Jumat, 06 Desember 2019

Annuqayah and the Environmental Concern


This video is an example of environmental program in Annuqayah islamic boarding school (Pesantren Annuqayah) Guluk-Guluk, Madura, East Java. Indonesia.

Mrs. Hasbiyah, as you’ve seen in the video, has been involving with this program since 2002 when she was a student (santri) in Annuqayah. Now she is a leader of local community (Sumber Makmur) that actively conserve, develop, produce, and promote the use of herbal medicine particularly in her nighbourhood. Basically, she has a weekly informal meeting with the community member (the member is about fourty women), and initially they pray together, recite the Qur’an, and learn about religious teaching. Beside that, the community produce herbal medicine and local food.

Through this traditionally typical local community in Madura, she has made an important effort and contribution to change the way of people think about health, medicinal plant that recently tend to be abandoned by the young generation in Madura, and also about the importance of caring and preserving the biodiversity in the environment to improve the quality of life.

This kind of program has been initiated and assisted by Annuqayah Community Service Bureau (Biro Pengabdian Masyarakat Pondok Pesantren Annuqayah) since its foundation in 1979. The foundation of this bureau affirm the religious orientation of the religious leader (kiai) in Annuqayah. They believe that religion is not only deal with ritual and eschatological things but also must have a contribution to concrete situation of the people. To do so, in the pesantren, it is not enough for students to learn only religious knowledge. Not all the students in the pesantren are expected to become a kiai (religious leader). The most important goal of religious based education in pesantren is that after they are graduated, the students could make a contribution, or give assistance and service to the people based on religious values.

In the first years after it was founded, the bureau has several program, such as reforestation and encouraging people to plant trees in their yard (Guluk-Guluk, Madura is a barren area, the soil is dominantly lime store rock), helping people to have access to clean water, and other program to improve the economy of the people. The idea and the implementation of these programs mainly take advantage of the local community that routinely carried out a meeting. The kiai, the religious leader of the typical local community, facilitate a discussion and propose the idea of the environmental project.

Thanks to hard work and participation of the community, in 1981 Pesantren Annuqayah received the prestigious Kalpataru environmental award from the Ministry of Environment Republic of Indonesia for reforestation program.

The program of the Bureau since its foundation has been developed based on the values of participation and cooperation. Through the program, the bureau tries to encourage people autonomy to improve the quality of life. But the most important message of the program is that religion should play a role to a better world and environment.

In the recent time, the program to promote and nurture environmental awareness in Pesantren Annuqayah not only carried out by the bureau. Environmental awareness now is also become one of the main focus in the boarding and formal education in Pesantren Annuqayah. Madrasah/schools in the pesantren now have a strong attention to environmental program and try to respond to contemporary challenge of environmental problem. One of the example is the attention to reduce the plastic waste in the school neighbourhood and also in the boarding. The school and the boarding make a strict rule to control the plastic waste.

The other important thing to be underlined is that the effort to raise environmental awareness in Pesantren Annuqayah also depends on the availability of exemplary figure that consistently practice the ecogreen life style in the daily life. Some figures of kiai in Pesantren Annuqayah actively promote the environmental awareness through their practice.


Short speech at Eco-Islam Conference, Karachi, 23 November 2019.


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