6 Apr 2011

Menjadi Narasumber tak Resmi di Harian Brunei Times


Sebenarnya ini kisah jadul setahun atau bahkan dua tahun yang lampau. Yang masih saya ingat ketika itu mulai awalnya kegandrungan masyarakat pada facebook. Karena akses negatif yang muncul karena kegandrungan ini, maka beberapa pengurus pondok dan ustadz mencoba membahas jejaring sosial tersebut, hingga muncullah semacam fatwa pengharaman.

Saat itu yang terjadi adalah banyak kesalahpahaman. Lagi-lagi kalangan pesantren atau Islam secara umum dituduh kuno karena mengharamkan facebook. Banyak cercaan tanpa alasan yang kemudian membuat saya gelisah, dan menuliskan artikel yang berjudul Memahami Fatwa Haram Facebook, dimana di dalamny saya mencoba untuk mendudukkan permasalahan seobjektif mungkin dalam kaitannya dengan pandangan syariah.

Karena memang sedang menjadi hot issues pada waktu itu, atau semacam trending topics pada saat ini, maka artikel saya pun mendapat sambutan yang luar biasa, cepat menyebar ke seluruh antero nusantara ( halah ..) . Situs eramuslim pun turut memuat sehingga semakin banyak yang memanfaatkan, menukil beberapa bahasan sederhana di dalamnya.

Nah, dari sekian copy paste atau nukilan yang ada di dunia maya, ada satu yang cukup memalingkan perhatian saya pada waktu itu. Yaitu dimuatnya semacam " wawancara" saya oleh harian Brunei Times di situs onlinenya, maupun -mungkin- versi cetaknya. Sebenarnya ini bukan permasalahan besar, jika Brunei Times sendiri menyebutkan sumber atau mediatornya, misalnya link era muslim atau situs indonesiaoptimis.com. Yang terjadi dan sungguh disayangkan karena seolah-olah ada wawancara dan menjadikan saya sebagai narasumber.  Untuk kelas narasumber Brunei Times, tentu muncul kebanggaan tersendiri,  namun karena menjadi sumber tak resmi, kebanggaan itu pun menjadi sirna dan berganti dengan sebuah kebingungan ; Apakah semacam ini kualitas media bertaraf nasional ? Wallahu a'lam.

Facebook : Is it Halal or Haram ?

BLOGGERS and Facebook users in Indonesia, were upset after a May meeting of hundreds of ulama (Muslim scholars) from Java and Madura urged top religious authorities to issue fatwa, or edict, banning Facebook for Muslims.

They condemned the ulama, members of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU, Revival of Muslim Scholars) — Indonesia's largest Islamic organisation — through their blogs and Facebook's statuses, called them as conservative and backward, blind of modern technology and need to be "educated". "They should live in caves or in forests with monkeys," one of Facebook users said.

In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world, Facebook is the top-ranked site with an estimated 831,000 Facebook users, beating out even search engines Yahoo and Google. Enda Nasution, a well-known Internet observer and active user of Facebook, dubbed as the Father of the Indonesian bloggers, considered the ulama, having no important things to do than issuing the edict, adding that the edict is just the ulama's joke. "Don't be half-hearted ways, why don't they issue the same (banning) edict for the internet, mobile phone, or anything which can be used excessively," he said as quoted by Sabili.

A May meeting held in Pesantren Putri Hidayatul Mubtadaat Lirboyo, Kediri, East Java, where the controversy begins, is part of Bahats al-Masa'il (Discussions of Cases) to discuss various issues in the community, based on fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) through the classical Islamic books known as Kitab Kuning.

The meeting has become NU's ulama tradition for years. In the last meeting, current issues such as the use of modern gadgets and social networking media (cellular phone, 3G, chatting, Friendster, Facebook, and so on) became the hottest agenda in the forum.

The outcry subsided after the forum's speaker Muchammad Nabil Haroen of the Pesantren Lirboyo held a press conference, clarifying that they were not after a ban and that he himself and some ulama also had Facebook accounts. Haroen confirmed that the forum never issued edict banning Facebook because it is merely a new communication medium created by human beings. "We just banned its usage if it is used excessively and could drive lust," he explained, citing an example on the usage of a knife, which could be positive or negative, depends on the user behind it. According to Haroen, many criticisms were bias and excessive because the critics did not understand the forum's decision completely.

According to Hatta Syamsuddin, a lecturer at an Islamic college in Surakarta, Central Java, Facebook as a medium has neutral status (halal). "It depends on the Facebook users who later change its 'status' to be haram or to keep in its neutrality (halal)," he said, commenting on the outcry.

From the fierce criticisms, we found that the critics, both from media and Facebook users, apparently had generalised the ulama. Without any knowledge about the fiqh and the development of Islam in Indonesia — including the Islamic civilisation and empathy over the roles of ulama before, during, and after the country's independence — their criticisms on any fatwa will always be bias and too excessive.

Depending on how we see the context, we can always see things from the positive side as ulama did. Even Facebook spokeswoman Debbie Frost said, "We have seen many people and organisations use Facebook to advance a positive agenda."
source : The Brunei Times 

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