Officials Who Vanish Like Djinns

Prologue: Black Magic Without the Incense

In this country, Indonesia, a branch of the occult is taught at no Islamic boarding school. It appears on no university syllabus, yet a certain class of public officials practise it with great fluency: the art of vanishing. No incense is required, nor a cloak, nor seven days and seven nights of fasting. A single condition will do: make sure your name is mentioned in connection with a sting operation by the Corruption Eradication Commission, the KPK. The moment the news breaks, the body that only yesterday was cheerfully snipping the ribbon on a new bridge grows thin, fades, and slips out of view, as though the laws of gravity and the criminal code alike had been suspended for anyone of sufficient rank.

The public, meanwhile, settles into their seats as loyal viewers. No subscription is needed, and no ticket. Switch on the television or open a phone, and the most expensive soap opera in the republic streams for free, sponsored, as ever, by the taxpayer.

 

Motive: When Corruption Gets Promoted to a Genre

Every time the KPK carries out an OTT, the operasi tangkap tangan or ‘caught-red-handed operation’, the whole nation holds its breath and wonders who will land the lead role this time. The synopsis is almost always the same, yet somehow it never grows dull. There are billions of rupiah, laid out as neatly as a contemporary art exhibition. There are land disputes and construction projects worth enough to build a hundred schools, which somehow always end up as one very large house. There are building permits which, in other countries, are mere slips of paper, but which here carry a price, a tariff and, on occasion, a discount for loyal customers.

Corruption is no longer just a breach of the law. It has been promoted to a genre in its own right, complete with all the rules of dramatic construction: conflict, intrigue, witnesses who suddenly lose their memories and, of course, a twist around every corner. At first the money is said to be the proceeds of a business venture; then it becomes a deposit, then a loan, and by the final episode it is the winnings of an extended family’s savings circle, the arisan, which happened to amount to well over ten billion rupiah. Any scriptwriter would be green with envy at such creativity.

 

Episode 1: The Leading Man Vanishes from the Screen

The opening scene is always dramatic. Sirens, camera flashes, and the solemn phrase read out by the spokesperson: a caught-red-handed operation has been carried out. The public waits for the leading man’s face to appear on screen. But, like the celebrity guest star who is far too famous to turn up for filming, he is nowhere to be seen. His phone is switched off, his aide knows nothing, and his driver has just taken leave to visit his home village. He has not run away, his associates insist; he is simply not somewhere that can be found.

 

Episode 2: The Empty Chair, Best Supporting Actor

In the second episode the camera moves to the parliament building and lingers on the new star, the most reliable attendee of all: the empty chair. Meeting after meeting, it sits faithfully in the front row, its nameplate still proudly in place, as though its owner had just stepped out for a cup of coffee and never came back. The empty chair is the most disciplined employee in the land. It is never late, never dozes off in a session, never accepts an envelope, and never issues a statement that causes a stir. If every legislator were as good as it is, the republic might have been clean long ago.

Behind the comedy, however, the empty chair carries a bitter meaning. It is a small monument to accountability, which left without saying goodbye. Every nameplate sitting idle in front of a vacant seat is like a headstone that has not yet been given a date.

 

Episode 3: The Official Returns, Armed with a Familiar Excuse

After a while, the official reappears, naturally with an announcement full of pathos. The excuse is astonishing only because we already know the whole list by heart. He was at prayer, and who would dare challenge a man in communion with God? He had another engagement of great importance which, regrettably, cannot be explained. Or he was suddenly taken ill, with some mysterious ailment that clears up miraculously just as the meeting ends. The public is invited to believe, and if it does not believe, the public is invited to keep quiet.

At this point the audience is treated like a small child told to swallow its vegetables without asking why. We are asked to believe that coincidence can strike again and again with the regularity of a railway timetable; that whenever a case comes to light there is always some urgent act of worship, some sudden illness, some appointment that simply cannot be moved.

 

Episode 4: A Cliffhanger Ending, as Usual

A good soap opera always closes its season on a cliffhanger, and the producers of this country know the rule well. Has the official truly vanished, or is he merely hiding in the thick undergrowth of bureaucratic jargon? Perhaps he is sheltering behind such magic phrases as ‘we respect the legal process’, ‘we await the official statement’, or ‘that is a matter for another party’. Those sentences work far better than any invisibility cloak in a wizarding novel. The audience is told to wait for the next season, and then the season after that, until it has forgotten who it was looking for in the first place. 

The Bureaucratic Djinn: Present for the Signature, Gone for the Accountability

To be honest, our officials are in fact highly skilled djinns, though of a particular kind: the bureaucratic djinn. Its pattern of appearances is consistent and entirely predictable. It materialises in a crisply pressed safari suit at every groundbreaking ceremony, at every group photograph and, above all, at every signing of a project contract whose value leaves the calculator short of zeros. On such occasions it is present one hundred per cent, arriving early and leaving late. But when the time comes to explain where the money went, its body evaporates once more, leaving behind only the scent of expensive cologne in the meeting room.

The irony is that a genuine djinn is at least honest about its nature. It never pretends to be a human being who has promised to serve the people. The bureaucratic djinn takes its oath of office with one hand on the holy book, and then disappears with the very same hand.

More depressing still, the evidence turns out to be far easier to find than its owner. Piles of seized cash are displayed neatly in front of the cameras, photographed from every angle, counted again and again in front of the reporters. It is so real, so solid and so famous that we are left wondering who, exactly, is the ghost in this story. The money exists; it can be touched, counted, and entered into the case file. It is the owner who cannot be seen, heard or reached. In this country, it seems, a pile of banknotes may appear on the front page before the man who will admit to owning it. 

Epilogue: What Has Vanished Is Not the Djinn but the Shame

So let us set one thing straight: the official who vanishes is not a djinn. A djinn needs no state-funded car, no entourage of aides, and no political party ready to close ranks around him. The official who disappears from the screen is simply an ordinary human being who knows perfectly well that the system around him is hospitable enough to let him disappear. He can vanish because the legal process crawls along at the pace of a tortoise in judicial robes; because there is a culture that treats corruption as an occupational hazard; because the circles of power are busier protecting their friends than protecting public trust; and because we, the public, are too quick to look away the moment a new show comes on.

In other words, the empty chair is not merely a mirror held up to the official; it is a mirror held up to all of us. It reflects the face of a system so accustomed to repeating the same script that it has forgotten this is not a soap opera. This is the pothole-ridden road, the leaking school roof and the clinic that has run out of medicine, whose funding vanished along with the leading man.

 

The question we ought to be asking is no longer ‘where has the official gone?’ but ‘who let him go, and why are we still watching?’ Until an answer is sought, this drama will run on, season after season, with the empty chair patiently waiting and the audience quietly paying the entire cost of production.

Note: This essay is a work of satire that draws attention to general patterns and phenomena; it does not accuse any particular individual. Everyone remains entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.

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True Luxury: Time, Health, Peace of Mind, and the Wisdom of Revelation

There is a quiet but persistent idea circulating in contemporary wellness and lifestyle writing, often associated with the content creator Jade Bonacolta: that true luxury has nothing to do with material accumulation. Instead, it resides in six simple, often overlooked gifts — time, health, a tranquil mind, unhurried mornings, the freedom to travel, and a home filled with love. This idea resonates far beyond social media aphorisms. Read carefully, it echoes principles that have been embedded in Islamic scripture and prophetic teaching for fourteen centuries. This article explores each of the six "luxuries" and traces its roots in the Qur'an and Hadith.

 

1. Time: The Asset We Waste Most Freely

Bonacolta's framing of time as "a space for savouring life's journey" rather than merely "a ticking clock" mirrors one of the shortest and most solemn chapters of the Qur'an.

"By time. Indeed, mankind is in loss, except for those who believe and do righteous deeds, and advise each other to truth, and advise each other to patience." (Surah Al-'Asr, 103:1–3)

The chapter's brevity is itself instructive: God swears by time as a matter demanding no elaboration, because its value is self-evident yet perpetually squandered. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ reinforced this in a well-known hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari:

"There are two blessings that many people lose: health and free time." (Sahih al-Bukhari)

2. Health: The Forgotten Foundation

Bonacolta's observation that health is "the luxury we notice only once it's gone" is almost a paraphrase of the hadith cited above. The Qur'an, too, frames physical wellbeing as entirely dependent on divine will, not human entitlement:

"And when I am ill, it is He who cures me." (Surah Ash-Shu'ara, 26:80)

This verse, spoken by Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham), reframes health not as a possession but as a loan — something granted, and therefore something to be stewarded and thanked for, rather than taken for granted.

3. A Tranquil Mind: Freedom from Excess Worry

The idea that peace of mind is "not the absence of problems but reconciliation with oneself" has a direct Qur'anic parallel:

"Those who believe and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah. Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." (Surah Ar-Ra'd, 13:28)

The Prophet's brief counsel — "Do not become angry" (la taghdab), repeated three times to a man seeking a single piece of advice (Sahih al-Bukhari) — captures the same principle Bonacolta describes: emotional regulation, not external circumstance, is the real determinant of inner calm.

4. Slow Mornings: The Blessed Beginning

The Qur'an opens an entire chapter with an oath by the dawn:

"By the dawn." (Surah Al-Fajr, 89:1)

And the Prophet ﷺ is reported to have prayed:

"O Allah, bless my nation in its early mornings." (Recorded by al-Tirmidhi — grading should be verified before citing)

This theological emphasis on the early hours as spiritually charged time gives Bonacolta's "unhurried morning" a devotional dimension: the quiet cup of coffee, the soft light, the whispered prayer are not indulgences but continuations of a prophetic pattern of beginning the day deliberately, not reactively.

5. Travel: Expanding the Self by Expanding the World

Bonacolta's link between travel and "broadened perspective" finds direct scriptural instruction:

"Say: Travel through the land and observe how He began creation." (Surah Al-'Ankabut, 29:20)

Qur'anic travel is never purely recreational; it is framed as an epistemic and spiritual exercise — a way of reading the world as a text alongside scripture. The Prophet's own travel prayer situates journeying within a framework of humility and dependence on God, rather than self-sufficient adventure:

"O Allah, You are the Companion on the journey and the Successor over the family." (Sahih Muslim)

6. A Home Filled with Love: The Small Paradise

The final and perhaps most emotionally resonant "luxury" — a loving home — is directly addressed in one of the Qur'an's most quoted verses on marriage and family:

"And among His signs is that He created for you spouses from among yourselves, that you may find tranquillity in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy." (Surah Ar-Rum, 30:21)

The triad named here — sakinah (tranquillity), mawaddah (affection), and rahmah (mercy) — corresponds almost precisely to Bonacolta's description of home as a space of security, warmth, and belonging. The Prophet ﷺ extended this to the spiritual atmosphere of the home itself:

"Do not turn your houses into graveyards; indeed Satan flees from the house in which Surat al-Baqarah is recited." (Sahih Muslim)

Conclusion: Luxury Redefined

What emerges from placing these six ideas alongside scripture is not a coincidental overlap but a striking convergence. Contemporary minimalist and wellness discourse — of which Jade Bonacolta's reflections are one popular expression — has, whether consciously or not, rediscovered a value system the Qur'an and Hadith articulated long ago: that the truest wealth is unhurried time, sound health, a settled heart, a blessed morning, an expanded worldview, and a loving household. None of these can be purchased outright; all of them can be cultivated through gratitude (shukr), remembrance (dhikr), and deliberate living.

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