Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

n Islamic education, Kitab kuning () refers to the traditional set of the Islamic texts used by the educational curriculum of the Islamic seminary in

, especially within the

madrasah Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary education or higher learning ...

s and

pesantren ''Pesantren'' is a traditional Islamic boarding school in Indonesia. It is taught either in private houses, a ''wiktionary:pondok, pondok'' or a mosque, the teaching includes classical Islamic texts and ''santri'' thought, taught by Kyai, ''kya ...

s. Coverage of kitab kuning extends from the principles of Islamic jurisprudence (''

usul al-fiqh Principles of Islamic jurisprudence () are traditional methodological principles used in Islamic jurisprudence (''fiqh'') for deriving the rulings of Islamic law (''sharia''). Traditional theory of Islamic jurisprudence elaborates how the scri ...

''), Islamic creeds (''

aqidah ''Aqidah'' (, , pl. , ) is an Islamic term of Arabic origin that means "creed". It is also called Islamic creed or Islamic theology. ''Aqidah'' goes beyond concise statements of faith and may not be part of an ordinary Muslim's religious ins ...

''), Islamic ethics ('' akhlaq''), science of Islamic mysticism (''

tasawwuf Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

''), sciences of

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, science of Qur'anic recitations ('' tajwid''),

hadith studies Hadith studies is the academic study of hadith, a literature typically thought in Islamic religion to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Muhammad as transmitted through chains of narrators. A major area of inter ...

tafsir Tafsir ( ; ) refers to an exegesis, or commentary, of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' (; plural: ). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, interpretation, context or commentary for clear understanding ...

, Qur'anic studies to

social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

s. It is also known as ''kitab gundul'' (lit: bare book) due to the content in the Arabic language does not employ vowel marks (''

harakat The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include consonant pointing known as (, ), and supplementary diacritics known as (, ). The latter include the vowel marks termed (, ; , ', ). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where all ...

''), unlike the Qur'an. Therefore, mastering of kitab kuning is considered to require a substantial amount of time. Collections of the Islamic texts employed as kitab kuning may vary, depending on the type of institution, individual schools, kyai, and region, with certain prerequisite materials such as '' Tafsir al-Jalalayn''.van Bruinessen, Martin. ''Kitab kuning; Books in Arabic script used in the Pesantren milieu; Comments on a new collection in the KITLV Library.'' Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146 (1990), no: 2/3, Leiden, 226-269

History

Most of the Islamic scholarly manuscripts produced after the

Rashidun Caliphate The Rashidun Caliphate () is a title given for the reigns of first caliphs (lit. "successors") — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali collectively — believed to Political aspects of Islam, represent the perfect Islam and governance who led the ...

were written in Arabic without employing harakat in general, unlike the Qur'an which was specifically aided by Arabic diacritics for non-Arab Muslims. As for the people who mastered the rules of

Arabic grammar Arabic grammar () is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic languages, Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with the Semitic languages#Grammar, grammar of other Semitic languages. Classical Arabic and Modern St ...

, they weren't required to employ harakat in their readings. In Indonesia, the religious texts that read by these people were then specifically designated as ''kitab gundul'' in order to distinguish them from the book written with the diacritical aids.Geertz, Clifford.
Abangan, Santri, Priyayi Dalam Masyarakat Jawa
(The Religion of Java''), Pent. Aswab Mahasin, Pustaka Jaya, Cet. Ketiga, 1989. , . Kitab gundul was soon referred as kitab kuning, which means yellow book, because mostly the books were published on yellow paper. This is because yellow paper were considered more comfortable and easy to read in a dim condition. When lighting was limited in the past, mainly in the villages, the santris (students of pesantren) had to get accustomed to studying at night with minimal lighting, and books made of yellow paper had reduced the stress. Today, although access to lighting has become normal, some books are still produced on yellow paper. There are other etymological reasons, including the reference to the aged books turning into more yellowish and darker color due to the exposure of

lignin Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidit ...

to air and sunlight, and the reference to the candle light putting out yellow shades. Today, kitab kunings are mostly converted into electronic book files, such as chm and

pdf Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

, and distributed through the computer software namely ''Maktabah Syamila'' among santris of modern pesantrens.

References

{{Islam in Indonesia Islamic education in Indonesia Islamic terminology Islamic texts