Postgraduate Program

In 2005 The Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI) issued a controversial fatwa. The
fatwa states that it is prohibited for Muslims to develop the ideas of religious
pluralism. The fatwa had provoked heat debate among Indonesian Muslim scholars. For the opponent of the fatwa, the modern Indonesian state should be supported by the ideas of pluralism. They are disappointed with the fatwa, since it
would diminish religious pluralism in Indonesia. On the other hand, the protagonist of the fatwa said that the MUI has done good decision. The ideas of pluralism
are seen by them would threaten Islamic faith. They believed that those who
campaigned for the idea of pluralism are the agent for “western” interest. The
debate regarding the MUI’s fatwa banning Muslims to adopt pluralism ideas indicates that the concept of pluralism campaigned by some Muslim scholars is not
monolithic. This paper would like to explore various conceptions of religious pluralism among Indonesian Muslim scholars.

This paper try to review the practice of Islamic welfare system (such as zaka,
waqf , shadaqa, infaq, hibah  and qurban) dealing with poor people in rural area.
Then, this study looks at four main issues, namely how the structure of the
commitee, the management of such system, fund rising strategy , and people
accessibility to this welfare system. In order to deal with this, it is used some
frameworks namely; firstly , the welfare strategy as proposed by Spicker (1995)
including economic production, redistribution, and solidarity . Secondly , the concept of welfare offered by Azmi (1991), Midgley (1997), and Zastrow (2004).
This research took place in North and South Wonorejo, a village located in Magelang
district, Central Java. Finding of this research shows that this scheme has operated conventionaly and has not contributed much on enhancing people welfare.
There is no formal institution that organizes all element of such scheme. As the
social welfare institution, this system ideally offers program, benefits and services that help people meets those social, economic, educational and health needs.
However , there is no specific program for the poor people offered by the committee of the Islamic welfare scheme.