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Exclusive Islamic housing comes with loss of tolerance
In the country that has the world’s largest Muslim population, meeting other Muslims in any neighborhood should be easy
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In the country that has the world’s largest Muslim population, meeting other Muslims in any neighborhood should be easy. However, some people would still prefer to live inside a strictly Muslim housing complex.
Yuyun Kafka, a resident in Kampung Islami Thoyibah, Cikarang, West Java, stated that she moved to the Islamic housing complex because she wanted a good neighborhood for her children to live in.
“I want my children to have good role models,” she told The Jakarta Post. “We do not allow people to smoke in the neighborhood.”
Smoking is not the only thing that is not allowed in the typical-looking lower-middle-class residential area.
One week ago, the tranquil, secluded and homogeneous neighborhood came under scrutiny for its contentious neighborhood rules.
Pictures of a banner from Kampung Islami Thoyibah circulated in recent Twitter discussions. The banner, which was taken down on Sunday, proclaimed several rules people must adhere to when entering the neighborhood.
Rules that ordered women to wear head scarves, created a “music free zone” and required Muslim men to pray at the mosque were deemed coercive by some.
One Twitter user, @Dwiyana_DKM, commented: “This is not the way to present Islam. Islam is respectful, not forceful.”
However, according to a local mosque leader, Irwan, the viral tweet showing the banner did not tell the full story.
The housing complex was established in 2016 and Irwan said the rules had been imposed ever since.
Irwan also said that it was, in fact, those types of rules that made people want to move into the complex in the first place.
“The housing complex provided facilities that support an Islamic way of life,” Irwan said, although the facilities and activities are common elsewhere. “We have a mosque, an Islamic school and hold religious programs, such as Islamic studies and Quran recitals.”
When the Post team visited the area, the call for afternoon prayer was heard. A man came out of a modest green house draped in gamis and wearing a taqiyah (a short, rounded skullcap). He walked to the local mosque to join some 20 men in prayer.
Some children followed their father even though they did not pray. They ran around in glee, playing tag with each other. Some young boys brought ice cream and ate it on their way to the mosque.
The neighborhood was, in that sense, ordinary.
One of the differences of sharia-compliant housing and other residential areas is the practice of using sharia economic principles.
The sharia rules such as no usury (riba), no fines or house seizure, gave mortgage holders peace of mind. However, critics say this has worsened the threat of exclusivity mainly against non-Muslims.
“Sharia housing should offer sharia-based payment options,” said Paulus Totok Lusida, secretary-general of Real Estate Indonesia (REI), “not a sharia way of living”.
Developers, whether sharia-compliant or not, have always recognized special facilities for their largely Muslim consumers such as mosques and Islamic cemeteries.
Paulus added that there is no written regulation regarding building exclusive and segregated housing. However, if non-Muslims were not allowed to live in a certain area, he said “this would lead to exclusivity”, which is not good in social terms.
Alissa Wahid, coordinator for the Wahid Foundation, an NGO that focuses on tolerance, stated that living a socially exclusive life, such as living only among people with the same religion, is closely linked to discrimination in society.
“There is an assumption that one can only be a good Muslim if one lives among other Muslims,” she said. “That assumption can be the driving force of exclusive living.”
Alissa added that people may choose to live in a homogenous environment. However, citizens of a pluralistic country like Indonesia should avoid discriminating against others who are different.
“We must adhere to Bhineka Tunggal Ika,” she said, referring to the national slogan of “unity in diversity”.
Maulana Yusuf, a member of the marketing team of the Kampung Islami Thoyibah developer, PT Ethis, said there were 180 units so far and about 100 more were planned, given more demand. Another developer in Cikarang, also in the “sharia-compliant housing” business, has more than 3,000 houses.
“Islamic residences”, understood to be for Muslims only, can also be found in Bogor, Depok, Yogyakarta, and Padang, West Sumatra. Paulus of REI said the property developer association so far had not acquired figures for such residential areas. (eyc)
