JAKARTA - The Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) considers cross-religious greetings that have been developing among the community as part of good practice in caring for the harmony of the people.
" cross-religious greetings are a good practice of community harmony. This is not an attempt to mix religious teachings. The people know that the affairs of each and sociologologicallysalam across religions strengthen harmony and tolerance," said the Director General of Islamic Community Guidance at the Ministry of Religion Kamaruddin Amin in a statement reported by ANTARA, Friday, May 31.
Kamaruddin said that so far interfaith greetings have become a means of spreading peace which is also a teaching of every religion, as well as a vehicle for greeting and establishing intimacy.
"As fellow citizens of the nation, interfaith greetings are part of a form of commitment to living in harmony together, not to the issue of belief," he said.
In a very diverse or multicultural nation, continued Kamaruddin, religious artulation must reflect mutual respect for social flexibility while maintaining each other's faith.
" cross-religious greetings are a form of empirically proven productive social communication and contribute to improving the quality of religious harmony," he said.
According to Kamaruddin, efforts to maintain harmony are important to continue to be pursued by strengthening the cohesion and tolerance of the people, not prioritizing actions that lead to segregation.
"This effort to maintain harmony has resulted in results. The good practice of residents has increased the religious harmony index," he continued.
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Kamaruddin also explained that data on the Religious Harmony Index in the last three years has increased, with details in 2021 of 72.39, then increasing to 73.09 in 2022, then in 2023 it rose again to 76.02.
He said there was a history of hadith which said that the Prophet had said hello to a group of people consisting of Muslims and non-Muslims. In the book Bahjat al-Majaalis written by Ibb Abd al-Barr (160), greetings are a tribute to fellow Muslims and security guarantees for non-Muslims who live side by side.
"In religion, it takes a flexible and wise attitude, so that religious and state can synergize with each other," said Kamaruddin Amin.
Previously, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) through the Ijtima Ulama Fatwa Commission throughout Indonesia VIII had stipulated provisions for greeting with a dimension of prayer specifically for other religions by Muslims, the law was haram.
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