Religion, in my humble opinion is great gray area, where a lot of argument and discussion can be presented and believes can be challenged. My 20 something years of experience in believing that God is indeed exist, teach one thing among others; that religion is one continuing learning process and that what you want to always believe is not always the true one.
For the past one year, especially in the recent months, Indonesia Muslim community has been rocked hard by a sect called Ahmadiyah. Ahmadiyah claimed to be a part of Islam, who believes that Allah is the one God and that Muhammad is the Messenger. What differentiates Ahmadiyah from the main stream Muslims is that the Ahmadis believes that their founder, a name called Mirza Ghullam Ahmad (MGA) was a prophet, a successor of Prophet Muhammad, and that MGA is a Messiah, a world savior as prescribed by many Quran, Torah, and Bible.
Now whether these claims right or wrong, only God knows. But what surprised me the most was the Indonesian Muslim communities reaction to this sect. It was harsh at the very least and violent at the worst. But why ? The claim about someone as prophet or a Messiah is not new at all, matter of fact - almost in every Ibrahim’s religions there is at least one sect that claimed as such, and Ahmadiyah it self is not very new, it was founded more than a century ago, and their claim has neven been changed ever since. But why Indonesian Muslim need to raise a hard and violent reaction ?
Back in the high school, I had a very good friend. He was one of my very best friend, and I loved him very dearly. He was a very devoted Muslim, and almost all of his acts represent how a Muslim should behave. He was very honest, and very kind. He was very gentle, patient and polite. He seldom angry, or may be he was, it just he never showed it. He always prays on time, he resuscitate Quran fluently and and his words were always true. His kindness was sincere, and he was a very good friend of everyone. It was happened to be that he was an Ahmadi. But so what ? What we knew is that he was a Muslim, and very good one he was. He reads the same Quran as others, and believes the same Sunnahs. You’ll always knew that you can trust him with your life, and knew that he wont disappointed you.
He was an Ahmadi, a believer of the much hated sect that many discussed today. But his deeds represents the best of Muslim, better then those who yelled, criticized and angry. Better than those people who always wears white and turbans or kopiahs, but talk dirty, acted angrily, impatient and unreasonable, people who weren’t tolerant, never respect others, and despise those who were different in believe.
People claimed that Ahmadiyah is an “aliran sesat” but is it really ? In my opinion - Indonesian Muslim have a strong tendency to labeled something as “sesat” if its not conform with what they believed. For Indonesian mainstream Muslim, tradition and artificial decoration are much more important then the essence of truth. For many Indonesian Muslim, presentation and self declaration is more important than the real application. These in my opinion, was a loosing factors for main stream Indonesian Muslim.
In my believe, a statement, declaration or any of such things were useless. Angry and violent act will only shows that Indonesian Muslims were a group of uneducated, self preserving and ignorance bunch of losers. And it’s not definitely a way to win the battle ground of believes.
I won’t judge someone or something wrong because it has different value with what I believe, especially when we are talking about religion. Personally I don’t believe the Ahmadi, but I also believe that everyone has every right to believe what they want to believe.
