Islam and Piety

It was interesting to read F Budi Hardiman’s opinion piece “Piety and Violence” (Kompas, 6/1/2017). This article will explain the Islamic perspective of the themes discussed in the earlier article considering the domineering narrative of violence results from a wrongheaded interpretation by Muslim extremists of their religion and their way of connecting Islam to violence, be it in Indonesia or abroad.

Despite its strong basis – the strongest in Islamic teachings, in fact – ethics have never received significant attention from Muslim philosophers. One of the very few thinkers on Islamic ethics was Ibn Miskawaih, a philosopher from Persia in the 10th century nicknamed The Father of Islamic Ethics due to his monumental work Tahdzibul Akhlak wa Tathir al-Araq.

Since the beginning, Ibn Miskawaih posited ethics in a separate faculty of thought called an-nafs an-nathiqah (thinking skills). Therefore, there must be education. Praying is included in the curriculum of ethics education in Islam. The gift of thought is unrelated to religion. Its basis is the universal value of justice.