Quraba : close to your God!

“…. At least you can celebrate Eid-Al Adha in your home country …” Ups … so relieved and encouraged me to explore about the ceremony. What does lie behind the annual ritual? A day after, I spent a few minutes browsing internet to find out the answer. Although I’ve been equipped with much dogma based on my religion’s tenets, it was interesting to seek other opinions regarding the reason why, what lessons are to get, what messages are to deliver, and what spirit encourages. Surprisingly, there are many isms of thought related to those questions. More surprisingly (I remember one of my friends’ writing style), those opinions vary and different enough to sprout up my willingness to explore more, … at least to read.

Marlan (www.waspada.co.id) ‘conservatively’ states that qurban literally comes from Arabic word quraba which means near, close by, so that this act of devotion is aimed to near ourselves to God by testing our willingness to sacrifice our precious belonging. He also says that qurban has two dimensions, i.e. vertical and horizontal. In the former dimension, it’s about our relation with God and in the later, qurban ends in the social earnest.
On the other hand, there are two articles about qurban that are interesting to share. Irwan (www.irwan.web1000.com) suggests that slaughtering Ismail by Prophet Ibrahim should be assumed as a kind of metaphoric verse and it didn’t really happen. Otherwise, there are two awkwardness as follows :
1. Killing people is a forbidden action. Is it possible if God tested his prophet with a forbidden action which God absolutely prohibit it?
2. Sacrificing Ismail meant that God has ignored Ismail’s existence and made him only as an object. It looked that God has disregarded Ismail’s independency as a creature. A strange God, isn’t it? If the event is aimed to test Ismail, it’s still questionable due to the 1st reason.
Moreover, Irwan concludes that Ismail slaughtering story was created by Prophet Ibrahim (based on God’s commandment) as critics and correction to pagans’ habits in sacrificing human blood for their God(s). Here, Ibrahim actually shown that God doesn’t need human blood or flesh, but human’s good intent.

In a further exploration, Zulfan (http://islamlib.com) reveals that our common understandings about the lessons behind the ceremony are only textual comprehension which doesn’t fit with recent condition anymore. Our social earnest will never be reached if we just interpret qurban as a livestock sacrificing. More acceptable if we use qurban as a media to eliminate poverty so that we are allowed change the object of that event. If the qurban’s object is still sheep, goat, cow, or other similar kind of animal, the impact of qurban will be forgotten immediately after the ceremony ends, and it will not leave a beneficial effect, especially for eradicating poverty. As a result, we are likely to be trapped in only an annual routine ritual. In addition, he states that we should change our mindset and understand that the essence of qurban is sacrificing our most precious asset, such as money.

Those are interesting, aren’t those? It is more interesting when Zulfan supposes to reengineer the ‘procedure’ of qurban, particularly related to kemaslahatan umat purpose (Argh .. I’m tired to seek the best English words for these terms).
I absolutely agree with Soekarno’s jargon : catch the fire of Islam, don’t just catch the ashes. But for me, catch the fire can’t be separated from other related aspects which flame the fire. Islam obliges its disciples being rich because a Moslem is demanded to conduct zakat, shodaqoh, infaq, qurban, hajj, and other charity actions that undeniably need capital. Furthermore, to help other Moslems give up from their poverty, Islam has many ways in how we should manage our economy in order to increase their social condition.

In relation with that, in my opinion, getting qurban with certain livestock and in the certain time is not merely textual comprehension, if we can understand the essence. ‘Procedure’ of qurban is rukun of our personal service to God, meanwhile in the same time, we are compelled to catch the fire to apply in our social interaction for kemasalahatan umat. In this case, emerging qurban in different form, such as by replacing stock with other things due to reason of eradicating poverty, is a bener tapi ora pener decision. Besides losing the rukun, that action even narrows our comprehension of Islam. It is a different story if Islam doesn’t give other ways to eradicate poverty (except qurban). Are there zakat, infaq, shodaqoh, and so on which can be empowered?

My own more acceptable conclusion is, till now, placing my self as homo simbolicum so that I voluntarily accept the ritual as symbolism and I am not encouraged to change the ‘procedure’ of qurban, hajj, or even sholat as my personal relation manifestation with my God. Why does Islam oblige its disciples to jengkang-jengking 5 times a day if we are allowed only to catch the fire, the spirit, namely iman to God? Why do we perform even some tiring rituals in hajj which are often dangerous because of human crowd? My answer is I don’t know or I haven’t known. Human being is limited creature who is impossible to know everything. Islam teaches human to use their intelligence but human should realize that it is impossible to use their limited intellect to interpret unlimited God’s commandments. For me, it’s safer being a kind of man who knows his unknown than being man who feels know in his unknown. The former will encourage us to seek continuously in the allowable border, while the later will grow our curiosity with unlimited questions and answers. Wallohu alam.

Farewell my friends!

About this date a year earlier. I felt nervous when I had to face my interview in gaining ADS Scholarship. Although I had prepared it well, it was truly that becoming an interviewee was a difficult thing. I imagined what people felt if they were sit in front of a panel of judges in a court. As the waiting time run out, my heartbeat accelerated unintentionally. Everything I’d prepared become blurring. I just stared at a piece of note which the writing was going difficult to read. And like a thunder I heard my number was called.

October, 28th, 2005. Happiness and joy spread thorough the hall. All ADS awardees felt confident to finish their EAP course. It looked like there’s nothing to consider hereafter. “We are coming Australia”. Me too. My lips always created a confident smile and forgot that we had to end a memorable friendship among all ADS students. Honestly, I never imagined I could spend one part of my time interacting with many friends from various backgrounds.


Discussion or even a small chat could go interestingly when it moved from topic to topic. In a minute we debated about religion, and changed subsequently to politic. It’s not an end when we had to adjust it to economic or democracy as well. It’s a kind of experience I’d never gotten in my previous environment. I still believed that Alimin, my farmer friend, will dedicate his life for cultivating his land rather than wasting his time in talking such a topic that is not related with farming directly. Even Toyib, a teacher, will be much likely to use his time in preparing his subject to teach his high school students rather than confused by political intrigues. It’s true that sharing my time with them playing cards was an unforgettable moment, but it’s also true that one side of my brain needs (another) refreshment.

Sunday night, 19.33 pm, January, 8th, 2006. My mobile ring shocked me from my fantasy. Well, I filled that day with daydreaming. My success still has a trace in my happiness and it gives me a guarantee that my study will go smoothly. Early November I shouted loudly expressing my joy finding that my IELTS score was 7. Seven, man! It’s more than enough to pass the minimum score required by my favorite university. And God doesn’t stop his mercy to acknowledge me that University of Melbourne has offered an unconditional scholarship due to my one additional semester in Master of Geographic Information Technology. “You only need to wait the formal letter of acceptance”, one of ADS officer said. Thank God! After that, I spent my time with many activities preparing my departure, January, 7th, 2006 initially. I have even scheduled my beginning activities in that dream city. My blind proud has pushed me to answer confidently if someone asked my departure time. Ugh … the ring gave consciousness as well as when my doctor judged me that I have possibility to get tuberculosis. The sky was falling down realizing I should defer my study. How a pity I am!

“How are you, pal? Don’t think it too much. Don’t bring it to your deepest hearth. You don’t depart this time but you will.” Ah… their sentence has worsened my wound instead of curing the bruise. However I must show my respect to their concern, “I’m good, dude! Farewell my friend, be careful and don’t forget … you have family left.” I voiced that wise talk while I tried hard to find the bright side of my postponement. “We’ll wait you in OZ soon and welcome your arrival in the airport.” Ha..ha..ha, it sounded relieved. People have plan, but the Almighty will determine. And anyway I must accept whatever he gives. Is there a lesson behind his decision, isn’t there?

What lesson do we learn?

My grandma said that our fate belongs to God. We can’t determine or even predict our birth or death. He manages all his creatures with his rule that we must obey. Flowers blossom in its season, farmers harvest grains which have been mature in a particular time, fish swim, birds fly, and even when we breathe the air. Everything has its own track and if human being puts everything in its place, everything will be okay.

God is merciful. He won’t punish us if we play our role correctly. Even in his punishment, there is lesson that we can learn. So what can we get from Aceh tsunami? Why did God deliver horrible sea waves to devastate Aceh people and their livelihood? Even when the bruise caused hasn’t disappeared, we were shocked with Jember flood and Banjarnegara slide subsequently. What’s wrong with the rail?

Anyway, like my grandma said, we should always think positively. There must be messages behind those disasters. It is impossible that God waste tens life with nothing to get. It depends on us then whether we can learn from those or not. Many opinions have arisen on that tragedy. Scientists said that God punish us because our attitude to his forest, our habits in throwing garbage to our rivers, and our poor concern to environment. Are those enough? Is there anybody think about our moral? Does someone ever think about our permissive behavior in every aspect of social interaction? Corruption, nepotism, bribery, authority abuse and greedy, and other culture which are realized or not have contributed to our own distinction.