Martin van Bruinessen, ‘Postscript: The Survival of Liberal and Progressive

Muslim Thought in Indonesia’, in: Martin van Bruinessen (ed.), Contemporary

developments in Indonesian Islam: explaining the ‘conservative turn’,
Singapore: ISEAS, 2013.
Postscript:

The Survival of Liberal and Progressive Muslim Thought in Indonesia

Martin van Bruinessen

The developments discussed in this volume appear to have marginalized liberal and
progressive Muslim discourses, which in the 1980s and 1990s had been favoured by the
regime and had received much sympathetic coverage in the press. The New Order’s Ministers
of Religious Affairs, notably Munawir Syadzali (1982-92), strongly endorsed liberal religious
thought and made efforts to develop the State Institutes of Islamic Studies (IAIN) into centres
of Muslim intellectualism. The Muhammadiyah, and especially the NU in the Abdurrahman
Wahid years (1984-99) provided young thinkers and activists to some extent with a protective
umbrella (although there has always much criticism of unconventional thinkers in these
organizations). That degree of institutional support for liberal and progressive thought and
action no longer exists, whereas other Muslim discourses, including some that were
suppressed under the New Order, have gained greater prominence and official endorsement.

The same is also true of the audience leading Muslim intellectuals have. During the final
decade and a half of the New Order, a significant segment of the educated and increasingly
affluent Muslim middle class felt attracted to the liberal Muslim intellectualism of Nurcholish
Madjid and his friends, as an alternative to the puritan or politicized and Shariah-oriented
discourse of mainstream reformist preachers. Other alternatives emerged, however, that
appeared to be even more attractive to an upwardly mobile middle class public, such as the
hugely popular preacher Aa Gym with his message of tolerance and self-help through pop
psychology (Watson 2005). The upheavals and inter-religious violence of the years of
transition further increased the demand for such messages and cures for the soul. Many of
those who were dismayed with the upsurge of Islamism flocked to gurus offering Sufi
teachings and spiritual therapy. Courses on mysticism, collective meditation sessions (dzikir
berjama’ah) and mental training courses, rather seminars on Muslim intellectualism, are
currently the middle class’ preferred alternative to political Islam (Howell 2001 and 2007,
Rudnyckyj 2009).

1
However, the extent to which progressive and liberal thought remained entrenched in certain
niches and continued to flourish and develop is easily overlooked. The IAINs had produced
numerous graduates with an interest in philosophy and social science, many of whom went on
to postgraduate studies abroad before returning to take up positions in the religious
bureaucracy or as lecturers at IAINs. Especially the faculties of Ushuluddin (Religious
Studies) of the IAINs in Jakarta and Yogyakarta remained bulwarks of intellectual freedom
and tolerance.1 As is shown by Mujiburrahman in his contribution to this volume, in South
Sulawesi the main Muslim critics of the program of enforcing the Shariah were IAIN lecturers
and graduates, and the continuing influence of the IAIN contributed to a situation of trust, in
which the Christian minority did not feel seriously threatened. It is by no means the case that
the IAINs are dominated by liberal Muslims – in fact, many well-known liberals have lost
previously influential positions there – but at least they continue providing a vitally important
space for intellectual independence.2

Although overshadowed by assertive Islamist voices, the various strains of progressive and
liberal Muslim thought that had developed in the course of the course of the 1980s and 1990s,
in fact continued to flourish and even became more assertive in defence of religious freedom
and pluralism in the post-Soeharto years. A range of Muslim NGOs, including some that were
primarily concerned with the critical study of religious discourse, also profited from the
international funding for the development of civil society that flowed to the country. This
included such NGOs as LKiS (Institute for Islamic and Social Studies) in Yogyakarta, which
had previously introduced critical social thought and hermeneutics into the pesantren
environment and continued to disseminate religious ideas focusing on liberation and
empowerment of subaltern groups, Rahima, which focused on women’s rights and carried out
programs of gender awareness training, and Syarikat, which strove for reconciliation between
the social groups that had been perpetrators and victims of the mass killings of 1965-66, i.e.
for the highly controversial accommodation of Muslims with (alleged) communists.

1
The liberal atmosphere in these institutions was the reason for a particularly virulent attack by an Islamist critic,
who accused them of being places where Muslims are made into apostates (Jaiz 2005). This book has been very
influential in bringing about a broad suspicion of the IAINs, especially of the Ushuluddin faculties.
2
In the early 2000s, several of the IAIN, including those of Jakarta and Yogyakarta, were transformed into
universities (UIN, State Islamic Universities), by the addition of several non-religious faculties such as
economics, medicine, social and political sciences. In these new faculties, Islamist movements gained influence
among the students, leading to a considerable change in atmosphere on campus.

2
The most controversial of the NGOs, and the most immediate target of the notorious MUI
fatwa of 2005 as well as the purges in NU and Muhammadiyah was the Liberal Islam
Network, JIL, which had most explicitly and most provocatively challenged the increasingly
vocal Islamist discourses. One of the first public clashes between Islamists and JIL occurred
in response to a short film clip titled ‘Islam has many colours’ (Islam warna-warni), for
which JIL had bought air time on several commercial television channels in mid-2002. The
clip showed colourful images of Muslim rituals and festivities, including music and dance, a
variety of local styles of mosque architecture and of dress styles that differed from the new
Islamic covering style favoured by the Islamists. It was a celebration of the distinctly
Indonesian forms of expression of Islam, and of the rich cultural variety of these expressions.
At least one group of Islamists took offense at this film. The Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia,
one of the more militant organisations striving for an Islamic state, wrote a letter to the
television channels calling the film an insult to Islam and threatening court action if they
would not stop airing the film. The MMI’s argument was simple: Muslims could have many
colours, but there is only one Islam and God’s commands are unequivocal. By suggesting that
the divine message could be adapted to local circumstances, the liberals were blasphemously
misrepresenting Islam. Although many prominent lawyers and intellectuals came out in
support of the film, the letter proved effective and the channels stopped broadcasting it.3

Besides their defence of local varieties of Islamic belief and practice, another theme on which
the JIL members insisted much concerned the need to understand Qur’anic verses and hadith
in their proper context rather than believing them immediately applicable. (JIL contributors
often contrasted ‘liberal Islam’ and ‘literal Islam’.) A third major theme in its discourse is
respect for other religious traditions and recognition of their validity. The group’s concerns
were presented eloquently in a programmatic statement by its main thinker, Ulil Abshar-
Abdalla:

I consider Islam as a living organism (…) and not as a dead monument erected in the
seventh century (…) There is a strong tendency these days to treat Islam as a
monument, petrified and immutable, and it is time to challenge that attitude. We need

3
The letter to the television stations and various reactions to the issue, along with a range of other criticisms of
JIL are reproduced in Al-Anshori 2003. Al-Anshori was at the time one of the two spokespersons of the Majelis
Mujahidin. JIL’s view of pluralism was defended by one of its leading thinkers, Luthfi Assyaukani, in an op-ed
article in the daily Koran Tempo (Assyaukani 2002).

3
 interpretations that are non-literal, substantive, contextual, and consonant with the
heartbeat of a human civilization that is ever-changing. The substance of Islam should
be separated from the culture of the Arabian peninsula, and it is that universal
substance that has to be interpreted in accordance with the local cultural context.
Whipping, stoning and the cutting of hands, the jilbab (full female covering) and beard
are Arab cultural peculiarities and there is no reason why other Muslims should follow
them. There is not really a detailed divine law, as most Muslims believe, but only the
general principles known as maqasid al-shari`a, the objectives of Islamic law, and
these basic values have to be given concrete content in accordance with the social and
historical context. We have to learn to understand and accept that there cannot be a
single interpretation of Islam that is the only or the most correct and final one. We
must open ourselves to what is true and good, even if it comes from outside Islam.
Islamic values can also be found in Christianity and the other major religions, and
even in minor local religious traditions. Islam should be seen as a process, never
completed and closed; new interpretations may emerge, and the major criterion to
judge interpretations by is maslaha, i.e., what is beneficial to mankind.4

Though there are quite significant differences between the various groups of progressives and
liberals in Indonesia, this statement sums up nicely the major concerns they have in common
(as well as bringing out clearly what are the areas of conflict with Islamists as well as ordinary
orthodox believers). Intellectually, JIL is heir to two distinct currents of religious thought of
the New Order period, which had Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid as their most
prominent spokespersons (echoes of both of whom can be detected in the statement quoted
above). Numerous personal and intellectual connections link JIL to the other movements and
institutions that are tributary to these predecessors. This includes not only the NGOs
mentioned above but also the Paramadina Foundation, the institution most closely associated
with the thought of Nurcholish Madjid, and a number of related institutions, largely staffed
by graduates of Jakarta’s IAIN.

Paramadina, which had since the mid-1980s catered to Jakarta’s upwardly mobile middle
class, offering seminar-like discussions on modern religious thought, became one of the

4
This is a summarizing translation of the first part of Abshar-Abdalla 2002. Much of the second part of the text
consists of a fierce critique of the Islamists’ project of implementing the Shariah as a ready-made solution for all
problems and of their Manichaean worldview that places ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ in mutual opposition.

4
staunchest defenders of religious pluralism in response to the violent inter-religious conflicts
of the transition years, organizing various joint activities with representatives of other
religions. It provoked the anger of many orthodox believers (including members of its own
board) when it published a book on inter-religious relations in which the authors, against the
virtual consensus of Indonesia’s ulama, provided arguments allowing inter-religious marriage
(including that between Muslim women and non-Muslim men).5

Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid had been confronted with fierce criticism in
their day (see e.g. Hassan 1980 for responses to Nurcholish), but they enjoyed powerful
protection, which their successors did to a far lesser extent. Soon after the emergence of JIL, a
fierce polemic started, in public debates, printed publications and internet discussions. Just
like the liberals and progressive are a heterogeneous group, their critics had different
backgrounds and represented different interest. The first and loudest critics, unsurprisingly,
belonged to the more radical Islamist fringes, such as the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI)
and the radicalized younger generation of DDII activists.6 They pointed to some real issues,
such as the liberals’ emphasis on context and rational interpretation in understanding sacred
scripture, but also hinted at conspiracies and foreign interests lurking behind the liberal
façade. They succeeded in alarming a broad section of the mainstream Muslim public, ulama
and religious functionaries. JIL’s public utterances were moreover often quite confrontational
and challenging authority, which did not help to make its message more palatable. By the
middle of the decade, the term ‘liberal’ had become a stigma that all Muslim NGOs did their
utmost to avoid. It was no longer only radicals who opposed JIL and Islamic liberalism, but
many who belonged to the moderate mainstream did so as well (e.g., Buchori 2006).

5
Kamal 2004. Paramadina later withdrew this book from circulation because of the strong responses, notably
from board member Quraish Shihab. The Majelis Mujahidin organized a public debate with the authors of the
book, which rather resembled a public trial, proceedings of which it published under a title that showed they
considered Paramadina no longer to be Muslim (Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia 2004).
6
Jaiz 2002; Adiani and Hidayat 2002; Al-Anshori 2003; Armas 2003. Al-Anshori was at the time one of the
MMI’s spokespersons; Jaiz is former journalist and DDII activist, who since 1998 is ‘head of research’ in the
small institute LPPI, which is dedicated to the struggle against all deviations from pure Islam. Husaini iss one of
DDII’s brightest and most vocal and radical young activists, obsessed with Christian efforts to subvert Islam; he
was one of the radicals invited to join the Majelis Ulama Indonesia. Armas and Husaini both studied at the
Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) in Malaysia and work together in a small
NGO called INSISTS that reflects the views of ISTAC in Indonesia.

5
NGOs working at the grassroots level found their activities greatly impeded when people
associated them with ‘liberal Islam.’ Most Muslim NGOs therefore distanced themselves
from JIL in order to avoid blame by association. The NU and Muhammadiyah congresses of
2004 represented at first sight a setback for liberal and progressive thought, as only very few
persons known associated with liberal ideas retained formal positions in these organizations.
However, as shown by Burhani (in this volume) for the Muhammadiyah and by myself for the
NU (Bruinessen 2010), liberal and progressive voices remain present in both organizations,
thought perhaps less prominently than in the past. JIL’s best-known member, Ulil Abshar-
Abdalla, made a valiant attempt to be elected into the NU’s leadership and obtained a
significant number of votes.

JIL always retained the support of liberal and progressive intellectuals of the older generation,
most notably of Abdurrahman Wahid who, until his death in December 2009, appeared
regularly in the weekly radio talk show ‘Kongkow bareng Gus Dur’ (‘Hanging out with Gus
Dur’) that was broadcast by JIL. Since 2005, however, JIL’s news value has decreased; there
have been no major new controversies. The JIL website, http://islamlib.com/, is still active
and is regularly updated with interesting essays, but the Network organizes far fewer public
activities than in the first years of its existence. The same may be said of most of the Muslim
NGOs that represented liberal and progressive Islamic thought. There is less external funding
for their activities since the economic and political crises have been overcome, and the
audiences reached by their intellectual contributions have become distinctly smaller. Most
members have moreover moved on with their lives and now have their main activities
elsewhere. Two small think tanks close to, but formally independent of, the Muhammadiyah
and NU, The Maarif Institute and The Wahid Institute, constitute safe havens for young
critical intellectuals of these large associations. The IAINs and UINs, and such institutions as
the Paramadina Foundation also provide niches where liberal and progressive thinkers
continue working.

It appears likely that liberal and progressive Muslim intellectuals will remain tolerated within
mainstream institutions and organizations, as long as they do not openly challenge established
authority. Some of them may even rise to positions of influence again and have an impact on
public debate. In their modest formulation, after all, the ideas of rational interpretation of the
sacred texts, adaptation of the message of Islam to local conditions, and respect for other
religions continue to be shared by numerous Indonesian mainstream Muslims.

6
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