NU embraces, promotes moderation among Muslims
Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite being known as a traditionalist organization by many people, the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has in fact chosen a moderate path in developing Islamic thought.
Nahdlatul Ulama leaders and scholars said the NU, the nation's largest Muslim organization, was striving to sustain and promote moderate thinking and a pluralist and tolerant attitude among the younger generation.
They said the increasingly high education of its younger members, most of whom attended secular-oriented schools at home and overseas, was one of the factors in achieving that goal.
"Moreover, their willingness to follow and absorb global information through the media and books is another element," Masdar Farid Mas'udi, an NU scholar, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday during the NU's three-day congress.
He said the NU's most popular and senior figures, such as former president Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur, also played a pivotal role in instilling and bolstering moderation within the organization.
Solahuddin Wahid, a NU leader who is also Gus Dur's younger brother, said intensive communications between NU members and their senior scholars in formal and informal meetings also played a significant part in promoting a moderate attitude within the organization.
"Close ties with moderate scholars help make the NU's younger members more enlightened," said Hamdan Rasyid, a lecturer at Jakarta's State Islamic University.
Compared with many other Islamic organizations, the NU has been progressive in responding to contentious religious and political issues, including fundamentalism, extremism and nationhood.
While other Islamic organizations and political parties are fighting to insert the word Islam into Article 29 of the 1945 Constitution, NU clerics and scholars have bluntly expressed opposition to moves to amend the article, which stipulates that "the state is based on one God".
The nation's largest Muslim organization has long opposed any debate on an Indonesian Islamic state, saying the unitary state of Indonesia based on the state ideology of Pancasila was final.
It had struggled for the inclusion of the Jakarta Charter in the Constitution, but ceased the campaign in 1989 and said the establishment of an Islamic state was not its goal.
What is most important is that Islamic teachings are applicable in this secular country, the NU said.
In past years, most NU members were graduates of traditional Islamic boarding schools, or pesantren, where different opinions about the interpretation of Islamic law grow and develop.
Almost all pesantren teach Islamic scriptures, or Kitab Kuning, which contain different schools of thought on the study of Islamic law, called Fiqh.
"The study of Fiqh principally means preparing students to face relativism, which does not accept only one thought," said Masdar, who is also the director of the Indonesian Society for Pesantren and Community Development.
He said Fiqh contained various interpretations of Islamic law, which encouraged pesantren students to form different opinions.
"Muslims who only rely on the Koran and the Hadith (traditional collection of stories relating the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad) tend to be more fundamental because they believe the stipulations in the Koran are absolute," Masdar said.
Islamic fanaticism, extremism or fundamentalism is not a popular stance among most NU members. But in dealing with militant groups, NU leaders are divided on whether to embrace or isolate them.
In her speech to mark the opening of the NU conference on Thursday, President Megawati Soekarnoputri told the organization to take the lead in countering religious fanaticism amid international pressure for the country to fight terrorism.
Many influential scholars and figures from NU have established close relationships with their non-Muslim counterparts.
Along with Muhammadiyah -- the country's second largest Muslim organization -- the NU has spearheaded a national movement to promote religious peace and tolerance among the followers of different faiths.