An interview with Amien Rais.

• Author: Stepan, Alfred
• Position: About President Suharto's resignation - Interview

Amien Rais led and inspired the reform movement that forced the resignation of President Suharto in 1998, and ushered in an era of constitutional reform and democratization in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, Indonesia. Rais was invited to Columbia University's Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR) to participate in the visitor program, "Democratic Voices in the World's Religions." As part of his stay, Rais delivered a university-wide lecture, met with faculty and students and had the chance to speak with CDTR director Alfred Stepan and doctoral candidate Mirjam Kunkler for a candid and informative interview. Rais offers his perspective on contemporary politics in Indonesia, and the intersection of the secular and religious in political affairs. He retells the story of the night of 20 May 1998, the events surrounding Suharto's resignation and his chairmanship of the country's largest modernist Islamic organization, the Muhammadiyah.

Stepan: In your biography, Putra Nusantara, by Amien Rais, Muhammad Najib and Irwin Omar, you are quoted with the following statement on page 11:

The Quran does not say anything about the formation as an Islamic state, or about the necessity and obligations, both moral and political obligations on the part of Muslims to establish a Sharia or Islamic state. Secondly, the Quran is not a book of law, but a source of law. If the Quran is considered a book of law, Muslims will become the most wretched people in the world. That is a very important statement. You obviously stand by it, or you would not have reprinted it in your book. When I spoke to our former dean, Professor Lisa Anderson, the past president of the Middle East Studies Association, earlier today, she said she believed that no comparable Muslim religious leader in the Middle East had ever made such a statement. Could you develop the reasoning that lies behind your position?

Rais: As a Muslim, I believe that the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammad in the early 7th century. But the Quran, to the Muslims, became a source of law, a source of moral and ethical principles, and the Muslims have to conform these Quranic moral and ethical principles with the world in which they live. Because if the Quran was a book of law, then after one or two centuries, the Quran would have become obsolete and outdated. But I believe that the Almighty God, by revealing the Quran to the whole of mankind, meant that our Quran must be treated as the reference for human beings in developing their day to day life, in accordance with the development of time.

So, by treating the Quran as a holy scripture, which gives us guidance in terms of moral and ethical principles, Muslims become very flexible. I believe that basically the Quran emphasizes, first of all, egalitarianism between humans, and then justice. This, of course, includes legal, economic, social and educational justice. The Quran, again and again, tells Muslims, and for that matter all of mankind, that life does not stop at the cemetery; instead, life exists beyond the cemetery and is eternal. On the Day of Judgment, every action, every activity done by every single human being will be held responsible in front of the Almighty God.

Stepan: You argue that the Quran does not say anything about the foundation of an Islamic state, or about the necessity on the part of Muslims to establish an Islamic state. Why do you insist on that?

Because as a Muslim who almost every day recites the Quran, I do not find any Quranic verse which instructs us to build an Islamic state. There is no verse that states, for example, "All believers must build an Islamic state for you, because God wills that."

But, the problem is that the Quran is like poetry, not prose. Poetry is more or less eternal. Maybe the analogy does not fit perfectly, but prose will go around for two or three centuries, whereas sophisticated poetry is eternal. God gives us just the moral and ethical principals. You can build your political system and maybe you call that democracy or monarchy, or even sultanate or emirate, but justice must be upheld.

As long as every single citizen is given the opportunity to enjoy their freedom, as long as religious tolerance is guaranteed, I think that that is fully in accordance with the Quranic moral principles.

Stepan: In your reading and interpretation of the Quran, you say that there is the notion of tolerance of and within all religions. Can you elaborate on that?

Yes. I think there are at least two Quranic verses which say this. The first is, "la ikrah fi'd-din" (there is no compulsion in religion). And then, the Muslims are taught by the Quran to be tolerant of any other faith. There is also another verse which says that, "for you is your religion and for me is mine." In other words, the Quran teaches us this full coexistence among the followers of different religions. Even with the atheists, the Koran tells us to live in a peaceful life. Even with atheists (Sura 109).

Stepan: For a politician, and a spiritual leader, it is quite interesting that you went out of your way to assert, and then to reprint, that if the Quran is considered the source of legislation, rather than a source, that Muslims will become wretchedly unhappy. Were you attacked for saying that? Did you have to elaborate on that publicly?

If we treated our Quran as the book of law and then we give 100 percent literal interpretation, probably half of the Muslims, and maybe half of humankind, would have lost their hands. Because, in the Quran, a thief must be punished by having his or her hand cut off. While the more appropriate interpretation, I believe, is that the capacity, the ability to steal must be condemned, must be cut off. Not the literal, physical act of cutting off the hand, like some people interpret the verse.

Secondly, even if we want to take it as this, then we have to see the context. For example, Caliph Umar, instead of cutting the hand of the thief, he gives the thief a financial gift to survive, because the thief happened to be very poor and then he steals just to survive, to feed the children, his wife. So, I mean, we have to see the context.

Stepan: You also go further...