Being a “Santri” Notes from the Field

NIHAYATUL WAFIROH

University of Hawai'i

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Nihayatul Wafiroh is a M.A. student in the Asian Studies Department at the Universityof Hawai’i. She is from Indonesia and grew up in an Islamic boarding school (pesantren) community in Banyuwangi in East Java, Indonesia. She spent four years in a pesantren in Tambakberas, Jombang in East Java.

Being a santri was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. A student who studies in a pesantren is called a santri, and a pesantren is an Islamic boarding school—one of the most important educational institutions in Indonesia. Any Muslim student with a strong motivation to study in a pesantren can enroll as a santri. Although pesantren education ranges from elementary to university level, many santri study only for their junior and senior high school years. In the beginning, pesantren only focused on Islamic education, but after the colonial era, pesantren developed a more comprehensive educat ional curriculum. Nowadays, pesantren combine secular and religious education.

I grew up in a pesantren and came to know the culture well. My grandparents were the founders of the largest pesantren in Banyuwangi city, East Java province, Indonesia. Now, my parents have replaced my  grandparents  as the leaders of the pesantren. As a result, I was already familiar with the rules and the daily life of a santri. When I was in junior high school, I studied with santri in my parent’s pesantren. I also  engaged in the school’s activities. Nevertheless, since I am from a founding pesantren family, I broke many rules and was free from punishment. Being the granddaughter of the founder of the pesantren gave me a power that put me in a status above that of my peers. Therefore, when I left my parents to attend senior high,school, I finally felt that I could be a “true santri.” I felt that in the new pesantren I would  have to follow the rules and I would no longer have any power over my peers.

Studying in a pesantren is one of the traditions of my family. Everyone in my family, before marriage, has to go to a pesantren. A pesantren is mainly established by the community for the community, and in many cases the selected Kyai (a headmaster of a pesantren) will use his own funds to establish the school’s facilities. For these reasons, the living cost and tuition in a pesantren is cheaper than at formal schools in Indonesia, and many of the students that attend pesantren are from the middle and lower classes. The name of the pesantren that I studied at for my senior high school years was Al-Fathimiyyah Bahrul Ulum located in Tambakberas, Jombang. This city was in the same province as my hometown, East Java. I studied there for four years from July 1994 to July 1998.

In July  1994, I was taken to Kyai and Nyai by my parents. Generally, when students apply to a pesantren, parents will give their rights as parents to the Kyai and Nyai. Having grown  up in a pesantren and having been a santri, I found  that the Nyai and Kyai were representative of parent figures, yet this relationship caused santri to act out, and the resulting punishments were ineffective. The Kyai has an authority similar to that  of the absolute power of a king. A person becomes a Kyai when the community recognizes that  he has a strong knowledge of the Muslim religion, so it is the community that gives a person the title of a Kyai. The Nyai, the Kyai’s wife, supports the Kyai in maintaining the pesantren, particularly the female students. In many cases, the wife of the Kyai is chosen only for image purposes, not for her capability, but that is not to say that all Nyai fall into that category. 

In the pesantren, the Kyai and Nyai have the same rights  as  parents. They not only teach but also sometimes play matchmaker. The Nyai holds an important role for female santri because she is like a mother to the female santri. The Nyai and Kyai are also assisted by student boards. These boards are selected by the Nyai and Kyai from among the distinguished senior students. There is a board of male  students who serve the Kyai and a board of female students who serve the Nyai. They are the right hands of the Nyai and Kyai. Basically, all rules are arranged by the Kyai and Nyai, and the boards help to maintain these rules. Senior students chosen to be on these boards have to deal with issues in the pesantren such as education, security  and student activities. The boards are divided into many departments and are run very formally. Each member has their specific positions to serve based on his or her responsibilities.In Al-Fathimiyyah, the pesantren I attended, there were many residential buildings, each with various rooms. About 15-20 santri lived together in one room. My room, Al Masyitoh B 1 or GBONE was the largest room in the pesantren, so there were about 45-50 residents.

The residents of this room were from many different provinces and islands inIndonesia. Additionally, half of the residents were studying in the  junior high school, and the rest were in the high school. We did our activities such as sleeping, eating, studying and chatting in that room. Every single resident had three cabinets for clothes, books and shoes. In the pesantren, we believed that a modest life would be the key to gaining sufficient knowledge. Because of this, santri tried to live humbly. For instance, we slept without beds and used only blankets, and we shared everything with each other, even the bathrooms and our pillows.

A pesantren has many strict rules regarding santri activities. Even studying and doing personal activities is arranged by the pesantren student boards. In the early morning at4 a.m., the bell rings in the pesantren office, and santri wake to prepare for morning prayer in the mosque. After praying, the second bell signals time to read the Qur’an. These activities were always done from early morning until 10:30 p.m. Santri also could  not go  outside the pesantren areas without receiving permission  from the student’s respective pesantren boards and the Kyai or the Nyai. Receiving permission to leave the pesantren was a long process. First, a santri had to take their security book from the pesantren office. Every santri has their own security book. This book  is the record of when the student leaves the pesantren. With their security book, a santri will approach the Kyai or the Nyai and ask for permission. If the Kyai or Nyai allows the santri to leave, she will sign their book and write when they are to return. If the Kyai or Nyai does not give permission, the process is stopped there. Because of these rules, santri can only leave the pesantrenonce every two months. Special consideration is given to students when making family visits. But when students are only leaving the grounds to go to the market place or to town, they will be limited in the length an frequency of trips. Additionally, the controlling of relationships among female and male santri was very strict. Because in the Islamic  doctrine women and men who do not have any blood connections are prohibited from contacting each other, almost all female santri never spoke with male santri, even though sometimes we knew the names of some boys. Breaking any of these many rules meant punishment from the leader of the pesantren or from the board members.

My room, GBONE, was famous for our creativity and for being troublemakers. There was even an informal gang. Those who wanted to be “popular” in the pesantren became members of this gang. Mostly members of this gang were senior santri. Because of their seniority, they served as role models for the junior santri, like me at the time. The leader of the gang’s name  was Karim. She had been in the pesantren since junior high school and knew the school well. Her strongest trait was that she was friendly. For sure, everyone enjoyed chatting with her and she easily attracted people as her followers. In addition, she was a smart and dynamic person, which made her very persuasive. The gang had responsibilities like everyone else, but they did not do them. Everyone in my room knew this, but no one was brave enough to go against them, and everyone tried to be as friendly as possible to  the gang. For example, after morning prayer, all santri must clean their sleeping space and return items to their rightful places or no one would be allowed to sleep that  night. However, the gang would continue sleeping, avoid prayer and avoid reading the Qur’an. No one bothered them, not even the boards of my room. In fact, many of the members of the gang were senior students and were even members of the student board of the building and room.The first time I arrived in the room, I thought that  everyone was equal. In my view, the senior santri should follow the  rules as older sisters would. In fact, I remember the first time I spoke with Karim. She asked me about my family, my boyfriend, and my hobbies. She was so friendly that  I felt as if I had already known her for long time; hence, I could talk about anything with her.

After I became close to her, she often asked me to do activities with her. For a short time, I was one of about ten of her followers, and of them, the only underclassman Becoming one of Karim’s followers changed my status in  the room from a junior santri to a powerful santri. It was prestigious among the students for a junior santri to have such a chance to be friends with Karim. I never really knew why she chose me. In my analysis, perhaps, compared with other junior santri in my room, I was more confident because I was already familiar with pesantren life. Another thing was that the Nyai and Kyai knew me and my family well, since we were all  a part of the same pesantren network. I think that she had expected that she would receive more attention from the Kyai and Nyai if she became my friend. I learned many things from her, especially how to take advantage of my time in the pesantren. She introduced me to new friends and she taught me how to break the pesantren rules without getting caught. Because of her influence, I became braver at breaking the pesantren rules. Running away from my duties (praying, studying, and  doing pesantren activities) was a daily routine.

In the first year, I was only breaking my room rules. By the second year, I took it one step further. I began to contravene the larger pesantren rules. For instance, Karim and I went to her brother’s house outside the pesantren without permission from the Nyai. Another time, Karim asked me to go to a place where she had already made an appointment with her boyfriend. As the lookout, I kept watch outside while she met her boyfriend. I would inform her if there were pesantren board securities near by. Furthermore, she often asked for money from other members of the gang, and sometimes when she saw good things, such as clothes or veils, she strongly recommended that her followers buy them. Then, after we brought them home, she wore them like they were hers. We broke the rules many times, but the pesantren’s security boards did not detect us. However, one day when Karim, Anis (another of Karim’s followers), and I left the pesantren for town, one security board member saw us on the bus. After we returned to the pesantren, Nyaiasked me if I had broken other rules and I confessed to everything we had done in the time I had been in the gang. As a result we were heavily punished: cleaning toilets, reading  the whole Qur’an in a day, giving statements that I would not repeat these activities again in front of the whole mosque, and praying five times a day  behind the prayer leader (imam) for forty days. This was really hard and very embarrassing for us. The hardest punishment was when Nyai said she was disappointed in me. To be honest, I was worried that Nyai would report this case to my parents.

Fortunately, Nyai only advised me, and she promised that she would not inform my parents. Perhaps Nyai did not inform my parents because she wanted to preserve her relationship with them. Since I am the daughter of a family that has a pesantren, it is very prestigious when a pesantren receives a student who is from another pesantren family. Another thing was that Nyaiknew that I was just Karim’s follower, so my behavior would change when outside of Karim’s influence. In many cases, Nyai informed parents when students repeatedly broke the rules, but that did not happen to me. After this case, I promised myself that I would not make trouble again. Then, in the following year, I became a member of the pesantren’s board, serving as one of the higher officers. After these realizations and changes, I was more reluctant to break the rules.

Although Karim was a secretary on the pesantren board, she continued to break the rules. Six months before graduation, Kyai decided to send her back to her family without an honorable graduation. According to pesantren practice, there was nothing that they could do for her any longer. The last punishment from the pesantren boards had not had any influence on her. I recall, one day after we had punishment together, she said, “Nyai is not fair. Why did she not ask me about my reasons for breaking the rules before she punished me? These punishments are really embarrassing. All santri know about our case now.” Karim thought that when one did something, they had their own reasons for their behavior, but Nyainever wanted to know about reasons. I never got to know Karim’s reasons either, and now I wonder about them. Problem solving should be more important than punishment. Karim had said that every single person has their own reasons for bad behavior. If someone made trouble, they might have their own problems. Finding the right solution for the problem should be the best way. In the pesantren, if a santri breaks the rules, it is better for the leaders and their staff to talk with that student about their problems before punishing them. I believe that others cannot stop problem students from doing wrong. They can only stop themselves. Thus, it is not a guarantee that after the punishment is received, the santri will behave well.

The privacy of an individual santri should be respected. Punsihing them in front of the public breaks a santri’s rights as a human being. For me, being embarrassed in front of my friends was harder than doing the punishment. The wrong punishment can cause spite against the leaders and board members, and this is what is happening in the pesantren when “embarrassment” is used as punishment.

During the time that I was breaking rules in the pesantren, I was aware that I was making a mistake. As a junior student, I had been looking for a senior student as a role model and I found that  in Karim. Essentially, the Kyai and  Nyai replaced my parents, but in the pesantren there were about seven hundred santri, and the Kyai and Nyai could not give equal attention to us all. The figure of a parent is important in children’s lives. This figure can also become the person who will guide and accompany a child as they mature. Children  follow and do anything for their idols.

The effect of these figures on children can be good or bad. It is up to the parents and teachers to regulate these relationships. In my case, Karim was my adult figure. She was like a big sister to me. The Nyai and Kyai ought to be like parents, so that  santri will share their problems with them. But, the Nyai and Kyai put their positions much too high above the santri. As a result, santri are not able to act as children with them.

Looking back now, I see that my experiences are lessons to be learned. After I finish my studies, I plan to return to my family’s pesantren and help my family maintain the pesantren. I hope to be able to act as a parent to the students, and also to give them fair punishments.

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