umanizing the Quran means using Islam’s holy book as divine legitimation to worship God by acting kindly toward fellow humans. If we obey the Quran’s order, for instance, to fast but are unable to treat others, particularly religious or gender minorities, with love and compassion, then we no doubt fail to humanize the message. Allah needs nothing from us, not even our worship. To love God means to love and be compassionate to His creatures.
In Ramadan, God ordered Muslims to fast because the Prophet Mohammad received his first five Quranic revelations in this holy fasting month. As well as Muhammad, divine revelations also urged Moses and Jesus to fast for 40 days.
The Quran is believed to be the ultimate and primary source from which to seek Allah's guidance. Simply speaking, without the Quran, Muslims believe they would be lost in gaining the purpose of life to which they were directed.
However, since the Quran is in Arabic, which is not Indonesians’ mother tongue, the paradox facing us is that we fully believe the Holy Book is the sacred and sole guidance from God to be a true believer. Yet, most Indonesian Muslims hardly understand its contents.
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Many of us are strictly taught to be able to read and recite the verses from a very young age; my parents would be furious when I was reluctant to go to the local mosque for the daily Quran reading session. In my neighborhood in East Java, there is no greater disgrace than parents whose children are unable to read the Quran. Even studying proper Javanese as part of our identity was considered less important.
We are generally good at reading and reciting, even memorizing the Quran without consciously seeking a better understanding of the verses. What can happen when we are raised to believe blindly, read and memorize things we don't comprehensively understand, except the development of our fanatical religiosity as well as of our belief of the inferiority of our Indonesian identity, in the presence of an Arabic identity? You can't be perceived as a good Muslim unless you are able to properly read or recite the Quran, no matter how fluent you are in your local and other foreign languages.
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