MUHAMMADIYAH.OR.ID, LAMONGAN – Indonesian Ambassador to Lebanon and a Muhammadiyah figure Hajriyanto Y. Thohari emphasized that education is the key to building Baldah Thayyibah, a good nation.
Hajriyanto reflected on the fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He noted that the empire’s leaders prioritized military strength over education, which led to devastating consequences.
When the Ottoman Empire was defeated in 1914, it was revealed that 95 percent of the Arab population under its rule was still illiterate.
“While the Ottomans focused on sending soldiers to France for military training, they neglected to build universities. Instead, it was Christian missionaries who established higher education institutions in the region,” said Hajiuanto in the preaching conducted by the Muhammadiyah Provincial Board of East Java at Universitas Muhammadiyah Lamongan (UMLA) on Saturday, March 8.
This lack of investment in education and military defeat left the Muslim world divided and vulnerable to Western colonization. Hajriyanto pointed out that after the war, Britain and France carved up Arab territories into 22 separate countries. As a result, the vision of Baldah Thayyibah faded, with many Muslim-majority nations now struggling with poverty and environmental decline.
“The effects of that failure are still visible today. We hardly see any Islamic universities ranked among the top 100 in the world,” added Hajriyanto.
In Arab countries, he noted, many leading universities such as the American University in Cairo and the American University of Beirut were founded by Christian missionaries rather than by local Muslim institutions.
Despite these setbacks, Hajriyanto remains hopeful about the future of Islamic education. He pointed to Gulf Arab states that have successfully built world-class universities and expressed confidence in the role of Muhammadiyah-‘Aisyiyah universities in Indonesia in advancing education and restoring the legacy of Islamic scholarship.
