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NU seeks to expand global clout at centennial anniversary
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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (center) addresses an event on February 7, 2023 in Sidoarjo, East Java, to mark the centenary of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) through a series of activities, including a cultural carnival, religious rituals and a culinary bazaar. (NU Online/Saiful Amar)
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elebrating their centennial anniversary on Tuesday, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the nation’s Islamic organization, is setting an ambitious goal for the next one.
Denouncing the ideological vision of radical organizations for a caliphate state, the traditional Islamic group envisions a fairer and more-harmonious world order using the United Nations Charter as a building block.
Prominent cleric Ahmad Mustofa “Gus Mus” Bisri and activist Yenny Wahid, daughter of former president and Islamic scholar Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, outlined these goals in front of tens of thousands of nahdliyin, or NU followers, at the Gelora Delta Stadium, East Java.
“That old dream of establishing a caliphate that could unite the Muslim community, but creating conflict with non-Muslim communities, is not worthy of our effort and aspirations,” said Gus Mus in Arabic while Yenny delivered the translation in Indonesian.
Advocating for unity, Gus Mus explained that the right way to realize the maslahat (general good) of the Islamic community is by working for the benefit of humanity as a whole. The senior cleric further explained that the flawed UN Charter, which was written with good intentions, could be used as a foundation for a new fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) that results in a more peaceful and harmonious civilization.
This grand vision is the result of Monday’s International Congress of Islamic Jurisprudence on Civilization, a congress involving prominent clerics from all over the world held by NU in neighboring Surabaya.
While President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is appreciative of NU’s global ambitions, saying that the largest Islamic organization in the world has much to offer to the international community, Islamic scholar Abdul Kadir Riyadi characterizes the organization’s obsession with civilization as farfetched.
