FAH UIN Jakarta holds international seminar on sunna and community

FAH, UIN News Online – Faculty of Adab and Humanities (FAH) UIN Jakarta holds international seminar on Thursday (09/26/2019), held at FAH theater room, campus III of UIN Jakarta.

 By raising the theme on “The sunna and community: envisioning polyphonic history of Islam”, this seminar present Ismail Fajrie Alatas (Asst Prof Middle East and Islamic Studies, New York University) as speaker. Also present in the event, Dean of FAH UIN Jakarta Saiful Umam.

Fajrie in his presentation gave a polyphonic story of how different and discordant alignments between the sunna and the community come to be formed through the active role of varying connectors

“It is a story about how the sunna defines, and becomes rooted within, distinct social frameworks, as well as how it is diversified and particularized through its alignment with different communities,” he said.

According to Fajrie, Connectors are actors who are able to fuse the sunna and the community by teaching their congregations on how to perform ablution in accordance to the sunna.

“Muslim religious authorities are precisely those actors who have taken the role of, and became recognized as, connectors between the sunna and their fellow Muslims. In other words, one does not connect the sunna and the community because one has authority. Rather, one becomes a religious authority because one is engaged in the work of connecting the sunna and the community,” said Fajrie

Based on UIN News Online observation, the participants seems very enthusiastic in following this event, this is evidenced by many questions raised by the participants to the speaker at the end of event. (usa)