Metode Memahami Agama Islam [Methods for Understanding the Religion of Islam]

Abstract

A work by H.A. Mukti Ali (1923–2004), Minister of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia from 1971 to 1978 and a pioneer of comparative religion at IAIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, on how to understand Islam comprehensively and scientifically. Mukti Ali insists that Islam cannot be adequately understood from only one side, whether normative or historical, but rather through an approach he called scientific-cum-doctriner: combining the study of the doctrines of the Qur'an and Sunnah with the methods of the social sciences, history, and comparison. The book discusses how to know God, the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an, and the history of the Muslim community; the importance of an objective attitude towards sources; and a critique of orientalist and apologetic ways of reading Islam. The ideas in this book influenced the Islamic studies curriculum in Indonesia's Islamic higher education institutions and the generations of scholars who followed.