NU is a traditionalist Sunni Islam group
in Indonesia. The largest independent Islam
organization in Indonesia.
The NU was established on January 31,
1926. The organization moved for education,
social, and economy sectors. In 1984,
Abdurrahman Wahid, the grandson of NU
founder Hasyim Asy'ari, inherited the
leadership from his father, and was later
elected President of Indonesia in 1999.
The NU is one of the largest independent
Islamic organizations in the world. Some
estimates of its membership range as high
as 40-50 million, although it is hard to
account for this number. NU acts as a
charitable body, helping to fill in many of the
shortcomings of the Indonesian government
in society; it funds schools, hospitals, and
organizes communities or kampungs into
more coherent groups in order to help
combat poverty.
Notwithstanding its considerable contribution
to Indonesian politics and cultures, Nahdlatul
Ulama (which literally means the “awakening
of religious scholars”), Indonesia’s largest
Islamic organization, has been poorly
understood in the West. While most Western
political commentators and policy makers
absorb an almost daily dose of news or
intelligence regarding Islamist extremist
organizations or terrorist groups in the
predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle
East and Southeast Asia, there is far less
information and understanding of Muslim
peacemakers, moderate-progressive groups,
and organizations that advocate for tolerance
and pluralism. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is one
of the world’s foremost Muslim associations
devoted to the spread of the Islamic message
of justice, peace, and tolerance.
Established in 1926, NU today has a
membership of more than 50 million.
Founded as a critical reaction to the growth
of Indonesia’s Wahhabi reformist and
modernist groups, which were attempting to
shrink Indonesian Muslim, practices of locally
inspired religious traditions, cultures, and
knowledge, NU developed a reputation as the
guardian of traditions – both classical
Islamic traditions of knowledge, and local
traditions and cultures. Accordingly, NU has
been dubbed a “traditionalist Islamic
organization”—a label that can be easily
misconstrued. Indeed, NU serves as one of
Indonesia’s leading Muslim institutions
dedicated to the protection and attainment
not only of traditional values and practices of
Islam, but also citizenship, democratic
civility, inter-group conciliation, religious
tolerance, and the public good. In this regard,
NU is traditional and modern, conservative
and progressive alike.
Defending pluralism
Since its founding, NU has conducted
numerous large-scale national meetings
aimed at evaluating contemporary political,
social, and religious trends, and
recommending paths forward to policy
makers on ways of addressing problems
facing both state and society. Attended by
thousands of NU members, sympathizers,
and Ulama or Kiai (a Javanese term for
Muslim clerics and scholars, notably linked
to NU), such meetings have provided the
organization a platform from which to
persuade state and society actors, religious
and secular alike, to defend the country’s
national pluralist ideology (Pancasila). NU
also embraces the national constitution (UUD
1945) as the foundation of nationhood and
ethno-religious brotherhood.
In a recent national gathering, Konferensi
Besar Nahdlatul Ulama (the Great Conference
of NU) recently held in the city of Cirebon in
West Java, for example, NU issued a number
of fatwas and recommendations concerning
religious issues, inter-group relations, and
public affairs facing today’s Indonesian
societies.
Such advocacy on the part of a respected
Islamic organization like NU is necessary for
the common good. Since the collapse of
Suharto’s New Order dictatorial regime, the
archipelago has weathered a wave of small
but militant trans-national Islamist groups
which have attempted to impose the
implementation of Islamic ideology and
Shari’a (Islamic Law) as a replacement for
Pancasila and UUD 1945, which they
considered as secular, Western style, and
“un-Islamic.” For NU, however, both
Pancasila and UUD 1945, which guarantee
freedom of religion and association for all
Indonesian citizens regardless of their ethno-
religious affiliations, are regarded as Islamic
and suitable for Indonesian cultures and
societies due to their roots in Islamic
teachings, discourses, and practices of
pacification. NU also points to the cultural
grounding of these founding documents
within Indonesia’s rich traditions of tolerance
and cooperation.
Indonesian archipelago: “pluralist
endowments”
The Indonesian archipelago, once described
by historian Denys Lombard as having been
blessed with an abundance of “pluralist
endowments,” is home to the ancient
philosophy of bhinneka tunggal ika (“oneness
amid diversity”), which later became an
official national motto of Indonesia. This
philosophy inspired the founding fathers of
Indonesia to create the inclusive state
ideology of Pancasila and the state
constitution, UUD 1945. NU leaders such as
Syaikh Hasyim Ash’ari, K.H. Wahab
Chasbullah, K.H.A. Wahid Hasyim worked
hand-in-hand with secular nationalists, both
Muslims and non-Muslims, to create a public
culture of citizenship and establish a political
basis for a deeply plural society in the newly
established nation-state of Indonesia.
Embracing the ideology of Pancasila, they
challenged reformist and Islamist aspirations
of establishing an Islamic state in the country
– a legacy that continues today through NU’s
defense of pluralism and the constitution.
Struggling for good governance
NU has historically pressed Indonesian
political elites and government officials to
move beyond procedural democracy, and to
embrace a “substantial democracy” that is
typified by freedom from “money politics” or
risywah siyasiyah (vote buying), voluntarily
participation in elections, and the pursuit of
the common public goods rather than
sectarian interests. Moreover, NU pushes for
the government to use tax money in an
appropriate manner, supporting causes such
as improving education, developing the
economy, and assisting the poor. NU leaders
threaten that failure by the government to
work towards such goals would result in the
issuance of fatwa’s that outlaw Muslims to
pay taxes. Chairman of the NU Supreme
Council, K.H.M.A. Sahal Mahfudh, has
argued that the primary job of the
government is to “create social justice,
prosperity, and global peace” as well as to
“protect ethno-religious minorities.”
Therefore, he has affirmed that as long as a
ruler contributes to the public good society is
obliged to obey the ruler, but if not “they are
free from such obligation.”
The NU has historically advocated for good
governance in Indonesia, a fact which is
highlighted through NU’s opposition to
Suharto’s authoritarian New Order. Under the
leadership of K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid, who
became leader in 1984, NU evolved into a
religiously-inspired civil society force aimed
at providing a counterbalance to the power of
Suharto’s regime, and struggling for the
achievement of global justice, democracy,
citizenship, and freedom of religion. Despite
Suharto’s tireless efforts to weaken the
political influences of NU’s Ulama, K.H.
Abdurrahman Wahid, along with other anti-
New Order NU leaders, continued to resist
Suharto’s regime by developing unique
nonviolent models of opposition and “cultural
protests.”
Protecting religious minorities
NU works together with secular and religious
forces to secure religious freedom, guarantee
interreligious tolerance, and to defend
Indonesia’s plural ethno-religious societies
from violent threats attempts posed by
minority extremist groupings. This
commitment to religious freedom and human
rights was demonstrated through K.H.
Abdurrahman Wahid’s instruction that NU’s
youth wing, Banser, send its members to
churches across the country in order to
protect Christian places of worship and to
guarantee the safety of Christians, especially
during Christmas. One of the Banser’s
members, Riyanto, tragically died while
protecting the Eben Heizer Church in
Mojokerto, East Java, from a terrorist bomb
attack in 2000. Under the leadership of K.H.
Sa’id Aqiel Siradj, NU continues to send
thousands of Banser members to guard
churches from “extremist onslaught.”
In a world torn by conflict between competing
ideologies, Indonesia “continues to produce
men and women whose nonsectarian vision
remains every bit as pluralistic, tolerant and
spiritual as that of our founding
fathers” (Bisri & Taylor, Strategic Review 2:3,
2012). NU is just one of Indonesia’s many
Muslim groupings and religious associations
that are ardently devoted to extend the very
fundamental teaching of Islam and the Quran
as rahmatan lil ‘alamin—“a source of love
and compassion for all humanity,” and to
ensure that this message is embodied on
earth.
