the Qur’an and Sunnah. That’s what I criticized.
Where did you find the literature sources?
Everything is available at Harvard. We should know that the best Islamic campus is actually located in the United States, whether it’s at Harvard, Princeton or Chicago. The entire 6th floor of Harvard’s Widener Library is dedicated to Islamic studies. It’s all about preserving manuscripts, books, of such a long civilization. We cannot find this in the Islamic world.
What’s wrong with going back to the Qur’an and Sunnah?
Here is the drawback: where actually is the locus of the meanings? Are they embedded in the texts? And did these reformists find the meanings by going back to the Qur’an? That’s what the reformists and the majority of Muslims believe. But I disagree.
What is your basis?
Because the locus is not in the texts. It existed in the minds of the interpreters who produced their own interpretations.
Based on what?
Their experience in interacting with the Qur’an, their geographic locations when they interpreted the verses and also their own subjectivity. This is a new phase after I returned from Harvard. I had not said in the dissertation that the verses had no meanings. Only after returning from Harvard, I affirmed that in my lecturers. The meanings came from the minds of the commentators.
Why do the reformists refer directly to the Qur’an and Sunnah?
First, this is partly due to the influence of the Protestants’ spiritual renewal. Their spirit to go back to the scripture, the holy Bible, led them to sever their long chain of tradition. That’s why Muhammadiyah was described as an Islamic reformist similar to Protestants because of their eagerness to return to the Qur’an. Returning to Qur’an has problems because of the referential nature of Islam which often refers to a certain incident but never mentions what incident it is, or refers to identities but we don’t know who they are.
Is this kind of interpretation tradition still preserved in Islamic organizations like Muhammadiyah or Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)?
That precisely is the weak point of Muhammadiyah. In going back to the Qur’an and Sunnah, valuable Islamic traditions were pushed aside.
Doesn’t Muhammadiyah have a tarjih (determining the correct or preferred opinion) assembly?
It is partly for deriving laws from the Qur’an and sunnah. But that is different from how I understand it. I can assure that not a single Islamic tradition in Indonesia or the Islamic world dares to say that “the Quranic texts have no meanings. I explained in detail the revelation, the Qur’an and its widely diverse interpretations (in the column of Surara Muhammadiyah).
What makes it any different if they directly refer to the Qur’an instead of going through interpreters?
If people don’t have adequate knowledge of the Arabic language or understand its historical contexts, they could fall into a trap of textual reading because the Quranic texts are quite ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations.
For example?
Surah An-Najm. Wannajmi ida hawa. If you directly refer to the Qur’an or read the translation, you will get “By the star when it goes down.” But it is just one of the scores of interpretations. Abdullah bin Abbas, a companion of the Prophet, for example, said it meant, “By the Qur’an when it descends gradually.” Muqatil Sulaiman interpreted it, “By the Qur’an that descends gradually.”
So, what is your primary criticism against the Islamic reformist groups?
I actually want to offer a new direction for Islamic reforms through the rectification of Cak Nur’s reform ideas. His reform ideas follow scripturalism.
What kind of direction?
I want to advocate the return to the plural, multivocal and contradictory interpretation tradition. The meanings of the Quranic texts are not found in the Qur’an or sunnah because they are the products of the minds of early commentators. The Islamic renewal ideas proclaimed by Cak Nur or Muhammadiyah ignore the creative process of interpretation that had developed within the Qur’an interpreter community itself. I’m rather humbled to see that this interpreter community enjoyed the authority. That community from the beginning preserved the texts, presented books and produced such multiple meanings so readers can acquire information and diverse understandings. I have two directions for the renewal. First, in the context of understanding Islam and the Qur’an. Second, in the context of the state.
