Gus Kautsar’s Name Allegedly Misused: Why Did His Wife Issue the Clarification?
By: Tri Lukman Hakim, S.H.
Founder of Sosiolegal | Global-Indexed Socio-Legal Researcher (ORCID ID: 0009-0003-4829-1185)
The physical release of the book Islam ala Prabowo: Cara Prabowo Subianto Mengamalkan Ajaran Islam (Islam ala Prabowo: How Prabowo Subianto Practices Islamic Teachings) abruptly sparked widespread public controversy.
What began as a debate over content quickly escalated into a far more sensitive scandal: the alleged unauthorized use of a prominent cleric's name.
A central figure swept into the controversy is KH. Muhammad Abdurrahman Kautsar, widely known as Gus Kautsar, a charismatic young Islamic scholar from the Al-Falah Ploso Islamic Boarding School in Kediri.
In the table of contents, his name appears as the author of a chapter titled Dukungan Pesantren untuk Presiden Prabowo Subianto (Pesantren Support for President Prabowo Subianto) on page 318.
The storm peaked when a firm clarification was posted to social media by his wife, Ning Hj. Jazilah Annahdliyah. Her statement was direct: no permission was ever granted regarding the inclusion of Gus Kautsar's name in the publication.
Yet, behind widespread public sympathy, critical observers raised an essential question: this concerns the authorship of a commercial physical book, so why did his wife step forward? Why hasn't Gus Kautsar addressed the public directly?
The Paradox of Protecting Gus Kautsar’s Dignity: Rejecting the Fire While Fueling the Flames
Within traditional Islamic boarding school circles, this pattern of communication is frequently defended through the lens of ndalem (the cleric's inner household) traditions. The standard rationale argues that senior clerics must remain above daily, practical polemics. The wife’s public intervention is viewed as a protective shield to keep the cleric’s dignity intact and prevent him from being dragged into a national political drama.
From the perspective of strategic public communication, however, the premise of preventing escalation through this method contains a glaring paradox.
In reality, once the statement declaring unauthorized name usage was posted to digital spaces, Gus Kautsar was instantly thrust into the epicenter of national controversy. Members of the public who had no prior knowledge of page 318 suddenly began searching for and debating it.
Claiming an intent to dampen controversy while airing the grievance publicly is a clear contradiction: the fire is lit regardless, and the figure’s name remains trapped in the controversy—the only difference being that the words did not come directly from the cleric's mouth.
If the true objective was to decisively quell speculation, a direct 30-second video statement from Gus Kautsar would have resolved the debate far quicker than a surrogate clarification that only invited new questions.
A Hedging Strategy and Legal Evidentiary Vulnerabilities
The absence of a direct statement from the subject whose name was used has raised suspicions of diplomatic posturing. The chapter in question addresses boarding school support for President Prabowo Subianto, a subject carrying substantial political weight and legitimacy.
At this point, observers note potential elements of plausible deniability:
- To students (santri) and followers who expect scholarly independence, the wife’s post serves as reassurance that their cleric remains neutral.
- Concurrently, the absence of an explicit verbal denial from the cleric preserves diplomatic flexibility, preventing direct friction with power circles or key figures behind the book project.
Under positive legal frameworks, this approach has a critical vulnerability. The unauthorized use of a person's name in a commercial written work directly impacts Moral Rights under Article 5 of Indonesian Law No. 28 of 2014 on Copyright.
This right belongs exclusively to Gus Kautsar as an independent legal subject (natuurlijk persoon), not to his marriage or the pesantren as an institution.
In a formal court proceeding, a judge would not rule on an intellectual identity dispute based solely on social media posts from a spokesperson or spouse. Legally, such input remains third-party testimony (testimonium de auditu).
The court requires a direct, objective account from the principal: was consent genuinely withheld entirely, or was there prior informal dialogue, an interview, or verbal notes unilaterally transcribed by the editorial team?
Without a clear verbal yes or no from the principal, the public denial remains a unilateral claim from a purely evidentiary standpoint.
Editorial Negligence of the Publisher
Regardless of the communication strategy on Gus Kautsar’s side, the physical existence of page 318 remains a serious issue for the publishing industry and the editorial team behind Islam ala Prabowo.
Listing a prominent figure like Gus Kautsar as an independent chapter author without securing written informed consent constitutes a severe editorial oversight.
The practice of compiling transcripts from public lectures or informal discussions into a commercial book under someone's name without a formal agreement breaches academic ethics and constitutes an unlawful act.
The publisher now bears the burden of proof: present written consent from the contributor, or acknowledge that the cleric’s name and authority were leveraged purely to elevate the book’s profile.
A physical book is an indelible historical document circulating across time, not a social media status update that can be deleted when tensions rise.
Safeguarding literary integrity and institutional prestige cannot rely on ambiguity. The public deserves full transparency: the publisher must be held accountable for editorial negligence, and Gus Kautsar must speak out clearly so that scholarly independence is not reduced to an ambiguous political commodity.
Source: This analysis is an English translation of an original op-ed by Tri Lukman Hakim S.H, published on the main journal. [Read Original Article in Indonesian]
Comments
Post a Comment