Sunday, August 10, 2008
Bida’h and Islamic Culture
at 10:31 PM
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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