Socio-cultural Strategies of Pesantren to Construct Society

By/ Oleh: Suparjo

Abstrak:

Paper ini bermaksud untuk menganalisis bagaimana pesantren sebagai basis pendidikan Islam memainkan peranan penting dalam mengkonstruk masyarakat. Hal ini meniscayakan pengkajian tentang bagaimana keterlibatan pesantren dalam kehidupan sosial. Secara khusus, paper ini menganalisis strategi yang diambil pesantren dalam menghadapi budaya lokal dan penguasa formal. Sudut pandang yang dipakai adalah sosio-historis. Hasilnya, pesantren sebagai lanjutan dari sistem pendidikan Islam walisongo mempunyai sumbangan besar dalam mengembangkan masyarakat Indonesia yang beragam budayanya. Secara sosio-kultural, pesantren berhasil mengakulturasikan Islam dengan budaya lokal. Pesantren secara sosio-politik juga memainkan peranan penting dalam membangun masyarakat Indonesia sejak awal kedatangan Islam di Indonesia hingga sekarang.

Kata Kunci: pesantren, walisongo, akulturasi, penguasa formal, dan konstruksi sosial.

Introduction

Pesantren as a system of Islamic education that exist until nowadays, according to Abdurrahman Mas’ud, can be regarded as a continuation of walisongo’s pesantrens.1 Since walisongo2 were the first people promoting Islam and pesantren in Indonesia, therefore, to study how far pesantrens contribute in constructing society reveals us to study how walisongo did so. It also reveals us to study their strategies to do so.

Walisongo successfully built pesantrens as the bases to rule people and construct them within pluralistic culture and formal authority. Their success was just because they applied genius strategy to adopt local culture and they were moderately involved within formal authorities. They adapted Islam within local tradition and culture until people accepted Islamic doctrines without any compulsion. They also collaborated with local governments to effectively rule people under regulations affected by Islamic doctrines. Even their relation to some Islamic kingdoms, i.e. Demak and Banten kingdoms, was very closely linked because they themselves were promoters, supporters, and leaders of them.

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