Muslim leaders back calls for end to sharia struggle

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.