NU embraces, promotes moderation among Muslims

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.