Slated to take place in Bengkulu from Feb. 15 to 17, the meeting is expected to gather hundreds of Muhammadiyah executives and high-profile guests, including President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his rival in the presidential election, Prabowo Subianto.

The meeting will carry the theme “Enlightening Way in Religious Life”, as concerns have grown in the organization that religious practice in the country has been “unconstructive”, Muhammadiyah secretary-general Abdul Mu’ti said.

Among issues in the spotlight is the politicization of religion, which has brought about polarization in the 2019 presidential election, creating the idea that one candidate pair represented Muslim society better than the other, Mu’ti said.

“We feel strong polarization in 2019,” Mu’ti said during a recent visit to The Jakarta Post, “With the use of religious symbols and forums for political interests, such religious polarization is very apparent.”

The divisiveness, he said, had created the assumption that the incumbent’s camp represented Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the nation’s largest Islamic organization, of which Jokowi’s running mate, Ma’ruf Amin, was a senior member, while Muhammadiyah was associated with Prabowo.

A number of Muhammadiyah figures, including former leader and National Mandate Party (PAN) patron Amien Rais and Muhammadiyah treasurer Suyatno, were on Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno’s campaign team.

“The function of religion is to bring peace, but instead what has happened is that religion has become a source of disunity,” Mu’ti said, “Religion is not supposed to be a subordinate of politics.”

Muhammadiyah also aims to address other issues, such as “religious commodification” in which religion was exploited for profit, and “symptoms of spiritualization”, where people practiced religion only to receive divine rewards.

The true value of religion, which served as guidance for the faithful, has yet to be institutionalized in social and political practices, Mu’ti said, and Muhammadiyah aimed to show Muslims how enlightening religious teachings were through the meeting.

“We want to assert that a religious person should be an individual who can contribute positively to society, a person who is able to hearten others with his or her presence instead of raising fears,” Mu’ti said.

About 500 participants are set to attend the three-day meeting, including executives of Muhammadiyah’s central board and leaders of the organization's regional boards.

In the meeting, Muhammadiyah is also set to address internal matters, including preparations for the 2020 national congress, which is held every five years to elect new leadership. 

Vice President Jusuf Kalla is set to open the meeting on Friday and Muhammadiyah chairman Haedar Nasir will provide the keynote speech.

Unlike the previous leadership meeting, however, the upcoming meeting will not see the attendance of former Muhammadiyah leaders, including Amien Rais, Mu'ti said, because the event’s schedule was packed.

Amien, a supporter of Prabowo in the 2019 election, has been an vocal critic of Jokowi, and has been seen as a controversial figure in Indonesia’s political scene,  although he is known as an icon behind 1998 reform, marking the downfall of Soeharto.

Jokowi and Prabowo, who were invited by Muhammadiyah in their capacity as national figures, are scheduled to address participants on separate occasions during the event, Mu’ti said.

The two are expected to speak about, among other things, mainstreaming moderate Islam, and how Indonesia must be more courageous in displaying itself as a political power in the Islamic world, he said.

“Indonesia, as the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, has a quite powerful modality,” Mu’ti said, “We are also accepted by most Muslim countries […] so it should be a political modality for Indonesia, too.”

The leadership meeting is also set to produce a set of recommendations as Muhammadiyah’s input for the future of the nation.

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