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To learn from rebels history masked koran verses

Sen, 17 Juli 2017 | 08:17 WIB

By Al-Zastrouw Ngatawi
The use of Koran verses as the mask to do rebellion toward legal government, include governments which used khilafah Islamiyah as their system, already happened since khulafaur rasyidin era such as the history of Chaliph Ustman and Ali bin Abi Thalib assassinations.    

It was Abdullah bin Saba’, an opposant and rebel who provoked Moslem to do coup and resist all of Chaliph Ustman legacies. Those provocations were done with using Koran verses.

It is recorded by Islamic history experts, when Chaliph Ustman released the legacy about special field for alms camel and it was forbidden for public people, the opposants resisted the chaliph by using Koran verses Surah Yunus 59 as the tool of legitimacy.

They were pretend as the Islamic defender and holy verses enforcer and they came to the Chaliph Ustman. They said loudly and ferociously: “You make forbidden field which is restricted. Do you have any permission from Allah to do that? You have invented the things that Allah does not decide.”

Chaliph Ustman answered it quietly: “Those verses are sent down in the other context, not in problem like this. Umar bin Khattab have done it before. He restricted special field for alms camels and then I widen it because the camels increase more and more.”

The opposants who understand the texts and were madly eager to the power could not receive the explanation from Chaliph Ustman. They kept on inflaming hostility and slender to the legal government by using Koran verses, indeed the government have been already in the form of caliphate. The culmination of these slenders and provocations were Chaliph Ustman murder.

The same thing also happened to Chaliph Ali bin Abi Thalib. He was killed by Abdurrahman Muljam. A Moslem who is described by Islamic historian, Adz-Dzahabi, as the one who worship a lot, memorizes and expert in reading Koran so he is known as al-Muqri'.  

The understanding of religion textually caused Ibnu Muljam become rigid people, so that he assumed that Chaliph Ali as the infidel who deserve to be killed and it is believed as the way of implementing Islamic law.

The spirit of murdering Chaliph Ali is to increase when he met beautiful women who also did coup because she was malicious to Chaliph Ali. 

The name of beautiful women is Qathami binti Syijnah. She was grudging to Ali because her brother killed in the Nahrawan war. The women was willing to be married by Ibnu Muljam if he killed Chaliph Ali.

With the textual Islamic spirit and driven by the spirit of fervent love, the intention of Ibnu Muljam is more steady to kill Chaliph Ali and regard it as jihad. He claimed Cahliph Ali was infidel because he did not implement Allah’s law.   

The understanding of Ibnu Muljam based on verses: “And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the disbelievers” (Al Maidah: 44) 

In the book of Islamic history mentioned that when Ibnu Muljam killed Ali bin Abi Thalib he said: “There is no law except Allah’s law, law is not yours and your people (O Ali). Then, he quotes Koran Surah Al Baqarah 207: And of the people is he who sells himself, seeking means to the approval of Allah. And Allah is kind to [His] servants.”

By quoting this verses, Ibnu Muljam believed that his deeds of killing Ali was a sacrifice to get Allah’s permission and became loved servant.

The deeds becomes forerunner of doing violence which is done by intolerance radicalist. They uses holy verses to do coup d’etat and violence toward other communities which disagree with them. This action recur in Islamic history until now.

Ulema have already done the efforts to stem verse politicization which caused intolerant and destructive attituted. They arrange various arguments and theological understandings which are from Koran and Hadith to againts violence deeds in the name of religion. 

The textual religious understanding which is radical and intolerant keep on undermining Moslem thought and awareness. Like a virus and poison undermine body’s endurance.

As well as against virus and poison in the body, then to counter textual understanding which is intolerant and full of violence is needed the strong endurance by spreading and teaching Islam rahmatan lil ‘alamin. It can be held by socializing religious understanding which is tolerant, human, and full of peace massively. 

Second, to build critical civilization of society toward using symbol, ritual, and holy verses in the polical practices by showing them the historical data. As mentioned above, historically verses and religious symbol are very susceptible to be manipulated and used as mask for fulfilling political ambition and violence action.  

Third, to take firm action against the efforts of spreading religious violence virus and poison. It has to be done as early as possible, before those virus and poison spread to society and be difficult to be controlled. 

In the context of Indonesian society which is plural, early detection action and to muzzle this kind of virus is an inevitable. Because radical and intolerant virus which is full of violence action endanger both unity in diversity (kebhinnekaan) and humanity. Firm action has to be done before this nation destroyed in the uncontrolled conflict.

The writer is a lecturer at the Postgraduate of Indonesian Nahdlatul Ulama University (Unusia) Jakarta.