Syafii Maarif, moderation and the future of Muhammadiyah
Syafii Maarif, moderation and the future of Muhammadiyah
Hilman Latief, Kalamazoo, Michigan
At the next Muhammadiyah Congress from July 3-8 in Malang,
East Java, the issue of the organization's leadership will
feature prominently.
Ahmad Syafii Maarif has already confirmed he will not be
standing for the Muhammadiyah post of chairman, creating a power
vacuum that will have to be filled.
Although the Muhammadiyah's leadership has been described as
"collegial", if Syafii's tenure as head is anything to go by, the
group's future leader will be extremely important in shaping the
future role of the organization.
Born in Sumpurkudus, West Sumatra, on May 31, 1935, Syafii has
been involved in this organization since he was trained in the
Mualimin Muhammadiyah Boarding School in Sumatra and Yogyakarta.
After sharpening his intellectual powers at the FKIP Cokroaminoto
of Surakarta (1964) and the FKIS IKIP of Yogyakarta (1968), he
furthered his studies at Ohio University. In 1982, he earned a
Doctorate from the University of Chicago.
Syafii has been a decisive figure in Muhammadiyah. After
several years serving the organization, he was appointed in 1999
as caretaker to the Central Board of Muhammadiyah as soon as the
Muhammadiyah chairman at the time, M. Amien Rais, established the
National Mandate Party (PAN). Less than a year later in 2000, the
group's congress appointed him the new chairman.
Syafii has a unique leadership style that has influenced and
moderated many of the more extreme movements in the organization.
By the time he was appointed to lead this organization, the
social and political conditions in the country were in a period
of transition after the fall of Soeharto in 1998. Following this
political reform, Indonesian society in general, and the
religious community, in particular, were enthusiastic for radical
changes socially, politically and religiously. Such conditions
were a big challenge for Syafii in his first years as leader
keeping the Muhammadiyah organization constantly in a religiously
"moderate" zone.
It helped that he was in tune with the majority of Indonesian
Muslims, who are generally considered religious moderates by
observers.
These days Muhammadiyah and its main competition, Nahdlatul
Ulama, are seen as the two main groups that represent a general
cross-section of Indonesian Islam, with scholars such as Robert
Hefner, Martin van Bruinessen and Andrie Feillard labeling them
the two "pillars of Indonesian civil society."
It was not always so. For three decades, scholars like Deliar
Noer (1973) and later Mitsuo Nakamura (1993) had branded this
organization in more radical terms, as a modernist (used here to
mean Islamic modernism, which embraced new fundamentalist
teachings from Iran and Saudi Arabia) and a reformist group.
These days, however, under Syafii's leadership, Muhammadiyah
is seen as more moderate in line with the emergence of newer,
neo-conservative movements.
Syafii has long sought to define Muhammadiyah moderately and
apolitically, in terms of religion and not politics. While a
number of Muhammadiyah members voiced their intentions to support
various political parties, the Muhammadiyah leadership gave no
particular endorsements. Instead, Muhammadiyah let its members
freely affiliate with political parties they desired. In this
way, Syafii and other Muhammadiyah leaders realized that the
their organization's members had different social and political
backgrounds.
At this time, in the age of extreme radicals like Osama bin
Ladin and cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, demands from the more
fanatical fringes surfaced. Taking the middle road between
extreme conservatives and radical reformers, many of whom
explicitly wanted the party to move in a political direction,
Syafii played a significant roles in easing tensions and
neutralizing the tendencies of political Islamization.
One can say Syafii is a moderate since he has not been
inclined either to support secular-liberal, modernist or
conservative Muslims in any clear-cut statement. He is not anti-
conservative and neither does he agree with what the modernist
Muslims struggle for, such as the formalization of Islam in the
Indonesian Constitution. He often insists, "why should we hang
our hopes on sharia (law) on the government? Are we (Muslims)
such a weak people that we expect that the sharia must be ruled
by the state?" (Interview, Republika, Oct. 23, 2000).
In regards to political Islam, Syafii strongly advocates the
"spiritualization" of Muslim life by taking the grand principles
or the substance of the Koran and Hadith, which does not
necessarily mean either the formalization of sharia or the
secularization of Islam. Syafii, for instance, frequently
mentions, in terms of political Islam, the necessity of adhering
to a "salt-water philosophy" ("colorless but tasty") instead of
the "lipstick philosophy" ("colorful but tasteless").
The moderate attitudes of his leadership are a strategic
achievement and make sense in view of the fact that the
constituencies of the Muhammadiyah are culturally, socially and
politically disparate. While many constituencies support a more
liberal stance, there are also others that lean toward an
Islamist view.
To keep the party cohesive and to preserve the developing
democracy in Indonesia he has taken "a clear stand against the
recent attempts" (Van Bruinessen: 2003; Saeful Muzani & William
Liddle, 2004) to push the party toward "formalization" or
"secularization." This middle-road leadership has also been taken
by Nahdlatul Ulama.
With the religious, social and political points of view of the
Muhammadiyah members remaining diverse, Syafii has sought to
reconcile differences. His actions show he probably believes that
promoting education, social welfare, and moderate political-
religious behavior is more important than accusing certain
factions of Muhammadiyah members of betraying the core values of
the party.
As an intellectual and national figure in Indonesia, Syafii is
very much concerned with crucial issues this nation faces.
Sometime his statements about the future of this country seem to
be a little pessimistic. That is actually the way he expresses
ideas and the method he uses to criticize and spotlight a number
of acute problems in this country, such as the systematic
economic corruption, poverty, and political injustice. He also
has a strong sense of commitment to the universal values of
humanity. Therefore, it should not be surprising if he often
criticizes the unfair policies and unjust treatment of superpower
states, like the U.S., to several Muslim countries.
Some prominent figures who have different social, political,
and academic backgrounds have been nominated for the upcoming
Muhammadiyah Congress.
Whoever will lead this organization, the political and
religious moderation of the Muhammadiyah must be consistently
preserved. Although each period of the Muhammadiyah leadership
its own style and separate challenges, Syafii's humility
humble personality, integrity and moral and social commitments
should be an outstanding example for future leadership.
The writer, is a lecturer at the Muhammadiyah University of
Yogyakarta. Currently, he is a Fulbright student at the
Department of Comparative Religion at the University of Western
Michigan. He can be reached at hilman.latief@wmich.edu