Tahlil Tradition and Its Impact on Moslem Community’s
Psycho-social Stability
Abdul Basid
1
, N. Habibi
1
, M. F. B. Bella
1
, M. Faisol
1
, E. B. Yusuf
2
, M. Z. Hamzah
1
,
A. M. Al-Anshory
1
and Muassomah
2
1
Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, Indonesia
2
Institut Agama Islam Negeri, Purwokerto, Indonesia
Keywords: Tahlil tradition, Moslem Community, Pyscho-social Stability.
Abstract: This study aims to describe the form of tahlil tradition, to understand the cause of citizens
participating in
tahlil tradition, and to understand the impact of the tahlil tradition on
stabilizing psycho–social
aspects. The subject of this study is 40 persons staying in
Sumbergesing Kulon, Gedangan, Malang,
Indonesia. The study was conducted in May, 2018.
The techniques of data collection are observation,
interview, and documentation. The results of this study show that the form of tahlil tradition contains of
many readings, the causes of citizens participating in tahlil tradition are their pretension to pray the passed
away relatives,
to gather with other, to recite the Qur’an, etc, and the impacts of tahlil tradition in stabilizing
psychological and social aspect among citizens such as feel quieter, sense of mercy, fearer to God, more
familiar, often praying in the mosque, etc.
1 INTRODUCTION
The tahlil or tahlilan tradition is very familiar among
the Javanese Muslim communities. Tradition comes
from the word traditium which means everything that
is transmitted, inherited from the past to the present,
and cultural heritage or past habits that have been
continuously preserved until now (Suyatno, 2012)
(Rodin, 2013).
Tahlil comes from the Arabic hallala-yuhallilu-
tahlilan which means the expression of pleasure or
expression of joy. This word also has meaning of
pronunciation thayyibah Laailaahaillallah which
means no God except Allah. In terminology, tahlil
means uttering the sentence of thayyibah and pray for
people who have died together (Warisno, 2017a).
The tahlil tradition is mostly performed on certain
days such as 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 40 days, 100 days,
1000 days after the death of a person until the
ceremony of haul to commemorate each death date
(Anwar, 2017). Initially, according to scholars, the
tradition of tahlil was adopted from an animist faith
ceremony. In fact, the tradition continues until the
religion of Islam came into Indonesia brought by Wali
Songo. The Wali Songo also takes advantage of it as
a means of preaching by replacing the substance
to be
more breathing Islam. Then the ceremony is
called
tahlil or tahlilan which now has become a
tradition
and culture in most of Moslem
communities in
Indonesia (Warisno, 2017b).
The tahlil tradition can also be a way of da'wah
by inserting mauidhoh hasanah at the beginning or
the end of tahlil event (Hadiono, 2017). It also has
closed links with a statement declaring that Javanese
culture is filled with symbols (Sartini, 2009), where
in tahlil tradition is also full of philosophical
aesthetics.
One of the Javanese Muslim community who hold
tight tahlil tradition until now is citizens staying in
Sumbergesing Kulon, Gedangan, Malang, Indonesia.
This community has development of religious
activities because of their religious leader. As stated
by Berger, man as the creator of society is an
objective reality in which society will re-affect the
figure who created it by the changes of attitudes,
beliefs, morality, politics, religion, living behavior
and work (Poerwanti, 2006) (Maryati, K., & Juju,
2007). This community also has good environment.
The good environment will support the development
of religious activities (Arif, 2017).
Based on the explanation above, the researchers
described the form of tahlil tradition, the cause of
citizens participating in Tahlil tradition, and the
Basid, A., Habibi, N., Bella, M., Faisol, M., Yusuf, E., Hamzah, M., Al-Anshory, A. and Muassomah, .
Tahlil Tradition and Its Impact on Moslem Community’s Psycho-social Stability.
DOI: 10.5220/0010005000002917
In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 201-204
ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9
Copyright
c
 2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
201

impacts of tahlil tradition on stabilizing Moslem
community’s psyco-social stability. Therefore, this
study has significant values to moslem community
who keeps going on the tahlil tradition and the next
researchers who will conduct the study in the same
topic.
2 THE FORM OF TAHLIL
TRADITION
Tahlil tradition has a form contains of many readings.
The readings are usually same in general in most of
Moslem’s communities, but the researchers found the
additional form of tahlil tradition in Sumbergesing
Kulon, Gedangan, Malang, Indonesia as shown in
Table 1.
Table1: Forms of tahlil tradition.
Readin
g
Quantit
y
Announcemen
t
-
Surah al-
F
atihah 1 time
Surah al –
I
khlas 3 times
Surah al –
F
alaq 1 time
Surah an-Nas 1 time
Surah al –
F
atihah 1 time
Surah al -Baqarah verses 1-5 1 time
Surah al -Baqarah verse 163 1 time
Surah al -Baqarah verse 255 1 time
Surah al -Baqarah verses 284-286 1 time
Tahlil 11 times
I
sti
g
h
f
a
r
100 times
Sholawat 7 times
Tasbih 5 times
Pra
y
in
g
isha’ to
g
ethe
r
-
Eatin
g
to
g
ethe
r
-
Tahlil tradition is held regularly on Thursday at
6.30 pm. Participants in the tahlil are around 60
citizens. The activity was led by a religious leader.
The tahlil is opened by an announcement about the
public interest, then proceed to read together tahlil
readings. Tahlil readings contain of surah al-Fatihah,
surah al-Ikhlas three times, surah al-Falaq, surah an-
Nas, surah al-Fatihah, surah al-Baqarah verses 1-5,
surah al-Baqarah verse 163, surah al-Baqarah verse
255, surah al-Baqarah verses 284-286, reciting
Istighfar 11 times, reciting tahlil text one
hundred
times, reciting solawat seven times,
reading tasbih
five times, pray together, isha’ prayer
together, and is
closed by eating together.
3 THE CAUSE OF CITIZENS
PARTICIPATING IN TAHLIL
TRADITION
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Based on interview data from 40 citizens in May,
2018, the researchers found the causes of citizens
participating in tahlil tradition as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Simplified diagram showing the causes of
citizens participating in tahlil tradition.
The diagram gives a brief overview of causes of
40 citizens participating in tahlil tradition as follows:
100% want to pray for the relatives who have died,
95% want to gather with other citizens and need time
to share, 85% want to recite the Qur'an, 77,5% want
to know the latest news about the citizens, 15% think
of that tahlil is as an obligation like praying 5 times
in a day and sinful to be left, 10% want to remember
God, pray together, and motivate each other in
increasing their religious side, 10% feel loss many
things if not participate such as they cannot gather
with citizens, cannot exchange information with other
people, and cannot pray with other citizens, 5% there
are dishes provided. 5% obey the orders of their
parents as long as they do not violate the Sharia, 5%
want to give an example to the children, 5% always
feel the spirit in following any activities.
4 THE IMPACTS OF TAHLIL
TRADITION
Based on interview data from 40 citizens in May,
2018, the researchers found the impacts of tahlil
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tradition in stabilizing psychological and social
aspect as shown in two figures of subsection 4.1 and
4.2.
4.1 The Impacts of Tahlil Tradition in
Stabilizing Psychological Aspect
among Citizens
The researchers found the impacts of tahlil tradition
in stabilizing psychological aspect among citizens as
shown in Figure 2. In this context, psychology means
one of the knowledges belonging to empirical science
based on human experience (Faizah, & Lalu, 2006).
Figure 2: Simplified diagram showing the impacts of tahlil
tradition in stabilizing psychological aspect
among
citizens.
The diagram gives a brief overview of the impacts
of tahlil tradition in stabilizing psychological aspect
among citizens as follows: 100% feel that their
feeling quieter, 100% feel that they more responsive
when meeting people who need a help, 77.5% felt that
their fear of God increasing after they followed the
tradition of tahlil, while the remaining 22.5% said that
their fear of God was still the same as before they
followed tahlil, 72.5% felt more focused during
prayers while 27.5% felt tahlil did not affect the
quality of their prayers, 82.5% feel happy after
following tahlil, while the rest about 17.5% did not
feel it, 52.5% recalled someone passed away after
following Tahlil while the remaining 47.5% did not
feel that, 32.5% began to fear death after following
tahlil, while the rest about 67.5% did not feel it, and
22.5% feel more confident in their daily life, while
the remaining 77.5% do not feel that way.
4.2 The Impacts of Tahlil Tradition in
Stabilizing Social Aspect among
Citizens
The researchers found the impacts of tahlil tradition
in stabilizing social aspect among citizens as shown
in Figure 3. In this context, social means a way of how
individuals interact related (Suryani, 2017).
Figure 3: Simplified diagram showing the impacts of tahlil
tradition in stabilizing social aspect among
citizens.
The diagram gives a brief overview of the impacts
of tahlil tradition in stabilizing social aspect among
citizens as follows: 100% feel more familiar among
citizens, 100% are more diligent doing prayers in the
mosque, 87.5% feel more diligent in following other
activities that was held by citizens, 22.5% always
contribute ideas at meetings, 15% sometimes
contribute ideas at meetings and the remaining 62.5%
prefer silence and do not contribute ideas at meetings,
17.5% will contact their relatives, while 82.5% only
contact if there is a need only, and 17.5% regularly
visited the tomb of their relatives while the remaining
82.5% did not.
5 THE IMPACTS OF TAHLIL
TRADITION
One of the traditions that still alive until nowadays in
the Javanese Moslem community is the tahlil
tradition. From the various explanations above can be
taken the essence that the tahlil tradition has many
readings, is caused by various aspects and has impact
on stabilizing the psychological and social aspects
among citizens. The psychological and social impacts
bring citizens to the positive side of life. Therefore, it
is very much expected that the existence of a good
tradition must be alive among member of community
because the good tradition will lead good
environment and society.
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