Choirul Mahfud
Universitas Muhammadiyah Surabaya
mahfudjatim@yahoo.com
Abstract
Pesantren is recently assumed to be the center of terrorists and teach Islamic radicalism in Indonesia. This is due to the fact that there were some pesantren alumni who became terrorists and bombers in some places of our nation. This case leads the writer to make a study in elaborating the real case, namely whether in pesantren, the students are taught such violence and Islamic radicalism; is there any other factors leading the alumni of pesantren to be terrorist?; what is the role of pesantren in developing peace education? This study is a library research using descriptive-qualitative approach. Through this study, the writer proved that pesantren does not teach violence and Islamic radicalism. Most alumni of pesantren who became terrorists were influenced by violence ideology received after they learnt an ideology from Islamic radicalism abroad such like Malaysia, Afghanistan. They brought that ideology to Indonesia then applied it as “jihad” in wrong understanding beside they considered it as their “defense” towards America who vote for Israel rather than Palestine and Iraq. In this context, the role of pesantren is as “peace maker” to protect Islamic radicalism in Indonesia by applying peace education value, namely peace and non-violence.
Keywords: Pesantren, Islamic education, Peace education