MidLand, Jakarta – Oman Fathurahman became the recipient of the Habibie Award 2023. State Islamic University or UIN lecturer Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta won this prestigious award in the fields of philosophy, religion and culture.
Oman is known as the initiator of the theoretical approach philology furthermore, i.e. interdisciplinary philological studies, especially Islamic studies. He is also a professor of Philology Faculty of Adab and Letters UIN Jakarta.
“For me, when I do research on philology, on ancient manuscripts, it’s as if I can understand who, yes “We Indonesians have existed for hundreds of years,” Oman said, quoted by the BRIN website, Friday, November 10, 2023.
Philology is a science that studies on the history, institutions and life of a nation contained in ancient texts. In the Indonesian context the contents are religious life, culture, politics, daily activities, and this shared memory is a reflection of the identity of the Indonesian nation.
Philologist plus field Oman
According to Oman, from the colonial period until the early 1990s, philological work produced more transliterations and translations. At most the translation is accompanied by a structural analysis or a linguistic and literary approach, but does not delve into the cognitive context of the text presented.
Through philology plus, initiated by Oman, philology is combined with various scientific approaches and strengthens contextualization. “In the end, the scientific and theoretical approaches used to contextualize not only history and Islamic studies as I apply, but also anthropology, sociology, archaeology, health and medicine, media and communication, gender and various other scientific fields,” he said .
With this approach, Oman asserted that philology has made an important contribution to the direction of Indonesian Islamic studies based on textual analysis. This theory is used by many researchers as a reference, using manuscripts as primary sources for research.
Beyond that, Oman and his team are innovating to preserve Indonesian manuscripts by transferring digital media through the DREAMSEA project. He has also pioneered the use of ancient Indonesian manuscripts in the contemporary context which have been uploaded via the YouTube channel Ngariksa TV (Ngariksa Nusantara Ancient Manuscripts). His consistency on Ngariksa TV has produced more than a hundred episodes.
“What I do to popularize manuscripts full of antiquities, so that they can be accepted in the contemporary millennial world, is with Ngariksa. I participate every other Friday, live on social media. “I read the manuscript, then I contextualize it,” Oman said.
This step was taken by Oman so that the values of collective memory and shared memory can reach and be accepted not only by those who are serious in academia, but also by the millennial society with a popular approach. “We hope that the slogan I often quote in Ngariksa, ‘We look to the future while caring for the past,’ can become a reality,” she said.
By winning the 2023 Habibie Prize, Oman hopes that philology, manuscripts and culture will receive more public attention and even be used as material for consideration by policymakers. “I believe that politics without culture will lose wisdom,” she said. “Politics without culture will only be a tool to fight for power.”
Announcement
The Omani curriculum
Citing the Ministry of Religion website, Oman Fathurahman studied at the university Department of Arabic Language and Literature Faculty of Adab, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic Institute in 1994. The steps to study were not easy.
After attending school at MAN Cipasung Tasikmalaya, the young Oman moved to Jakarta to pursue his dream of going to college. He sold cigarettes and sweets on foot from Kebayoran Lama in South Jakarta to Tanah Abang in Central Jakarta and became a laborer at a printing press to collect university fees.
Graduating with honors in 1994, Oman began to learn about manuscripts. Collaborating with Chambert-Loir, he produced his first work, entitled “Manuscript Treasures: A Guide to Indonesian Manuscript Collections Around the World” (Jakarta: EFEO-YOI, 1999). This is a baboon book, a sort of “grandfather of manuscript catalogues” that has become the primary study of manuscript reviewers from the archipelago around the world.
Thanks to a scholarship from the Nusantara Nusantara Foundation (Yanassa), Oman continued his master’s studies in the field of Philology, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, University of Indonesia in 1998. He also obtained a doctorate in the same scientific field from the same university in 2003.
In addition to being active as a lecturer, Oman served as the general president of the Indonesian Archipelago Manuscript Society (Manassa) from 2008 to 2016. He also served as dean of the Faculty of Adab and Humanities at UIN Syartif Hidayatullah from 2014 to 2015.
Oman also served as an expert staff of the Minister of Religion in the field of communication and information management from 2017 to 2021 and Acting Director General of Hajj and Umrah Organizations in the Ministry of Religion from 2020 to March 2021.
As an academic, Oman has produced numerous scientific works, including books, articles and opinions published in various media. He has also initiated several collaborative research initiatives for the preservation and digitization of Indonesian manuscripts. These include C-DATS Tokyo, Japan, Cologne University, Germany, Kyoto University, Leiden University, Oxford University, as well as the Ministry of Religion and the National Library.
The Habibie Prize was organized by BRIN in collaboration with the Education Fund Management Institute (LPDP) of the Ministry of Finance and the HR Foundation for Science and Technology. The Habibie Prize exists to give appreciation to people who are active and have contributed greatly to the discovery, development and dissemination of various innovative scientific and technological activities that have significant benefits for the improvement of well-being, justice and peace.
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