Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power within Islam and Politics in Indonesia

2. The Origins of NU and the Conflict with Masyumi

24 Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power 2 The Origins of NU and the Conflict with Masyumi T he establishment of NU came about as a direct result of the local and international struggles between modernist and traditionalist Islam. The narratives of NU’s birth written by post-Khittah ’26 scholars sought to cast the organization’s origins in a ‘pure’ religious light in order to consolidate the Khittah ’26 movement. This chapter examines these dynamics. It then looks at the relationship between NU and Masyumi during the Soekarno era, with attention to the factors contributing to the ultimate rivalry between the two Muslim groups. A BRIEF HISTORY OF ISLAM IN INDONESIA The gradual, relatively peaceful spread of Islam throughout the archipelago now known as Indonesia, and the fairly harmonious way in which Muslim beliefs were folded into pre-existing cultures and practices, has meant that 24 The Origins of NU and the Conflict with Masyumi 25 for much of Indonesia’s history Islam has occupied a rather understated position. Often ignored both by scholars of Islam, who consider Indonesia to exist on the margins of the ‘Muslim world’, and by the general public, who are unaware that Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world, Islam in Indonesia (at least prior to 11 September 2001) has often been regarded as unimportant by both academics and non-academics. However, Islam was a crucial factor not only in the anti-colonial struggle for independence, but also in the process of state formation, in the struggle over the nature of the state and subsequently in the political history of Indonesia. The prevailing narrative of the origins of Islam in Indonesia is that it was introduced by Arab traders via India during the eighth century, but that it was not until around the thirteenth century that large-scale conversions took place, firstly on the island of Sumatra. The variant of Islam exported from India was suffused with elements of mysticism and Sufism and thus did not effect much discontinuity with the Hindu–Buddhist tradition existent on Sumatra and Java. With the conversion to Islam of the Majapahit Kingdom — the last Hindu–Buddhist dynasty on Java — in the sixteenth century, Islam was well on its way to becoming the dominant religion throughout most of the archipelago.1 While European andAmerican narratives of this history often emphasize that Islam came to Indonesia by way of India, many NU narratives reject this assertion, arguing that Islam came to Indonesia directly from the Middle East.2 According to Sears (1996: 45), both accounts are valid: some visitors brought Islam with them directly from the Middle East after the eleventh century, but Muslim influences had been filtering into Indonesia from India long before this. Meuleman (2005) provides a nuanced account of the historiography of the origins of Islam in Indonesia, noting the ideological and political motivations for the various positions held on Arab versus Asian influences. The colonial rule of first the Dutch and later the Japanese not only shaped later notions of Indonesian national identity, but also strongly influenced the development of Islam in Indonesia. European orientalist articulations of Islam and fears of its potential to mobilize unrest led the Dutch colonial administrators to implement two major policies with regard to Islam. First, Dutch colonial discourse articulated a distinction between the ‘authentic’ traditional essence of Indonesia on the one hand and Islamic belief and practice on the other, portraying the latter as a foreign import. This was reinforced by the Dutch policy of implementing its administration on Java 26 Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power through the priyayi — the Javanese, and largely only nominally Muslim, bureaucratic elite. This policy led to the increasing Westernization and secularization of this class, resulting in turn in a growing tension between the priyayi and the Islamic elite (Benda 1958: 13–8).3 Asecond mechanism of colonial control and construction of Indonesian Islam was that implemented by Snouck Hurgronje, a Dutch scholar of Islam and the internal affairs advisor to the colonial government from 1889 to 1906. Hurgronje distinguished between religion and politics within Islam, encouraging the former but not tolerating the latter (Benda 1958: 20–9; Mawardi 1967: 15). Thus, while the Dutch government made attempts to subsidize Islamic education, any sign of political incitement of Muslims would immediately be suppressed. These two policies — colonial constructions of Indonesian Islam as ‘inauthentic’ to both Indonesia and Islam...