John Osborne’s Luther: An Islamic Interpretation for Boosting Human Fraternity

The fictional world John Osborne builds up in Luther (1961) dramatizes Martin Luther’s spiritual journey from rooted Catholicism to emerging Protestantism. Throughout the journey, Martin’s religious tendency varies according to the belief he adheres to. This paper examines if the aspects of the Christian doctrine Martin is fed with at first and the initiatives he undertakes later on can be reinterpreted through the lens of Islam. The study tries to prove that drama can be used as a platform that enhances religious and multicultural proximity rather than distance between the western world and the Muslim community. It analyzes the Christian tenets in Luther to demonstrate how the religious values embedded in Osborne’s representation can be brought close to the principles of the Islamic doctrine. Hence, another endeavour for boosting human fraternity is presented based on picking up a modern English drama that was written sixty years ago and analyzing some of its aspects from an Islamic perspective.

KONTRIBUSI TAREKAT TIJANIYAH TERHADAP PERUBAHAN PRILAKU SOSIAL JAMA'AH MASYARAKAT DI DESA PAYABENUA

The tijaniyah tarekat was founded by sheikh Abul Abbas at-Tijani, he came from the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. In studying the tijaniyah tarekat he made a spiritual journey to Fez Morocco in 1171/1757 to study three tarekat namely the Qadiriyah, the Nashiriyah and the Ahmad bin al-habib tarekat. He received his first education from his father and from several other scholars until the age of 20-21 years. Then studied in other cities such as Algeria, Cairo, Makkah and Medina and met with several sheikhs including Sheikh Muhmud al-Karoli and Sheikh Abd. Karim Al-Sama (Samaniyah). These sheikhs contributed significantly to al-Tinjani's involvement in the tarekat movement. So it was from here that Sheikh Ahmad Tijani established a tarekat and this order was known as the tijaniyah tarekat. So that it spread very widely to the Eastern region, North Africa, India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and other countries including Indonesia, one of which was the Tijaniyah Order which was founded. In this regard, this problem needs to be examined regarding the tijaniyah tarekat ", namely:" how the contribution of the tijaniyah tarekat to changes in the social behavior of the congregation in the Payabenua village community ". In this study using a qualitative approach with descriptive methods. Seeing the contribution of the tijaniyah tarekat in society, there are many changes, so that it can have a positive impact on the surrounding social community. From this research it can be concluded about the contribution of the tijaniyah tarekat to changes in the social behavior of the payabenua village congregation including: social relations of the congregation, the tijaniyah tarekat to Allah, the social relations of the congregation of the tijaniyah tarekat to the community in worshiping Allah, the social relations of the congregation. the tijaniyah tarekat in loving animals and plants, and the social relationship of the tijaniyah congregation to the universe.

THE PARTICE OF THE ISRA’ MI’RAJ VALUE OF THE MANDAILING NATAL COMMUNITY

Isra' Mi'raj is a very important historical event for Muslims around the world. In Islam, the commemoration of Isra' and Mi'raj is a momentum to upgrade faith, add insight and motivation to worship, especially in maintaining the five daily prayers. The journey of Isra' Mi'raj is believed to be the most sacred prophetic spiritual journey, so it is natural that many Quraysh residents of Mecca at that time doubted its truth. Commemorating Isra' and Mi'raj including the realm of ikhtilaf al-fuqaha from the past until now. But the most mu'tabar opinion states the ability (al-Jawaz) in commemorating Isra' Mi'raj to achieve benefit for the religious community. This opinion is believed by the Muslim community in Mandailing Natal Regency. This paper presents a portrait of the habits of Muslims in Mandailing Natal Regency in commemorating Isra' and Mi'raj as one of the efforts to foster religious spirit to make Mandailing Natal Regency a civilized one. This research is a field research with a qualitative method with a religious approach to explain the practice of religious spirit that should bring every Muslim in Mandailing Natal Regency to practice Islamic teachings in accordance with the spirit contained in the Isra' and Mi'raj events. In addition, the custom of the Mandailing Natal community in commemorating Isra' and Mi'raj needs to be maintained and preserved as a form of local wisdom in order to realize Mandailing Natal which has the slogan of a traditional country, obedient to worship.Isra’ Mi’raj adalah peristiwa bersejarah yang sangat penting bagi umat Islam seluruh dunia. Dalam Islam, peringatan Isra’ dan Mi’raj merupakan momentum untuk mengupgrade keimanan, menambah wawasan dan motivasi beribadah terutama dalam menjaga salat lima waktu. Perjalanan Isra’ Mi’raj diyakini sebagai perjalanan rohani kenabian yang paling sakral sehingga wajar bila penduduk kafir Quraisy Kota Makkah saat itu banyak yang meragukan akan kebenarannya. Memperingati Isra’ dan Mi’raj termasuk ranah ikhtilaf al-fuqaha dari dahulu sampai sekarang. Namun pendapat yang paling mu’tabar menyatakan kebolehan (al-jawaz) dalam memperingati Isra’ Mi’raj untuk mencapai maslahat bagi masyarakat beragama. Pendapat inilah yang diyakini oleh masyarakat muslim di Kabupaten Mandailing Natal. Tulisan ini menyajikan potret kebiasaan umat Islam di Kabupaten Mandailing Natal dalam memperingati Isra’ dan Mi’raj sebagai salah satu upaya memupuk semangat beragama menjadikan Kabupaten Mandailing Natal yang madani. Penelitian ini merupakan field research dengan metode kualitiatif dengan pendekatan keagamaan guna menjelaskan praktik semangat keagamaan yang seharusnya membawa setiap umat Islam di Kabupaten Mandailing Natal mengamalkan ajaran Islam sesuai dengan spirit yang terkandung pada peristiwa Isra’ dan Mi’raj. Selain itu, kebiasaan masyarakat Mandailing Natal dalam memperingati Isra’ dan Mi’raj ini perlu dijaga dan dilestarikan sebagai bentuk kearifan lokal guna mewujudkan Mandailing Natal yang memiliki slogan negeri beradat, taat berbibadat.

Black theology versus black spirituality and black faith: The centrality of spirituality and faith in black theology of liberation in the South African context

Black theology, which is linked to black power in the context of the United States of America and black consciousness in the context of South Africa is often regarded as having nothing to do with spirituality, faith and salvation. It is often regarded by critics as radical, militant and political. In some circles its theological character is questioned. Advocates of liberation theology, past and present are accused of mixing religion with politics. The article traces the history of black theology, as part of liberation theology, which started in the 1960s in three contexts, namely Latin America, United States of America and South Africa. The article argues that spirituality, faith and salvation are central to black theology of liberation. The critical theological reflection that black theology of liberation is all about happens in the context of the spiritual journey of the poor believer and oppressed.Contribution: The contribution that this article makes is to serve as a corrective discourse that rebuts the mistaken accusation that black liberation theology has nothing to do with spirituality and faith. The article makes a direct link between spirituality and faith on the one hand and on the other hand liberating Christian praxis of the poor in their spiritual journey, in the context of South Africans as they struggle to liberate themselves amid poverty, service delivery struggles and COVID-19 and its implications.

The forms of confession in Gaito Gazdanov’s short story "The Third Life"

The article focuses on ways of representing the psychological state of the hero in G.I. Gazdanov's story "The Third Life". The polyphonic leitmotif memory/recollection includes direct and summative ways of expressing the psychological state of the narrator. The replacement of these forms makes it possible to move from mental illness to access to a third life, explicated by intensities, extensities, comparisons, perceptual images. The prospective expectation of the appearance of ideas about the third life is associated with the mode of doubt, symptoms of mental illness, fantasy-dreams of artistic creativity The beginning of the third life is marked by the accentuation of the perceptual background (smells, synesthetic metaphor, visual comparisons). The symbolic title, decoded in comparisons, comes closer to the leitmotif of the two-worldness; the individual author's associate - the third life correlates with the search for G.I. Gazdanov's heroes of the lyrical world, sentimental trance, spiritual journey as the leitmotif complex of the writer's idiolexicon.

A Spiritual Journey

There is often a gap between the Qur’an and what is labelled “Islamic”. In fact, most egregious claims within Islam can be attributed not to the Qur’an but to hadith, the collection of reports about the sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad. Consider that the most highly regarded collection of hadith, by Bukhari, had required the venerable man to sift through no less than 600,000 reports as part of his monumental effort (which took him 16 years), and the fact that Bukhari was born 178 years after the Prophet’s passing. This is no small technicality, for all schools of Islamic jurisprudence draw heavily on hadith in formulating their moral guidelines (sharia) and establishing their Islamic laws (aka sharia law).

A Boy's Spiritual Journey: The Cultural and Religious Conflict between Family Relationships and the Conventionalism of Tibetan Buddhism in Sarah Ruhl's The Oldest Boy (2014)

This research paper is mainly concerns with the analyzing of Sarah Ruhl's play The Oldest Boy (2014), critically via considering the clashes of culture, and religion with family ideologies. By Adherents T.S. Eliot’s approach in his Notes towards the Definition of Culture, the paper is devoted to looking at and embodying the cultural and religious rift occurring in Ruhl’s The Oldest Boy. And to stand on the fact of the impact of the cultural and religious conflict on the family relations by passing throughout the main event of the play as to attract a Christian-born child who is only three years’ old to convert to Buddhism, and to be a Tibetan Buddhism Lama. The case is hectic for an American mother with no information on, or faith in, Buddhism. The paper proceeds with the hypothesis that the genuine clash is inner and it lies in the Mother's battle to give up her child or not in the middle of the spontaneous flood of cultural, religious and emotional clashes. The paper concludes that religion is what shapes the culture of countries.

Pendampingan Pembuatan Dan Pengelolaan Data Elektronik Jemaat GKJ Wates

Church parishioners data management is an important part of the administration of a church. In fact, many churches do it manually where parishionersal data is stored in physical forms or in church record books. This condition happened at GKJ Wates. The initial condition at GKJ Wates is the data from of a physical form . The data is the result of the census about 2 (two) years ago. It is realized that the data has changed a lot, so it is necessary to update before implementing electronic data management. In an effort to assist the administration of the church's data, assistance steps have been developed that include the compilation of attributes relevant to the church's data management. Furthermore, the attributes are compiled into a form that is ready to be filled out by each parishioners. This agreed form is then distributed to the parishioners through their respective district administrators. The church team, assisted by the UKDW PkM team, recorded the parishioners's data electronically, complete with a spiritual journey scheme including baptism, sidi, and marriage. By utilizing Excel Macro, the electrical data of the GKJ Wates parishioners was successfully visualized in the form of a dashboard. The visualized parishioners data includes the percentage of the parishioners by blood type and gender, the church's spiritual journey scheme based on membership category, membership records, age category, and gender. The information on this dashboard can help the church in making decisions related to the development of the parishioners at GKJ Wates.

Character Strengths Beatitudes: A Secular Application of Ancient Wisdom to Appreciate Strengths for Spiritual Happiness and Spiritual Growth

A beatitude is a blessing. It is a form of appreciation that can be directed toward others or oneself. Theologically speaking, some frame the original beatitudes from The Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew as pertaining to “spiritual happiness”, and recent scholars have offered a compelling argument that they are a call to flourishing. The focus here involves the creation and description of 24 blessings, or beatitudes, using the lens of one of the foundational and most researched areas in the sciences of flourishing, well-being, and positive psychology, which is the science of character strengths. Recent research has framed the 24 universal character strengths as spiritual strengths, hence particularly aligned for secular and nonsecular contexts of spiritual blessings. Each of the 24 character strengths was created into a blessing using the structure of the original beatitudes—with an opening description of the personal quality or attribute that is blessed and a follow-up outcome or core benefit that arises from the expression of that quality. In this way, these character strength beatitudes or character strength blessings offer an opportunity to appreciate the best positive qualities of others. These blessings are framed as primarily a mechanism of appreciating the character strengths of others, resting theoretically in both the grounding path and the sanctification path, the two types of integration of character strengths and spirituality that researchers have proposed. They are discussed, secondarily, as applied to the individual, for self-understanding, insight, and growth. These two purposes are relevant to the deepening of the spiritual journey, providing support as individuals pursue meaning in life and/or the sacred as they go deeper within themselves, up and beyond themselves, and sideways and interconnected to others. Practical applications, based in science, are discussed and point to avenues by which these character strengths beatitudes might both foster the appreciating of others’ strengths and support one’s own spiritual happiness, spiritual coping, and spiritual growth.