KH. Masdar F. Mas'udi: Courage Due to Depth of Knowledge

 

KH. Masdar F. Mas'udi: Courage Due to Depth of Knowledge

Kyai Masdar is scheduled to testify at Pak Ahok's trial today. For those who know kyai Masdar closely, this action is not surprising. Kyai Masdar was born in Purwokerto, studied at Krapyak and Tegal Rejo and IAIN Yogyakarta. It is said that he was in the same class as Kyai Said Aqil Siradj when he was studying with Kyai Ali Ma'sum in Krapyak. There is no doubt about his clerical capacity in terms of his work, position in NU, and also in other institutions. Now he is Rais Syuriah NU – one of the Senior Rois – and vice chairman of the Indonesian Mosque Council.

Personally I have a close relationship with him because I am an alumni of IAIN Jakarta who has been his student at P3M since he became Director of P3M in 1994. I joined P3M since 1995/96 and worked together before leaving for my master's degree to the Netherlands in 2000. Therefore I know very well close to modesty, simplicity and intellectual level.

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Kyai Masdar is one of the kyai who has the intelligence to read Islamic sources in combination with contemporary issues. He can be said to be an important figure in the intellectual world of the NU universe after Gus Dur. At a time when NU was still struggling with political issues, kyai Masdar conducted regular studies at PBNU, discussing turast and various modern issues. His intellectuality is not only recognized within NU circles but also outside NU. The late Cak Nur in particular gave respect to kyai Masdar for his wisdom and reflective depth and analysis in explaining the ideas of Islamic renewal.

Kyai Masdar was one of the important actors in the return of NU to the 1926 Khittah. Together with kyai doctors Fahmy Saefuddin Zuhri, Kyai Slamet Effendi, Said Budayri, Danial Tanjung, Mahbub Junaidi, Gus Dur, kyai Tolchah Hassan etc., formulated the NU Khittah, restore NU to the 1926 struggle line. Together with kyai Slamet, doctor Fahmy, and Said Budairi, kyai Masdar was the "engine" of young thinkers at that time. Due to the hard work of these figures, NU has returned to being a jamʿiyyah. The late Slamet Effendi once told me about 4 months before he died when I needed an interview with him about how he and Masdar took the bajaj everywhere to consolidate this Khittah.

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However, despite Masdar being an important figure, in Gus Dur's leadership, Masdar chose to play a role outside the formal NU institutions by overseeing the Pesantren and Community Development Association (P3M). This institution was previously envied by important NU figures such as Kyai Yusuf Hasyim, Kyai Sahal Mahfudz, Adi Sasono, Dawam Rahardjo, Johan Effendi and many others. The role of P3M is extraordinary for the progress of the pesantren. Masdar is the third director at P3M, after Mas Nasihin Hassan and Mas Mochtar Abbas. But Masdar's presence in P3M since the establishment of this institution, if I'm not mistaken.

Masdar is an important figure behind the cadre and enlightenment of young clerics in Islamic boarding schools. He spearheaded meetings among senior kyai and santri with scientists and movement and government figures in the P3M training series. A very well-known forum initiated by kyai Masdar is Halaqah on siyasa fiqh and Islamic boarding school issues. His breakthrough and unfamiliar scene made him the second most anticipated figure by NU kyai after Gus Dur. Almost all of the young NU leaders who are now leaders can be said to be unable to not have a relationship with kyai Masdar.

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His ideas are very outside the box of NU thinking. His book, Religion of Justice, is the only most enlightening and intellectual book written by Indonesian intellectuals. In this book, his idea of ​​zakat is tax and tax is zakat can be found. Even though I have also studied Islamic thought, I have always been impressed and impressed by reading this book because of kyai Masdar's prowess in arguing with solid arguments, but the results were "unexpected." Kyai Masdar has the advantage of analyzing problems. People used to call him a bit of a Marxist because the idea of ​​zakat is a tax and vice versa the control of the means of production in the state for the benefit of many people. However, The religion of justice according to kyai Masdar is centered on how the resources collected by the state can be controlled by the people in their distribution and these resources can be obtained from zakat. By naming zakat as a tax, we have the right to control because taxes are people's money. Amil (state) in this context is the long arm of the people.

People used to ridicule the idea of ​​how to replace zakat as a tax, the two are different. However, in recent developments, some of Masdar's ideas have begun to be absorbed, whereby the payment of our zakat can be claimed as a reduction in our taxes. What we need to do in this context is to monitor the zakat that we have converted into taxes.

Before many Muslim intellectuals whose ideas were criticized by fundamentalists, Masdar was one of these figures. The rank of that era was even below the almaghfurlah Kyai Abdurrahman Wahid and Nurcholish Madjid. Unlike Gus Dur, who is blue-blooded, Masdar has a higher threat vulnerability than Gus Dur. But as far as I know, Kyai Masdar remains strong.