No military training

No military training

From Republika

This newspaper carried a news report in its Nov. 10, 2002,
issue that the CIA had mentioned the Hidayatullah Islamic
Boarding School as a military training ground for terrorists in
Indonesia. This information was obtained after a representative
of the New York Times visited Hidayatullah. After this visit, the
New York Times published an article titled Carefully taught to
hate the United States.

In my opinion, it is quite easy for a superpower country like
the United States to disseminate such information in support of
its political interests, namely wiping out terrorism from
Indonesia. According to the United States, the Bali bomb blasts
were not sufficient evidence that Indonesia is a lair of
terrorists.

Therefore, allow me to call all on Muslims to exercise caution
when receiving such information and to try to verify its
veracity. This newspaper, for example, visited the Hidayatullah
Islamic Boarding School to find out whether the information was
true and found that there was no military training there. The
students in this school are known to be propagators of Islam by
the locals.

Although Islamic movements have been pressing for the
enforcement of Islamic law, Muslims will never resort to inhuman
and violent acts to reach this goal. Muslims have a wiser way,
i.e. propagation or preaching in the manner practiced by the
Prophet Muhammad. Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad is
the right model for spreading the word of God.

AYUN RESTYANI, Boyolali, Central Java