Are hard-liners deviants or true believers?

Are hard-liners deviants or true believers?

Ahmad Najib Burhani, Jakarta

Some of the moderate and liberal Muslims (I consider myself as
part of this group) often charge that hard-liners, jihadists,
terrorists and suicide bombers are not true believers. The
jihadist and terrorists are more aptly called deviant Muslims,
people with a fallacious understanding of Islam.

We also blame their activities as tarnishing the name of
Islam and harming its reputation before the hallmark of modern
civilization. Their interpretation of Islam is also said to be
destroying the religion's fundamental and truest mission. This is
what we have to say about them.

For the terrorists, jihadists, and hard-liner camps, there is
a strong conviction that their activities are solely for the sake
of the purity of Islam. The real intention of their jihad is for
the glory of Islam. They bravely conduct the most despised acts
in the mind of Westerners--i.e. terrorism -- in the hope that
Islam will eventually seize power. By doing so, peace in this
world will become a reality.

Abu Bakar Ba'aysir once said, "If they want to have peace,
they have to accept being governed by Islam." This group of
people understand Arabic language and recite the Koran well. They
follow the fatwa of authoritative clerics such as Sayyid Qutb,
Ibn Taymiyyah, Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab, Al-Maududi, Abdullah ibn
Baz, and Syekh Rabi' Hadi al Madkhaly. Imam Samudra, for
instance, recounts why he bombed Bali.

He quoted a translation for that verse from Yusuf Ali that
takhawwuf means "to terrorize", not "to make them afraid." "To
whom the terror should be directed? To the enemies of God, the
enemies of Islam."(Tempo, 10/9/04) As a counter to moderate
Muslims, Samudra accused them of hiding valid prophetic tradition
such as, "I am chosen as a Rasul (prophet) close to the Day of
Judgment to bring the sword."

Moderate Muslims, for him, display a hypocritical character
before Westerners for the sake of money.

From the ritual point of view, it seems that it is more
accurate for the radicals and terrorists to call themselves
Muslims. Compared to liberal and moderate Muslims, they are more
likely to be proud to use Islamic symbols, attend majlis ta'lim
(Islamic study group) more regularly, visit the mosques more
often, and are more eager to deliver Friday sermons. If we go
around Jakarta on Friday and visit some mosques, it is terribly
difficult to find liberal Muslims giving the Friday sermon.

Even though they are well aware that the Friday sermon is,
perhaps, the best way to promote a peaceful interpretation of
Islam to the Muslim community, moderate Muslim groups prefer to
voice their views by writing articles in major newspapers.

In other words, liberal Muslims are probably an elite group or
an elite movement that does not have a concrete tool to liberate
the Indonesian Muslim. They do not have, to use Paulo Freire's
term, "the pedagogy of the oppressed" or, in the Indonesian
context, "the pedagogy of the frustrated Muslims".

From the social point of view, it is not so difficult to point
out that some Islamic hard-liners are diligent in conducting
social work. Proponents of zakat (philanthropy) movements in
Indonesia, for instance, are dominated by people from this group.
Just visit and mingle with some zakat activists, from
organizations such as Dompet Dhuafa, PKPU, and Hidayatullah. Many
activists of the sharia movement in economic discourse and
activities are also against a liberal interpretation of Islam.

Now, the question is who are the true believers, the moderate,
liberal or radical Muslims? Who has the mandate from God to say
that this group is deviant while that group is true? Which group
more accurately represents Islam? What kind of evidence is needed
to say that a group is deviant? When two or three Islamic groups
take the same texts as their sources for claiming their monopoly
on the truth or accuse other groups of having a wrong
interpretation of Islam, can we use or take the same texts as a
tool to judge that the claim of one of them is the most accurate?

Might it be reasonable to say that the truth is not one, but
many, multifaceted and diverse. From the perspective of human
rights and democracy, it seems that the religious understanding
of the liberal and moderate Muslims is right, moral, lawful and
legitimate; while the religious performance of the radicals are
wrong, bad, sinful, illegal and illegitimate.

However, if we look at their outward appearance, hard-liner
groups look more Islamic, devout and orthodox.

We do not have a reliable instrument or mechanism to test and
verify the right or wrong of a certain belief and religious
understanding. I do not pretend to be a judge or referee for this
case. I also do not pretend to be able to give a correct answer.

These two extreme groups of Islam, liberal and radical, are
problematic. In finding a solution to the problems faced by
Muslims today, they have some apologetic claims, standard and
ready-made answers. In response to the issue of jihad, suicide
bombing, the status of women, human rights and democracy, the
liberals boringly claim that: "Islam is a peaceful religion,"
"tolerance and democracy have very deep roots in Islam", and
"Islam liberates women and honors human rights."

They repeat this jargon. While the same dull theme is declared
in public by the hard-liners, such as: al-Islam huwa al-hal
(Islam is a total solution), al-Islamu shalihun likulli al-zaman
wa al-amkinah (Islam can be applied anytime and anywhere, it has
no boundaries), and Islam is din wad daulah (Islam is religion
and a system of government).

The former group suffers from a crisis of identity, while the
later bears an acute social frustration, projecting an enduring
feeling of powerlessness, defeat and alienation by defining Islam
as the exact antithesis of the West.

The writer works at the Research Center for Society and
Culture in the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), and is a
member of Muhammadiyah. He can be reached at najib27@yahoo.com.