Part 2 of 2 Ngruki: It is school for Islam or terrorism?

Noor Huda Ismail, Jakarta

There is no doubt that all the teachers were fiercely for an Islamic state and the implementation of sharia law. They regarded the existing secular national law as illegitimate. They refused the fly Indonesia's red and white flag, and shunned Pancasila -- Indonesia's national philosophy. Their motivation was once again a Koranic verse that reads, "Whoever doesn't follow God's law is an infidel."

This anti-nationalism led Ngruki's co-founders, Ba'asyir and Abdullah Sungkar, to flee into exile in neighboring Malaysia, where they avoided imprisonment for subversion by Soeharto.

My father did, in fact, find out a lot about life in Ngruki. He learned that Ngruki, despite its radical slant, produced a handful of moderate Indonesian Muslims like me. I pray five times a day, study the Koran and wish to visit Mecca. I work for the American media, host Jewish-American friends in my home, and spend Friday nights at a local bar. Most of my fellow graduates may not be open-minded by Western standards, but they don't support violence in the name of Islam either. And despite their occasional narrow vision, many are likely to have succeeded in the secular, business world.

Why did only some Ngruki alumni take the road to terrorism?

Ngruki teachings proved unrealistic in the real world, especially the emphasis on the strict interpretation of Islam that was at complete odds with the environment where we ended up working. After graduation, I had to obtain a personal ID card from the government, the same government I was taught to disregard. I choose to further my study at two government-run universities, where I had to sing the national anthem and respect the national flag. All of this was necessary to start a successful career.

According to my interviews in Arabic and Indonesian with convinced terrorists from Ngruki, most received military academy training in the Dar Al Ittihad Al Islamy camp in Afghanistan or in Camp Hudaibiyah in Moro, the Philippines. They went in the name of JI and candidly discussed how they killed in the name of God. They justified their jihad as a revenge for the butchering of Muslims by infidels such as the U.S. and its allies.

Hasan was among them. When I met with him again last year, the setting was not a run-down dormitory, but instead an equally dilapidated Jakarta jail. Hasan's jaw nearly dropped to the floor when he first saw me. It looked like he wanted to hug me, but he hesitated and awkwardly opted for a handshake. Other prisoners must have informed him that his long-lost roommate was now a special correspondent for the Washington Post journalist, a position he would deem an extension of the infidels. Hasan is now a convict, jailed for his involvement in the Bali blast.

We engaged in small talk in Arabic until his comfort level increased. However, took many meetings spanning two months for us to return to our previous rapport.

Hasan is the fifth of seven children from a simple peasant family in a remote Java village. His father sent him to Ngruki from 1986 to 1989 expecting him to become his village's religious teacher.

"I have disappointed my father," he said in a solemn voice. "Instead of being a religious teacher, I'm a terrorist. Now, I am locked here."

In 1990, under the influence of the emir of JI, Abdullah Sungkar, he went to Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Philippines to study a radical strain of Islam and to wage Jihad as a missionary in Malaysia and Indonesia. Hasan met Sungkar at Ngruki before Sungkar fled to Malaysia. "He was like a father to me," said Hasan, who later became a senior JI member.

He was instructed to establish the Hudaibiyah Camp and train Moro Independent Liberation Front members and JI members.

Sitting cross-legged on his black mattress, Hasan talked sadly about his wife and his two children who live in an Islamic boarding school in East Java.

"Each time I think of them, I feel so sad," he said. Hasan also lived in this school in 2000, and it was there that he met the Bali bombers, most of whom were Ngruki graduates from different years. But Hasan sensed the police on his tail, and he fled on a two-day boat ride to faraway Kalimantan.

Hasan wasn't in jail alone -- he was with other former Ngruki students; Muhammad Saefudin and Muhammad Rais. Along with Saefudin and Rais, he met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2001.

Rais relayed Osama bin Laden's message to Ba'asyir and was arrested for storing explosive materials used for the Marriott Hotel bombing, while Saefudin was groomed by JI as its future leader.

I wondered. If it weren't for my secular roots, would I too have been with my former classmates behind bars?

The writer is a journalsit and can be reached at noorhudaismail@yahoo.com.