Monday (21/05/18), IAIN Salatiga was visited by an Indian Pofessor, Mr. Vita Ananta Kumar Giri. He is a professor from Madras Institute Development Studies of India. His research interest are  New Horizons of Human Development and Social Transformations in India and the World: Dialogues, Dignity and Responsibility; Religion, Spiritual Mobilizations and Social Transformations; Social Theory and Social Movements: Criticism, Creativity and the Contemporary Dialectics of Transformations; Creative Transformations in Education, Philosophy and Literature.

In that occasion, Prof. Ananta Kumar was welcomed and accompanied by Mr. Hammam, Ph.D, the Head of Postgraduate of Islamic Education Deparment (S2 PAI). The participants of the seminar are students of Postgraduate of Islamic Education Deparment (S2 PAI) in IAIN Salatiga.  Furthermore, he delivered a presentation entitled “Transformative Harmony and Human Development”. He began his presentation by giving some quotes about tolerance. One of them is

By inner values I mean the qualities we all appreciate in others, and toward which we all have a natural instinct, bequeathed by our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warm-heartedness—or in a single word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being. This is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner values emerge. We all appreciate in others the inner qualities of kindness, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, and generosity, and in the same way we are all averse to displays of greed, malice, hatred and bigotry.  So actually promoting the positive inner qualities of the human heart that arise from our disposition toward compassion, and learning to combat our more destructive propensities, will be appreciated by all. And the first beneficiaries of such strengthening will, no doubt, be ourselves.  Our inner values are something ignore at our own peril, and many of the greatest problems we face in today’s world and the result of such neglect.

–Dalai Lama (2011), Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World, pp. x-xi.

He also added by a quote from Devi (2000: 26) that “when we help others, we are helping ourselves” . This quote will have wonderful impacts, if we can apply it in our real life. Everybody will compete to help one another, without considering people’s status or level in a society. Thus, it will create a new better world. Moreover, in this moment of Ramadhan when everyone wants to keep spirit to look for Allah’s merit (habluminallah), on the other hand we should also improve our relationship to others  (habluminannas).

Additionally, he gave a defintion about transformative harmony. It is a multi-dimensional movement for realization of meaning, coherence, co-ordination and joy in self, culture and society which is not status-quoist but transformative. Therefore, it can be summed up that by creating a harmony in this life such tolerance and helping one another will develop human especially in human relationships and the last will make a better world. (MFL/IO).

an Indian Professor comes to IAIN Salatiga

an Indian Professor comes to IAIN Salatiga