From Conflict to Socio-Ecological Harmony: The Social Imaginary of ʿAlī Aḥmad Bākathīr’s Laḥn al-Salām in Dialogue with Indonesia
Abstract
This study investigates how ʿAlī Aḥmad Bākathīr’s Arabic poem Laḥn al-Salām constructs a socio-ecological imaginary of harmonious common life and examines its dialogic relevance to contemporary Indonesian society. Employing an interpretive qualitative design, the study analysed eleven purposively selected poetic units through close reading, reflexive thematic interpretation, semantic-relational analysis, and temporal mapping. The analysis focused on textual configurations of conflict, peace, solidarity, love, justice, and human–environment relations, while Indonesian socio-ecological scholarship was used as a contextual rather than representational frame. The findings reveal three interconnected orientations. First, the poem transforms a negative imaginary of war, enmity, and environmental damage into an explicit rejection of violence. Second, it expands collective belonging from bounded group identity toward inclusive human solidarity, with love and justice functioning as normative foundations of peace. Third, the poem extends harmony beyond interpersonal relations by incorporating soil, water, vegetation, earth, and sky into an interdependent order of life. These orientations form a temporal structure that moves from damaged relations, through ethical reorientation, toward a projected socio-ecological future. The study advances Arabic literary scholarship by conceptualising ecological imagery not merely as symbolic representation of nature but as a constitutive element of an imagined social order. Its implications extend to environmental humanities, peace-oriented literary studies, and intercultural education by demonstrating how poetry can function as a critical-imaginative resource for rethinking inclusive and ecologically responsible forms of common life.
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