Gus Dur Biography and Thoughts

Dr. KH Abdurrahman Wahid or familiarly called as Gus Dur or his full name Abdurrahman Addakhil was born in Jombang, August 4, 1940 who since childhood was educated in a pesantren because his family was an ulama. His family is the founder of one of the famous Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia, namely Tebu Ireng located in Jombang, East Java. And his father had served as Minister of Religion. So it can be concluded, in broad outline Gus Dur got descendants of scholars from his father, grandfather, and his entire family are scholars. Abdurrahman was an Indonesian Muslim figure who had served as the 4th president of Indonesia from 1999 to 2001. He was married to Mrs. Sinta Nuriyah and had 4 descendants, namely Yenni Wahid, Inayah Wulandari, Alissa Qotrunnada, and Anita Hayatunnufus.

An overview of the education pursued by Dr. K H Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur, was the first Gus Dur to study and learn from his grandfather, K.H Hasyim Asy'ari. Gus Dur's grandfather taught him to read the Koran until Gus Dur was 5 years old who was good at reciting or reading the Qur'an. Abdurrahman had attended a Dutch private tutor interrupted between his formal schooling with the Dutch who later converted to Islam and always added classical music when Abdurrahman attended. From learning Dutch, Abdurrahman became interested in classical Dutch music. Abdurrahman started living in Jakarta when he followed his father, when he was in elementary school. Abdurrahman always won the competition since elementary school at the Jakarta level. Nearing junior high school, he was sent by his father to Yogyakarta to continue his schooling. Abdurrahman attended SMEP (Middle School Economic School) while boarding at the Krapyak boarding school. It was during this SMEP that Gus Dur began to be honed in his ability to read and write, because he was very clever in this matter. Then Abdurrahman continued his education at Tegarejo Islamic Boarding School in Magelang. Abdurrahman was guided by a humorous Kyai and was happy to take him to the place of pilgrimage pilgrimage. And that's when Abdurrahman was good at humor for the first time because the nanny was very humorous. After taking 2 years  education in Magelang, Abdurrahman returned to Jombang and settled in his uncle's pesantren and became a cleric as well as security chief. At the age of 22, Abdurrahman went to the Holy Land to leave for Hajj and then continued to Egypt to continue his studies at Al-Azhar University. Tired of studying at Al-Azhar, he moved to Iraq and studied in Baghdad and later had the chance to move to Europe. However, strict requirements made him reluctant to continue his studies. But on the other hand, he had toured in many foreign universities to find out Islamic studies. The end of his educational journey in 1971. After that, he returned to his homeland and began his career. He died in Jakarta on December 30, 2009 and was buried in his hometown, namely Jombang.

Abdurrahman was classified as a speculative philosophy of history by historians. In this case Gus Dur's actions and thoughts were placed in all his efforts to overcome turbulence. In the next matter in Gus Dur's thoughts, the patterns of world history, the history of Islamic civilization and the trends of contemporary society will be discussed.