Tarjih Rulings are Not Simply Designed to Make Religious Practice Easier

EN.MUHAMMADIYAH.OR.ID, YOGYAKARTA – The Tarjih rulings issued by the Central Board of Muhammadiyah’s Council for Religious Opinion and Reform often seek to make religious practice easier for Muslims. But that does not mean they are formulated simply to make things easy. 

Aly Aulia, Chairperson of the Council’s Qur’an and Hadith Studies Division, made the point during a Muhammadiyah Tarjih study session held Wednesday evening (9/9), at the Tarjih Center in Yogyakarta. 

Aly explained that when the Tarjih and Tajdid Council formulates a religious ruling, it does not do so arbitrarily. They are also not merely simplifying Islamic teachings. Each ruling must go through a process of istinbath, or deriving legal conclusions from religious sources, using a rigorous methodology. 

“In the Muhammadiyah tradition, or perhaps specifically within the council, we deliberate. We discuss the matter, develop the arguments, weigh them and, in our terminology, carry out tarjih,” he said. 

Through rigorous istinbath (careful consideration) the council seeks to ensure that its rulings can be properly justified and held accountable. 

At the same time, as products of Islamic jurisprudence, such rulings are dynamic and responsive. They are also intended as a body of knowledge and perspective, rather than something that can be claimed as the one absolute truth. 

“There are now many things that did not exist in the past, or whose understanding needs to be further elaborated based on the existing nash or textual sources,” Aly said. 

“When the process is carried out step by step and can be properly justified, it eventually produces a specific ruling that can be put into practice. Even when a ruling has been issued and others hold different views, there is still room for discussion. We do not claim absolute truth,” he added. 

Resisting the Simplification of Religion Online

Aly said another challenge today is the way Muslims increasingly turn to digital spaces for religious rulings, even when the reliability of those rulings cannot be established. 

Many religious rulings circulating online, he noted, tend to simplify religious teachings. They reduce complex questions to black-and-white answers. Their main goal is often to make religion easier, without being grounded in a sound pursuit of truth. 

“This is the kind of impoverishment of understanding we are talking about: simplifying religion, saying, ‘Just make it simple. Just do this because it is easier.’ This includes utunasibam, meaning someone who has already learned something but then conceals it,” he said. 

Muhammadiyah’s Council for Religious Opinion and Reform now seeks to play a greater role in shaping the digital religious space. The effort is intended to prevent Muslims from continually experiencing a shallowing and oversimplification of their understanding of religion.