The old man was quite happy when everybody called him “haji”. So were some of his relatives. He would smile joyfully and our affairs could be faster managed. It was in 1994 when I was a student at a campus in Ciputat, southwest of Jakarta.
Some neighbors told me that he had performed the haj pilgrimage when he was still a very young child. His father had to sell some acres of land to afford all things they needed: Pre-departure ceremonies, transportation costs, living costs and post-arrival ceremonies.
In 1994, when I met him, this haji lived together with his sons and daughters in a spacious house which had been partitioned into many rooms.
Each of his children lived in one or two rooms with their spouses and children. One of the stories that was told: That he had been a real landlord before some his land was sold for performing haj.
So, what did haj actually mean for this old man, and to many others, since they had to sacrifice even the land which could have been more fruitful for their descendants?
Was a religion teaching that strange that it caused someone to lose their sense of responsibility? Was it because of the promise of eternal life or the desire to have everybody call him haji?
There was another story. A friend went on the pilgrimage with “the full support” of his friend who had been elected to be a public functionary. He enjoyed luxurious facilities. Later on, he knew that the cost for his haj travel was taken from the diversion of a dana Pemda (a local government budget) which should have been spent on Kesra (Kesejahteraan Rakyat, on some aspect of the public good).
He told me then that he has always morally questioned it. But this was an opportunity. Why should we throw away such a chance when it presented itself before our eyes?
What then emerged in my mind was how a religious teaching can become an opiate for certain people. It may make them live with particular illusions or even hallucinate about things unreal. This was why Karl Marx was possibly right telling of his objections to the irrational religious practices of his time.
On Friday, Oct. 15, 2010, the khatib Jumat (Friday preacher) at the mosque where I performed weekly Friday prayers, put forward the obligation of every Muslim to perform the haj. I agree that the haj is a superb religious journey, a ritual described by Ali Shari’ati, an Iranian intellectual, as a way to understand better the relationship between God and humanity in a dramatic way.
In contradiction to Ali Shari’ati, most points made by the preacher were very confusing and senseless.
Amid the poverty of many Indonesian, while most of them are Muslims, the preacher solely reminded his listeners of the rewards of after-life. He urged them to perform umrah (minor haj) every year even while thousands of small children are exploited along Jakarta streets. He promised the congregation with the happiness in the heavens while the luxurious houses or housing complexes of many Muslims were still surrounded by the decrepit houses of the poor!
A friend told me that performing haj is better than throwing money around extravagantly. He is right to a certain extent based on common sense. But in the Indonesian context, both of the above ways of spending money are similar. The first one is packaged with religious labels while the later can be taken as something worse.
How if the money spent for haj, especially by the ones who have performed it more than once, would be utilized to build schools, empower the people’s economy, or to establish hospitals? Would it be more fruitful? Wouldn’t the hajis get double rewards, in the world and in the heavens following the logic of their religion? Wouldn’t they be even more respected in the society?
If the state functionaries really used the public budget for the public’s sake, wouldn’t the country be better off with less poverty everywhere?
There is another story on religious mythology in Indonesia related to the haj. This man, working as a soldier of middle level, really wishes to finance as many as possible of his relatives to perform haj. He seemed to be so proud telling us, my father in law and I, that more than five of them have already been funded to do the haj. He believes that he has secured a place in heaven, at least that is what is suggested by his religious advisor.
But how about the money itself? How come he could be that proud of financing his relatives to do the haj while he himself knows that he makes most of his money illegally? Can a religion change the status of dirty or illegal money to become clean and legal if it is used for religious purposes?
Here, therefore, the role of religious clerics or leaders is pivotal. They should teach and preach more about moral issues applicable to the daily life of the people. They should stop thinking monolithically based on common sense in understanding their religion and start to be analytical and think more about empathy with social objectives.
Second, they should be more audacious in telling the right things to everybody, included to their loyal congregations. Haj, for example, would become merely a pointless religious practice, if taught improperly.
It would impoverish Muslims or become the medium for showing off by the wealthy. We will, unless we make courageous moves, see the same persistent poverty among Muslims, for a long time to come.
The writer is a researcher at Paramadina Foundation, Jakarta.
