DWELLING

The Life Cycle in Pekojan

The elders in Pekojan memorialized their daily life cycle as routine activities between
homes and musholla. The children are ordered to attend madrasah as well as public school.
They started the day before sunrise (fajr) for prayers (Subh). Schooling ended after afternoon
prayers (dhuhur) call and they should attend madrasah for Islam learning. After performing
their obligation for afternoon pray (Asr) they spend a bit of time for playing, but before
sunset they should be at home preparing for the sunset prayers (Maghrib). After the evening
prayers (isha), most of the community members sleep until sunrise to undertake the next
routine cycle.
As the children get older and become the head of the family, their daily routines were
more concentrated on obligations and legal rights of family members, since the basic unit of
Islamic society is the family. The father was seen as financially responsible for his family,
and was obliged to cater for their well-being. As Arab men in Pekojan mostly were occupied
with a variety of trades, the fathers daily routine started with leaving the dwelling for
business engagements. In the past, women were not allowed to show themselves in public, so
it was the father who visited the market to buy the household and daily supplies. Usually
before Asr prayers the father was already at home, performing the Asr prayers at the
neighboring musholla and then sitting on the terrace to entertain his neighbors. Sometimes
they spent time waiting for Maghrib prayer call by performing roha or reading Al Quran.
Unlike the children, the father would not have to focus the rest of the day at home, since he
could spend the time with other men for chatting.
The domestic routines of women in Pekojan were very much influenced by the degree
of the publicness. When girls get older, their movements start to be restricted and they are isolated
from public until they get married. From then on, the daily routine of the women
were around the home, where they prepared themselves to be educated as good house wives
before entering their role as home-makers and caregivers to their children. Since women
assume the main responsibility for the home, they limited their social activities only among
one another.
Although the area primarily expressed overcrowding from the beginning, the daily
routine of activities created the peaceful environment as well as psychological security as the
most important physical characteristic. This situation contrasted to Glodok, the neighboring
Chinese settlement, which contributed more to a sense of public life. Similar to Pekojan,
Glodok expressed unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, but Glodok attracted shoppers
from other areas and concentrated on retail and business service. Other than shop houses,
there were (and are) artisan shops, herbalists, sidewalk food and merchandise stalls, vendors
and market as well as houses. As a result, the open street in the Chinese enclave is also used
for a large variety of activities and it was here that the overcrowding became apparent.

The Social Life

The domestic routine in Pekojan would change when the time of ritual cycle arrived.
The rituals take place on a regular basis according to the Islamic calendar. They are more
often then not directed toward a community-wide orientation since participation is not limited
to Muslim Arabs that reside in Pekojan, but also those from outside. Almost all rituals are
held at mosque. In the past, rituals used to be vigorous with traditional Arab Muslim
performances of syarah (singing to adore Prophet Mohammad), zafin (dancing by youngster),

and marawis (music and singing by preachers).

The most elaborate and festive of all religious activities is Muludan, a celebration of
the birth and life of the Prophet Mohammad. This is followed by Ramadhan, Islams holiest
month, where mosques are busy with many events. Following the final request prayer of the
day, isha, optional tarawih prayers are offered every night. During the last ten days of
Ramadan, mosques will host all-night programs to observe Laylat al-Qadr, the night Muslims
believe that the Islamic prophet Muhammad first began to receive Koran. Mosques usually
provide meals prepared by community periodically throughout these nights. On the eve of
27th of Ramadan, Muslim Arabs from the clan of Al Alatas, not only those who live inside,
but also outside Pekojan, crowd into Azzawiyah mosque.

Kerukunan antar etnis di Pekojan

Sri Lestari
BBC Indonesia

Masjid tertua di Pekojan yang didirikan oleh warga keturunan Arab tahun 1833

Kerukunan hidup beragama dan antar etnis di kawasan Pekojan, Kecamatan

Tambora, Jakarta Barat diyakini sudah berlangsung sejak masa pendudukan
Belanda di Batavia.
Di perkampungan di pinggir Kali Angke ini keturunan Arab, Cina dan Betawi masih
memelihara tradisi saling membantu dan menghargai antar umat yang sudah berlangsung
sejak abad ke 17.
Toleransi kehidupan beragam itu terlihat pada bulan Ramadhan ini. Warga keturunan Cina
akan membantu warga keturunan Arab yang menjalankan ibadah puasa.
Seperti pada Minggu malam, ketika warga muslim menggadakan pengajian di bulan
Ramadhan di depan masjid warga keturunan Cina yang tinggal di sekitar masjid merelakan
jalanan depan rumah mereka ditutup, bahkan memberikan bantuan berupa aliran listrik
untuk penerangan.
Tokoh pemuda Pekojan Faisol Amri mengatakan sikap saling membantu dan menghargai ini
sudah berlangsung sejak lama.

"Saya diajarkan oleh kakek dan ayah saya untuk saling menghargai sesama manusia
apapun agama dan etnisnya, sebab itu pula yang diajarkan oleh Rasulullah SAW," jelas
Faisol.
Saya diajarkan oleh kakek dan ayah saya untuk saling menghargai sesama manusia apapun
agama dan etnisnya
Faisol Amri

Dia menambahkan, sebagai mayoritas, umat muslim tetap harus menghargai minoritas
yang hidup berdampingan.
Faisol mencontohkan sebelum menggelar acara di masjid biasanya panitia akan meminta ijin
kepada warga sekitar terutama yang bukan muslim, meski itu merupakan acara rutin.
"Kewajiban kita untuk datangi tiap warga dekat masjid untuk minta izin, memberitahu dan
meminta maaf jika acara pengajian akan menganggu aktivitas warga non muslim," kata
Faisol.
"Meski rutin tetap harus minta izin, manusia itu kan hatinya berubah, jadi sebagai muslim
harus menghilangkan image yang terkesan keenaknya," tambah dia.
Di bulan puasa ini, warung makan di Pekojan juga buka seperti biasa dan tidak
menggunakan tirai sebagai penutup.
Bahkan, meski tengah puasa, Faisol tetap menyuguhi kopi untuk Koh Aseng rekannya yang
bertamu ke rumahnya sore itu.
Koh Aseng yang merupakan pengusaha kurma, rutin memberikan kurma untuk berbuka
puasa di masjid. Warga keturunan Cina yang lain, Gunawan rutin membagikan beras kepada
warga sekitar menjelang lebaran.
"Itu sudah kebiasaan keluarga kami, ketika menjelang lebaran kami membagikan beras dan
ketika perayaan imlek kami juga mengundang masyarakat di sini," kata Gunawan.

Perkawinan

Faisol dan Sumiati pasangan beda etnis yang sudah menikah selama 17 tahun

Tahun 1986, Walikota Jakarta Barat pernah menjadikan Kelurahan Pekojan sebagai proyek
percontohan untuk pembauran antar etnis di kawasan Jakarta Barat.
Bahkan, ketika terjadi kerusuhan Mei 1998, Kampung Pekojan dapat dikatakan daerah yang
teraman, karena seluruh warga dari berbagai etnis keturunan Arab, Cina dan Betawi
berpatroli bersama.

"Ini merupakan daerah yang paling aman, tuh diseberang kali Angke hancur, tetapi kita
warga keturunan disini melakukan patroli bersama dengan warga Betawi dan Arab," jelas
Gunawan.
Gunawan merasa aman tinggal di Pekojan, dan tidak terbesit keinginan untuk pindah ke
negara lain seperti yang dilakukan warga etnis keturunan Cina setelah kerusuhan Mei 1998
lalu.
"Saking merasa aman, rumah saya ini tak pernah dikunci, jadi siapa pun bisa masuk," kata
dia.
Tradisi lain di Pekojan, adalah saling membantu ketika salah seorang warga mengalami
kesulitan, seperti masalah bisnis, keuangan atau pun ketika ada warga meninggal.
Saking merasa aman, rumah saya ini tak pernah dikunci, jadi siapa pun bisa masuk

Gunawan

"Kami akan saling membantu warga yang tengah susah, tanpa memandang etnis dan
agamanya," kata Faisol.
Diantara bangunan tua, warga Pekojan hidup berdampingan selama sejak lama, perkawinan
antar etnis pun terjadi seperti Faisol dan istrinya Sumiati yang keturunan Cina.
Pasangan yang tinggal di rumah tua gaya Cina, hanya salah satu dari sejumlah pasangan
menikah yang berasal dari beda etnis.
Faisol mengatakan tradisi perkawinan antar etnis sudah lama terjadi di Pekojan, tetapi
biasanya pasangan yang akan menikah memeluk agama yang sama.
Sumiati yang dulu beragama Katolik, menjadi mualaf setelah mempelajari agama Islam
sebelum menikah.
Faisol mengatakan merasa nyaman dengan kehidupan antar umat beragama dan etnis di
Pekojan dan berkewajiban untuk terus menjaganya.
Antara lain menularkan sikap toleransi dan saling menghargai antar sesama manusia
kepada ketiga anaknya.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesia/berita_indonesia/2010/09/100907_pekojan.shtml

The Continual Shrinkage of the ArabMuslim Population in Pekojan

From the beginning, people of Pekojan sponsored fellow villagers and lodged them in
their homes for short periods. As the founding father of other settlements in Jakarta,
Pekojans role towards shaping a process of chain migration that continues to influence
patterns of Arab settlements in Tanah Abang, Krukut, Sawah Besar, Jati Petamburan,
Kwitang, Jatinegara and Cawang. Pekojan therefore had already experienced spatial mobility
of the population from its colonial era. The spatial mobility generated problems, when the
number of houses elapsed through time and the inheritance process has taken place along
with the passage of time.
It was reported that during migration process, very few Arab women came to
Indonesia that almost all Arabs of Batavia married Indonesian women and their descendents
were Indo-Arabs. Arabs who later changed their children's ethnicity continued to maintain
their Arab identity in other ways such as marriage to other Arabs, so that Arabic cultural
practices were not abandoned.
Many Arabs gained an advantage of being married with local women to own land,
since his native wife had the right to own land. 17 When the parent died, the division of
inheritance is specified in the Koran, which states that most of it is passed to the immediate
family with the same rights of succession. 18 Distribution of inheritance through dividing the
longitudinal house was possible for those who only have a small number of successors, but it
would be difficult for those who had many children. Nowadays, mostly three generations of
old house inhabitants in Pekojan have passed on. The problem appeared when the house is
impossible to be divided into smaller units any longer and it was occupied by descendants
who did not have the right to own the whole part of the house. This leads to the process of
pecah waris, or selling the house for the purpose of distributing the rights of inheritance
among the family members. Usually, it was the Chinese who are interested to buy the
properties. This was different from Betawi ethnic groups or, the Muslim indigenous groups of
Batavia who owned abundant land on the outskirts. In this case, it was still possible to divide
the land equally based on the right of succession.

The change of residential status also occurred as the impact of mismanagement of

land business among the Arab Muslims. Many Arabs landlords engaged in the collection of
rentals from urban lands including lands in Pekojan that they later came to own through
profitable accumulation. Unfortunately most of the Arab landlord applied the closed system
of management and there are not any children being trained to continue his business. Many
descendents eventually know nothing about the accurate amount of properties owned by their
father. The burden increased when descendents simply relying on their status, try to raise
the rental fee,19 but they fail to show the land documentation to proof their right on the
properties. In this case, the dispute between the owner and the tenant usually ends by
expropriation of the property in the hands of the local government (Bureau of Housing).
Together with other rental houses owned by local government (they were mostly the
properties under erfphact system left by the Dutch) in Pekojan, there are large numbers of
rental houses under the right of local government. There are also 300 rental house properties
devoted as wakaf (conceptually similar to the common law trust), which ranges from private
family trusts to public charitable trusts.

By the middle of 20th century, migration from rural areas took place in large scale in
Jakarta, and Pekojan soon become more and more built up. The vacant land in western part of
Pekojan, emerged as new kampong named Kampung Janis. It is a heterogeneous, unplanned
and sub-standard settlement for the lower class of Indonesian natives. Vacant lands between
buildings in the built up areas are soon infiltrated by fresh buildings so that now there are
scarcely any vacant lands remaining in Pekojan.

While Pekojan is gradually transformed into a high density residential area, the
disappearing process of Arab Muslim population tends to increase. Official data from district
(Kelurahan) office remarks that from a total of 30.794 people in Pekojan, 13.680 of the
population are Muslims, of which not more than 1.000 inhabitants are Muslim Arab. The rest
are non-Muslim dominated by Chinese. It is very clear that Arab Muslims are gradually
disappearing and are being replaced by the Chinese inhabitants. There are two main reasons
for the Chinese to prefer own the houses in Pekojan. First is because the area is already
encircled by Chinese enclaves from all directions. Second is because they realize that living
in Pekojan is proven to be relatively safe. During the Chinese riot in May 1998 the Arab
Muslims demonstrated loyalty as well as cooperation to protect the Chinese who live in
Pekojan so that none endured hardship as victims of riots, as had occurred in the neighboring
Chinese settlement in Glodok.20
Transformation is clearly visible in the new pattern of the Arab houses which are
transferred to Chinese. Some maintain the original lot, but are rebuilt into new buildings to
gain more floors. In some cases, transformation occurs through combining two or three old
units and rebuilding these into a single new building. The Chinese intrusion does not
necessarily transform building activities, since many new dwellers maintain the building
function for residential purposes. In the area along the main streets, more change of use from
residential to commercial or other more economic uses are expected, such as combining
housing with storage. The latter relates to the fact that Pekojan is located adjacent to the
commercial and retail center of Glodok. The transformation strikes the naked eye with
intensity. High levels of congestion are observed as result of high residential densities,
multiple means of transport and the use of street for commercial and circulation purposes.
The previously peaceful residential quarter is makeshift, transformed into mixed areas that
imply congestion and degradation.
The main characteristic of morphological change in Pekojan is the intensification use
of building lots. Existing small series of purchased lot parcel or smaller units of houses force
the new owners to rebuild upward. Meanwhile, there is scarcely any transformation in the
case of rental houses so that most of them are in a unreasonable state of disrepair. The low
rental rate is the main reason why the landlord will not have anything to do with repairs. On
the other side, tenants will not invest in expensive repair since there is no any guarantee of
long-term security. Such tenants are really caught in a dilemma, sticking on because of the
cheap housing as well as the convenience being located in the inner city.

Concluding remark

Observing the daily life cycle, the dwelling and the pattern of settlement in Pekojan, it
is revealed that Pekojan was not developed purely according to religious requirements nor
adopted from the place of origin of Arab migrants. Unlike the Chinese who try to adopt their
dwelling forms from their homeland, Arab migrants did not attempt to create their own
tradition nor transfer their tradition from Hadramaud or Yemen. It should be note, as
mentioned by Zandi, that many features of architectural design and town planning in the Arab
peninsula effectively took into consideration the climatic and geographical elements of the
region.21 Batavia had different climatic conditions so that there was not any reason for
adapting their own tradition in building the houses and settlement. In return, the spatial
organization and the use of space in accordance with gender distinctions had been adapted for
the terrace houses and the settlement pattern, yet their construction and production was
undertaken by the Chinese.
The disappearance of Muslim Arabs in Pekojan and the gradually emergence of the
Chinese community raises the question: is the destiny of Muslim Arabs similar to that of
Indian Muslims who have disappeared after the translocation process by Arab Muslims? The
declining process of the Arab Muslim population might be difficult to resist, as long as the
property inheritance consistently follows Islamic law. But one might be convinced that
although the Arab population now (and then) remains as a minority, the mosque, musholla
and madrasah would never shrink, as Muslim Arabs utilize wakaf (common law trust) for
maintaining the subsistence of all religious features in Pekojan. This has been underway for a
long time and until recent times remains significant. These wakafs, which bear the family
names, whether private or charitable, are part of an inalienable religious endowment that
might preserve the name of old kampung Pekojan as the historical Arab Muslim settlement.
Moreover, mosques and other religious buildings in Pekojan would bear a considerable role
as the Islamic center for spreading Arab Muslims alongside an emerging Chinese community.