Sunday, August 10, 2008

Among things inherent in man as a representative (khalifah) of Allah are obligation to enforce to the truth (rules of Allah) on the earth and right to manage/use nature as a living facility. From those obligation and right, some rules of living (sunnatullah) follow, that are; (a) To obtain things needed, man has to use an accountable procedure, which is working, (b) Man deserves to obtain (results of) what he has done correctly, (c) Man has to take the risks of what he has done wrongly. If animals only can enjoy facilities in the nature provided by God, then man is demanded to maintain environment against damage and to do efforts (“engineering”) so that those natural facilities are used optimally. Basically, working is a combination of maintaining environment and doing such efforts.

Theologically, universe is a manifestation of Allah’s grace to man, and in this perspective working and doing business aren’t efforts to seek wealth but are efforts to seek rahmah (grace). Value of a property (as a result of working) depends on how much it brings rahmah to the life of its owner. This is called barakah (blessing). Instead of becoming rahmah, a property can change its function into burden and torment unbearable by its owner. Therefore, religion of Islam teaches working or business ethics to man. Business ethics among others consist of:

1. Have a correct intention (niyyat) that working or doing business is aimed at seeking willingness (rida) of Allah. If you’re a trader, have an intention to help consumers obtain his necessities. If you’re doing business in a large scale, have an intention to improve the society’s welfare. If you’re a professional, adhere to professional principles firmly.

2. Create a balance of attention between worldly interests and the-day-after interests

3. Orient/arrange all business/working affairs for long term interests (old days, children, grandchildren, future generation, ibadat/investation for the day after)

4. If you’re faced with difficult choices in making decisions regarding a job or project with wide impacts, then before making decisions, perform salat istikharat, asking for God’s guidance in selecting the best choice.

5. If you’re an employee, be discipline and honest at work, since those will lead you to rida of Allah, insha Allah.

6. If you’re an employer, then you shouldn’t exploit your employees. Instead, give them sufficient wages and pay the wages immediately. Rasulullah ordered us to pay wages to labours before their sweats are getting dried and forbade us to hire labours before there’s a certainty about amount of their wages.

7. If you’re a freelancer, be a diligent/persistent person. Rasulullah once said that working diligently will create a blessing in life (al harakatu barakah).

8. Don’t do business in fields forbidden by God. A forbidden business may cause big and fast benefits, but eventually it will cause misery (at least spiritual/inner misery) since the grace is missing. Likewise, forbidden practices such as briberies, corruptions, manipulations, evil conspirations may make it easier for you to achieve your goals, but those eventually will eliminate blessing (rahmah) and mercy (barakah) of Allah. Such practices are not only sinful but also damaging business system.

9. Fulfill your obligations as an entrepreneur to the right parties, for example regarding labours’ right (wages), the state’s right (tax), God’s right (zakat), community’s right (living environment).

10. Business with barakah is a business benefiting people and giving halal (allowed) benefit.

11. If you’re about to begin a business or project, read the prayer below:
Allahumma ij`al awwala hadza al amro solaha wausatohu falaha wa akhirohu najaha
Meaning: “O Allah, please make beginning of this business a proper thing, the process is an enjoyable process, and the end is a success.”
Rabbi auzi`ni an asykuro ni`mataka allati an`amta `alayya wa `ala wa lidayya wa an a`mala so lihan tardo hu wa adkhilni fi `iba dika as solihin
Meaning: "O my Lord! so order me that I may be grateful for Thy favours, which thou hast bestowed on me and on my parents, and that I may work the righteousness that will please Thee: And admit me, by Thy Grace, to the ranks of Thy righteous Servants." (Q: An Naml: 19)

The consequence of working or doing business by mentioning name of Allah is that you should remember Allah in each process of business and working, so that you won’t do things forbidden by Him.
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The term “tasawuf” hadn’t been known in the period of Prophet Muhammad, but substance of tasawuf teachings are taken from behaviours of Prophet Muhammad himself. The word “tasawuf” is estimated to be coming from the word “shafa” meaning “clean” or from the word “suf” meaning “wool”, referring to simple clothes used by ancient Sufis. Islam’s teachings can be divided into Aqidah, Shariah, and Akhlaq, or into Islam, Faith (Iman), and Ihsan. In this perspective, tasawuf is in Akhlaq or Ihsan.

In Islamic Body of Knowledge, philosophy develops rapidly but psychology doesn’t develop. It doesn’t mean that ulamas haven’t been interested to psychological matters. Al Quran and hadith themselves talk a lot about nafs (soul), but psychological experiences of Islamic society are different from those of Western society. Modern Western society have been growing in a disappointment to the Church that oppose modern thinking so that religion (the Church) was later separated from worldly affairs and as a result western civilization and science developed without guidance of religion, and later a secular civilization was formed.

Meanwhile, in history of Islam, science developed along with religion, and Islam’s teachings even encourage its ummah to develop science. Therefore, developments of Muslims’ science and civilization have been under guidance of religion. Even development of Islamic philosophy—although firstly was inspired by Greek thinking—has been still within limits set by Al Quran.

Regarding soul (nafs), for example, in Islamic body of knowledge, science of soul/psychology (ilm an nafs) doesn’t develop as a science examining behaviour as phenomena of soul, but nafs is discussed in the context of a spiritual system having vertical relations with God, since Al Quran and Sunnah directly mention term “nafs” and indirectly mention it through terms such as “qalb”, “aql”, “ruh”, and “bashirah”, all of them, in the perspective of lughawi and because of munasahah with other verses or with Prophet’s hadith, have a lot of meanings so that ulamas have been busy exploring definitions of nafs and its system in the perspective of Al Quran and sunnah. One of sciences discussing “nafs” in Islamic body of knowledge is tasawuf .
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Al Quran often reminds man to use his mind to think and to tafakkur, afala tatafakkarun, afala ta`qilun, awala yatadabbarun. Man is indeed a thinking animal (al insanu hayawanun nathiqun). In man, thinking is the fourth process after sensing, perceiving, and memorizing that influences interpretation to a stimulus. While thinking, a man involves sensation, perception, and memory at the same time. In this living, thinking is required to/for (a) to solve problems (problem solving), (b) to make decisions (decision making), and (c) create new things (creativity).
The more knowledge/science one has, the more complex his way of thinking is. Some people only can daydream, some others think but unrealistically, while still some others think realistically. Furthermore, some people always think, some people only think when they need it, and still some others think only occasionally.

Smart people think systematically, for example in a deductive way (taking a particular conclusion from general premises) or on the contrary in an inductive way (taking a generalized conclusion from particular premises/instances). However, there are problems that can’t be solved through general ways of thinking, so in this case a very smart person will usually use a method called creative thinking.

Thinking creative is thinking using a new method, a new concept, a new finding, a new paradigm, and a new art. The importance of creative thinking is not for its novelty but for its relevance to problem solving. Since it’s new and not conventional, creative people are often misunderstood by people in general, they are often regarded as weird or even crazy (thinking crazily). There are five steps in the process of creative thinking: (1) orientation, formulating and identifying problems, (2) preparation, gathering information as much as possible, (3) incubation, taking a rest or sleeping for while—cooling down, (4) illumination, seeking inspirations, and (5) verification, testing and evaluating critically.
Science can be obtained by a man through: (1) his intellectual capacity (mind), through learning process, (2) feeling, through his heart, using it to comprehend reality, (3) direct gift from God, and the science is called “science of ladunni”. For man, science is used to find out truth regarding realities. Considering various methods, it is known that parameter of truth is not one but there are levels of truth: (1) scientific truth, (2) mathematical truth, (3) social truth, (4) philosophical truth, logical truth, and sufistic truth.

According Al Quran, there are following truths: (1) `ilm al yaqin, (2) `ain al yaqin, and (3) haqq al yaqin. The truth of `ilm al yaqin can be tested through scientific theories, the truth of `ain al yaqin can be tested through laboratories and similar means, while truth of haqq al yaqin can only be proved later in the day after. A philosopher can explain the truth, while a sufi can feel the truth. To a sufi, a philosopher says, “I can imagine what you feel.” The sufi replies, “and I can feel what you imagine.” Those are the scopes of man’s sciences.
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Role of Muballighs in Responding and Overcoming Islamopobhia
29 April 2008
By : Prof. Dr. Achmad Mubarok, MA
General Lecture submitted in Graduation Ceremony for Students of Muballigh Cadres Education KODI DKI Jaya XIV Generation and Opening Lecture for XV Generation
Jakarta, 24 April 2008

Introduction
Muballighs (preachers) are at the most front dakwah level using irregular communication media with the audience. Therefore, dakwah materials submitted are generally not deep and easily understood. Muballighs popular in the society are not necessarily the ones who have deepest understanding on Islamic sciences, they are often asked to give dakwah due to their ability to communicate popularly. Furthermore, people attending tablighs don’t necessarily want to study Islamic sciences. A lot of them regard tabligh programs as means for having fun after facing rutinities and life difficulties. Therefore, a lot of celebrities-muballighs are liked by people although weight of their speeches is only moderate. Muballigh aren’t important, but it should be realized that muballighs seem to play more role on building dakwah spectaculars than on building religious awareness. Therefore, the merriness of these spectacular tablighs doesn’t indicate growth of ummah quality.

Levels of Dakwah
Dakwah means an effort to influence others (people) so that they have attitudes and behaviours as wanted by the da’is. Intensity of efforts and goals of dakwah can be seen from the da’i levels.

There are at least five levels of da’is in Indonesia now:

1. Muballighs level. They are those who are giving dakwah to the public, without any schedule, with pupils that are changing from time to time, without curriculum and without target. Therefore, charisma of a muballigh highly depends on the muballigh himself. There are muballigh fa’il and muballigh maf’ul. Muballigh fa’il is a muballigh who has a program or special attention, for example, certain society or field. Meanwhile, muballligh maf’ul is a muballigh who doesn’t have a program but waiting to be “programmed” or invited by his public. If muballigh fa’il’s success can be measured in certain ways, then a muballigh maf’ul’s success only can be measured through amount of invitations he had received.

2. Teachers level. A teacher who is aware that he/she is a da’i actually is a da’i who gives dakwah to audience (mad’u) with measured goals. Therefore, if a teacher is success in carrying out his tasks of dakwah, he will really able to make his mad’u (pupils) to be the persons he wants.

3. Professionals level. A professional’s character is working in accordance with his education, having access to decision makings, and having wage standards. For example, doctor, engineer and architect. If a professional has a dakwah spirit then he will be a da’i with power and his actions will cause a positive perception on Islam.

4. Political level. PKS (Justice and Welfare Party), for example, openly call themselves a dakwah party. It means that PKS gives dakwah politically. Political parties usually manipulate people’s interest to achieve power. If a party can do politics (involve themselves in politics) in a clean way then the dakwah will be highly effective. If the power has been achieved (their representatives become governors, ministers, or presidents) and they are consistent with their dakwah concepts, then the dakwah will be powerful and the results can be enjoyed by the society economically and socially. Some people give dakwah openly through Islamic Party, while some others give dakwah through parties without religious identity.

Dakwah as a Communication Event
As an event, dakwah is a communication, so that elements of dakwah are same as elements of communication that are da’i, mad’u, material/message, method, and media. The material submitted by muballigh or da’i can be information, invitation, teachings, and even nonsense. Success of communication by a muballigh to his public highly depends on what he communicates. If a muballigh only submit voices, then his dakwah will only be heard by the ears. If a muballigh submit his dakwah in form of thinking then it will be responded using mind, if the dakwah is a voice of his heart, then it will be absorbed by heart.

Characteristics of A Successful Dakwah
As a communication event, dakwah will be regarded as successful if having following characteristics:
1. The messages are understood by people.
2. The dakwah is amusing people.
3. The relations between muballigh and people (that are his mad’us) are increasingly getting better.
4. The dakwah changes the negative attitudes into negative ones toward values submitted in it.
5. The dakwah successfully encourages mad’u to act relevantly.
Islamopobhia’
In Communication Psychology and terms “Intrapersonal communication system” and “interpersonal communication system” are known.

Intrapersonal communication system is a process in which a person receives a stimulus, perceives it, puts it into his memory, thinks about it, and responds it. For people not adhering Islam, Islam is a perception. Majority western people perceive Islam as a religion teaching violence, not obeying Human Rights, and disrespecting women. Perception is mostly influenced by attention. Things that highly draw attention are novelties, movements, contrasts, repetitions. Western mass media repetitively broadcast subjective (and wrong) news from Islamic world without the Islamic world themselves are able to counter them with same media. As a result, negative perceptions on Islam had been built in western people’s minds and even are believed by Muslims having superficial knowledge.

Interpersonal communication system is a process in which a person (or society) builds his image. Building a good image requires a long time through good behaviours done repetitively. Meanwhile, a bad image is immediately built on a person once the person does a bad behaviour.

Apart from negative perception of western people, it should be admitted that sometimes some people among us (da’is and mubalighs) build a self-image as an undignified class. For example, fighting sexual immoral behaviours by coming to prostitution places and shouting takbir, carrying bludgeons, breaking glasses, and wearing white robes. When this act of fighting wrongdoings is broadcasted in western media, then what built will be a bad image of Islam in the eyes of western people. Another example, a muballigh in a tabligh akbar on Ahmadiyyah sometimes ago stated that blood of Ahmadiyyah people is “halal”. When this statement is translated and broadcasted, then perception built in the mind of western people will be that Islam is an intolerant and cruel religion. Likewise, the case of Amrozy cs also built a negative image on Islam. Therefore, we shouldn’t be too emotional when facing Islamopobhia or anti-Islam attitude.

How to respond and overcome Islamophobia?
Perception can only be changed through communication, not through long distance response. The most effective way of overcoming islamopobhia is by proposing Islam as rahmatan lil’alami, grace for the universe. Characteristics of rahmat are (a) full of attention, (b) wanting to give, (c) understanding limitations, and (d) forgiving. Dakwah community should hold dialogs with the West since they who are anti-Islam really don’t know a lot about it and have a bad perception built on Islam. Remember that when Rasulullah had stones thrown away at him by Taif people, he didn’t condemn them, instead he prayed, “Allhummaghfirlahum fainnahum la ya`lamun” (O Allah, forgive them, they were throwing stones at me since they didn’t know that I’m really Your messenger).

After 11 September incident in USA, amount of Muslims there increased 500%. Why? Since after Islam had been publicized as a religion of terror, Americans got interested to find out what Islamic teachings are. Mushafs of Al Quran and Islamic books are always sold-out. After they reading directly Islamic sources and communicating directly with Islamic people, their perception had changed, later they even had sympathy for Islam and were given God’s guidance (hidayah). Allahu Akbar.
Closing

Therefore, PKM students should increase their insights, by reading a lot, listening a lot, and interact with others a lot. Insya Allah, their knowledge, comprehension, flexibility will increase.
Wallahu a`lamu bissawab
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Philosophy is a science who tries to find out the truth of everything (al `ilmu fi al maujudat ma hiya al maujudat). What meant by everything is realities and there are three essences of realities: God, man, and nature. Therefore, three main philosophies are philosophy of divinity, philosophy of man, and philosophy of nature. In philosophy of religion, those three aspects are discussed and studied. The science that studies philosophy of divinity is called Science of Kalam, since the frame of the philosophy of divinity is Kalamullah, divine revelation, not mind.

Therefore, arguments in Science of Kalam always propose Al Quran’s verses. What inquired in this science among others what are essences of attributes (characters) of Rabb al ‘alamin, ar Rahman, ar Rahim, al Jabbar, and al Khaliq, what are essences of meanings of Subhanallah (Allah the Most Holy), Allahu Ahad (Allah the Most One), what is meant by Allah resides in arasy, what is meant by the sky, and so on. If laypeople are deemed sufficient to study science of Tauhid, then educated people should study philosophy of tauhid that is Science of Kalam.
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Balance between Science, Faith, and Good Deeds in Living
28 April 2008
By: Prof. Dr. Achmad Mubarok, MA,
Submitted in Workshop of Supervision with Religious Approach
Held by General Inspectorate of Religious Affairs Department,
Jakarta 6 May 2008

Introduction
Man is a creation who knows meaning. A cow is valued based on quantity of its meat, but a fat person is not necessarily more meaningful than a thin one, a big person is not necessarily more meaningful than a small one, superordinate is not necessarily more meaningful than subordinate. Highness or lowness of meaning is called prestige. A prestigious person is a person whose presence in the stage of life gives meaning, although may be his presence is only for a moment. On the contrary, a person whose presence doesn’t give meaning, although he has a long life or a position held for a long time is not a prestigious person. His presence influences nothing, his absence causes nothing. The concept of meaning is influenced by science, faith, and good deeds. A person with science has his steps guided by theories; steps of a person with faith are guided by belief, while steps of a person with a lot of good deeds are guided by spirit.

Concept of Supervision in Living
Some people feel that they are free unlimitedly in life. They decide what they want and what they do, since they feel than man is the only one who is determining in living. They think that goodness or badness, necessary or not, important or not important, proper or not proper, all is determined by man.

Meanwhile, some people feel that this life has a kind of scenario and that people have to follow the scenario. Otherwise, they will be rebuked by the director and laughed at by the spectators since they do something deviating from the scenario. Where the scenario comes from? Some people think it is the society who makes the scenario, so that a person whose behaviours are deviant will be alienated by the society. Others believe that the scenario comes from above, from the Creator of Living, through holy books, prophets’ teachings, and through conscience in form of universal morals and local wisdom. Deviating from scenario is believed to cause calamity
The questions are: Who feels that he/she is supervised and who is supervising? Who commands people to obey the scenario and who seduces people to deviate? And who reprimands?
Al Quran surah Qaf 16 states:
And certainly We created man, and We know what his mind suggests to him, and We are (watching him and) nearer to him than his life-vein.
From the verse quoted above, there are things should be explained in detail, that are (1) man (2) nafs (3) whisper, (4) God’s supervision
Insan
Al Quran mentions man by referring him “basyar” and “insan”. “Basyar” is the physical man, while “insane” is man as a psychological creature. The word “insan” comes from the word “nasiya yansa” meaning “forgetting”, from word “uns” means “tender or gentle” and from the word “nasa yanusu” means “turbulence/turbulent”. Therefore, insan’s psychological characters is between forget and aware, tender and hate, and between calm and turbulent.
Some people are always aware, calm, full of affection, while there are some people who are forgetful, hateful, and restless. Some other people are calm but hateful and aware of his hate and still many other psychological characters of people. What might interest us is definition of insan: al insane hayaman nathiq, man is a thinking animal. Therefore, the distinguishing factor is the thinking ability. If a person can’t think any longer, then the thing left in him is his animal aspect.

Nafs
Nafs, is the inner side of man, soul. Nafs or soul is a system working systematically with its subsystems; mind, heart, conscience, syahwah, and lust. Mind= problem solving capacity, its duty is to think, its product is logic, it can find truth but can’t determine it. The truth of mind is relative. Mind is man intellectual potency.

Heart is the device to understand reality. Things can’t be understood by mind can be understood by heart.

Heart contains a lot of things, hate, love, courage, fear, restlessness and so on. Heart can be wide, narrow and even closed. Heart dominates the psychological system but it is not consistent, it can be honest and it also can lie.
Nurani (conscience) comes from the word “nur” meaning light. Nurani is God’s light located within the heart, so that it is consistent and can’t compromise with lies. Nurani is always honest. Nurani is like a black box located in the heart. As a light, nurani can’t emanate light if it is closed. Things often close light of nurani are greediness and wrongdoings. A person whose nurani is dead is like a person walking in a dark place, stepping wrongly, taking wrongly, entering wrong places, and putting things wrongly. The Arabic word of dark is zhulm, the person is called zalim (despotic).

Syahwah is a desire to something or in psychology is called motive. God adorned man with syahwah to the opposite sex, proudness of chidren, liking for valuable things, good vehicles, gardens, and cattle. Syahwah is neutral, following it correctly would be an ibadah (religious service), and followng it by ignoring moral and religious values would be a sin.

Lust is the drive to low syahwah. Characteristic of one’s lust is to want to get what one wants by ignoring the results for oneself and for others.
“Whispers”
Man receives stimuli, he perceives them and puts them into his memory, and then he thinks before he acts. All subsystems in his soul give inputs or whispers, for example:
Mind provides logical considerations.
Heart tries to understand any reality to come.
Conscience reminds the consequences if taking wrong steps.
Syahwah urges to make decisions and take actions by which it will gain satisfaction.
Lust whispers to immediately take opportunities in troubles, to be opportunistic, not to become hesitant, not to think deeply, just do it.

Qalb (heart) Management
Man can think, feel, and have wants. His wants are influenced by his way of thinking and feeling, his mind is also influenced by what he wants, his feeling is also influenced by what he thinks and he wants. All psychological devices can be used to choose which one is the best for himself, for the country, for now, for later, or even for his children and grandchildren. However, all of them needs appropriate management, which one should be encouraged, which one should be repressed, which one should be considered, and which one should be followed.
If one tends to follow his mind, then he will tend to be rational, but sometimes “dry”
If one tends to follow his heart, then he will able be calm or restless, depending on his mood.
If one tends to follow his conscience, then it is guaranteed that his choices will be correct and his steps will be appropriate.
If one tends to follow his syahwah, then he will tend to being led to glamourism and hedonism
If one tends to follow his lust, then it is guaranteed that he will go astray and damage himself (and others).

Roles of Science, Faith, and Good Deeds in Supervision
Theoretically, a person with science and faith who often do good deeds surely has a proportional and correct life. However, in practice, smart people sometimes do things incorrectly; his faith is not guaranteed to be stable, but it fluctuates. Sometimes it gets thicker, sometimes thinner. Therefore, sometimes people are failing in supervising themselves. Man is a social being. What a person will become depends with whom he interacts. Just take loot at behaviours of members of house representative and career officials. Sometime how they dress and walk and their tastes are adjusted to “social scenario’.

According to a psychological research, 83% of man behaviour is influenced what he had seen, 11% by what he had heard, and the rest by various stimuli. Therefore, honesty can’t be trusted to heart of each own person. Officials of Religious Affairs Ministry and officials of other ministry socially and psychologically are more and less the same. Preventing deviant behaviours of state officials of any ministry can’t be done only through religious advices (its influence is 11%), here we need a system narrowing possibilities for officials to deviant.

Science (or knowledge) is required not for “heart endurance” but for designing a logical, comprehensive, effective, and efficient supervising system
Faith is required mainly to enable example of clean life by echelon officials, since for paternalistic Indonesian society, example or model is effective and cheap in supervising state officials.

Good deeds should be maximized to create an ethos of giving priority to others (itsar), so that officials will get obsessed to give and not to take. Money from corruption is usually used up for useless things excessively not for good deeds. Devil money will come back to devil.

Built-in Supervision
In the last part of the Al Quran’s verse above it is mentioned that God is closer to man than his life-vein, supervising whispers of the soul. He knows not only what man does and says but He also knows what comes up in man’s heart. This verse’s text is information for man that everything done by man, good or bad, is surely known by God. Nothing can be missed from God’s supervision.

However, information in this verse is received differently by people, depending on their levels of understanding. Some people can only think, while others can also tafakkur and others can also tadabbur.

By thinking we absorb information, but the result is cognitive.

By tafakkur, we can imagine or comprehend the scope of information, the result may be affective.

By tadabbur, we can feel power of the information, so that the results are not merely cognitive and affective, but also psychomotoric.

A person who can do tadabbur to the holy verses of Al Quran already has a built-in supervision system. He never wonders, calculates, or images doing a deviation with of hope of not being caught in the act. A person like this has already been allergic to deviances. I’m sure that in this country those who are supervising and those who are supervised are mostly still at the level of thinking ability. Only a very few who can do tafakkur and only some people who already can do tadabbur. Therefore, only a tight and appropriate system can minimize deviant behaviours of state apparatus, including those of apparatus who are in charge of supervision.
Wallahu a’lam bissawab.
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Shariah of syara’ means wide road. Islamic shariah is the infrastructure in form of a road built by Allah (thariqah Ilahiyyah) and provided for mankind so that they will not go astray in their journey and will always in accordance with the living scenario made by Him. With shariah, (a) living signals will be clearly seen, (b) requirements to interact with various parties will be clear. With shariah, then man is given freedom by God to choose his ways, each with their own consequences; halal (allowed) way, haram (forbidden) way, makruh way, wajib (obligatory) way. With shariah, patterns of interactions among parties are regulated; the strong rules the weak, the weak must follow the strong but all in order to achieve common goals. People have to obey their leaders, but leaders essentially are servants of people (sayyid al qaumi khadimuhum). Poor people need income while rich people need manpower; interactions between them are regulated by shariah.

Meanwhile, goals of shariah (Maqashid as Syari’ah) is to protect five aspects (al kulliyat al khams): (1) to protect man’s soul, khifdz an nadfs, (2) to protect mind, khifdz al `aql, (3) to protect religion, khifdz addin, (4) to protect properties, khifdz al `aql, and (5) to protect offspring, khifdz annals. All regulations in Islam shariah are meant to protect those rights: right to live, intellectual right, faith right, property rights, and right of having pure/good offspring, those are called human rights in this present modern time.
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The religion of Islam is meant to guide man to achieve happiness in this world and at the day after, outer and inner happiness, prosperous in this world and enter the heaven at the day after. Religion is indeed set up for people who have inner and outer (lahir dan batin) dimensions, physical and spiritual dimensions, syahwah and nurani dimensions. Therefore, Islam also has a shariah dimension regulating external aspects of people’s living and a value (essence) dimension stressing on substance of religious’ teachings.

Laypeople almost always busy with external shariah, active in doing religious activities, but they very seldom basically understand the philosophy of what they do. Meanwhile, khawash people stress on essential dimension of religious teachings, and fulfilling the external dimension only as required by the universal (minimum) standards. Laypeople often occupy themselves with formal aspects of religion, ignoring substantial aspects of it, while khawash people occupy themselves by not putting stress on formal aspects. The comparison can be seen in terms of fasting

1. Laypeople fast by not eating, drinking, and doing sexual interactions (only)

2. “Special” people fast not only by not eating and drinking but also by avoiding inappropriate words, their hands fast by avoiding wrongdoings, their feet fast by avoiding unnecessary trips, their ears fast by avoiding to listen gossips and slanders, their eyes fast by not seeing aurat, and so on.

3. Meanwhile, khawash people (prophets and Islamic saints/ “walis”), in addition to doing those kinds of fasts mentioned above, their hearts also fast by not remembering anything except God. While fasting, in their hearts nothing moves across except Allah.
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The view that salat or prayer is the mikraj for mukminin (believers) refers to the second opinion, doing miraj spiritually (not physically). A concentrated (khusyu) prayer is enabled to interact with, to muwajahah, muhawarah, to munajat, to communicate intensively with Allah SWT. How?

Imam Ghazali in Ihya ‘Ulumuddin mentioned six “inner meanings (aspects)” that can perfect salats, that are (1) presence of qalb (heart) or hudur al qalb, (2) understanding, (3) ta’zim, glorifying Allah, (4) afraid, haibah, (5) hopeful, raja, and (6) ashamed

1. Presence of the qalb (hudur al qalb) in prayer is the cleanness of the qalb from things shouldn’t be thought about while doing salat.

2. Tafanhum is understanding meanings of the words and sentences uttered in salat. Understanding those meanings will able to help in presenting the qalb.

3. Ta’zim is glorifying God. Ta’zim is result of two knowledges: comprehending greatness of Allah and realizing one’s abjection and limitation as a God’s creature.

4. Haibah is one’s feeling toward Allah resulted from the awareness that power of Allah is very big and effective and from realization that law of Allah or sunnatullah will surely happen. Therefore, he or she is very afraid of breaking His rules, since the impacts will be a certainty.

5. Raja’ is hopeful; always thinking positively that Allah is the Most Compassionate and His Affection is very wide. In salat, feelings of hopeful and worried emerge alternately, worrying about breaking His rules, and hoping for His Mercy.

6. Meanwhile, ashamed feeling (hayaa’) to God resulted from one’s awareness of his limitations in doing religious services (ibadah) for Him.

According to Imam Ghazali, if those six things are in a person doing salat, then his heart will be concentrated (khusyu’) since all of his senses and awareness will focus on The Most, One God, The Most Great that is respected and afraid of but becomes his pillar of hope. Aisyah once told that while not in praying, Prophet Muhammad talked intimately to anyone, but while praying, he seems as if he didn’t know anyone else, and Aisyah acted like she didn’t know (him) too.

Khusyu will be easily reached by people with correct views of life, since wrong views of life will make hard concentration in doing religious services (ibadats). Delightment of munajat will only felt by people who don’t love worldly properties, since, like mentioned by Al Ghazali, one who is still be happy with his properties, what more mixing goodness with badness, will not be happy in requesting God (munajat). Love of properties and love of the day after can’t be united in one same place.
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In the perspective of language, bid’ah (heresy) means creation. Bid’ah in religion means creating new things in religion. A hadith of Prophet Muhammad says that all bid’ah is misleading and all misleading things will go into the hell (kullu bid`atin dholalah wa kullu dhalalah fin nar). However, another hadith mentions that whoever has a good creativity will have a double reward from the creativity itself and from people following the creativity (man sanna sunnatan hasanatan falahu ajruha wa ajru man `amila biha). Regarding planting method, Prophet Muhammad also said once that you know this worldly matter better (antum a`lamu bi umuri dunyakum).
From those explanations, it may be concluded that forbidden bid’ah is bid’ah in religious affairs; it means creating things previously not exist in religion.

Then, which matters that are within the scope of religion, and where the creativity may manifest itself? Here we’re sorting matters. For example, shalat (salat) is within the scope of religion and not allowed to be changed, added, or reduced, but mosque buildings, prayer rugs, water reservoirs for wudhu, towers, clothes for salat and others are parts of culture in which people may express their creativity.

Is anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday part of religion or is it part of culture? It is clear that anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday is a part of Islamic culture; it is created by people based on religious inspiration, encouraged by love to the prophet and by goals of dakwah. Due to the love expressions, forms of the celebrations are different: religious speeches, torch parades, sekatenan (a festival held in Yogya and Solo in honor of Muhammad’s birthday), religious story (Rawi) readings, and so on.

The Book of Rawi (Barzanji) itself is a literature book containing epic of the Prophet’s history, written as a manifestation of a man of letters’ love to Prophet Muhammad. To understand culture’s position in religious affairs, we should know first the society’s understanding on the religion itself.
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