SANTREN: THE FORGOTTEN EARLY ISLAMIC EDUCATION INSTITUTION ON BUILDING ISLAMIC CHARACTER

Abstract

This article tries to present a critique of the lack of attention today's society towards Santren or in other languages it can also be called Surau as the earliest place to educate muslim children in religious matters. Santren as a non-formal institution centered on the Qur’an teacher (guru ngaji) who is most commonly called an ustadz in the transfer of knowledge to the muslim generation. Reciting the Qur’ran is not only in the sense of learning to read the Qur'an but also teaching children other Islamic subject. Not infrequently Santren then becomes the second sacred place after the mosque to hold life cycle rites and death rites in society. The difference lies in the amount of geographic reached between the mosque and the Santren, as we can also see how many residents turn the Santren into a place of worship. Santren usually cover a small part of the community whose houses are close together and make that place a common space that can be used at any time when the local community has a celebration. Based on the theoretical basis of the ideal model of Islamic education, and concentrated public sphere, this research was conducted by exploring historical data, criticizing phenomena and reality, with a new ethnographic approach in the form of self-reflection and Being Truer. The results of the author's findings revealed that the decline of the Santren as the initial basis for Islamic education was due to, among other things, the lack of attention from parents to hand over their children to recite the Qur’an at magrib time and prefer to get teacher with private learning, as well as the lack of dedicated teachers to revive the Santren, and thirdly, the increasing of individualism in society which can no longer be dammed, especially with the easy access to Islamic knowledge through the media which is considered equivalent to learning the Qur’an at Santren.