Jihad call based on emotion: NU leader

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The way some Muslim groups have expressed their opposition to President Abdurrahman Wahid's views on the conflict in Maluku has raised questions about their ability to defend the interests of Islam, a Nahdlatul Ulama official said.

Said Aqiel Siradj, deputy chief of NU's Syariah lawmaking body, said the call for jihad by the groups was based more on emotion than the desire to forge a strong nation and defend Islam.

"They only create terror and do nothing meaningful in terms of developing Islam," Said said after addressing thousands of NU members attending a Koran recital in Yogyakarta over the weekend.

He said NU would deal with hard-line Muslim groups with patience and would always attempt to avoid physical conflict.

"Insya Allah (God willing), we will be able to deal with the existence (of these groups)," he said.

Jihad has been misunderstood and misinterpreted by the radical groups, he said. Said cited as an example the fact that many Muslims considered Indonesia's struggle against Dutch colonialism a war against Christians.

Jihad is meant to generate goodness and peace in life, not the other way around, he said.

"One form of jihad is providing aid for needy people, both Muslims and non-Muslims," Said commented.

Separately, the Islamic Forum of Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah said here it could no longer respect and follow orders from Abdurrahman.

"Abdurrahman is more concerned with international pressure than rescuing his own people in Maluku. He keeps saying (the violence in Maluku) is over, but in fact the war is still going on," the group's leader, Abdul Fatah, said over the weekend.

"What we are witnessing now is an Umaro (leader of the nation) who cannot be trusted," Abdul said, adding that his group would turn to war as a last resort.

The group said it was ready to send some 400 volunteer fighters from Yogyakarta to Maluku, adding that the volunteers had been trained at Ihya'us Sunnah Islamic boarding school on Jl. Kaliurang, some 15 kilometers north of Yogyakarta.

Sociologist Nasikun of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta said Abdurrahman's desire to accommodate different religious, social and cultural groupings had angered certain Muslims groups.

"Gus Dur even picked Bondan Gunawan, a man who doesn't have a track record with the Islamic movement in Indonesia, as his acting Cabinet Secretary. However, I don't think people will support radical movements like Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah," Nasikun said, referring to the President by his nickname.

Thousands of Muslims have called for a holy war against the country's Christian minority, who they accuse of killing Muslims in Maluku.

Leaders of several Islamic parties grouped in the loose affiliation known as the axis force have also led protests against Abdurrahman's proposal to lift the ban on communism.

President Abdurrahman, a moderate Muslim scholar who formerly led Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest Muslim organization, has said the ban ran counter to the spirit of democracy.

Several human rights activists favor lifting the ban, but Abdurrahman's National Awakening Party (PKB) is the only political party which has come out in favor of the proposal. (44/swa/edt)