Indonesian Muslims to use Al Quran to combat corruption

By Protus Tanuhandaru

(JAKARTA, The Point, October 6, 2006)

Unsure of how the Islamic Holy book Al Qur'an could be used to deter corruption, the Indonesian Muslim Society is yet to interpret its archaic verses on punishment commensurate with modern corruption, says Moeslim Abdurrahman, a moslem scholar and activist presenting his oration at a seminar held Tuesday.
Speaking to more than thirty participants attending the seminar, Abdurrahman said “trying to correlate the content of the Holy book to combating corruption is a new phenomenon,” reasoning that Muslim scholars hardly ever engage in such discourse.

And these scholars, he added, have not been engaging in any discourse as frequently as mere Muslim religious teachers do, whom Abdurrahman considers “do
not have the capacity to create anything substantive regarding the Holy book.”
Then as former President Abdurahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid was supposed to deliver what he considers to be Islamic perceptions on corruption, but could not do so, because he had other pressing matters to attend to, Moeslim Abdurrahman spoke on Gus Dur's behalf.
Unless the Holy book is interpreted properly, it is rendered useless in dealing with systemic crime such as corruption, said Abdurrahman, referring to
“Doing Business 2007,” a book published by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a subsidiary organization of the World Bank. In the book, Indonesia
is ranked 135th among countries suffering systemic corruption.
“People are highly religious, yet also corrupt, rendering us as Muslims who do not really practice Islam” said Abdurrahman, adding “People are doing
'spiritual laundering,' that is, justifying their corrupt misdeeds by going on the pilgrimage to Mecca or by giving away charity.
The biggest challenge in revolutionizing the way of interpreting the Al Quran is whether the young Muslim generation will be willing to break with the status quo –a condition maintained by their elder generations often associated with corruption, he noted.
Earning a PhD in anthropology from the University of Illinois, Urbana, U.S., Abdurrahman is seen by many as a liberal Muslim deviating from the conventional
path of Islam. Considering the Muhammadiyah, the 30-million-strong sect he joined, is no longer a Muslim society mainstreaming modernism, he befriended the Nahdlatul Ulama Muslim society, the sort more to his liking.(PRT)