The Humanitarian Islam movement emerged from Java’s 15th/16th century Wali Songo (“Nine Saints”) movement, whose wisdom, respect for pre-existing cultures and profoundly spiritual modes of da‘wah (proselytism) precipitated the emergence of a great Islamic civilization in the Malay Archipelago, rooted in the principle of rahmah (universal love and compassion) and other noble values of religion.
Indonesians Seek to Export a Modernized Vision of Islam
The youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian Islamic group, is pressing governments around the world to bring Islamic law into line with 21st-century norms.
by Joe Cochrane
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The imposing, six-foot-tall painting is a potent symbol of modern Indonesian history: the country’s founding father, Sukarno, cradling a dead, barefoot rebel killed by Dutch colonial forces amid rice fields and smoldering volcanoes in late-1940s Java.
The fighter’s bloodied shirt draws immediate attention — but so does a necklace dangling from the body: a Christian cross, worn by the independence martyr for the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
The 2006 painting has become the symbol of a global initiative by the Indonesian youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest mass Islamic organization in the world, that seeks to reinterpret Islamic law dating from the Middle Ages in ways that conform to 21st-century norms.
Among other things, it calls for a re-examination of elements of Islamic law that dictate relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, the structure of government and the proper aims and conduct of warfare.
Leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama’s youth wing, known as Ansor, say that elements of Shariah, which Muslims consider divine law, are being manipulated by groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda to justify terrorist attacks around the world, invoked to rally fighters to battle in the Middle East and elsewhere, and distorted by movements that seek to turn Islam into a political weapon. Read the full article (PDF).
A 2006 painting by the Dutch artist John van der Sterren depicts Indonesia’s founding leader, Sukarno, cradling an independence fighter in the 1940s. The rebel’s Christian cross has made the image a symbol of the drive to reinterpret Islamic law. Nahdlatul Ulama
“I am convinced that Humanitarian Islam is one of the most important movements in all of Islamic history.”
~ Rüdiger Lohlker,
Professor of Islamic Studies (emeritus) at the University of Vienna
Indonesia’s
Big Idea
Islam Nusantara
Nobel Nomination
Nobel Laureate and East Timor independence leader H.E. José Ramos-Horta (above)
praises Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah for securing Indonesian democracy and fostering a pluralistic and tolerant understanding of Islam.
“A Worthy Model for the World to Emulate”
View
Media Archive
Read the
NYT Article
View
Media Highlights
New York Times: “From Indonesia, a Muslim
Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic State”
Shaping
Policy
Confronting
Terrorism
Promoting
European Unity
Portuguese Socialist MEP Ana Maria Gomes greets KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf at the European Parliament
Addressing the nexus of security threats linked to Islam,
terrorism and migration in Europe
Al-Ahram (The Pyramids)
(est. 1875), one of the oldest and most widely-read newspapers in the Arab world
Indonesian Islam… once again
“The majority of Muslims look to the Arab world for guidance, but the failure of this region’s ulama to keep up with the transformations taking place will lead to the rug being pulled out from under them… by Nahdlatul Ulama and its new Chairman”
~ Mohamed Abu Al-Fadl
Deputy Editor, al-Ahram (The Pyramids)
Key Texts
Strategic Vision
Management
~ Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
“If the great intellectual fires are reawakening within Islam, after centuries of torpor, then that will be the best weapon yet against extremism.”
Strategic Vision
Reforming Islamic jurisprudence shapes the battle to define moderate Islam
“Nahdlatul Ulama has laid down a marker that other Muslim religious authorities will ultimately be unable to ignore if they want recognition as proponents of a genuinely moderate Islam.”
~ Dr. James M. Dorsey,
writing in Sciences Po’s Bulletin de L’Observatoire International du Religieux
Watch
Short Film
Read
Communiqué
Read
“Drawing Battle Lines”
Humanitarian Islam: An Alliance for the 21st Century
Western Humanism, Christian Democracy and
Read the Book
Read
Communiqué
“Islam and the
Disappearing People”
A New Partnership for Peace and Religious Freedom
and the Clash of Civilizations:
Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity,
“You have convinced me that if Humanitarian Islam were to come to Europe in a decisive manner, there is a chance that European Christian civilization might survive [the threats posed by militant secularism and radical Islam].”
~ Defense and Security Advisor to
Centrist Democrat International / European Peoples Party (EPP)
“Yesterday we told all of our students that THIS [R20] is the jihad of today”
G20 Religion Forum
Theological
Orientation & Beliefs
Purpose
Bayt ar-Rahmah (Home of Divine Grace) seeks to restore human nature to what Islam regards as its pure and original state (fitra), and to eliminate the widespread practice of using religion to incite hatred and violence towards others.
Theological Orientation & Beliefs
From Indonesia, a Muslim Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic State
“That powerful scene is one of many in a 90-minute film that amounts to a relentless, religious repudiation of the Islamic State and the opening salvo in a global campaign by the world’s largest Muslim group to challenge its ideology head-on. . .”
~ Joe Cochrane,
writing in The New York Times
“The Divine Grace of Islam Nusantara”
– View the Trailer –
Frankfurter Allgemeine
