Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad
WHEN MARCO POLO PASSED THROUGH, ISLAM WAS ALREADY WELL ESTABLISHED. IBN BATTUTA WAS DELIGHTED BY THE STRENGTH OF ITS PEOPLE’S FAITH. BUT UNTIL THE TSUNAMI STRUCK IN DECEMBER 2004, FEW MUSLIMS HAD HEARD OF ACEH. ABDAL-HAKIM MURAD TRACES THE GLORIOUS HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA’S ANCIENT ISLAMIC NATION.
Acheh is an ancient Islamic nation. Its origins are buried in legends, but already in 1292 when Marco Polo passed through, Islam was solidly established in the region. Ibn Battuta, who visited in 1345 was delighted by the strength of Acehnese faith. Already, the growing Aceh sultanate was sending missionaries and traders throughout Southeast Asia, spreading the Qadiri and Naqshbandi orders and the Shafi’i school of law. To this day, Sufism, Ash’arism and the Shafi’i madhhab define Muslim life in this distant yet densely-populated tip of the great island of Sumatra.
The growth of Aceh was first challenged in the sixteenth century by the appearance of the Portuguese. Lisbon’s empire at the time was built on a fiercely anti-Muslim crusading ideology; so that the creation of Portuguese enclaves in the region were usually accompanied by vicious massacres. The sultans responded by sending an embassy to Constantinople to ask for help. Their arrival coincided with the death of Sulaiman the Magnificent, and it was two years before the envoys were granted an audience. But the Ottoman empire, grand as ever in its ambitions, sent a fleet to Aceh, providng ships and artillery which served as a deterrent against the Crusader threat.
The seventeenth century witnessed Aceh’s greatest glory. Sultan Meukuta Alam ruled not only much of Sumatra, but enclaves in Malaya, Borneo, and the distant Celebes as well. Skilfully manipulating the rivalry between the Portuguese in Malacca and the growing Dutch presence, he maintained the absolute independence of the sultanate, despite its nominal possession by the Ottoman sultans. Long epic poems in the Acehnese language celebrate the brilliance of the sultan’s battles by land and by sea. Many of them also praise his successors, four Acehnese queens who ruled from 1641 to 1699 with considerable flair.
So intimidated were the Dutch by Aceh’s martial reputation that they delayed their invasion until 1873. The huge profits they had reaped in Java from plantations and mines were diverted to create an invasion fleet. But expectations of a rapid victory soon faded. Not until 1910 did the Dutch declare Aceh officially ‘pacified’, after a brutal campaign that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, as many villagers were rounded up and executed by enraged Dutch soldiers. After the destruction of the sultanate, the jihad during this long period was led by the Qadiri and Naqshbandi ulema, many of them from the scholarly stronghold of Kampong Tiroh, which, although destroyed several times by the Dutch, remains to this day a centre of Islamic scholarship.
The last mujahid scholar, Tungku Maat, died in 1911. Scattered resistance to Dutch garrisons and plantation owners continued, but it was only in the 1930s that the Acehnese organised themselves again on a mass scale. This was the time of PUSA, a society of Shafi’i scholars established to counter the reformist opinions of the Java-based Muhammadiya movement, which was attempting to spread the ideas of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida in the archipelago.
Like the similar traditionalist movement Nahdhatul Ulema elsewhere in Indonesia, PUSA was largely successful in defending the integrity and values of traditional Islam. Following the Second World War, however, and the brutal Japanese occupation, the Dutch reoccupied Aceh, amid scenes of extreme brutality, and many PUSA members were executed. Indonesian independence continued the pattern, as the province was occupied by mainly Javanese troops, many led by Christian officers. Benny Murdani, the Christian Indonesian general responsible for the invasion of East Timor, also created a reign of fear in Aceh. Many Acehnese responded by launching a guerrilla war, under the aegis of GAM, the Free Aceh Movement, triggering, in turn, a new wave of repression. According to Human Rights Watch, ‘thousands of civilians were extra judicially killed, disappeared or tortured.’ The same organisation protested again in May 2003, when the Indonesian government closed off the province, and gave the military carte blanche to ‘crush’ GAM.
While most Acehnese support the recovery of their country’s independence, seeing the Indonesia military as just as alien and brutal as the Japanese or the Dutch, the general view among Muslim scholars in Indonesia could be described as one of sympathetic disagreement. Western powers pressed Jakarta to free East Timor, they believe, because of that province’s largely Christian population. The older and more credible national claims of Aceh, however, are unlikely to be viewed with sympathy by the West because over 98% of Acehnese are Muslims. On this view, Aceh should throw in its lot with Indonesia’s other Muslims, to try to reform the country from within. Generals such as Murdani are now giving way to a new class of civilian administrators, many of them practicing Muslims, and Indonesia should stay together in order to fulfill its destiny as a Muslim superpower.
Indonesian Islam, largely through the efforts of activist organisations such as PUSA and Nahdhatul Ulema, has been remarkably successful in insulating young Indonesian Muslims from modern Arab radicalism. The president of the main Islamic university in Jakarta, Shaykh Azyumardi Azra, is a Shafi’i scholar who has published widely on the phenomenon of extremism. He points out that Indonesian Muslim extremism is very unusual, despite the media attention generated by the 2002 Bali bombings. That event he characterises as a ‘blessing in disguise’, because it resulted in the closure of the few centres where what he calls ‘radical Salafiyya’ were being taught.
As with the 9/11 bombings in the United States, the initial response of many Muslims had been to blame an American or Israeli conspiracy, but this view has now subsided, and the ulema have recognised the reality of extremism among the young and confused. In particular, he welcomes the disbanding of the Jama’a Islamiya (JI), which grew out of a group supported by a Saudi Arabian organisation, Rabita. Small Salafist cells claimed responsibility for a string of church bombings on Christmas Eve in 2000, and the Atrium shopping mall bombing in Jakarta in August 2001. Local Muslim journalist Djarnawi Ghufron claims that with the sudden appearance of terrorist Salafism, Saudi Arabia has now cut off its support for most Salafi groups, which, according to the Indonesian Muslim press, have lost no time in condemning their former Saudi backers.
The number of JI supporters at no time rose above a few hundred, and none of the country’s popular ulema or pesantren colleges were involved. Overall, the picture of Indonesian Islam is one of growth and strength, with the creation of a new generation of colleges (Indonesia has more Islamic universities than the entire Arab Middle East, and 100,000 Qur’anic schools). A vibrant theological scene, along with a revival in traditional arts and other traditions, is at the centre of the current Muslim revival in the country. Largely moribund under the Dutch, Indonesian Islam is now asserting itself, with enormous rallies in the country’s main cities, and a lively dialogue with the country’s Christian minority, which, as in most Muslim countries, is disproportionately wealthy, and is currently trying to deal with the influx of American missionaries convinced hat Islam is the Antichrist. Ulema such as Abdur Rahman Wahid continue to be at the forefront of the pro-democracy and human rights movement, and Western Islamophobes are currently perplexed by the Islamic landscape in South-East Asia, where democratic Malaysia and Indonesia straddle tiny, non-Muslim, non-democratic Singapore. Middle Eastern visitors convinced that democracy and Islam cannot be reconciled are politely referred to the works of local scholars who, they are convinced, have resolved the issue definitively. Djarnawi Ghufron believes that Indonesian missionaries will soon be visiting the Middle East, opening centres to sell the Indonesian Islamic success story in what he calls the ‘failure zone of the Arab world’.
It remains to be seen whether the tsunami will change this positive direction. Three-quarters of its victims were Muslims, and some evangelical churches in Indonesia have announced that it happened because of the local refusal “to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ”. The immense devastation on Ac
eh’s coastline, with the loss not only of lives, but of mosques, libraries, colleges, and manuscript collections, has left many feeling perplexed. Yet local commentators point out that the Acehnese have lived with tragedy for over a hundred years. Large-scale loss of life and property are part of everyone’s personal experience. And the Islamic theology which insists that all is the will of God, and the human response should be to accept in submission, is the best possible consolation in the face of such destruction.
WHEN MARCO POLO PASSED THROUGH, ISLAM WAS ALREADY WELL ESTABLISHED. IBN BATTUTA WAS DELIGHTED BY THE STRENGTH OF ITS PEOPLE’S FAITH. BUT UNTIL THE TSUNAMI STRUCK IN DECEMBER 2004, FEW MUSLIMS HAD HEARD OF ACEH. ABDAL-HAKIM MURAD TRACES THE GLORIOUS HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA’S ANCIENT ISLAMIC NATION.
Acheh is an ancient Islamic nation. Its origins are buried in legends, but already in 1292 when Marco Polo passed through, Islam was solidly established in the region. Ibn Battuta, who visited in 1345 was delighted by the strength of Acehnese faith. Already, the growing Aceh sultanate was sending missionaries and traders throughout Southeast Asia, spreading the Qadiri and Naqshbandi orders and the Shafi’i school of law. To this day, Sufism, Ash’arism and the Shafi’i madhhab define Muslim life in this distant yet densely-populated tip of the great island of Sumatra.
The growth of Aceh was first challenged in the sixteenth century by the appearance of the Portuguese. Lisbon’s empire at the time was built on a fiercely anti-Muslim crusading ideology; so that the creation of Portuguese enclaves in the region were usually accompanied by vicious massacres. The sultans responded by sending an embassy to Constantinople to ask for help. Their arrival coincided with the death of Sulaiman the Magnificent, and it was two years before the envoys were granted an audience. But the Ottoman empire, grand as ever in its ambitions, sent a fleet to Aceh, providng ships and artillery which served as a deterrent against the Crusader threat.
The seventeenth century witnessed Aceh’s greatest glory. Sultan Meukuta Alam ruled not only much of Sumatra, but enclaves in Malaya, Borneo, and the distant Celebes as well. Skilfully manipulating the rivalry between the Portuguese in Malacca and the growing Dutch presence, he maintained the absolute independence of the sultanate, despite its nominal possession by the Ottoman sultans. Long epic poems in the Acehnese language celebrate the brilliance of the sultan’s battles by land and by sea. Many of them also praise his successors, four Acehnese queens who ruled from 1641 to 1699 with considerable flair.
So intimidated were the Dutch by Aceh’s martial reputation that they delayed their invasion until 1873. The huge profits they had reaped in Java from plantations and mines were diverted to create an invasion fleet. But expectations of a rapid victory soon faded. Not until 1910 did the Dutch declare Aceh officially ‘pacified’, after a brutal campaign that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, as many villagers were rounded up and executed by enraged Dutch soldiers. After the destruction of the sultanate, the jihad during this long period was led by the Qadiri and Naqshbandi ulema, many of them from the scholarly stronghold of Kampong Tiroh, which, although destroyed several times by the Dutch, remains to this day a centre of Islamic scholarship.
The last mujahid scholar, Tungku Maat, died in 1911. Scattered resistance to Dutch garrisons and plantation owners continued, but it was only in the 1930s that the Acehnese organised themselves again on a mass scale. This was the time of PUSA, a society of Shafi’i scholars established to counter the reformist opinions of the Java-based Muhammadiya movement, which was attempting to spread the ideas of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida in the archipelago.
Like the similar traditionalist movement Nahdhatul Ulema elsewhere in Indonesia, PUSA was largely successful in defending the integrity and values of traditional Islam. Following the Second World War, however, and the brutal Japanese occupation, the Dutch reoccupied Aceh, amid scenes of extreme brutality, and many PUSA members were executed. Indonesian independence continued the pattern, as the province was occupied by mainly Javanese troops, many led by Christian officers. Benny Murdani, the Christian Indonesian general responsible for the invasion of East Timor, also created a reign of fear in Aceh. Many Acehnese responded by launching a guerrilla war, under the aegis of GAM, the Free Aceh Movement, triggering, in turn, a new wave of repression. According to Human Rights Watch, ‘thousands of civilians were extra judicially killed, disappeared or tortured.’ The same organisation protested again in May 2003, when the Indonesian government closed off the province, and gave the military carte blanche to ‘crush’ GAM.
While most Acehnese support the recovery of their country’s independence, seeing the Indonesia military as just as alien and brutal as the Japanese or the Dutch, the general view among Muslim scholars in Indonesia could be described as one of sympathetic disagreement. Western powers pressed Jakarta to free East Timor, they believe, because of that province’s largely Christian population. The older and more credible national claims of Aceh, however, are unlikely to be viewed with sympathy by the West because over 98% of Acehnese are Muslims. On this view, Aceh should throw in its lot with Indonesia’s other Muslims, to try to reform the country from within. Generals such as Murdani are now giving way to a new class of civilian administrators, many of them practicing Muslims, and Indonesia should stay together in order to fulfill its destiny as a Muslim superpower.
Indonesian Islam, largely through the efforts of activist organisations such as PUSA and Nahdhatul Ulema, has been remarkably successful in insulating young Indonesian Muslims from modern Arab radicalism. The president of the main Islamic university in Jakarta, Shaykh Azyumardi Azra, is a Shafi’i scholar who has published widely on the phenomenon of extremism. He points out that Indonesian Muslim extremism is very unusual, despite the media attention generated by the 2002 Bali bombings. That event he characterises as a ‘blessing in disguise’, because it resulted in the closure of the few centres where what he calls ‘radical Salafiyya’ were being taught.
As with the 9/11 bombings in the United States, the initial response of many Muslims had been to blame an American or Israeli conspiracy, but this view has now subsided, and the ulema have recognised the reality of extremism among the young and confused. In particular, he welcomes the disbanding of the Jama’a Islamiya (JI), which grew out of a group supported by a Saudi Arabian organisation, Rabita. Small Salafist cells claimed responsibility for a string of church bombings on Christmas Eve in 2000, and the Atrium shopping mall bombing in Jakarta in August 2001. Local Muslim journalist Djarnawi Ghufron claims that with the sudden appearance of terrorist Salafism, Saudi Arabia has now cut off its support for most Salafi groups, which, according to the Indonesian Muslim press, have lost no time in condemning their former Saudi backers.
The number of JI supporters at no time rose above a few hundred, and none of the country’s popular ulema or pesantren colleges were involved. Overall, the picture of Indonesian Islam is one of growth and strength, with the creation of a new generation of colleges (Indonesia has more Islamic universities than the entire Arab Middle East, and 100,000 Qur’anic schools). A vibrant theological scene, along with a revival in traditional arts and other traditions, is at the centre of the current Muslim revival in the country. Largely moribund under the Dutch, Indonesian Islam is now asserting itself, with enormous rallies in the country’s main cities, and a lively dialogue with the country’s Christian minority, which, as in most Muslim countries, is disproportionately wealthy, and is currently trying to deal with the influx of American missionaries convinced hat Islam is the Antichrist. Ulema such as Abdur Rahman Wahid continue to be at the forefront of the pro-democracy and human rights movement, and Western Islamophobes are currently perplexed by the Islamic landscape in South-East Asia, where democratic Malaysia and Indonesia straddle tiny, non-Muslim, non-democratic Singapore. Middle Eastern visitors convinced that democracy and Islam cannot be reconciled are politely referred to the works of local scholars who, they are convinced, have resolved the issue definitively. Djarnawi Ghufron believes that Indonesian missionaries will soon be visiting the Middle East, opening centres to sell the Indonesian Islamic success story in what he calls the ‘failure zone of the Arab world’.
It remains to be seen whether the tsunami will change this positive direction. Three-quarters of its victims were Muslims, and some evangelical churches in Indonesia have announced that it happened because of the local refusal “to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ”. The immense devastation on Ac
eh’s coastline, with the loss not only of lives, but of mosques, libraries, colleges, and manuscript collections, has left many feeling perplexed. Yet local commentators point out that the Acehnese have lived with tragedy for over a hundred years. Large-scale loss of life and property are part of everyone’s personal experience. And the Islamic theology which insists that all is the will of God, and the human response should be to accept in submission, is the best possible consolation in the face of such destruction. Taken from Q-news magazine
Pic taken at Acheh after tsunami
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