Militant Islam: A fumbling attempt to explain its presence

Solahudin, Contributor, Jakarta

------------------------------------ Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror Zachary Abuza Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Boulder, USA & London, UK 2003 281 pp ------------------------------

Tracing militant Islamic groups is comparable to searching for ants on black stones in the dark; it's a tough task, as the groups are careful, stay underground and keep their activities clandestine.

Zachary Abuza, an associate professor of international relations at Simmons College in Boston, attempts to uncover the dark shroud cloaking militant Islam in Southeast Asia. Abuza focuses his attention on the group known as Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), allegedly responsible for various bombings in Southeast Asia and believed to be part of al-Qaeda's network in the region.

It's a bold step on his part (some would say foolhardy), because he is actually an expert on Vietnam, and militant Islam in Southeast Asia is a new field of study for him.

It takes knowledge of language, history and, of course, Islam to conduct academic research on militant Islam. Sadly, Abuza has a minimum mastery of the relevant areas, and he is a fish out of water in this academic area. Consequently, the 281-page book, despite the congratulatory words from various academics on the back cover, is saddled down by factual and spelling mistakes.

An example is a passage about Jafar Umar Thalib, ex-commander of Laskar Jihad. "He was drawn to jihad and entered a mujahidin training camp where he was influenced by the 'Caller' Ahlus Sunah Wal Jama'ah, ulema of Yemen, who fought in Afghanistan with the mujahidin. Ahlus was a preacher of khwarji, a school of teaching that seeks to establish an Islamic state by means of revolution" (page 69).

Abuza makes serious mistakes. First, he considers Ahlus Sunah Wal Jama'ah (ASWJ) the name of a person. In fact, ASWJ in the context of Jafar Umar, is Islam's salafiyah school. Second, ASWJ or salafiyah is seen as similar to khawarij (not "khwarji" as misspelled by Abuza). This is a terrible blunder because the two schools are different and hostile to each other. According to the teachings of salafiyah, khawarij is a heretical group in Islam that must be opposed. With basic knowledge of schools in Islam, such errors would not appear.

The book is littered with misspellings; kumpulan (collection) written "kampulan", gerakan (movement) as "geragan" and bai'at (initiation) as "bayat". Proper names are not spared either, like Kartosuwiryo, written as Kartosuniryo, and Sidney Jones as Sydney Jones.

Any message he may be wishing to convey is impaired by such nagging inaccuracies. An example is his analysis of Laskar Jundullah: "The second JI paramilitary group, the Laskar Jundullah, a small militant organization that conducted sweeps of foreigners in Solo and was at the forefront of sectarian conflict in Poso, Sulawesi, was founded by M. Kolono and Agus Dwikarna in October 2000" (pg. 146).

Abuza is confusing two different organizations, Laskar Jundullah under M. Kalono (not M. Kolono) in Solo (Surakarta) and Laskar Jundullah, led by Agus Dwikarna in South Sulawesi. Despite the same name, both are organizationally unconnected.

Worse still, he calls Laskar Jundullah a JI paramilitary group; actually, JI's military wing is Laskar Jamaah Islamiyah under Aris Sumarsono alias Zulkarnain alias Daud. Agus Dwikarna's Laskar Jundullah is a military arm of the South Sulawesi Syariat Islam Upholding Committee (KPSI), a splinter group of Laskar Wahdah Islamiyah, South Sulawesi, headed by Syarifuddin alias Abu Jamiah. M. Kalono's Laskar Jundullah is a local militia in Surakarta, more like a party task force than a paramilitary body.

His minimal knowledge of Islam, and ignorance of Arabic, Indonesian or Malay and of Islam in Southeast Asia, led him to cull information for the book from secondary sources. A simple example is that though the study mostly deals with JI, it makes no reference to JI's constitution, the General Guide to JI Struggle (PUPJI). This is noticeable when he describes the structure of JI, which is very different from that according to PUPJI.

The same discrepancies apply when Abuza discusses Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), without referring to the Report on the Congress of Mujahidin and Upholding of Syariat Islam (RKMPSI). As a result, he cannot distinguish between MMI's two structures: Ahlul Halli Wal Aqdi (AHWA), with the task of general policy making (including program drafting), and Lajnah Tanfidziyah, in charge of executing AHWA's decisions, among other activities. He mixes up both to produce a version of MMI that totally diverges from the original MMI based on the congress report (pg 142).

Almost 80 percent of the book's footnotes state that information was obtained from press coverage, with the remaining 20 percent derived from intelligence reports or findings of research agencies. Abuza also quotes books and includes interviews. Unfortunately, however, some of his quotations are out of context.

For instance, when he quotes Harold Crouch's article, Qaida in Indonesia? The Evidence Doesn't Support Worries, from the International Herald Tribune of Oct. 23, 2001, Abuza indicates that Crouch does not believe that Indonesian radical Islamic organizations have needed Al-Qaeda aid for their actions. In the article, Crouch is actually referring to anti-American demonstrations by Islamic groups.

In Crouch's own words: "There is speculation that bin Laden's agents may have helped to organize anti-American demonstrations after the U.S. attack on Afghanistan began. But it is hard to believe that Indonesia's radical Islamic organizations needed such outside assistance."

This analysis has too many mistakes to serve as a reference book. It would be advisable for Abuza to correct the errors in the second edition. But if the revisions are too numerous to make, Abuza may just as well consider rewriting this study.

The reviewer is a journalist and researcher on militant Islam.