In the past few years, the authority of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) in the eyes of Indonesian Muslims has been steadily tarnished by at least two causes: The outdated language used by the MUI in pronouncing edicts, and the apparently awkward position of the MUI in modern democratic Indonesian society.

Before dealing with these two causes, it is worth recalling here how the MUI took part in the New Order government's game.

During the New Order, the MUI served as a bridge in connecting the secular government and the Indonesian Muslim community (ummah). In this way, the MUI played a critical role as a translator of the government's intentions, by explaining certain secular agenda in plain religious terms to the people.

Thus the government's propaganda enjoyed at least two privileges: additional religious legitimacy from the MUI's religious authority, and the government's messages were easily understood by the ummah owing to the MUI's simple justifications.

Take the family planning program as an illustration. For the most modest Muslims who lived in many rural villages in Java, reducing the number of children in their families, as requested by the program, meant distrusting God's mighty ability to feed them (risqi).

Furthermore, they held that the greater the number of children born into a family, the greater the blessings. A complicated demographic explanation would not have made sense to them. Instead, the government used the mouthpiece of the MUI.

In the early 1980s, the MUI endorsed the family planning program officially, by relating it to the long-term public benefit (maslahah).

In the 1990s, Ma'ruf Amin, still head of the MUI's edict commission, reinforced this old argument by saying that Islam "preferred" a strong generation rather than a large number of weak offspring.

In addition to that, it is no secret that the New Order government, to a certain extent, used the MUI as a means to tame certain "dissident" Muslim leaders who may have employed religious sentiment to agitate the people against the authoritarian regime.

This gambit bore fruit. The ulema, who joined the MUI, supported some "developmental" programs promoted by the government, e.g. Pancasila as the sole ideology of Indonesia. This story shows the MUI's romantic relationship with the New Order regime.

In this reform era, where Indonesian Muslims have increasing access to information and are ever more aware of democracy, the MUI has lost its role.

Yet the MUI still speak in the austere language of halal (allowed) and haram (prohibited), which is no longer sufficient to properly address the complex problems confronting Indonesian Muslims in the reformation era.

No wonder that some NU and Muhammadiyah leaders - Din Syamsuddin, Hasyim Muzadi, Masdar F. Mas'udi, and Abdurrahman Wahid - quashed the most recent edicts on smoking, yoga and vote abstention. Additionally, some tobacco farmers and traders fumed over the edict on smoking.

Once agan, how could the outdated halal and haram categories be employed to explain people's political manners and choices in the next general election, yoga for health or exercise, and the chemical content of tobacco?

In fact, in pronouncing the edict on the prohibition on vote abstention, the MUI took al-Mawardi's interpretation in his al-Ahkam al-Sultania (The Ordinances of Government) at face value. Can language from the 10th century address the political problems facing 21st century people?

The ummah are now discussing local autonomy, citizenship, the rule of law, an open market and other complicated issues, whereas the MUI are still measuring all of these with halal and haram. Yes, rabbit (edict 1983) and crab (edict 2002) are halal. Frog, however, is between halal and haram (edict 1984).

The MUI looks so clumsy in addressing the themes of interreligious marriage (edict 2005), attending Christmas (edict 1981), Shi'a Islam (edict 1984), pluralism, secularism and liberalism (edict 2005) and many other themes with the narrow halal and haram paradigm.

The position of the MUI in present-day democratic Indonesian society is awkward.

Secularization, which still often scares many Indonesians, including the MUI, is still the best solution for a relationship between state and religion. Religion is a private business, whereas the public realm must be ruled by secular law determined in accordance with people's current needs and demands. The MUI, as a religious authoritative institution, should keep out of public affairs.

On the other hand, the MUI's voice is muted in many real moral issues, such as rampant corruption in the bureaucracy.

Yet the MUI is planning to fight back against the finding that the process of marking halal and haram products involves bribery.

Now the elections issue has embroiled the MUI. Is anyone in the institution being lured to a certain political position after the election? Just guess!

It is advisable that the government repositions the MUI, which seems to work better under the umbrella of the Religious Affairs Ministry, particularly under the research and development section.

In this way, the MUI may gain access to current research and new trends of "Islamic" thoughts which may at least enrich the language of its edicts.

The writer is a lecturer at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University and currently a visiting scholar at the Philosophy Department, McGill University, Montreal

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