In life, we often hear the word “SANTRI”, especially for those of us who live in Islamic boarding schools, or Islamic schools. There are so many opinions that interpret the word santri, KH Mustofa Bisri (Gus Mus) has also given a definition of the meaning of a santri. The following are some of the definitions that Gus Mus conveyed, “Santri are students of Kiai who are educated with love to become strong believers (who do not waver in their faith by association, interests, and differences)”, “Who love their homeland (where they were born, breathe its air, and prostrate on it) and respect its cultural traditions. That honors teachers and parents to the end,”. Then John E, a researcher said, the word SANTRI is an absorption from the Tamil language, which means teacher of the Koran or teacher of the Koran. Some argue that the word santri comes from the word CANTRIK, which means a student who wherever the teacher goes and stays always goes. Then the word santri in Nurcholish Majid’s opinion comes from the word SASTRI, where the word sastri itself comes from the Sanskrit language. Sastri in Sanskrit means being able to read and write or be literate. And according to Nurcholish Majid also, the opinion that says santri are people who can read and write is suitable or suitable for santri, namely the class of people who study Islamic religious knowledge through Arabic texts or the yellow book.

From some opinions about the word “SANTRI” above, we focus on SANTRI in Islamic boarding schools. There are so many activities for students in Islamic boarding schools, such as reading the Koran, memorizing, quizzes, discussions about books, and much more. Then here I want to tell you some of the activities that I did when I was a student at the Islamic boarding school.
Every morning or rather at dawn I was woken up by the caretaker of the cottage, then performed the dawn prayer and followed the wirid after the prayer. After that, I read the Qur’an which was listened to by the boarding school administrator on duty. It’s all done in the morning every day, but the activities are different if it’s a Friday, because if it’s Friday morning, the activity after the dawn prayer is a joint pilgrimage to the grave of the founder of my Islamic boarding school. Now in the morning activities, there is a rule if there are students who do not take part in the morning activities, they will be punished or commonly called “Ta’ziran”. The punishment for not participating in the morning activities is standing for 15 minutes while reading the prophet’s prayer.

The activity after the morning is school until noon or evening, the next activity is after the Asr prayer, then together read the letter Al – Waqi’ah, for this activity it is not mandatory, because many school children come home late in the evening and some even go home at time sunset. The next activity was the maghrib prayer in congregation, then the Koran with the ustadz or the caretaker of the cottage on duty. After that, the Isha prayer in congregation, after the Isha prayer, the students are directed to recite according to the class, and each class has a different book to be studied. After reading the Koran per class, there are a few days that are empty, there are also those who still have activities, such as Mondays and Fridays there are memorization activities according to their respective classes.

those are some of the activities of SANTRI in Islamic boarding schools, although there are many more activities that I cannot write about. Basically, SANTRI is not only those who are in Islamic boarding schools but all those who obey and recite the Koran from the Kiai or ustadz.

Essay by Abdul Rosyid

Kader PMII Rayon Al-Khawarizmi