Talk:Ahmad Syafi'i Maarif

Hazy Views

This section needs more details in order to support the claim in the lede that he was "moderate and progressive", particularly because he was head of an overtly Salafi organization. Western media repeatedly misinterpret Muhammadiyah as "liberal" simply because that organization appeals to urban Indonesian Muslims who have a modern outlook in terms of lifestyle, regardless of their support for Sharia.

The other large Muslim organization in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama, was founded a century ago explicitly to oppose the Arab influence on Indonesian Islam which its then-leaders perceived as fairly obvious in the Muhammadiyah ranks.

There are only two sources in the Views section: Husaini whose WP page states clearly that he opposes liberal Islam, thus he is only interpreting Maarif relative to his own viewpoints; and Abbas whose book is cited three times within this section without any description of the "new views" that Maarif expressed. Let's see some specific info on those views, then readers can decide for themselves if he was progressive or not. Martindo (talk) 01:02, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Martindo

Fair point, when I was writing this article, the only "sources" I found in abundance about his views are from media who mourned his death and potrayed him as supporting pluralism, Pancasila, etc, and opposing direct Islamic influence without actually mentions where they got those "views" from. The other side is conservative media that criticize his view of pluralism but again, did not attribut much to his writing or statements.

I think there's definetly a need to dig deeper for this. I myself dont know much about him and just heard of him when he passed away. Nyanardsan (talk) 04:58, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

There seems to be a recurrent effort by a handful (?) of well-intentioned people to add individual Bupati and other relatively local politicians to WP as "notable" persons worthy of a page. IMO, they are roughly as notable as professional sports players who are not famous enough to be household names. In the case of Maarif, he is certainly notable as former head of Muhammadiyah.

I think we should focus on the assertion by Maarif that is cited in the Abbas book: He considered efforts by Islamic scholars to build a state out of an institutional structure within the Quran as "intellectual laziness".

I'm moving the part about Ahok from Career to Views, because the downfall of the once-popular Governor of Jakarta is precisely an issue related to the above quote about the Quran's role in the Indonesian state. The cited reference suggests rather indirect support for Ahok. We should get more details about Maarif's specific expressions of support, for example by quoting the opinion piece Maarif published in the 2 Dec 2016 Tempo, which is cited in the May 27 obituary article listed in WP as a reference.

I'm cutting the reference to the other May 27 obit article that shows Maarif and Ahok sitting together -- there is hardly any content other than vague good wishes. However, I think we can get some context about the viewpoint of Abbas from this third obit article, also dated May 27: https://nasional.tempo.co/read/1595739/mengenang-buya-syafii-maarif-anwar-abbas-orang-memberinya-gelar-bapak-bangsa

Thanks for taking the lead on this mini-project. Martindo (talk) 05:24, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Martindo Mostly working on cities and regencies article, I would argue that most of Bupati and Walikota are notable. But that's outside scope of this article.

Thanks for pointing this out. I didnt do much in this article other than initial expansion, the one mostly did it was @Juxlos.

I will try to look more but I probably wont be much active ;; Apologize, thanks, and goodluck ^^ Nyanardsan (talk) 07:03, 3 June 2022 (UTC)