The Attention of Ulama towards Corona

Since mid-November 2019, the world community was shocked by the first appearance of Corona virus disease (Covid-19) in Wuhan, Hubei, China. As of March 14, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the disease had taken its toll in 130 countries around the world with 5,400 deaths and 70,000 cured.

Related to the danger of this virus, many religious leaders or scholars pay serious attention to the appeal of health experts about the need to avoid gathering large numbers of people. This is to minimize the spread of this disease through direct contact between one person and another. The scholars respect health science by aligning it with religious knowledge. The Government of Saudi Arabia, for example, since a few weeks ago at the Ministry of Health's input strictly restricted the visit of Muslims, especially from various countries to the Holy Land to perform Umrah. Many prospective Umrah pilgrims from all over the world, including Indonesia, were canceled or denied visas to enter the kingdom in order to avoid danger that could threaten the safety of life. The Iranian government a few weeks ago negated Friday prayers in mosques.

The elimination of Friday prayers is done so that people do not gather in one room in large numbers at one time. A number of Iranian officials, including Iran's Vice-President for Women's and Family Affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, and several mullahs were reportedly positive with the Corona virus. In this country reported as many as 26 people have died from this virus from the number of sufferers reaching 245 people. In Malaysia, the Majlis of the Islamic Religion and the Malay Customs of Perlis, issued an order that Friday prayers in all states of Perlis on March 13, 2020 be abolished. Instead, the midday prayer is performed at each house. This is related to the latest development of Covid-19 which has claimed more lives. The order was based on input from the Malaysian Ministry of Health and the Fatwa of the State of Perlis that the gathering of large numbers of people should be avoided even if it was a religious activity.

In Indonesia, the Central Board of Nahdlatul Ulama (PBNU) on March 11 announced the postponement of the Alim Ulama and Konbes NU 2020 National Conference, which was originally held for 18-19 March at the Al-Anwar Islamic Boarding School in Central Java, delayed until an undetermined deadline. This delay is part of a joint effort to build awareness and help the government prevent the spread of the Corona virus. Surakarta City Government of Central Java enforces Corona outbreaks which take effect from March 13, 2020 until the next 14 days.

According to the PBNU Secretary General, H Helmy Faishal Zaini, the PBNU rests on the principle of jurisprudence which is "Dar'ul mafasid muqaddamun‘ ala jalbil mashalih "(avoiding damage takes precedence rather than doing good). The Alim Ulama and Konbes National Conference NU is expected to involve hundreds of participants and thousands of cheerleaders from various regions in Indonesia. This number is quite large and it is feared that it will be vulnerable to Corona virus transmission. Harmony of Religion and Medical Sciences Imam al-Ghazali in his book Ihya Ulumidin classifies science into two groups, namely fardu a’in and fardu kifayah. Which includes fardu a'in is the science of religion with all its branches, as covered in the pillars of Islam where prayer is the second pillar.

While those included in the fardu kifayah science include medical science, arithmetic, agricultural science, and so on. In the days of colonialism religious science was once opposed to outside sciences including medical science, which is called general science. Some pesantren at that time rejected general knowledge which was considered to be the knowledge of pagan invaders. They worry that studying general sciences could lead to "kufr". This attitude can be understood as a conditional political attitude. This means that attitude can turn around when circumstances have changed. When the era became independent, many pesantren through the madrassas or the schools they founded opened themselves to the general sciences and taught them such as arithmetic (mathematics), life sciences (biology), natural sciences (physics), geography (geography) etc. This change in attitude was increasingly accepted when the pesantren finally concluded that all useful knowledge was religious knowledge because it came from the same source, namely Allah subhanahu wata'ala. Since then many scholars or kiai in Indonesia pay attention to the health sciences by obeying the rules conveyed by doctors.

The presence of doctors was fully accepted in Islamic boarding schools and many pesantren alumni began their higher education by taking courses in health sciences or medicine. Moreover, it turns out there were some scholars who were also at the same time medical experts such as Ibn Rushd from Andalusian Cordoba (Spain). Therefore, when the doctors appealed to the public not to gather in large numbers in order to avoid the spread of the Corona virus for mutual safety, the clerics responded by not holding Friday prayers, tightly limiting the number of umrah worshipers, delaying the masses that would be attended by many people. All of that is worship, but its implementation is aligned with the real situation and condition of health in the community.

So in the case of the Corona virus this is not the case that religious knowledge is defeated by general science or the scholars must be inferior to health experts, but indeed protecting the soul (hifdhun nafs) is a human right in Islam protected by the Shari'a. The scholars "thanked" the doctors for their knowledge so that they could make a fatwa to protect the wider community to avoid damage by applying the "Dar'ul mafasid muqaddamun‘ ala jalbil mashalih. " However the doctors were also scholars in a broad sense; his field is health science. Their knowledge does not come from cursed demons, but from the All-Knowing (Al-Alim). He was the one who taught what humans did not know (‘allamal insâna mā lam ya‘lam) (Surah Al-Alaq: 5).

Muhammad Ishom,

Source: https://www.nu.or.id/post/