A long ago, Indonesia had faiths called animism and dynamism. Animism was the faith that people believed the God is from real thing like tree or statue, and dynamism was the faith that they believed the God is from the invisible things like the ancestor soul, god, and goddess.
In the 4 BC, the new faiths came, Hindu and Buddha. They were brought by traders from India. And it became overspread and many temples were built. It gave effect in Indonesian culture until now, like the building, food, ceremony, language and traditional characters of writing. In Bali, there are many believers who still keep Hindhu. We can see the statues and temples everywhere there.
In the 2 AC, Islam was brought by traders from Arab, Persia and Gujarat. They didn’t only sold and but also overspread Islam. The spread of Islam was done by trading, wedding, education, art-culture, and philosophy. And the spreading of Islamic cultures were great successful which gave effect and now, 90% of Indonesia are Muslim.
As Indonesian, ‘Islamic Boarding School’ (IBS) or in Indonesia it’s called ‘pondok pesantren’ is no a common thing. Islamic Boarding school is the Islamic school that we can study about religion and we should stay in it.
In Indonesia, there are more than five thousands pesantrens. They are divided into three kinds; salafy (ancient) IBS, modern IBS, and modern-salafy IBS.
Salafy pesantren is a school which basicly we just learn about religion, no science like biology, physic, or mathematic. The Religion lessons are about the human relationship to The God, people, animals, plants, environment and learning about Quran, yellow book and nadlom that will be explained later.
Modern pesantren is a school which the first priority of study is science or other knowledge. The Religion lessons are just for extra school. But, all of activity is still in the rules of Islam.
Modern-Salafy Pesatren is a school that priority between religion and science is the same.
Basicly Pesantren has five main characteristics: Kyai, students, mosque, boarding, and classic book.
Kyai is the chief of pesantren who makes rules and all of decision depends on Kyai. Students or we call ‘santri’ are all of the people who study there. The Mosque is the prayer place and usually used for religion speech, discuss, and other religion activities. The Boarding or dormitory is the place that all of students do their activities. Usually students go home once or twice in a year. The classic book that called ‘kitab kuning or yellow book’ is religion book contains about the relationship with God, human, or environment and Arabic sentence structure or grammar that called ‘nahwu-shorof’. And it's called yellow book because the papers color of these books are yellow. It is an unique thing, and still learned until now in the pesantren.
The yellow paper is ancient paper. It was used by ancestor from kingdom until colonize era. Today, we seldom find this paper. But, we can find it just in the pesantren now. We can see many yellow books there.
The yellow paper has many kinds of paper. We can compare them, from the light, mid until dark yellow. And yellow paper is good because the note on it can be read clear and it suitable on eyes because it’s not as light as white paper. So, it’s soft and comfortable on eyes and we can read in the long time without sick on our eyes because its color is calm. Because most the time in the pesantren students read religion classic books, so they choose the yellow one to keep their eyes well.
There are two kinds of religion classic books, the big size and the tiny size. The big size is as big as the other books in common. And the tiny size is very small book that size about 3x4 cm and it's called ‘nadlom’.
Nadlom is very unique. This is tiny, yellow papers, easy go. Nadlom is Arabic, means rule. Usually, nadlom contains about rules of grammar, how to make Arabic sentences, and pearl words. The grammar level of nadlom from low to up level is Qoidah Sorfiyah, Imrithi, Alfiyah, Maqsud, and Jawahirul Maknun. Another nadlom is about moral, basic of Islam, or just Arabic vocabularies, such as Alala, Aqidatul Awam, Jazariyah, and Hidayatus Sibyan.
The other unique thing of it is structure in Arabic poems, and they can be sung by many songs. So it is very catchy when we try to memorize. We can choose song that we like and adjust it with the sentence. One line divided by two parts. One part contains about seven syllables. Onenadlom can consist 20 until 1002 lines. And one nadlom is learned in one graduate class, or one up to three years lesson.
There are many kinds of songs that can be sung easily. They are from Indonesian songs such as Pelangi, Sayang (Titi Kamal), Tipe-X, Bunda (Mayada), Ketahuan (Matta), Ku Bahagia (Melly Goeslow), Biola Tak Berdawai (Kangen Band), or traditional song such as Gundul-Gundul Pacul, Sayonara or Middle East songs such as Mayjus, Sholatun, and the other songs. So nadlom can be very catchy and we can memorize it all of the time we like because it’s the same as song.
It’s one thing of many kinds of Indonesian cultures that has unique characteristic. We must be proud of it because we are rich of unique arts and cultures which in the past time got effect from Malay, India, Arab, Middle East, or colonist from Portuguese, England, Netherland, or Japan.
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