Islamic Educational Values in Life-Cycle Rituals: An Ethnographic Study in Kluet Timur Community, Aceh, Indonesia

Life-Cycle Rituals Of The Kluet Timur Community

As a one of the sequences in life which happen within a community, life-cycle rituals occur in the form of either ceremonial or custom festivals. From the perspective of the religious dimension, those practices always aim to be closer to God (Muhammad, 2007, pp. 1-2). Indonesia, a country consisting of numerous tribes, has its special customs in the deployment of life-cycle rituals. The tradition of the Balinese, for instance, appears in the form of values, norms, ethics, beliefs, customs, customary laws, and other distinctive rules (Sirtha, 2013). Likewise, the customary values of the Sundanese also do the same thing, reflecting on Islam (Maulana, 2013). Meanwhile, acculturations of the local culture also contribute to the foundation of the new tradition. For example, the people of Pidie, Aceh, execute the ritual of rah ulei (washing the head with water) in the cemetery of ulama (Islamic scholar) (Arifin & Khambali, 2016). Therefore, the customary tradition to which the community commits cannot circumvent containing the theological, sociological, political, family, and educational values. The last-mentioned values, the focus of this study, attempt to discover the concepts of education contained and believed among the people of Kluet Timur, Aceh. This aligns with what Manan has conceptualized—that the life-cycle ritual is essential to unearthing existing information or social relationships (Manan, 2015). One could obtain ritual information based on the theory and direct practice of the subject customary activities.