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