Muslim leaders back calls for end to sharia struggle

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Respected Muslim leaders and scholars on Monday joined Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)'s latest call for an end to the campaigns for the enforcement of sharia, or Islamic law, in the world's largest Muslim country.

"There is no need to press ahead with the struggle for sharia. We should take the substance of Islamic values and implement them in Indonesia, not the symbols," Ahmad Syafii Maarif, who chairs the nation's second largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, told The Jakarta Post.

"Don't help out political interests by politicizing religion," he added.

NU, the country's largest Muslim organization, on Sunday called on Muslims to stop advocating Islamic law and using violence to promote religion.

"Struggling for sharia to be enforced in Indonesia is not realistic. What we need is to develop universal values for people's prosperity," NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi said while releasing NU's year-end evaluation on Sunday.

"Universal values are also Islamic. This has already been adopted in the 1945 Constitution," the chairman of the 40-million strong Muslim organization said.

Hasyim said Muslims and followers of other faiths needed to promote religious values that were coherent with national interests.

Syafii said raising the idea of sharia as part of the "public discourse" was acceptable, but campaigners should stop advocating for Islamic law because it was "unrealistic".

Like Hasyim, Syafii told Muslims to shed Islamic symbols and formalities in an effort to make a success of their struggle for the nation's prosperity.

If Muslims emphasize formalities like sharia and an Islamic state in their common struggle, they will collide with adherents of other faiths and thus end in failure, the Muhammadiyah leader said.

"What we should seriously fight for is the enforcement of justice and the creation of a clean government under whatever form of the state we have," he said.

"An Islamic state or sharia does not guarantee (justice and a clean government). It fully depends on the commitment of the people themselves," Syafii added.

Azyumardi Azra, rector of Jakarta's Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, concurred with Hasyim and Syafii, saying Islamic social and political groups should set aside their struggle for sharia and concentrate on efforts to improve the nation's welfare.

"Hard-line groups should think rationally and realistically. Stop struggling only for short-term interests. The national interests as a whole must be put forward," he told the Post.

"We should all together focus our energy and attention to building the nation through education, law enforcement, upholding the law and eradicating corruption," he said.

Azyumardi said the country's political reality, which is pluralistic and heterogeneous, and the fact that most Indonesian Muslims embrace a moderate form of Islam, should be taken into account by those pursuing the implementation of sharia.

Since the 1950s, campaigns for the implementation of sharia have not received support from the majority of Muslims in Indonesia, he said.

Last August, the People's Consultative Assembly rejected a proposal by several Islamic parties to include sharia in the latest batch of constitutional amendments.

Azyumardi and Syafii said an Islamic state was not recognized in the Koran, nor during the rule of the Prophet Muhammad and his four Caliphs -- Abu Bakar, Umar bin Khattab, Ustman bin Affan and Ali bin Abi Thalib.

The calls to cease the struggle for sharia come in response to recent terrorist attacks in the country and the bombings of churches and shopping centers in 2000.

These incidents damaged the image of Islam and Muslims, as all of the suspects were Muslims, though radical in their beliefs.

The campaigners for sharia include several Islamic parties and radical organizations, including the recently self-dissolved groups Laskar Jihad and the Islam Defenders Front (FPI).

Muslim-oriented political parties in support of sharia include the United Development Party (PPP), the Crescent Star Party (PBB), the Justice Party and the Daulat Ummah Party (PDU).

Unlike these parties, Laskar Jihad and the FPI often used violence to promote Islam. Laskar Jihad deployed its followers to fight Christians in the Maluku islands and the Central Sulawesi town of Poso, where thousands of people were killed. The FPI was blamed for attacking nightclubs and other entertainment centers in Jakarta.