Indonesia’s current education emphasizes the scientific approach, from elementary school, junior high school and college. It is clearly visible in the curriculum documents applied by the current government of Indonesia which is known as the 2013 Curriculum. By conducting philosophical studies, a scientific approach that emphasizes rationality can be a knife to seek and solve the causes of events in science. In Marx’s terms, science and technology infrastructures, both of which will determine the superstructure of the international world including culture, (...) morals, law, and even religion. Science can also eliminate unfounded (magical) trust in traditional societies. In the context of Indonesia scientific approach to form a nation-based character rational science.In other words, the more dominant the critical scientific awareness than the mystic. According to Agus Comte and more clearly on Freire, divides human consciousness into three levels: magical awareness, native awareness, and critical awareness. The civilization of the Indonesian nation seems to be in a great deal of this magical awareness. With a scientific approach, it is not impossible for Indonesian civilization to move to the level of critical awareness. Critical awareness is an asset to a more civilized civilization in the future. (shrink)

To overcome various problems, the practice of shamanism has gained popularity in Javanese society. The belief of the society in this practice is increasing, mainly because of the involvement of the kyai (an honorific title of the Muslim clergy), who serves as a shaman. The kyai, in this regard, uses Qur’anic verses in his mantra. This study aims to reveal how the use of the Qur’anic verses is interpreted and legitimised in the practice of shamanism amongst the Javanese community. This (...) article concluded that what people understand about the heresy practice of shamanism as it is considered contrary to religious law or shirk (idolatry) is not proven. The practice of shamanism carried out by santri or kyai has normative arguments and theological legitimacy from the Qur’an and books of salaf scholars. Contribution: It is prevailing that the practice of shamanism is often considered heresy and un-Islamic. This article however, will give a new insight that the practice of shamanism is not always against Islamic teaching as conducted by kyai because he always refers to the Qur’an as a mantra. (shrink)

This paper attempts to discuss Halal food industry in Southeast Asiaand its global role. The increasing number of Muslim tourists in non-Muslimcountries opened an opportunity to develop halal food Indonesia, Malaysia, andBrunei to become reference for non-Muslim majority countries in developingthis industry. The goal of this paper is to give a reference for non-Muslimcountries in developing similar industry in their home countries. This studyfocuses on: understanding halal food, how Muslim majority countriesregulate policy regarding halal food standardization, and, the opportunityto implementing (...) the similar regulation to the non-Muslim countries. The needto accommodate Muslims’ food requirements abroad especially in non-Muslimcountries found that some countries have already been promoting halal food.The growing demands for Halal food for Muslims either visiting or living innon-Muslim countries can open opportunity for global spread of halal foodindustry. (shrink)

Muhammad Arsyad Al-Banjari who lived from 1710 to 1812 in Borneo, Indonesia, applied a model of integrating uses of the Banjarese tradition into Islamic Jurisprudence based on a dialectical constitution of qiyās, the legal argumentation theory for parallel reasoning and analogy, he learned from the Shāfi‘ī-school of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh). Our paper focuses in the model of integration proposed and practiced by Al-Banjari, a rational debate grounded on a dynamic view on legal systems. We will illustrate the method with (...) the help of two different kinds of qiyās deployed by Al-Banjari in order to argue for the rejection of some traditional Banjarese offering-rituals for avoiding disease or calamities (manyanggar and mambuang pasilih), and for the acceptance of the use of consuming the traditional drink called lahang made of the juice of sugar-palm. As our dialogical reconstruction shows, the development of the debates, particularly the first one, is quite sophisticated, with a Banjarese opponent that does not surrender easily to the rejection of his use of those rituals. (shrink)