Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Today's Indonesian people's fluency in reading the Koran is perhaps inseparable from the important role of KH As'ad Humam. He is a Koran teacher from Yogyakarta who helps millions of Indonesians and abroad read the Koran fluently.

Many people don't know who As'ad Humam is, but if you look at his work you can be sure you won't think so. Because, As'ad Humam is none other than the creator of a method for quickly learning the Koran, namely Iqro, whose photo is clearly displayed on the back cover of the Iqro book.

Mitsuo Nakamura in The Crescent Rises Over the Banyan Tree (2012) explained that KH As'ad Humam was born in Yogyakarta in 1933. He was the second generation of the Muhammadiyah family, namely H. Humam Sirajd, a successful businessman in Selokraman.

As'ad studied from lower to higher education at Muhammadiyah schools. However, in 1963 his fate changed. An incident of falling from a tree at the age of 18 caused As'ad's spine to become calcified. Doctors sentenced As'ad to be disabled for life: he walks with a limp and cannot move his neck, so he has to walk with a cane.

As a result, he could no longer go to school and turned to become a Koran teacher. During his time as a Koran teacher, he was known as someone who could teach students to read the Koran quickly. If you use the conventional or Badghadiyah method, a person needs 2-3 years to be able to read the Koran.

However, through the method introduced by As'ad, someone can read the Koran fluently in just a matter of months. Apparently, he taught people to recite the Koran word by word, from easiest to most difficult. Initially, students are given the words “ba-ta”, “a-ba-ta”, “ja-ja”, and so on, leading to long sentences.

In this way, learning to read the Koran can be simpler and more understandable for students, the majority of whom are children. This method would later be called Iqro, which As'ad only introduced widely in 1983.

In the report Gatra (1996), Iqro was first tested on children under the care of the Yogyakarta Mosque and Musholla Youth Force (AMM) tadarus team. This method is slowly growing in TKA/TPA (Al-Quran Kindergarten/Al-Quran Education Park) which was formed by AMM in 1988. In trials it was discovered that students could read the Al-Qur'an more quickly.

This success made the government see the Iqro method as the best way to eradicate illiteracy of the Koran. Since then, the use of the Iqro method has become increasingly widespread. Moreover, after the government spread the Iqro method by sending recordings and books throughout Indonesia. Iqro's popularity also occurs abroad. Muslims from Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam began using Iqro as a way of learning the Koran. Millions of Iqro books have been printed by publishers.

“Since then the textbook has been copyrighted, its sales nationally and internationally have generated quite large income for the Tadarus AMM Team,” wrote Mitsuo.

Interestingly, the profits from the sale of the book did not go into As'ad's personal pocket, but instead went to the benefit of the people. It is known that the money from book sales was diverted to build study centers and other religious facilities.

Unfortunately, As'ad couldn't see the glory of his work for long. In February 1996, he died. When escorting As'ad Humam to his final resting place, Minister of Religion Tarmizi Taher said that As'ad was a hero who saved the Koran because he had saved society from blindness towards the Muslim holy book.

This expression is not an exaggeration. The reason is, the Iqro method is still the best way to teach people to read the Koran until now.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(mfa/sef)