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rior to the Jan. 14 terrorist attack that struck a busy, area of Central Jakarta, Aman Abdurrahman, whom the police have accused of masterminding the plot, was already notorious for the recruitment of individuals to wage violent jihad.

Although his contemporaries have dubbed him a master recruiter and prime ideologue of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in Indonesia, Aman, 44, appears to lack the charisma to inspire anyone at first sight.

However, if the ability to attract the big names counts as an accomplishment, Aman would seem to need no lessons. His preaching is already so contagious that terrorist convict Abu Bakar Ba'€™asyir, 77, the charismatic elder statesman of the regional terrorism network, has succumbed to Aman'€™s doctrine.

Many have cited Aman'€™s fluency in Arabic as the prime feature allowing him to absorb the message, and fall under the influence, of Middle East hardliners such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Sayyid Qutb and Hussein bin Mahmoud.

But a recently obtained report on interviews with prison authorities has shed some light on Aman'€™s exposure to radical clerics, and his evolution from the son of a poor farmer in Sumedang, West Java, into Indonesia'€™s most dangerous IS influencer.

Aman'€™s upbringing was profoundly influenced by intensive study of the Koran, Arabic and devotion to religion in an environment of moderate Islam.

Born Oman Rochman on Jan. 5, 1972, in Sumedang, Aman was the fourth of eight children of Ade Sudarma and Yayah.

Starting in fifth grade of state elementary school, Aman was exposed to the Arabic language taught by a private teacher.

After graduating, he enrolled in a local madrassa for his junior and senior-high education in Sumedang and Ciamis, West Java.

Aman graduated from the Islamic and Arabic College of Indonesia (LIPIA) in Jakarta in 1998, majoring in Islamic law after seven years of study. The college is a branch of the Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh.

He graduated cum laude, top of his class, and was offered a full scholarship to Saudi Arabia. He turned down the offer, and worked for NGOs Rabithah Alam Islami and Hai'€™ah Ighatsah in Jakarta as preacher coordinator in 1999.

It was in the late 1990s that Aman married his village sweetheart, Ratu Nina Rusliawati, and the couple now has two sons and one daughter.

Between 1999 and May 2000, Aman worked in Tahfidz Al-Quran Al-Hikmah boarding school in Cirebon, West Java, before moving to become the imam of Al-Sofwa mosque in Lenteng Agung, South Jakarta, between 2000 and 2003.

It was during his job at Al-Sofwa that his extreme views might have been developed. According to the document, Aman declared to himself to have become fully immersed in the Salafi movement in July 2000.

Salafism is a Sunni branch that takes a fundamentalist approach to Islam, pronouncing other branches of Islam as heretical and propagating the strict adoption of sharia.

It was between 2000 and 2003 that Aman translated many texts regarding salafism and the Tawhid wal-Jihad movement, which were then disseminated widely in Indonesia.

The movement promotes takfiri '€” the prime doctrine that was later adopted by IS, a terrorist organization that currently occupies territory in Syria and Iraq. The doctrine is an offshoot of Salafism, which accuses other Muslims of apostasy and therefore liable to be killed.

According to the document, Aman'€™s venture into violent jihad started in 2003 in an event at the At-Taqwa mosque in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, where he met a cleric by the name of Harun, a veteran of the bloody sectarian conflict in Poso, Central Sulawesi, between 1998 and 2001 that left thousands of Muslims and Christians dead.

Harun taught Aman the I'€™dad principle that requires all Muslims to prepare themselves for war if they are not able yet to wage one.

The cleric also taught Aman the principal of tawhid (the indivisible oneness concept of monotheism) and the importance of fighting God'€™s enemies.

Aman and several of his students, attended not only the prayer group but also paramilitary training organized by Harun in the woods near the University of Indonesia in Depok, West Java. The physical drills given by Harun to the participants were considered harsh.

The participants were also taught to use firearms and make homemade bombs with ingredients that could easily be obtained locally.

Fueled by militancy, Aman and his students experimented with making pipe bombs in a house in Cimanggis, Depok, in March 2004, but the devices detonated prematurely.

Aman was sentenced to seven years in prison for the failed terror plot.

During his time in prison, Aman'€™s militancy grew as he met Ba'€™asyir, who spent time in prison for terrorism offenses between 2005 and 2006. In 2008, Aman was released after receiving remission for good behavior, but by then he had fallen further into Ba'€™asyir'€™s sphere of influence.

Soon after his release, Aman collaborated with Ba'€™asyir to set up a joint terrorism training camp in Aceh in 2010 that united different factions and terrorist groups. Following the discovery of the Aceh camp, Aman and Ba'€™asyir received nine and 15 years in prison, respectively, and are now detained on Nusakambangan, a prison island off the shores of Cilacap, Central Java.

When IS came to the fore in 2013, Aman found ideological refuge in the group, utilizing his flair for preaching to lure others into joining IS from behind bars as followers came in droves to visit him in prison and spread his written sermons.

While many factors may have been in play in the initial radicalization process of Aman, it is worth noting how rapidly a follower could slip into committing violence once exposed to extreme teachings.

It took Aman less than three years to cross over from an ordinary cleric to an unrivaled promulgator of hate and violence, and therefore the burgeoning of preachers like Harun in several mosques in Jakarta should cause very real concern.

Aman is set to be released from prison on Christmas Day of 2018, according to the prison document. As the authorities struggle to slap other charges on him so that he can remain in jail, efforts should immediately be ramped up to empower moderate Muslims to prevent mosques from falling into the hands of radical clerics.
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The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.