Biography Narrative

Kamilia Hamidah is the Director of Centre for Peace Promotion of the Institute Pesantren Mathali’ul Falah Pati Central Java, Indonesia, which focuses on promoting, educating, and training peaceful values. Over the last two years, she has been a trainer and programme coordinator for several peacebuilding trainings, capacity building trainings and training of trainers for peace facilitators – all with the important shared component of teaching the value of understanding religious differences.

For more than ten years she has served as one of the board members of www.pesantrenvirtual.com, which has more than 100,000 daily visitors. She has been invited to speak at several conferences and forums on gender, human rights and Islamic Sharia. Recently, she was a speaker at the International Seminar on Sharia and Human Rights, Conflict and Coexistence in the Contemporary Muslim Society hosted by the Department of Sharia and Law of the State Islamic University Jakarta. She was one of the authors of the book “Konflik Intra dan Antar Agama” (Inter-intra Religious Conflict).

In addition, she speaks on community development, including community economic development planning, social development and policy planning, sociology of the rural and paradigm and theories of social change. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in theology and comparative religions and her master’s degree in politics and international relations from the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan. Her motto is “transcendental piety should go hand in hand with social piety and sincerity is the essence to keep the balance between the two.”

Interreligious Activities and Initiatives

PANTURA Interreligious Journey : Interreligious Journey in Northern Coast Lane of Central Java of Indonesia

Java is a region that multi-religious communities live peaceful and tolerance. Followers of different religions have long experience of live together in harmony and respect each other. It is common in Java, one family can consists of different religions adherence. Followers of different religions have been in harmony since long time in the region. The multi-religious culture of Central Javanese society has blessed the region with varied religious cultural centers. Religious sites like Sunan Muria and the Sunan Kudus Mosques represent Islamic religio-cultural centre, while historical churches in Central Java represent Christian community like Garden of Gethsemane Prayer Hill in Ungaran. For Hinduism there are also many interesting place that can be explored like the Great Temple of Giri Natha in Semarang. While, Sam Poo Kong Temple in Semarang is popularly known as one of most influential symbol of religious tolerance in Central Java.