Effect of Changes Toward the Worker of DKM Masjid
Raya Bandung Regarding the Increased Crowd of
Alun-alun Bandung
Abi Dzarr Alghifari Wijanarko
19012194

School of Business and Management
Institut Teknologi Bandung
2015

Abstract
The development of alun-alun Bandung or the city square has attract many crowds to visit the new recreational public space. However the crowd affect the religious activity on the
Masjid Raya Bandung the mosque that located exactly beside the square. The worker of
DKM Masjid Raya Bandung, an organization responsible for the operational activity of the mosque, might be affected because the visitor af alun-alun started to use the mosque as other activity than prayer. Using anthropological approach, this research use interviews on the worker and participant observation to know the effect of the change happened towards the worker of the mosque.
The findings show that altough there are some problems affect the routine of the worker, the worker feels a lot of more positive effect with the mosque is now having more prayer and having richer religious activity. The discourse of the worker also show that the values, beliefs, and knowledge of the worker shape their perception towards the change.

Keywords: Change, Organization, Islam, Religious, Values, Discourse

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Table of Contents
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Literature Review .................................................................................................................................. 5
Methodology ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Observation ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Interview ........................................................................................................................................... 6
Secondary Sources ............................................................................................................................ 6
Research Findings and Analysis............................................................................................................. 7
Change on Activity of The Mosque Visitors ...................................................................................... 7
Change of Worker Routine in DKM ................................................................................................... 9
The Perception of The Worker Towards The Change ...................................................................... 10
How The Worker Cope With The Problems .................................................................................... 10
Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 12
Further Research Recommendation ................................................................................................... 12
References .......................................................................................................................................... 13

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Introduction
Masjid Raya Bandung is one of the largest mosques in Bandung, the third largest city in Indonesia by population. It is called the Great Mosque or the Masjid Raya / Masjid Agung, the terms that have given to the mosques that serve as the center of the Islamic activities of the city, or to mosque that its ownership belongs to the local government. Since the mosque built in the 1812, it has been renovated 14 times until its todays shape, last being renovated in
2003, accomodating up to 13.000 prayers at a time. The mosque located in the center of
Bandung, exactly beside the city square or the locals called alun-alun, a common public space in Java’s cities, usually serve as the gathering center of the people. The mosque is owned by the government of Jawa Barat and its daily activities is organized by DKM (Dewan
Kemakmuran Masjid) Masjid Raya Bandung, an organization funded by government for the operation of religious activities in the mosque.
DKM Masjid Raya Bandung is the organization that built for three purpose, first imarah, serving the richness of religious activity in the mosque. Second, idarah, organizing the administration and bureucracy of the mosque. Third, ri’ayah, means maintaining the physical condition of the mosque.The organization had 40 worker, from a religious activity worker, admisistration staff, to security and general affairs. The organization itself funded from both govenrment of Jawa Barat budget and donation from prayer, visitor, and philantropist. The worker serve full-time, attending 6 days work per week with flexible work hour depends on the mosque activities. The DKM organization itself are member of the
Badan Pengelola Islamic Center (BPIC) Jawa Barat, an parent organization for Great Mosque in Bandung such as PUSDAI Islamic Center Mosque and Masjid Raya Bandung itself.
Located exactly beside alun-alun or the city square and in the middle of a bustling market area in Bandung, makes the mosque regularly visited by tourist or shoppers around the area. At the end of 2014, the alun-alun has been renovated from a regular grass field into a park with gardens an artificial grass, providing a new recreational spot for people in
Bandung. The new alun-alun became so popular that the visitor increasing from hundreds to thousands in weekend. It attracts families that want to spend their weekend with the kids playing in a public space, a situation that rarely happened in Bandung with its limited public space. The popularity of alun-alun itself bring a direct effect to its nearby neighbor, the
Masjid Raya Bandung mosque. Located exactly in a one complex just few meters beside

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alun-alun without any border, the mosque also receiving an increase amount of temporary visitors that originally came for alun-alun but also want to visit the mosque. Altough, most of the temporary visitors are muslim, since the majority of Bandung residence are muslim, they are sometimes behave not as a prayer but more as a tourist that seeking a place for a rest or other non-religious activities.
These situations might bring a lot of new effects to Masjid Raya Bandung, especially the worker of the DKM as the party that directly impacted because these changes. A lot of new things might have different effect to each worker as they have different exposure towards the change. It would be important to know how the worker and organization as a whole react to these new changes as it could impact the future activities of the organization.

This research is going to find and analyze these changes happened to the DKM as an organization and its worker from the effect of alun-alun recent increase of popularity. The information gathered from this research could provide further information about how DKM as a religious organization reacted on such changes and it could be used as a further data for the organization to decide the next step regarding these new changes. Based on that objectives, the research question will be:
1. What kind of changes happened on the routine of the workers?
2. What are the workers views regarding the changes?
3. How do the workers cope with the changes?
There are several data required to answer the research question. First is interview from different worker that has different exposure on the changes. The interview will also conducted in both foreman worker and top management to know how horizontal and vertical reaction of the organization. Second, a participant observation on the activities of the worker that affected by the changes and to know how the worker react regarding the changes and/or problems. This research is going to be focused on several anthropological issues. First one is the culture of the organization. By knowing the culture, beliefs, and values of the organization and individual we can relate to their views regarding the changes on how are these values and beliefs affect their opinions regarding the changes. Second one is the discourse of the worker, it will show the kind of reasoning the worker love to talk on how they can cope with the changes. 4

Literature Review
Addressing issue on the research question about how the worker cope with the situation, it needs to be looked in the way of that te worker are muslim and they are working in a religious institution that serve in the house of worship. The reason is because worker in a profit organization could have different approach with religious worker when they are facing a problems.
According to Ahmad (2009) one thing that might influence the work of a muslim worker is the work itself which is considered an act of Ibadah (worship of Allah) and
Amanah (trust). Being a worker that devouting themselves in a religious organization means that they are also worshippong the god with their work. Trust is a psychological contract which carries an important responsibility for the worker. Such responsibilities are important in Muslim’s life in order to receive forgiveness of Allah and the true success in this life and the hererafter. This literature gives insight to the research if the worker of the DKM have te same perception towards their job and how those perception affect their reaction towards the change. 5

Methodology
Observation
There are two kinds of observation to gather data in this research, they are participant observation and covert observation. Participant observation is the observation that the researcher participate in the activity of what they are observing. This method is used in situation which observer need to know a deeper appreciation of the phenomena. The covert observation is the one when the subject being observed did not know the presence of the observer. This observation is used when the subject might change their behavior when they are being watched and potray their ideal self rather than their true self. It could be used for confirming a statement gathered from interview to a phenomena.
There are totals of 6 observation being conducted in the research site. They are:


The crowd of alun-alun and their activity around the mosque using covert observation. There are one observation on weekday and two observation on weekend, one in the day and the other is in the evening. Each observation take 1-1,5 hours.



Three observation on working activity of the worker, twice on weekend and once in weekday. They are conducted both in the office and in the mosque perimeter near alun-alun. Each observation take about 1 hour.

Interview
This research use a semi-structured interview, conducted to 7 respondents ranging from foreman worker to top management. The interview guide is derived from the research question, with also some added topic asked about special occurence on each job. The researcher takes notes on the interview data with the permission of the respondent and did not use any recording device. The researcher arrange the interview on the worker’s free time and it takes about 30-60 minutes each. The data collected from interview will be confirmed later by the convert observation to know if the answer is the same with what the workers do.

Secondary Sources
As the information of the condition on the research site before the changes occured required, some secondary data such as photos from internets, organizational archives are needed to compare the condition before and after the changes. The sources will be collected from several internet websites containing information about the condition of the mosque before 2014
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Research Findings and Analysis
Change on Activity of The Mosque Visitors
As the Great Mosque of West Java, Masjid Raya Bandung has different kind of activity atmosphere with other different mosques in Bandung. The difference itself came from the fact that not like other mosques that gather prayers from neighborhood around it, it also gather visitor from all areas around Greater Bandung and sometimes from other area in
West Java such as Garut or Tasikmalaya. These visitors that came from far area usually went to the mosque for big events such as Tabligh Akbar, a gathering of followers that came for religios preaching and God appraising. The other kind of prayers come from tourist or locals that went shopping around the area of the mosque. These shoppers usually went to the mosque to pray and rest around noon and afternoon prayer.
With those big range of visitors, Masjid Raya Bandung serve not only as a place to pray but also a place to learn, gather, and even rest area for the tourist around. The mosqe itself accomodate this environment by dividing the area for prayer and area for other activity such as teaching, or seminars. They have a huge area inside located at the very west of the mosque serve as a praying area. This area are kept clean and quiet with people only entering the area for praying activities such as shalat, the 5-time-a-day-pray, quran readings and small teaching forum. The mosque also have a big indoor plaza-like area located at the east of praying area. This area serve as the gathering event venue for huge mass, a free area for visitors to just sit around, reading, and rest. This plaza atmosphere also different from the prayer area, with more people hanging around, a not-so-clean floor because not all of the visitor wash themselves before entering the area, and more louder because some children playing in the area. This situation already occured for a long time even before the rennovation of alun-alun
Before the rennovation the outside perimeter area of the mosque is filled with food stall and street stall selling snacks and craft for tourist around the area. This situation gather tourist around the area to sit on the mosque’s terraces and rest and eat their food there.
Sometimes they would sleep on the inside of the mosque around the plaza area and rest there.
One of the worker of the mosque that have been working there for more than ten years said,
“at that time there are already visitors that only came to the mosque for other purpose than praying and will just spent their time on the mosque hanging around, and it is not forbidden if they keep their manners”.
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After the rennovation of alun-alun, the food stall are removed and replaced with the new clean alun-alun free from food sellers. The grass of the field changed with an artificial one and the area around beautified by some gardens and artwork. Visitor even need to take their footwear off if they want to enter the grass area. This new beautified alun-alun attracts many people from area around Bandung and became very popular, gathering only just hundreds visitor to thousands visitor in weekend. Many families came bringing their own food to have picnic, having their kid a play area in public space that is particularly rare in
Bandung. Many local tourist from other cities around Bandung even came in a groups, wanting to feel the new atmosphere of a public recreation area that they do not have in their city. The popularity is even still high until its third months which was when this research is being conducted.
The increase amount of crowds gathering around the alun-alun area brings new effect to the activity on Masjid Raya Bandung. This huge crowds are mostly came for the alun-alun for recreation, however, they also visit the mosque for several circumtances. First, when the noon prayer time comes. When the noon prayer time called in usually around 12.00 am, the muslim male crowd, not all of them, about 2/3 of them will came to the mosque for the prayer. It gather a huge prayer mass that a worker of the religious activity in DKM said
“usually there are only 3-5 rows of people praying at a time, but now there could be a mass of
10-15 row of prayers in a time..”.
Second, is when the alun-alun area are too crowded, the weather are too hot or there its raining outside, the mass of crowd in alun-alun will ove to the area on mosque’s terraces and inside on the plaza area. Most of the crowd that moved to the mosque sometimes continue their activity from the outside like having a picnic, or the kid playing, talking with each other loudly, inside the mosque. They also did not wash themselves as it supposed to before entering the mosque making the floor dirty for praying activities. The DKM react with this situation by closing the praying area on the west and opens it only around the prayer time to keep it clean and quiet.
Third, although several things above mightcreate a problems in the religious activities on the mosque, the crowd also bring a fortune to the DKM organization. These crowd also contribute to donate to the mosque from the donation box around the mosque. An administrative representator of the DKM said that the amount of donation increased from

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only 6-12 million rupiahs a week to 13-18 million a week even peaking at 24 million a week of donation in the early opening of alun-alun.

Change of Worker Routine in DKM
Since there are a lot of new things to be taken care, the routine of the worker also changed a little bit. The first thing to consider when a huge mass of crowd gather around is cleanliness. The thorough cleaning system of the mosque itself usually being scheduled twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. It consist of sweeping and mopping the floors as the mosque need to be kept clean from dirt, dust, and especially najis, which is urine and feces. There are no special staff assigned for cleaning purpose instead the DKM create a schedule for the worker to contribute cleaning the mosque.
The staff that being assigned for the cleaning usually are the younger staff from general affair. When being asked about the changes on their routine, one of them said
“Usually there are only two cleaning schedule a day, but now on the weekend we can clean up to four times a day depends on the condition of the mosque, usually it is the dirtiest when a sudden rain pours and the crowd from alun-alun moved here”.
The other thing that change are the routine of the religious teacher. The teacher, or usually called mudaris in the organization, said “more people from around area in Jawa Barat now came to Masjid Raya Bandung in groups to learn, some are Islam Teacher from school, and some are the groups of housewife, some are students, they came to learn quran and also having a recreation around. Before, people usually come to PUSDAI to learn but since alunalun is now one of the hottest place to visit, they choose Masjid Raya Bandung to learn.”
Another mudaris said, “usually on weekend only one teacher are being standby to accompany visitor that want to learn, but now, with a initial scheduling we can provide up to 4 teacher a day.” Since there are a lot of more visitor want to learn, the teacher being standby on the office are now increased to two or three on weekend. Their work is increased by these new schedule and it is one of the few things that change their daily routine as many of the teacher usually find another teaching schedule with groups outside the mosque before the change.
The change on routine would have different effect on each worker as each of them has different exposure on the new things as described above. There are also some worker that might not be affected directly but indirectly affected such as administration worker in the
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office that might have to arrange new schedules for the worker regarding the change for example. This research will give findings about how each worker perceive these new change and how could they built that can of perception about the change.

The Perception of The Worker Towards The Change
This research will divide the perception of the worker into two, the postive reaction and the negative reaction. Based on what the researcher finds, majority of the worker feels there are a lot of postive effect happened. First, a lot of worker feel happy that the amount of prayer is increased since the increased popularity of alun-alun. A top management worker said “well, because one of the purpose of the DKM is imarah, which means the prosperous religious activity, we are happy that we accomplished one of our mission by attracting more prayer.” The worker feels that the purpose of the mosque that it to be a center of prayer is accomplished with these condition and makes the feel that they have succesfully completed one of their goals as an organization.
Second, majority of worker from top management and administrative one is happy to talk about te increased donation on the mosque. Since the donation increased the quality of the work on the office is also increased. Based on observation and interview some worker are happy that now there are given a better lunch or snack when there is a meeting or an events.
By observing their conversation the worker feels surprised that there are a lot of new things provided for them on work hour such as snack and drinks.
Altough majority of the worker love to talk about the positive things, some also admit that there are also a lot of new problems to be taken care of because of the crowd as described on previous description about the crowds. They admit that now there are a lot of new visitor that does not know the manner and etiquette inside a mosque. They are concerned that the crowds will disturb the people than want to go to the mosque for prayer.

How The Worker Cope With The Problems
In this part, this research will analyze the discourse of the worker on coping with the change. There are three major discourse the worker loves to talk about the change, first the positive attitude discourse, such as “.. yes there are a lot of negative problems, but i think the positive is bigger than the negative one”. This discourse show that some worker feel or

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maybe like to think that therea are some negative effect but since there are also a lot of postive effect they are okay with that.
Second, is the values discourse , such as “... there are some difficulties in this job, however i am doing this job for God and this is only one of the test that God gives to us, so if we just do our job sincerely, God will repay us with good things later”. Many of the worker had a long religious experience, some are comes from islamic schools, and some are islamic teachers. This background form a strong values on how they do their job. They are more open to any kind of change because they feel that they would just do any kind of challenges because they are serveing in the house of God.
Third, optimist discourse, such as “ this recent development around Bandung is just started, i think we are just one of them and people are also will continue to develop, the development of the cities will continue, so does the people and us as an organization that a part of it”. This discouse comes from top management worker as they are more directly involved with the preparation of development with the government. They know a lot of things a bout the development plan much more than other worker so they are more optimist about the change process and like to continue the change process with a positive minded approach. All of those discourse are developed from the values of each individuals and the influence of the organization beliefs also the position, rights, and responsibility of the individual in the organization.

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Conclusions
The changes that happened on the DKM organization is because an external factor.
Since different worker had different exposure to the external party, they also have different change on their routine. Some worker might have a huge change on their routine such as the worker assigned for cleaning activities and the teacher for the religious lecture. However, some worker also might not feel indirect change such as the administration staff that has to re-design the work schedule for example. This might show that organization has to look specifically when identifyinf the effect of change in their organization because each party has different exposure on the change.
The research also show that majority of the worker feel a lot of more positive effect rather than negative effect on the changes. This situation might happened because on the reasoning on how do they cope with the change that are basically based on their values and beliefs. Since it was a religious organization, the motivation of the worker to work there is to devout themselves on the religion by serving in the house of God. These value and beliefs affect their perception and create as a protector for the worker from negative minds towards the changes. This situation show that values of individuals and organization, supported by their work motivation to devout themselves on the job, create a shield for the worker to became affected too much with negative effects.

Further Research Recommendation
1. The research is being conducted in a short period and only after the change happened, further research might show a better findings if conducted in a comparative study between before-after.
2. The literature review being used is only from academic literature, further research on religious subject might also include review from religious sources for a better understanding in beliefs and values.
3. This research only gather data from the affected organization, further research might also gather data from the source of change organization if the change happened in external party.
4. Further research might also assess the motivation of the worker joining the organization as it shaped the mentality towards the change.

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References
Ali, A. J. (2009). Levels of existence and motivation in Islam. Journal of Management
History
Newing, H. (2010). Conducting research in conservation: social science methods and practice. Routledge.
Gellner, D. N., & Hirsch, E. (Eds.). (2001). Inside organizations: Anthropologists at work.
Oxford: Berg.
Bate, S. P. (1997). Whatever happened to organizational anthropology? A review of the field of organizational ethnography and anthropological studies.Human relations, 50(9), 11471175.

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