Lombok is one of 2 main islands in Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB)
Province situated in the east of BALI Island and populated by more than 2.5
million people off 3.9 million NTB total populations - almost 90 % are Moslems.
Other religions in NTB are Hindu, Buddhist, Christian scattered into some sites
or small villages (labeled as Balinese village and so on). However, not whole
inhabitants of Balinese settlements practice Hinduism .In fact, number of
Moslems families also resides in Balinese neighborhood.
From a number of historical records and literature informing
the spread of Islam in Lombok, this region came to Lombok around the 14th
century, which is not far from the neighboring regions, such as Makassar ,
Buton , Bone , Sumbawa and some other islands along Nusa Tenggara. According to
Raden Itarawan ( 1998), it was Sunan Giri and his 44 disciples who introduced
Islam to the natives who were practicing animism, as from Sunan Giri’s
expedition were casted away in Bayan Village. Islam’s early propagation in
Lombok bequeathed a reminiscent site (mosque) called Masjid Beleq in Bayan as a
historical evidence.
As the time went on, Islam showed a rapid growth in Lombok.
The tenet of Islam spread prevalently in all directions. People can still find
some evidences of Islam propagation through Moslem scholars and many disciples
of the muftis (religious leaders) in most parts of Lombok. Since then, Islam
enroots strongly to era of modernism. The rising of numbers of boarding schoold
marks the growth of Islam in across the land.
The first biggest boarding school was established in Pancor,
called Nahdlatul Wathan ( NW) , founded by Almagfirullah Maulana Shyekh Abdul
Majid. His followers further spread Islam to whole directions. Afterwards, a
number of his students established their own boarding schools educating
hundreds of students. Nowadays, Islam has been embraced strongly in local
society.
Allah SWT bestows quick upturns and extraordinary natural
resources along with rapid growth of Islam in Lombok. Allah’s most astonishing
gift for the local people is manifested in extraordinary beautiful nature.
Since 20 years ago, for its natural resources, Lombok became a well-known
tourist destination. Not distracted by tourists, Islam remains as majority
among other religions in Lombok. Tourist occupation to Lombok had drastically
increased between 1998 and 2000. The number undesirably slumped down after the
Bali bombing in 2001 and 2002. Regardless this misfortune, tourism industry in
Lombo reemerged in 2010- 2011.
Governments’s program called as “Visit Lombok
Sumbawa” has become the new milestone of tourism development of Lombok and
Sumbawa by determining a target of One million visitors in 2012. Government and
all community member’ earnest efforts have proven successfully the industry to
grow back and reach a million visitors.
Within the leadership of local governor, tourism industry
demonstrates rapid improvement. In his first round service, Lombok Sumbawa exhibits more aggressively efforts to
drive in a new optimism to invite up to 4 million visitors in 2018. Tourism
industry places the second region’s largest source of income. Subsequently,
local government lays his innovation labeled as “ Wisata Syariah”. This brand
new genre of tourism guarantees Moslem travelers to experience “ legal’ (halal)
vacation in Lombok offering various Islamic legal facilities.
