Overview
The book, written by Muhammad
Al-Atawneh and Nohad Ali, titled Islam in Israel – Muslim Communities
in Non-Muslim States, was written with the main objective of examining the
development of the religious identity of the Muslim community in Israel over
the past four decades and its influence on the socio-cultural aspects of Muslim
life in Israel. A report from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS)
cited by Atawneh and Ali states that the Muslim population in Israel is
recorded at 1.3 million, dominated by Arab citizens living in Israel. Although
the data is from 2010 data, it does not seem to be a problem considering that
comprehensive demographic data is very complex and takes a long time to manage.
It should be noted by the reader that
the biggest data contained in this book was obtained from the results of the
survey conducted by Atawneh and Ali on Muslim citizens living in Israel.
Atawneh and Ali sampled 500 respondents over the age of 18 centred on four
areas where most of the Muslim community in Israel is home to that have no
conflict. These cities include Galilee with a percentage of respondents 56% of
all respondents, Triangle with 23% of respondents, Negev with 12% of
respondents, and 9% mixed cities. This mixed city refers to Tel Aviv-Jaffa,
Haifa, Acre, Ramlah, and Lod. Each respondent was given several questionnaires
whose answers were compared to be used as research findings.
Baca juga: Pendekatan
Mimetik pada Kisah Nabi Nuh as dalam Alquran
Summary
As for the structure of the content
of the book, it consists of 6 parts plus one conclusion section. Part 1 of the
author begins with an Islamic background in Israel. Islam in Israel existed
before the state of Israel was established its majority adherents were people
of Palestinian Arab descent. Since it was founded on the mandate of the British
colonial government initiated by Herbert Samuel, the state of Israel has been
designed to be a state administered by the Jewish nation. Coupled with the
composition of its predominantly Jewish population, it causes Muslims to feel
exiled as a minority in the country.
At the beginning of its
establishment, the Israeli government established a restrictive military
government to suppress all existing movements, including Muslim movements.
Whenever there is a movement that is judged to be dangerous to the country, the
government immediately moves and detains people who are judged to be its
leaders. That has made it difficult for the Muslim community to develop to
express its identity within Israeli society. Therefore, Islamic religious
activity in Israel relies heavily on associations with other Islamic countries
that are Israel's neighbours such as Egypt and Jordan. The Muslim community in Israel
was only able to develop its identity around the 1970s marked by the
establishment of the Islamic Movement (IM) led by Shaykh Abd Allah Nimr
Darwish. Indeed, at first, the IM was considered non-cooperative by the Israeli
government until its leader was arrested. But since its leader was released,
the IM has not appeared to be carrying out activities deemed harmful to the
Israeli government and has focused its movement more on religious and social
activities. In the same period, religious, social, and educational institutions
began to be established and received a positive response from the local Muslim
community.
The Religious Authority of Islam and
its Interpretation in Israel is found in part 2 of the book. Here, Atawneh and
Ali talk about Islamic religious institutions established in Israel that are
used as references in religious issues. These institutions usually issue fatwas
on an issue in question. Often the fatwas produced differ from one institution
to another. Some institutions tend to be more moderate, and some tend to be
conservative. In the issue of the involvement of Muslims in political
contestation, some institutions allow it because it contains interests, and
some prefer to avoid it. The author concludes about the absence of a single authority
in the Islamic world due to the emergence of many groups that claim to be
Islamic authorities in every country, including Israel. Another point that the
author concludes in this section is that the matter of interpretation of
Islamic law (fiqh) in Israel cannot be applied to the same minority
jurisprudence (al-fiqh al-‘aqalliyat) as that applied in European
countries. The reason is that the Muslim community in Israel has its problems
and different parameters that only exist in Israel and cannot be confused with
problems that exist in European countries despite the position of Muslims as a
minority.
Starting from the third part to the
sixth part, the author focuses the book material on the results of the surveys
he conducted. There are various approaches and methods that the author uses in
conducting his surveys. For example, the micro-sociological approach used by
Clifford Geertz discusses the individual with the reality of empirical life. In
managing their survey data, Atawneh and Ali compiled it in various tabular
forms. Spearman and Chi-square theories are used to group and conclude from
each table. Readers who are not very familiar with the quantitative data
presented by the author may have to try to understand it slowly. I have not
mentioned before that both in the methods and approaches used, Atawneh and Ali
use mixed methods and approaches, including the data used consisting of
qualitative and quantitative data. The author claims that combining two methods
at once will make the research more comprehensive.
Part 3 of the book talks about
affiliation, religiosity and Observance. The discussion tends to focus on the
level of Islamic law and its norms in the daily life of Muslims in Israel as
well as various legal questions that Muslims usually ask local religious
authorities. The result that the author concludes in this section is that over
the past 4 decades, Islam has become an important factor in the political and
sociocultural identity of minority Muslims in Israel. This can be seen from
their involvement in various religious issues and activities.
Islamic practices and Muslim identity
are the main discussions in part 4 of the book. The author reveals that the
Muslim minority in Israel has been part of the rise of Islam both regionally
and globally. This can be seen from the religious practices that are carried
out every day such as how to dress, marriage preferences and so on. Some
respondents even answered that Islamic identity is more important to them than
their identity as Israeli citizens. In addition, many of the respondents
expressed their commitment to the implementation of Islamic shari'a in daily
life as a form of obedience to the implementation of Islam.
Part 5 of the book talks about the
involvement of Muslim minorities in Israel in the modern public sphere of
Israel. Indeed, the majority are more likely to want the establishment of
Islamic Religion to be administered by the IM than by the Israeli government.
There is a factor that influences this preference, namely the religious ideology
that is embraced which produces differences in religious-legal opinions. From
the author's findings, there is no actual conflict between Islamic law and the
participation of Muslims in Israel in the political space. Therefore, many of
the Muslim minorities in Israel have been involved in various political
activities. Nonetheless, some groups still feel alienated in their
participation in the matter. So, it can be said that there is ambivalence in
the relationship between the Muslim minority and the establishment of Israel.
Part 6 of the book attempts to
examine identity as a Muslim in Israel in the socio-cultural space. The author
of this section states that in general, the findings are that in general the
Muslim minority in Israel is open to establishing communication with Jews. It
can be seen from variables such as mastery of Hebrew and communication that is
built both in the study and outside it. Nevertheless, Muslims in Israel have
the awareness to maintain existing Islamic values to avoid the various forms of
cultural assimilation that can occur with Jewish culture.
Overall, it is in line with the
author's findings that the public of the world's notion of exile of the Muslim
minority in Israel is not entirely correct. The reason is that over the past four
decades Muslims in Israel are active and involved in various religious,
political, social activities and actualize themselves in daily life by carrying
out various religious rituals, Islamic education, to applying Islamic teachings
in terms of how to dress.
Evaluation/assessment of its strength and weakness
The book containing research on the results of the Atawneh and Ali survey has an advantage in terms of detail and empirical because it is based on factual data in the field and the results of questionnaires on many respondents. But because the data and aspects studied are quite extensive, the research he did was quite long. In addition, the 500 respondents do not seem to be generalizable to all Muslims in Israel when compared to the total number of Muslims in Israel which, based on 2010 data alone, already numbers 1.3 million. Because demographic data is constantly changing over a period, presumably the results of this study also have limitations and cannot be used as a reference an n for a relatively long time. The author from the beginning focused on aspects of Muslim identity in Israel, but concerning minorities, no details such as certain negative treatments were found other than feeling alienated stemming from internal Muslim factors themselves.