Institut Studi Islam Darussalam (ISID) Gontor Pt.2

For this part, I would share about my third day here.

And at the end of this post, I would list down my comments and views about this place and the students too.

First of all, let me introduce this place.

It was named as 'Pondok Modern Darussalam Gontor'

What is Pondok?

Pondok is also known as Pondok Pesantren which means Islamic boarding schools.

It is an Islamic educational institution that offers the teaching in classic Islamic style on another level training in Islamic knowledge.

It is operated and managed by religious teachers or leaders, called 'Kyai'

'Kyai' is a person who is expert in Islamic knowledge.

  

Apart from speaking in Malay Indonesia language,

the students of this Pondok are also able to speak in Arabic and English.

Amazing! 
 

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Day 3

As scheduled, we attended a talk more further about this place.

The guy on the right side was Hasan Abdullah Sahal,

he is the kyai and the chairman of this Pondok since 1985.

  When we arrived this place, we were informed that the students were having their examinations.

Thus, this place was a bit quiet as everyone were studying and doing revision.

The examination took place at this building.

The situation right before they had to enter the examination hall.

They were memorizing, revising back what they studied and of course they had to ignore our existence as the visitors. Hahaha

Oh yaa! That long and big board was actually the examination schedule board,

it was written in Arabic by themselves.

Wasn't it creative? Absolutely!

This was how it looked like when the examination started.

The books were everywhere but not messy.

 As could be seen, it was crowded and they were sitting near side by side.

They were taught to be honest and truthful, so they would not do cheating.

They were focus on answering the questions and we were asked to walk silently,

to avoid disturbing their concentration.

We could not stay longer here so we had to move on to another place.

This was where the male students of Pondok were staying.

This building consisted of the students' rooms, mini shops, book center, and etc.

The mini shop was named as Wisma Hadi.

This one is the Book Center but it was closed due to examination.

For me, this one was the special part of this building. Haha

Why? This was a place where the students had their new haircuts.

All of them had the same hairstyles!

Scroll up the photos, you would realize their hairstyles 😆

This ended our visit (female visitors) to this Pondok Modern Darussalam

before heading to the next place.

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As promised, here were my comments and views about this Pondok:

 1) It was said that this Pondok was like Al-Azhar University, Egypt.
Both were waqf (endownment property) and independent institutions.
Both were the places to study further Islamic knowledge in Classic Islamic Style.
 For sure, each of both had it own specialities.

2) In Pondok Modern Darussalam Gontor,
the students could conquer both Arabic and English Languages.
There could be found a zone where the students must speak Arabic & English only.
They were strictly not allowed to speak other languages including Malay Indonesia Language
inside that zone.

3) This Pondok was really independent where it could afford its expenses.
One of its source of income was the hotel,
the hotel managed by the students themselves.
They did together like cleaning, becoming bellboy (bringing up the luggage), receptionist, and etc.

4) The students were taught to be disciplined in respecting the teachers and others,
they were very respectful and down to earth.

5) The students had to wear smart uniform, the uniform code was the full suit.
(black blazer and black pant with black hat Songkok).

6) About the hairstyle, all of them must have same haircut.
It looked like an army haircut though.
From my view, this Pondok just wanted to normalize this type of hairstyle
so that there would not be any differences between them.
Rich or poor, they were all same.

7) The speciality of the Pondok's students was,
they had deeper knowledge in Islam with Islamic environment and surroundings,
religious teachers and friends.

8) I believe that the students and the alumni were all hardworking kind of people
as they were well-trained in the Pondok to do many things by themselves.
They were even limited to call the family and meet them.
To make them focus on becoming a good and independent person

9) Only one thing that this Pondok should think about it, it was the certificate.
The students had their rights to be proud of becoming students of this Pondok right after finishing their studies here and the certificates became a proof of the completion.

10) Thanks to my university and the government for giving me this opportunity to visit this place and to realize that there was an Islamic institution to be amazed of.

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The next post would be our visit and stay at the Gontor Putri.

So stay tuned!

**Correct me if there was any wrong info here as this visit was few years ago.

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BYNH10