International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 197
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
institutionalization (Bahar, 1999, p. 83). Spirituality plays a moral function in life, while in his
approach secularity becomes a tool for experiencing spirituality. This is contrary to the
modernist Muslims who try to Islamize the state so that it will not be a secular state, a
strategy designed with the purpose of challenging world ideologies such liberalism and
communism. Wahid considers this kind of thought as a legal formal approach that uses the
state for implementing a legal formal Shari’a. Wahid also commits to Shari’a, but not in the
form of legal formal; rather he believes that democracy is the manifestation of the
substance of Shari’a. By so doing, he tries to avoid the confrontation between Islam and
other ideologies.
Wahid does not want to treat Islam as a kind of ideo logy because this is contrary to
the Islamic tradition, as embodied in the Fiqh paradigm. It is not surprising that Qur’an, as
the core of Islamic teachings and doctrines, is not a book on politics and only provides some
moral ethics in order for the state to run effectively. He also believes that the state is a
worldly affair, such as other kinds of social systems. He is also sceptical of the ruler’s ability
to uphold democracy as one of the goals of Shari’a. Moreover, power tends to corrupt so
that a ruler prefers to maintain the status quo by all means. Accordingly, it is likely for the
ruler to be oppressive of followers of different understandings of Islam. Last but not least,
an Islamic state tends to lead the politicization of Islam as well as the sacralisation of politics
so that it endangers a healthy political system.
Wahid tried to employ democracy as the criteria for public reasoning in political
affairs. In this regard, religion, namely Islam, is to tame the nature of politics which tends to
rest on hard power. This is carried out by either a personal involvement in political
processes to direct the run of the state within Islamic principles or an inclusion of
substantive Islamic values in the political sphere. In other words, Wahid tries to infuse
substantive Islamic values into public spheres and accordingly, religion enters into the public
sphere. It is not meant to implement Islamic law (Shari’a) into government regulations
formally, but it is to introduce the substantial meaning of Islamic laws, namely, universal
values with the ambition of halting the secular trend of the modern era. For that purpose,
the clergy and Islamic scholars are challenged to keep track of the development of Western
sciences, especially social sciences, so that they are able to find out the truth in the context
of the modern era so that they can understand theology in the new perspective.
Wahid’s thought on democracy could be considered as a theology of Islamic
democracy as he developed his thought based on the Fiqh paradigm which considers
worldly life from a religious point of view. Wahid considers Fiqh as not just the practical
religious law, but also the philosophical foundation of the religious law, in line with Imam
Abu Hanifah and Imam Syafi’i, the founding fathers of the school of Islamic jurisprudence.
For that purpose, he turned to modern science and philosophy in order to revitalize Islam in
the modern era. What Wahid had done with his concept of democracy was his effort of
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