Misinterpretation of Patience: An Analytical Study of Nerimo Concept within the Indonesian Muslim Society

Abstract

This research aims to deeply explore the nerimo concept in Javanese Muslim society. Nerimo as the philosophy of Javanese culture is often associated with the concept of patience in Islamic doctrine. This research shows that there are a misconception understanding and practice among the Javanese Muslims regarding the concept of nerimo and patience. They tend to express nerimo and patience as a practice of passivity, static, and blind submission to all problems of life. This causes the values contained those concepts to be reduced and lose the spirit of liberation for the life of mankind. By employing a liberation hermeneutic approach and sociological analysis, this research concludes that the nerimo concept in Javanese Muslim could be reconstructed into a Javanese idea that implies human endurance in every period of life. The concepts of nerimo and patience alternately are a form of psychological, spiritual, and intellectual awareness that every life has a periodic motion where every person will surely experience life fluctuations. Then the principle of patience and nerimo become a catalyst for the position of life to turn it back into motion. Patience and nerimo, therefore, are not placed as results but are situated as the power of a continuity life process which can drive people surpassing one stage of their lives.