International Board Members and Executive Committee of Globethics.net

Written by Jekonia Tarigan

Globethics.net is a global network of teachers and institutions with the vision to embed ethics in higher education. Founded in 2004, Globethics.net strives to educate and inform people, and especially leaders in society so they can contribute to building sustainable, just, and peaceful societies.  Therefore, Globethics.net believes that equal access to knowledge resources in the field of applied ethics enables individuals and institutions from developing and transitioning economies to become more visible and audible in the global discourse is pivotal. Globethics.net maintains the conviction that the transformative effect of ethics is not just for the individual, but for society as a whole. For this reason, Globethics.net develops its resources and programs to meet the following goals: empowerment (developing talents), transformation (placing common good before self-interest), a holistic approach (understanding of in-depth correlations), integrity (making values-based decisions and behaviors), competence (focusing on innovative and collective proficiency), and sustainability.

Since 2010, the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) Yogyakarta has managed the regional coordination of Globethics.net Indonesia. The Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) is a consortium of three universities: Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University (UIN), and Duta Wacana Christian University (UKDW). Together, the consortium offers an integrative, international Ph.D. program in inter-religious studies. ICRS is a unique religious study as it is co-sponsored by Muslim, Christian, and national-secular universities. Since 2018, ICRS Core Doctoral Faculty member Dr. Dicky Sofjan has been a member of the panel of experts for Globethics.net. In late 2021, Sofjan was inducted into Globethics.net’s international board and attended its meeting on April 29-30, 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. Other board members from Switzerland, Germany, India, Canada, and Brazil also attended the two-day hybrid meeting at the Globethics.net office located at the Ecumenical Center in the heart of the picturesque city of Geneva.

One of many of the decisions of the international board was to establish a regional office in Indonesia, located at Universitas Gadjah Mada. Sofjan has also been tasked to lead the office in Yogyakarta as its National Director and recruit a National Program Officer to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Globethics.net Indonesia regional office. In addition to attending the international board meeting of Globethics.net, Sofjan also met with the Program Executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation Dr. Abraham Silo, Dean of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey Dr. Simone Sinn, and Program Executive for Public Theology and Interreligious Relations Dr. Sivin Kit. Aside from that, Sofjan also met with OHCHR Human Rights Officer Michael Wiener and Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ibrahim Salama.

International Board Members, Executive Committee and Staff of Globethics.net

Meeting with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the Jardin Botanique.

Written by Jekonia Tarigan

In the social sciences, specifically related to Asia, there has long been a distinction between South Asian Studies and Southeast Asian Studies. However, there is a link between the two, the small, Indian Ocean Island known through history as Sarandib, Lanka, and Ceylon. This island was a site of banishment throughout the 18th century for members of royal families, convicts, servants, and others sent there from across the Indonesian archipelago. Descendants of these exiles who remained on the island continued to speak and write in Malay, the archipelago’s lingua franca, and to adhere to a collective Muslim identity for several centuries and into the present. Ronit Ricci’s research examines if and how earlier religious and literary traditions of banishment tied to the island, those of Adam’s fall from paradise to Sarandib and Sinta’s abduction to Lanka, played a role in the lives of the early exiles and their descendants. [i] Ricci presented her findings in Wednesday Forum, a weekly discussion forum hosted by the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) and the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS) on April 26, 2022. Ricci is a lecturer in the departments of Asian Studies and Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2013, she has been developing Indonesian Studies at the Hebrew University, the only Israeli university to offer this field of study. Her research interests include manuscript cultures of Javanese and Malay, translation studies, and Islamic literature from South and Southeast Asia.

Ricci emphasizes that, for the most part, the exiles sent to Ceylon were from Indonesia, people like Amangkurat III who was exiled in 1708 and Pangeran Arya Mangkunegara who was exiled in the 1730s. Various other members of the house of Mataram in Central Java, but then also people like Syekh Yusuf al-Makassari from Makassar and princes and kings from Tidore and Ternate, South Sulawesi, and elsewhere were banished to Ceylon. This exile or banishment to Ceylon was part of a much larger picture of colonialism under the Dutch. At that time, people from Java, like Prince Diponegoro, were often exiled to Batavia, Makassar, Ambon, or Manado. However, banishment could be carried out to a more distant place by the Dutch colonialists.  to people who were considered far more dangerous, so that Ceylon or even Capetown in Africa, became places that were considered far enough to eliminate the influence of people who were considered threats.

Ceylon was especially important because of a certain imagination, in part because the word Ceylon was turned into a verb. A modern example of this is the Google search engine and “to google” becoming synonymous with conducting an internet search. Banishment came to be known as “being ceyloned.” Through her research, Ricci found that although the majority of the exiles were Muslim, there were also Christian and Balinese Hindus among the exiles. Interestingly, today Islam is one of the main elements that defines a community that still exists in Ceylon. Approximately 50.000 people are part of this community and they still speak a form of Malay to this day, but it’s often mixed between Malay and Arabic or Malay and Tamil. Ricci explained that the point of departure for her research was her interest in the question of exile in the 18th century and specifically exile to Ceylon and the relationship to two significant religious traditions of banishment/exile that are tied to this particular island.

Thinking about exile in the 18th century and its connection with Ceylon, Ricci found that it is very important to religious traditions. In the Islamic tradition, there is the fall of Adam or Nabi Adam to the island when he was banished from paradise. The Hindu tradition includes the story of the Ramayana in which Sita or Sinta is banished to the island of Lanka. Hence, Ricci asks whether these ancient traditions that linked banishment with the island in any way shaped the Malay experience of exile during a very different historical period and did these stories contribute to the ways in which the memory of exile was constructed. Ricci believes that those earlier banishments played a role in how exiles and their descendants experienced their own plight in the 18th century.

Furthermore, in her presentation Ricci shared that her approach in doing her research was via text and stories. The Muslim and Hindu traditions could easily be found to overlap, because the two religious strands also met and combined. From the Muslim tradition, it is believed that the first human and the first prophet was Adam. Ricci explained that the tradition hods that he was banished from paradise to a mountain top on the island, known in Arabic as Jazeera Sarandib, This was a banishment that was a prototype for all future banishments, because he was exiled from a perfect realm to this world. The source of this tradition is not entirely clear because it does not appear in the Quran, but it is known from the writings of early historians and geographers of Persia and Arabia from the 10th century onwards, and it circulated widely and became popular also in South and Southeast Asia.

The mountain known as Jebel al-Rahun or in Indonesian known as Gunung Sarandib, was known as the place where Adam first landed on earth. It is also mentioned by Ibn Battuta in his famous 14th century travelogue. Battuta landed in Puttalam in eastern Sri Lanka and told the king that the only reason he wished to come to Ceylon was to see the footprint of Nabi Adam. The king gave him permission and Battuta wrote in his travelogue that there were special leaves on the mountain that had the name of God engraved on them. Battuta also wrote about how he climbed to the top and there was a custom of staying there for three days and praying. This site then become a well-known pilgrimage site. In the Muslim tradition, the mountain is depicted as touching Paradise, so that when Adam first fell and landed on the mountaintop, he was standing on the summit, and he could still hear the angels singing as his head was still in the heavens. The entire area is described in the Arabic sources as beautiful and blooming, filled with good sense, because fruits and seeds dropped down along with Adam so that the seeds of the trees of Paradise fell with him. It is a kind of liminal place situated between the heavenly and earthly realms.

Moreover, Ricci explained that the mountain is also a pivotal pilgrimage site for other religions. Currently, the mountain is used primarily as a Buddhist pilgrimage site. This is a very common phenomenon in South Asia where pilgrimage sites or holy sites are used by more than one religion. Buddhists call the site Sripada, or the footprint of Buddha, who is believed to have visited Sri Lanka three times during his lifetime. Hinduism in Sri Lanka calls the site Siva Olipatha, because it is believed that at the same site there is the footprint of Shiva.

The Kisas al-Anbiya (undated), in which there are tales of the prophets of Islam, from Adam to Prophet Muhammad, are widely read not only in Arabic but in Malay and in various Indonesian languages. The text records that Adam not only falls to Sarandib but the island’s role is expanded. There, Adam is commanded to return to Eve so that their first fundamental human experiences, both having children and of the death story of Habeel and Cain, occur on the island. Long after, Ibrahim is commanded to bring rocks from the mountain Sarandib for the building of Kaaba in Mecca. Here is there is an important dialogue between the center, Mecca, and the periphery of Sarandib, between the site of Adam’s fall and the heart of the Muslim world. Another story that also echoes with this one is about the relationship of faraway places to Mecca, for example, Imogiri and how Sultan Agung said to his people that he brought back a handful of earth from various holy cities and little by little that earth grew into a hill or a mountain in which the king of Java could be buried. Again, it is the mingling of different types of earth so that the king of Java can actually be buried in the holy land of Mecca in some form.

Another text from the national archives in Colombo (Sri Lanka) proves the familiarity of the story of Adam’s fall to Sarandib in the home culture of the exiles. The text is a letter from a Javanese exile by the name of Surapati to his family back home in Java when he was in Ceylon in 1724. He wrote,

‘Oh dear mother, wherever you may be, on whoever’s side you are together with our family, be careful and take care of yourself and also your grandchildren. Trust in God with all patience. Now that I am no longer by your side, I live here in a town called Colombo on the coast of the Mountain Sarandin, the place where Adam fled when he had angered God and stayed there separated from our mother Eva for some time, but was again through the mercy of the highest God, after declaring his sins and praying for forgiveness called upon and accepted in mercy and restored to his wife which we must all takes as an example and hope that after fervent prayer we may again be brought together in eternity, which we all will beg of God and hope our pleas will be heard.

Surapati took Adam’s plight explicitly as a model for his own. Like Adam, he had angered God and was therefore banished from his homeland and painfully separated from his family. He referred to Eve as mother, that is, mother of humanity, while writing to his own mother in Java and expressed the hope that after praying for forgiveness as Adam did, that they will also one day reunite. The letter not only conveys the pain and loneliness, but also the hope, comfort, and inspiration that Adam’s story provided.

A second tradition that ties banishment to this particular island is Hinduism, especially related to the story of Ramayana. Rama is considered to be an incarnation of Vishnu. This story is generally accepted as a devotional text even in Indonesia. The story is primarily considered a story of kinship and social relationships. Rama and his wife were banished to the forest. Shortly thereafter, Rawana, the demon king of Lanka or Alanka kidnapped Sinta. Sinta then finds herself in Lanka alone, far from her husband, and held captive for a long period prior to being released. Therefore, the name Lanka or Alanka is closely tied to the idea of banishment.

Finally, Ricci argues that in both traditions, Islam and Hindu, Adam and Rawana were banished on a mountaintop whether the context and the story are different. There are documents known as Hikayat Seri Rama’ from colonial Ceylon (1856) in which Sinta told Hanuman who wanted to free her that Hanuman should climb the mountain, find the black stone that marks Adam’s first touch with the earth and Hanuman should kiss for stone in order that his energy would be renewed to leap back to Rama. Another story is about the underwater coral bridge, known as Adam’s Bridge and Rama’s Bridge (Ram Setu). This bridge was used by Adam to find Eve and was also used by Rama to find Sinta. Here, the one story is wrapped in another story. According to Ricci, Sinta’s banishment to Lanka includes important details of Adam’s biography. Sinta knows that he fell from Paradise onto a particular mountaintop, and Sinta recognized the sanctity of the place in the stone. The black square stone is likely a reference to the Kaaba related to the story of Ibrahim taking rocks from the mountain in Sarandib. The Kaaba itself is located at the site of Adam’s fall. So here, the two traditions of banishment come together. For the exiles and their descendants this literature is important, and these texts are a part of their oral tradition that is read or recited aloud to their descendants.

Recorded Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20k9adiHq8M&t=1333s

[i] Ronit Ricci, Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon (Cambridge University Press, 2019). p. 1 https://books.google.co.id/books?hl=id&lr=&id=yTHFDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=ronit+ricci&ots=AOqlbl-pN8&sig=IYyUqCNIiNtHbyIIMm2eWrpCtOE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ronit%20ricci&f=false

We are proud as UGM announced that ICRS and CRCS UGM were ranked number 47 in the world and number 1 in Indonesia for the Theology, Divinity, and Religious Studies category by Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings (QS WUR) by Subject. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude and appreciation to all who have been supporting us to obtain this achievement.

As reported in Kompas, Universitas Gadjah Mada achieved the 47th ranking in the world and the first nationally in the category of Theology, Divinity and Religious Studies. The Graduate School of UGM offers a Master of Arts degree in Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) and a doctoral program in Inter-Religious Studies (IRS). The latter is part of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), which consists of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Kristen Duta Wacana and Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga Yogykarta.

UGM released a statement on its website after QS WUR announced the ranking on Wednesday 8 April 2022. The official statement from UGM is as follows:

Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) has been ranked 47th in the world (1st in Indonesia) in Theology, Divinity & Religious Studies in the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject. Religious studies are the core subjects taught at the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS) and Inter-Religious Studies (IRS) of the UGM Graduate School.

“We are certainly grateful that our study programs have gained recognition from the QS WUR,” said the Dean of the UGM Graduate School, Prof. Siti Malkhamah, Wednesday (13/4).

CRCS is a master’s program that provides cross-cultural studies of religions using interdisciplinary approaches such as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history, theology, political science, gender, cultural studies, etc. IRS is a doctoral program offered by the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies/ICRS (consisting of UGM, UIN Sunan Kalijaga, and Duta Wacana Christian University) that focuses on the study of religions in Indonesia and encourages interreligious dialogues and peace in the country and the world.

“Students and lecturers in these two programs are of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds and come from within and outside Indonesia,” she said.

In this QS WUR release, UGM scored 72.4 in total from five components, including h-index (48.40), research citations per paper (64.3), academic reputation (77.1), employer reputation (70.8), and international research networks. Malkhamah said that many books, articles, and papers by ICRS lecturers and students had been published in reputable international journals.

For instance, a three-year joint study by UGM lecturers and researchers from Boston University was published in a book entitled Indonesian Pluralities: Islam, Citizenship, and Democracy in 2021, involving Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir of the UGM CRCS and Prof. Robert W. Hefner of Boston University as editors.

UGM Graduate School strives to improve the quality and reputation of its graduates by enhancing the curriculum, learning process, academic environment, and tracer study. The Graduate School boosts its international reputation by using English in the classroom and inviting lecturers and researchers from universities at home and abroad. Various research and community service activities are also integrated into the course and involve partners from around the globe.

“We hope to increase our international publications, international academic network, and international recognition,” she said.

Author: Gusti Grehenson

Written by Athanasia Safitri

Religious leaders have the gift of relating sacred texts to the reality and transferring them to the community. The way the leaders interact with their religious followers is pivotal; his/her ideas must be in line with the community to succeed. Therefore, it is crucial to be consistent in what they believe and teach while bringing coherence to their message. This kind of relationship plays a key role for religious leaders as they provide guidance to their followers in their daily lives. Dr. Ismail Fajrie Alatas argues that authority in the sense of religious leadership means that the leader’s opinion is accepted and followed without coercion.

Alatas elaborated more during a class discussion as part of the Approaches to Interreligious Studies course ICRS. The meeting was held following the publication of his book entitled What is Religious Authority?: Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia (2021), a mandatory reading in the class. Alatas considers himself both an anthropologist and a historian whose primary research interest is Islam in the Indian Ocean World and, particularly, the historical and contemporary connections between Southeast Asia and South Arabia. His teaching areas include history and anthropology of Islam, Islamic law and society, Islam and politics, Sufism, and Islam in the Indian Ocean World and in Southeast Asia.

The book proposes an anthropological approach that combines insights from post-structuralist Marxism and actor-network theory to comprehend the unceasing and contingent labor behind the formation of Islamic religious authority. It describes the rise to prominence of Indonesia’s leading Sufi master, Habib Luthfi Bin Yahya, and his rivalries with competing religious leaders to reveal why some Muslim voices become authoritative while others do not. It also shows how Islamic religious authorities’ concrete and sustained labor of Islamic religious authorities in translation, mobilization, collaboration and competition are the very dynamics that give Islam its force and diversity. Alatas highlights the articulatory labor which religious authority may conduct in gaining his/her followers.

Articulatory labor to direct religious teaching

In performing articulatory labor, actors are informed by different moral and social visions and rely on various conceptual and material infrastructures that are available to maintain durable relationships with their contemporaries, thus generating multiple articulatory modes. In relation to Alatas’ reference on articulatory labor, the importance of leadership in a religious tradition will affect the development of the practice itself and the continuity of the spiritual points in the lives of the participants. In fact, Alatas suggests that the labor can clearly be seen through the actual presence of the people living it, through the concrete evidence of action performed by the people involved in it, besides looking closely at the life of the leader. He adds that religion can be defined through the way people live it.

As an anthropologist, he finds that the teachings of religion are interpreted and carried on by the followers to enable certain religious beliefs to work in a religious community. When it works and becomes the social reality along with consequences within the society, religion develops specific regulations or norms for daily life. Up to this phase, we cannot help but keep track of the religious action conducted both by the followers or any particular religious leader.

An aspiring religious authority must engage in articulatory labor in the hope of being recognised by the world. These leaders could pass away, leaving the community unprepared to carry on the legacy. And, as Alatas continued, some could suddenly stop and focus on other goals not to mention other agendas or priorities which change the course of the performance. Articulatory labor could go wrong and end up changing the situation or condition the religious leader might achieve. Labor, which is “the direct remaking of nature as accomplished by a social man with the tools of his own creation” (Alatas, 2021), is a concrete activity that creates many social realizations.

A religious leader is successful when their efforts to make people follow his/her lead are not clearly recognised and their role in starting the practice goes unnoticed. We learn about religion from their followers, from the practice of social realities which have consequences, and gives measurement. The anthropological approach Alatas uses, ethnography, shows how an authority develops his/her persona or image to ensure the people become attracted to and follow his/her examples.

Some of these leaders can be said to be continuously working hard to gain their authority that people consider it the will of God or destiny. It is very interesting to learn that, given various movements and communities in our religious world, we tend to forget that the process of leading or making authority in religion can be made either intentionally or accidentally. Religious teaching can only be delivered when an authority holds a certain position in the society. It is argued that no authority can last long unless there is already an acknowledgement or position in the community.

An example he gives is the way Muslims still attend Friday prayer during COVID-19 even when the government’s religious officials tell them not to go. In this case, people follow what the imam in their neighborhood asks them to do (attending Friday prayer despite the prohibition). People respect and obey because of the personal and concrete relation they have with the local authority rather than the government officials. Therefore, we can conclude that trust and personal relationships are vital. Authority works only when the leader gains trust from the people and builds a relationship with them.

Towards the concrete universality

The religious authority is determined by discovering the process of the religious teaching and its relation to the followers. Studying the anthropological side of religious leadership will result in finding normativity, which is the commitment to cultural creativity. It will lead to determining whether there is a universality shared within the communities. In this case, the religious authority can help shape a mutual understanding of dialogue with one another. The process to build relationships must be clearly described so people have a clear picture using appropriate means. This is best started by studying or observing the followers, the members of the community, and their relation in daily life.

However, regardless of the method or approach, whether it is anthropological, historical, or social, one must be able to differentiate from the theological view to avoid judgment and bias.  This includes what society thinks of one particular teaching or authority itself, so that the findings can be used as a model for religious and interreligious dialogue. The concrete personal connection which results in trust and good relations enables them to enter the body of one community so it becomes a way of living. Their day-to-day practice could be taken as one study of a religious approach apart from a specific conviction.

Alatas relates this to the term “concrete universality” where people share one common thing that they all believe in and practice. Later on, either concrete or relational, difference is an absolute thing, even within the community of the same religion. There is a process to connect something in the past to another and also to modern life. A religious authority should make their ideas, thoughts, and teachings on this concrete universality transparent enough so that people can have a good description and be able to follow it. As it needs appropriate tools, sharing and accompaniment in the Christian belief, formation for Muslims, Buddhist and other religious traditions must be carried out accordingly.

These efforts, or we may say labor, would make concrete universality point out the importance of accepting common virtues believed and practiced in the world, which later could lead to mutual respect and understanding between one religion and another. By acknowledging as such, together we may learn that the way we view one religious tradition cannot be separated from our historical, social, anthropological, and cultural background. While seeing the original principles and practices of a religion believed and conducted in a certain community, one must also consider the development of many aspects they shared together with other communities practicing the same religion. It is here that the role of religious authority becomes significant and notable.

It leads us to question and reflect again on the important role of a religious leader and how he/she can direct the course of one’s religion through his/her way in practicing religious teachings and traditions. This authority helps to shape a deeper practice of religious teaching by the people and to build the common ground of concrete universality carried out by various religious groups through mutual respect and understanding.

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Ismail Fajrie Alatas, What Is Religious Authority?: Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691204314/what-is-religious-authority