Pesantren and Indonesia’s National Movement

Pesantren as a Social Institution

After all, pesantren is still a social institution that, like other institutions, cannot escape change. Its existence in community life that continues to change causes pesantren to feel constantly challenged and to modify, both due to internal dynamics and the penetration of external forces. Recorded testimonies (experiences) of a number of kiai, among others, Kiai Wahid Zaini (Probolinggo), Kiai Muchtar Syafaat (Banyuwangi), Kiai Abdul Basith (Sumenep, Madura), Kiai Hayat al-Makki (Bendo, Pare, Kediri), Gurutta Ambo Dale (Pinrang, South Sulawesi), Gurutta Farid Wajdi and Wahab Zarkasyi (Mangkoso, Barru, South Sulawesi), Ajengan Tontowi Musyaddad (Garut, West Java), Abah Hoed (Babakan Ciwaringin, Cirebon), Kiai Adib Masruha (Mranggen, Semarang), and Kiai Dawam Amar (Bekasi, West Java) explained how dilemmatic the life of the pesantren was, especially when modernity was spread on a large scale in this country. As the pesantren leaders, they feel pushed into a difficult situation, swinging between idealism and pragmatism, between the formation of human character and the fulfilment of knowledge and skills.

The map of changes in pesantren education made by Karl Steenbrink (Pesantren, Madrasah, School) is fascinating. Pesantren has changed from the pesantren model with all its characteristics to schools that are no different from schools outside the pesantren. Consequently, apart from fulfilling all educational bureaucratic procedures, Pesantrens have lost their essential role in giving birth to a distinctive intellectual generation. The demands of society commonly called the demands of the times, may indeed be a factor in why pesantren chose the change. Still, the centralization of national education, the decline in the independence of pesantren, and pesantren’s fascination with modernity in a superficial sense have simultaneously become the decisive causes.

Whether there is a causal relationship or not, along with the change in education, other essential changes at determine. The orientation of the Kiai and pesantren to the problems of people’s lives, especially the lower classes, is slowly but surely fading away, which has implications for the decline of public sympathy and support for pesantren. The pre-eminence and charisma of the Kiai, which was almost perfect, has decreased, and in some cases, the Kiai have even disappeared. In such conditions, many Kiai is more interested in pursuing macro-structural matters such as political parties and even certain bureaucratic positions. Interestingly, KH Bisri Musthofa (father of KH Musthofa Bisri) from Rembang (Central Java) both described and criticized this fact in his novel published in 1969. So many Kiai, as the book explains, so many Kiai are getting used to living a different rhythm of life: a week in the village and two or three weeks in Jakarta, which finally led them to occupy the global imagination and alienated from local reality. In line with that, Horikoshi stated: the role of his Kiai and pesantren in Calipari, Garut, West Java is vital, and his awareness of position and status at the same time allows him to manipulate heroes selflessly, but at the same time, he also acts as a passionate and full of interests politician.

In the early 1970s, several Jakarta NGOs launched community development programs through Islamic boarding schools with the aim, in addition to anti-thesis to the top-down development model developed by the New Order, to try to restore the role of Kiai and pesantren as guardians of the community in the face of unsustainable development. Increasingly dispassionate “little people”. Many people hoped, at that time, that this project would have implications not only for eradicating poverty, building self-sufficiency in the lower classes of society, and changing the orientation of pesantren to a more contextual direction but also that the role of pesantren on the broader community life could be actualized. Rois Aam Syuriah PBNU (at that time), KH. Ahmad Siddiq from Jember, responding to this development, even hoped for the emergence of pesantren scholars who were experts in community development, which he considered necessary as religious scholars.

The development of pesantren concerning the fundamental problems of society involving several pesantren from Java-Madura, NTB, and southern Sumatra is indeed interesting. Some pesantren are seen to assert new orientations and roles in their work in the surrounding community, mostly in rural areas, which are hegemonic and even subordinated. Annuqoyah Islamic Boarding School, Guluk-guluk (Sumenep, Madura) is interestingly illustrated here. Under the leadership of Kiai Abdul Basith Sadjad, this pesantren surrounded by tobacco farmers emphasizes its role as a guardian (agent) of socio-economic, political, and cultural change. By changing the function of the congregations (tahlil, yasinan, and dibaan) that are scattered in Sumenep, even on the island of Madura. From ritual ceremonies to bek rembek (forum of deliberation, discussion, and deliberation), as a first step, Kiai Basith succeeded in bringing the community, including even lower classes, to become the subject, not the object, of change. As a result, self-reliance, in the real sense, was soon created among the Guluk-guluk community and its surroundings.

Pesantren Annuqoyah