SUFISM AS A PRACTICAL MORAL EDUCATION: REFLECTIONS ON THE THOUGHTS OF KIAI MOECHTAR BOECHARI (1899-1926)

Abstract

Sufism has been neglected in the religious discourse and educational practices of modernist Muslims in the Islamic world, including Indonesia, where Kiai Moechtar Boechari (1899-1926) had emerged as an early activist in the Muhammadiyah Surakarta and Sufism. This research aims to examine Kiai Boechari’s religious thought, emphasizing the idea of Sufism as a practice of moral education (akhlaq). The data of research comprised mainly documentation and library archives. The findings reveal that Kiai Boechari’s religious thinking was driven by persistence in reformulating Islam to be relevant and able to answer the challenges of the modern era based on purification and dynamization. Boechari emphasized on the problem of purifying faith (aqidah), the dynamics of worldly muamalah problems, comparative religions, women’s emancipation, and moral Sufism. Kiai Boechari’s Sufism thought emphasized the purification of aqidah, guided by the Quran and Sunnah, respect for the Shari’a, and the practice of individual social moral education, which are characteristics of the typology of Sufism (transcendental mysticism), moral Sufism, and orthodox/prophetic Sufism. This was known as neo-Sufism formulated by Kiai Boechari to practice moral education. It requires persistence to carry out the process of purifying oneself from despicable and immoral traits (takhalli), such as anger, envy, arrogance, pride, riya, and the urge to lust; which eventually starts the process of internalizing good qualities (tahalli), culminating in mahabbah, the disappearance of the human hijab (tajalli), giving a peak of spiritual experience. This study implicates that, in the prophetic orientation of Sufism, spiritual experience is not an end in itself, for the sake of the experience itself, but to give meaning to actions in history.