BOOK REVIEW The Qur’an and Normative Religious Pluralism: A Thematic Study of the Qur’an by Arif Kemil Abdullah BY SITI FITRIAH (21150140000012) GRADUATE PROGRAM OF DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY 2016 BOOK REVIEW The Qur’an and Normative Religious Pluralism: A Thematic Study of the Qur’an. Arif Kemil Abdullah. London, UK: The International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2014. 286 pp. The appearance of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, so called Ahok, as one of governor candidates for DKI Jakarta, a city with Muslims as major population, is interesting to open this book review. Some groups of Muslims announce their abandonment to vote for Ahok since he is non-Muslim and considered to be Kafir (unbeliever). Others expose their support for Ahok by taking into account his capability and accountability as a leader and not taking religion background into consideration as a fundamental aspect for becoming a leader. Further, pros and cons among Muslims in regard with this issue are raising once Ahok made a statement related to one verse of Qur’an. So far, I can see that intellectually conflict even among Muslims is widespread nowadays especially in social media. In this globalisation era, people are connected with numerous media with a lot of information provided either pro or contra, similar or different from their own thought. It is undeniable that we are as people are different in terms of various aspects of life such as language, culture, and even religion. The interaction between one to another, especially across religion demands those religiously different people to have guidance how they behave ethically as human beings. For instance, most of majelis ta’lim wherein Muslims gather and study Islam, they mostly focus on the discussion exclusively towards Muslims only and disregard non-Muslims. It might be easy to be followed or implemented in Muslim’s daily life who live in a Muslim major population, but not in minor population. In this case, the author of this book, Abdullah, presents a study that this kind of interfaith relation, especially Muslims and non-Muslims, requires humanistic approach with the purpose of peaceful building. The author introduces the concept of normative religious pluralism in accordance with what is written in Qur’an by using thematic exegical method. This book is not the only book written on Qur’anic research related to interfaith relation and normative religious pluralism, but what makes this book different is the use of thematic exegical method in analysis. Some classical resources of Qur’anic exegesis are taken as main references of the analysis. The book provides an overall embodiment of how Qur’an guides humans to ethically behave towards nonMuslims. Personally, I believe this book needs to be studied by all Muslims for guiding them how to behave towards non-Muslims without merely judging them as others and not becoming friends with them. Abdullah starts the content of the book by providing the Islamic framework of religious pluralism since there has been a debate on religious pluralism and its types. The first is alethic religious pluralism that concerns religious truth which aims at recognising that all religion are equally possess the truth. In this case, Islam is the correct religion and Islam is exclusivist. I have found many groups of exclusivist Muslims in Jakarta. The second is soteriological religious pluralism which represents that different religions equally guide their believers to salvation and all religious people will be saved in the hereafter. However in Islam, it is not enough to only believe in one God, but also believe in the Prophet Muhammad. The third, which next becomes the main discussion, is normative religious pluralism which is linked to the ethico-behavioral paradigm of treating religiously different people. The author perceives this kind of pluralism to be the most fundamental to the peacebuilding in this world with freedom and human dignity as the most significant and ethical aspects. Once normative religious pluralism is clearly defined, its ethical foundations in the Qur’an are described in detail to universally go against the claim of exclusivity regarding to one’s ethico-behavioral pattern towards religiously different people. First, freedom of belief in which the Qur’an attributes the concept of freedom to the Oneness of God and therefore indicates that nobody among human beings has the right to enslave others physically or intellectually. Second, human dignity which is defined as the worth of human being by a quote taken by the author “act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as means only”. Third, integrity which excludes any dishonest, manipulative and false diplomatic behaviour to be enacted towards other people in which the treatment of religiously different people on the basis of integrity is defined as a way of gaining God’s love. Forth, the prohibition of reviling what is sacred to others wherein the Qur’an sets an important ethical principle aims to secure not only the dignity of religiously different people, but also what is sacred to them. The last, forgiveness which is not limited only to Muslims, but also inclusively to all people as an ethical value emerging from the Islamic belief system and standing in line with human nature. The author then explains three fundamental elements of normative religious pluralism: commonality, diversity and constructive conversation. By commonality, people feel the unity emerging from common features shared by different religious subjects in the process of religious pluralism. The author quoted Sacks’ remark that “we need not only a theology of commonality but also a theology of difference”, because the tension between religions mostly arises from differences. In order to establish a right balance between the commonalities and particularities and to prevent extremism, constructive conversation is essential as means of communication. In this sense, the author devised Qur’anic principles of constructing conversation such as purposeful conversation, objective conversation, non-judgmental conversation, and non-manipulative conversation. In normative religious pluralism, the author points out that the Qur’an points to four universal objectives of the human relationship in the process of peacebuilding such as mutual understanding by the knowledge of the other (ta’aruf), mutual engagement by the cooperation with the other (ta’awun), mutual contribution by competing with the other in good works (fastabiq a-khayrat), and mutual support (tadafu’). Unfortunately, as cited by the author that according Amarah, certain participants in the religious pluralism process tend to use it as a political tool to gain influence and power in the Muslim world. Interestingly, the author ends his discussion of the book by raising two Qur’anic prescriptions which seem contradictory to the concept of normative religious pluralism. Those are related to the issue of warfare and fighting against non-Muslims and not taking them as “friends” (awliya). Simply to say, the different belief system of others is a reason for some Muslims to fight or isolate non-Muslims. After several aspects of examination, the finding discovers no contradiction to exist between the Qur’anic conception of normative religious pluralism and the command to fight. This is because the root cause for this command is not the belief system of others, but their initiation of war on peaceful people. Hence the scope of the Qur’anic imperative to fight refers only to people of war. Besides, Qur’an’s command to not take the Jews and Christians as friends is limited to two aspects. First, Muslims are prohibited to rely on them as a source of religious guidance for religious mixture which might lead to apostasy. Second, Muslims are prohibited to get involved in partisanship with them against Islam. By the end of reading the book, as a reader I have got an overall picture of the author’s concept as written on the title of the book. The author has successfully delivered his idea for some reasons. The first is the content. The content of the book is sequenced in an easy to follow order in drawing the conceptual mind-mapping during the reading. I can see that it is sequenced in bottom up scheme. Besides, each description and explanation of specific terms, the author provides its definitions and in some occasion puts an alternative of its Arabic word so that the author and me are going at least on the same track of understanding. In my point of view, this book is not limited only for those readers who study religious studies, but also for public especially Muslims. Yet, it is not unlikely for non-Muslims to also study this book. The second is the description. Since the content mainly discusses the substances of Qur’an, nonattachment of the Arabic script is a good idea. I focuses more on what the verses say through the English translations provided. The third is the language style. The language used to deliver the content is easy to follow and understand for me as a novice reader in this subject. The sentences are not complicatedly constructed and the paragraphs are straightforwardly devised. Taken as a whole, the author has provided comprehensive explanations of the analysis with plentiful references to draw the concept of normative religious pluralism for the reader. It indicates that the author has an expertise in this subject even though the biography of the author is not provided telling the information of the author’s educational and professional background. The other book with the same issues of pluralism is the book entitled Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in 21st Century by John L. Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin in 2011. Many cases of Islamophobia phenomenon in the West are discussed. Most of the cases are not separated from the issues of politics and media. In general, this book represents how non-Muslims judge all Muslims by what some Muslims have ever done. The concept of normative religious pluralism introduced by Abdullah can be an alternative for Muslims how to deal with this situation. Abdullah mainly suggests Muslims to not be exclusivist and isolate the religiously different people. Normative religious pluralism provides some guides for Muslims to behave with different religious believers to live in peace. Unfortunately, the book does not discuss any cases of interfaith relation in real life such as Islamophobia issues. This absence might cause some groups to consider that the concept normative religious pluralism is a matter of theory and not possible to be implemented in real situation since many things to bear in mind, especially politics and media. Personally, this is the first time for me to read about the concept of pluralism according to Qur’an. As a Muslim, I do agree with the author’s statement that some Muslims are exclusivists who focus on the relationship among Muslims only and consider non-Muslims to be others. I can find it from the way how any Ustadz or Kyai deliver particular topic of Islam in certain Majelis Ta’lim. Some groups of Muslims want to make Indonesia becomes an Islamic country. Others treat non-Muslims in distrustful ways by saying that they intend to destroy Islam. Nonetheless this book has given me some insights and guidance of how to treat non-Muslims and why. What should do is to acknowledge the commonalities, to respect the particularities, and to communicate it in constructive conversation.