Pesantren Studies: Contributions to Confronting the Challenges of Secularism

Abstract

This article discusses how Pondok Pesantrens (pesantren) can address the challenges of secularism. This research is motivated by the increasing prevalence of secularism in Indonesia, particularly in education. The impact of secularism is the erasure of Islamic values and norms from students' minds, replacing them with Western values. The research focuses on exploring the cognitive realm (reason) and the growing distance from religious or spiritual values. Since the primary goal of secularism is to separate the role of religion from life, especially in education, it aims to make people believe that religion has no connection to science and technology. In this context, Pondok Pesantrens plays a crucial role in addressing the problems of secularism. It must be emphasized that the general objective of Pondok Pesantrens is to cultivate Muslim citizens with personalities by the teachings of Islam and to instill religious awareness. Although this general objective has been expanded to educate students to become intellectual religious scholars. This research uses a qualitative method (Library Research) focused on answering the main problem. Therefore, it is important to establish Pondok Pesantrens as the frontline in addressing the problems of existing secularism. Keywords: Pondok Pesantrens, Secularism, Education