2014_12_09_Bayt ar-Rahmah
(Home of Divine Grace)
Leaders of the World’s Largest Muslim Organization Launch Global Effort to “restore the majesty of Islamic teachings as a source of universal love and compassion (rahmatan li al-‘alamin)”
Bayt ar-Rahmah is incorporated in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which was established in the mid-18th century by German-speaking immigrants who traveled to the new world in search of religious freedom.
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina, USA: On December 9, 2014, Kyai Haji A. Mustofa Bisri, Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Supreme Council and KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf—the NU’s Secretary for International and Political Affairs—joined with American businessmen C. Holland Taylor and F. Borden Hanes, Jr. to legally establish Home of Divine Grace for Revealing and Nurturing Islam as a Blessing for All Creation (Bayt ar-Rahmah li ad-Da‘wa al-Islamiyah Rahmatan li al-‘Alamin), a U.S.-based religious corporation that will serve as a hub for the expansion of NU operations worldwide. Nahdlatul Ulama is the world’s largest Muslim organization, with over 50 million members and 14,000 Islamic boarding schools, or madrassahs.
Bayt ar-Rahmah is part of a global effort conceived by Indonesia’s first democratically-elected head of state, H.E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid (1940 – 2009), to help realize Indonesia’s strategic potential as an engine of civilizational progress for all humanity. In 2003, President Wahid established LibForAll Foundation with his close friend and associate, North Carolina native C. Holland Taylor, to help meet international peace and security needs in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the first Bali bombing. Under President Wahid’s and Mr. Taylor’s leadership, LibForAll quickly became “a model of what a competent public diplomacy effort in the Muslim world should look like” (Wall Street Journal), achieving a string of notable successes that would ultimately result in the foundation of Bayt ar-Rahmah. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2015
2015_08_30_Historic Nahdlatul Ulama Congress a Battleground Between Opposing Forces
Wide Range of Human Nature, and “Religious Impulse,” on Display
“In Indonesia, the congress was a major event. It opened with a speech by the country’s president; each day it was the lead item on TV news and in national newspapers. But apart from the presence of diplomats at the opening and reporting by specialized academics, it mostly passed unnoticed in the West.
“This is tragic, since a few days spent at the congress of the world’s largest Muslim organization would reshape most Westerners’ perception of Islam. While groups such as ISIS demand a many-sided, including military, response, long-term antidotes to growing Islamic extremism can only be found in organizations such as NU.
“Historically, NU, like Indonesia, has rarely sought a bigger place on the Islamic or world stage. But now, with the nation’s economy the largest in the Muslim world, and after eight successful democratic elections, both are reaching out, sponsoring reconciliation and educational programs in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. There are even NU branches in the United States.
“As we continue to struggle with bloody chaos in much of the Middle East, Indonesia, and especially Indonesian Islam, needs our careful attention.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2015_11_26_Ansor Congress and Film Launch
From Indonesia, a Muslim Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic State
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — On the morning of November 26, 2015, the 15th National Congress of the world’s largest Muslim youth organization, GP Ansor (established 1934), opened with the screening of a film (The Divine Grace of East Indies Islam) that the New York Times hailed as “a relentless religious repudiation of the Islamic State and the opening salvo in a global campaign by the world’s largest Muslim group to challenge the ideology of the Islamic State head-on.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2016
2016_05_10_ISOMIL Nahdlatul Ulama Declaration
Nahdlatul Ulama Convenes International Summit of Moderate Islamic Leaders (ISOMIL) and Issues Historic Declaration
JAKARTA, INDONESIA: On May 9 and 10, 2016, approximately 400 traditional Muslim scholars from 30 nations gathered to attend an International Summit of Moderate Islamic Leaders sponsored by the world’s largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and its affiliate Bayt ar-Rahmah. At the Summit’s conclusion, the NU Central Board promulgated a 16-point declaration that affirmed the mainstream nature of the NU’s understanding and practice of traditional Sunni Islam; identified the salient factors driving Islamist extremism and terror worldwide; and committed the NU to develop a global alliance capable of addressing the twin threats of Sunni and Shi’ite extremism. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2016_05_12_Global Unity Forum and Ansor Declaration
Nahdlatul Ulama Youth Movement Hosts Global Unity Forum — Urges Reform of Classical Islamic Law
Abdul Aziz Wahid, Virginia Gray Henry, KH. M. Luthfi Thomafi
JAKARTA, INDONESIA: On May 12, 2016, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish leaders gathered to attend a Global Unity Forum co-sponsored by the world’s largest Muslim youth organization, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, and Bayt ar-Rahmah. At the Forum’s conclusion, GP Ansor issued a 3-page declaration that includes “The GP Ansor Call… for an end to conflict in the name of religion, and for qualified ulama (Muslim religious scholars) to carefully examine and address those elements of fiqh (classical Islamic law) that encourage segregation, discrimination and/or violence towards those perceived to be ‘non-Muslim.’” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2017
2017_03_30_Humanitarian Islam
World’s Largest Muslim Organization Launches Global Effort to Recontextualize (i.e., Reform) Classical Islamic Law
Indonesians Seek to Export a Modernized Vision of Islam
Members of Nahdlatul Ulama in Jakarta in 2011, during a commemoration of the group’s founding in Indonesia in 1926. Its youth wing is making a global push to bring Islamic law into line with modern norms. Credit: Supri/Reuters
JAKARTA, Indonesia: On March 30th, 2017, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor (the Nahdlatul Ulama Young Adults Movement) announced the launch of a concerted effort to promote Humanitarian Islam (al-islam li al-insaniyyah), by developing and operationalizing a global strategy to recontextualize the teachings of orthodox, authoritative Islam and thereby reconcile certain problematic elements of classical Islamic law (fiqh, aka shari‘ah) with the reality of contemporary civilization, whose context and conditions differ significantly from those in which classical Islamic law emerged. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2017_04_18_National Security Agenda
Gerakan Pemuda Ansor’s View Regarding the Republic of Indonesia’s Strategic Interests and National Security Agenda
JAKARTA, Indonesia: On April 17 – 18 2017, representatives of the world’s largest Muslim young adults movement, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor (est. 1934), gathered for the organization’s XXIst National Conference. Regional and provincial leaders discussed a number of geopolitical developments that pose a grave threat to Indonesia’s security. These include “the brutal conflicts raging in the Middle East and other hot spots; the rampant social turbulence that prevails almost everywhere in the Muslim world; the spread of religious extremism and terrorism, which pose a global security threat; and a rising tide of Islamophobia among non-Muslim populations, in response to these developments in the Muslim world.” Conference delegates also discussed “the threat posed by the political and military agenda of the People’s Republic of China, as it seeks to achieve regional hegemony in East and Southeast Asia.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2017_05_22_Ansor Declaration on Humanitarian Islam
World’s Largest Muslim Youth Organization Publishes Detailed Road Map for the Reform of Islamic Orthodoxy: “Let us Honestly Acknowledge, and Address, the Primary Cause of Islamist Terrorism”
KH. Abdul Ghofur Maemun (Vice Chairman, NU Supreme Council); KH. Masdar Mas’udi (Vice Chairman, NU Supreme Council): KH. Abdul A’la (Rector, Sunan Ampel State Islamic University); Dr. Hamdi Murad (Jordan)
JOMBANG, Indonesia: On 21 – 22 May 2017, over 300 Indonesian religious scholars gathered with colleagues from South Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America to address “obsolete tenets of classical Islamic law, which are premised upon perpetual conflict with those who do not embrace or submit to Islam.” The event was held at PP (Madrasah) Bahrul ‘Ulum in Jombang, East Java—birthplace of the Nahdlatul Ulama and its 5-million-strong youth movement, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2017_07_18_Presentation to EU Council TWP (Terrorism Working Party)
NU General Secretary to the European Union and Its 28 Member States: “You cannot win if you do not fight back”
BRUSSELS, Belgium: On Tuesday 18 July 2017, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf—General Secretary of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Supreme Council—delivered a video address to senior EU officials and representatives of 28 Member States at the headquarters of the European Council, which defines the EU’s overall political direction and policies. His address was part of a broader expert presentation on risk assessment hosted by the government of Estonia, which currently holds the rotating Presidency of the EU Council. Member States holding the rotating Presidency work together in groups of three to set long-term goals and prepare a common agenda determining the topics and major issues that will be addressed by the Council over an 18-month period. The presentation was delivered to the Terrorism Working Party (TWP), which leads and manages the Council’s agenda on counter-terrorism. Attended by law-enforcement and security officials of the 28 EU Member States, TWP is also responsible for exchanging information and assessments of terrorist threats; countering radicalization and recruitment of potential terrorists; and carrying out peer evaluations of Member States’ best practices in the fight against terrorism. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2017_08_19_Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
NU General Secretary to Europe’s Intellectual and Political Elites: “The West must stop equating a rational critique of Islamist terrorism with Islamophobia”
Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf
FRANKFURT, Germany: In the wake of yet another devastating terror attack in Europe—which killed or injured over 140 on the streets of Barcelona—Germany’s leading newspaper published a lengthy interview with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) General Secretary Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf. Headlined “Terrorism and Islam are Intimately Connected,” the interview was placed on the front page of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s widely-read Feuilleton (arts and culture) section, which also addresses moral issues that transcend partisan politics. Within hours of its publication, the interview was trending as one of the most popular articles shared in Germany. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2017_10_19_Impact Analysis
Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary’s “Message to Europe” Helped Shape Public Discourse Amid the Heat of Germany’s 2017 National Election Campaign
Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf
On May 22nd, 2017 the world’s largest Muslim young adults movement, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, issued an historic declaration calling for the reform of problematic tenets within Islamic orthodoxy “in order to bring about a world in which Islam, and Muslims, are truly beneficent and contribute to the well-being of all humanity.” The Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Declaration on Humanitarian Islam provides a concrete strategy and road map explicitly designed to address “obsolete tenets of classical Islamic law, which are premised upon perpetual conflict with those who do not embrace or submit to Islam” (point 42). Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2017_11_17_Saudi Mosque in Brussels
Scholar Cites Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary’s Role in Debate Over Saudi Mosque in Brussels
Dr. James M. Dorsey—a widely-recognized expert on the Middle East and senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore—recently published an in-depth analysis of the controversy raging over an attempt by “Belgium’s Parliament… to wrest control from Saudi Arabia of Brussels’ downtown Grand Mosque after three years in which Belgians played a prominent role in Islamic State attacks in the Belgian capital as well as Paris.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2017_11_25_NU National Assembly and Conference
Nahdlatul Ulama Targets the Weaponization of Religion for Political Purposes
Indonesian President Joko Widodo (third from right) opens the National Assembly of Ulama with the traditional beating of drums
MATARAM, Lombok, Indonesia: From 23 – 25 November 2017, the world’s largest Muslim organization convened 1,200 religious scholars for a National Assembly of Ulama and Major Conference, whose primary agenda was to strengthen the values of nationalism, counter religious extremism and improve the economic welfare of all sectors of Indonesian society. Attendees included Indonesia’s President and Vice President; the chiefs of Indonesia’s military, national police and state intelligence agency; numerous cabinet ministers; and foreign emissaries, including ambassadors from Iran and Saudi Arabia. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2018
2018_01_01_Strategic Review
Maneuvering within Islam’s Narrative Space: The Key to Defeating Islamist Extremism and Terror
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kansas and MAGELANG, Indonesia: On January 1, 2018, Strategic Review—“The Indonesian Journal of Leadership, Policy and World Affairs”—published a two-part cover story titled “Maneuvering within Islam’s Narrative Space.” The authors are LTC Brian Steed, Assistant Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and C. Holland Taylor, Chairman & CEO of LibForAll Foundation, which he established in 2003 with former Indonesian President H.E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid. Mr. Taylor also represents the world’s largest Muslim youth organization, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, and works closely with senior figures within the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)—including its spiritual leader and former Chairman, Kyai Haji A. Mustofa Bisri, and KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, the current General Secretary of the Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council—to expand NU and Ansor operations worldwide. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
Read the Strategic Review cover story, “Maneuvering within Islam’s Narrative Space.”
2018_02_11_Civilizational Nobility
Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary Issues Call to Embrace Nobility of Character as the Unifying Attribute of an Emerging Global Civilization
2018_04_30_TIME 100
Ibu Sinta Nuriyah Wahid Lauded for Her Contributions to Humanity
2018_05_22_The Jakarta Post
The Enduring Threat of Islamist Politics in ‘Reformasi’ (Post-Soeharto) Indonesia and its Global Ramifications
2018_05_17_VPOTUS
White House Declares Support for @NahdlatulUlama
2018_05_31_Presidential Advisory Council
President Jokowi Appoints KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf to Key Position
2018_06_29_Jerusalem
Indonesian Muslim Leader Delivers a “Message of Compassion,” and Reconciliation, from the Holy City of Jerusalem
JERUSALEM, the spiritual heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Following a high-profile visit to the United States in May of 2018—which entailed substantive meetings with VPOTUS and other senior U.S. government officials—the General Secretary of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), elicited widespread praise and a firestorm of controversy by visiting Jerusalem from 9 – 15 June 2018, where he delivered a message of rahmah (universal love and compassion) in a series of public speeches and meetings with senior Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2018_07_25_Impact Analysis
NU General Secretary’s Historic Visit to Jerusalem Helped Shape Public Discourse Amid the Heat of Indonesia’s 2018 Regional Election Campaign
JAKARTA, Indonesia: A firestorm of controversy over how the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and democracy should respond to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unexpectedly dominated Indonesia’s print, broadcast and social media during the decisive final weeks of that nation’s 2018 regional election campaign, which many experts view as a bellwether for national legislative and presidential elections to follow in 2019. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2018_10_09_Asia Society Game Changer Award
Spreading Unity through Song in One of the World’s Most Divided Cities
Award-winning music video created in honor of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) General Secretary’s visit to Jerusalem is part of a comprehensive, global campaign to transform religion from a political weapon into a source of universal love and compassion
JERUSALEM and NEW YORK CITY: On October 9, 2018, the Asia Society—founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller III—honored the social music initiative Koolulam with its coveted “Game Changer Award,” in recognition of the group’s collaboration with Bayt ar-Rahmah, Jerusalem.com and the Tower of David Museum, which allowed its site in Jerusalem’s old city to be used free of charge in the production of an historic music video. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2018_10_25_Nusantara Manifesto
Nusantara Manifesto Initiates the Renewal of Islamic Teachings through the Recontextualization (i.e., Reform) of Obsolete Tenets within Islamic Orthodoxy
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia: For the first time since the late Middle Ages, a large body of Sunni Muslim authorities are engaged in a wide-ranging, concerted and explicit project of theological renewal (i.e., reform). In the words of KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council, “This effort will address obsolete tenets within Islamic orthodoxy; realign these problematic tenets with 21st century ‘civilizational reality’; block their political weaponization; and curtail the spread of communal hatred by fostering the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2018_10_26_Second Global Unity Forum
Multi-Faith Vanguard Unites to Adopt Nusantara Statement and Join Global Humanitarian Islam Movement
The signed Nusantara Statement
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia: A coalition of international religious and political figures joined leaders of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)—the world’s largest Muslim organization—in signing the Nusantara Statement at the Second Global Unity Forum (GUF II), held on October 25 – 26, 2018 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Signatories “call[ed] upon people of goodwill of every faith and nation to join in building a global consensus to prevent the political weaponization of Islam, whether by Muslims or non-Muslims, and to curtail the spread of communal hatred by fostering the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2018_11_22_President Joko Widodo and Gerakan Pemuda Ansor move to block the political weaponization of Islam
“The true spirit of Indonesia”
Ansor promulgates the Nusantara Statement at a mass gathering heavily covered by Indonesia’s print, broadcast and internet media
Ansor Chairman H. Yaqut Qoumas presents a copy of the Nusantara Statement to President Jokowi
PEKALONGAN, Indonesia: November 22, 2018. One month after Gerakan Pemuda Ansor and its international affiliate, Bayt ar-Rahmah, hosted the Second Global Unity Forum in Yogyakarta, Ansor Chairman H. Yaqut Qoumas announced the adoption of the Nusantara Statement at a mass rally of over 100,000 Ansor members, and presented a commemorative steel plaque engraved with the Statement to Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).
The Statement conveys the essence of the historic Nusantara Manifesto, through which Gerakan Pemuda Ansor and Bayt ar-Rahmah have officially launched a process of systematically recontextualizing (i.e., reforming) obsolete and problematic tenets within Islamic orthodoxy. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2018_11_22_President Joko Widodo’s Pekalongan Address
Commemorating the Birth of the Prophet Muhammad in Pekalongan, President Jokowi Urges the Muslim Community to Follow the Example of God’s Messenger
President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and First Lady Iriana Joko Widodo attended an event commemorating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (saw.) and National Heroes’ Day at the Great Square of Kajen, Pekalongan Regency, Central Java, on the evening of Thursday the 22nd of November.
From right to left: First Lady Iriana Widodo; President Joko Widodo; GP Ansor Chairman H. Yaqut Qoumas; Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Association of Sufi Orders Habib Luthfi bin Yahya; and Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung
The President used this opportunity to express his pleasure to be in the midst of the Gerakan Pemuda Ansor family, because GP Ansor is always in the forefront safeguarding Pancasila; preserving the spirit of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (“Unity Amid Diversity”); guarding the Republic of Indonesia and its 1945 Constitution; and protecting Indonesia from separatism and terrorist acts.
“Gerakan Pemuda Ansor is living proof that our nation stands heir to the courage of warriors and the sincerity of heroes. GP Ansor is not easily intimidated; that is the true spirit of Indonesia. [Like Ansor,] we must all bravely demonstrate that Pancasila is the foundational ideology of the Indonesian nation state and cannot be replaced by other ideologies, including imported ideologies [propagated by transnational Islamist movements].” Continue reading President Joko Widodo’s full Pekalongan address with images. . .
2018_11_22_H. Yaqut Qoumas’
Pekalongan Address
Speech by H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, General Chairman of the Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Central Board, Delivered Before the President and First Lady of the Republic of Indonesia, Assembled Kyais (Nahdlatul Ulama Religious Scholars) and 100,000 Banser (i.e., Ansor Militia) Cadres Mustered in Pekalongan, Central Java, to Commemorate the Birth of the Prophet Muhammad (saw.) and National Heroes’ Day
Thursday 22 November 2018
H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, Chairman of the GP Ansor Central Board
Mr. President, beloved kyais and respected members of our audience: the events we see unfolding in the Middle East and beyond—where conflict in the name of religion, and especially Islam, has caused immense human suffering—is a matter of profound concern to us. Above and beyond our sympathy for the people of these regions, we are acutely aware that the mindset on display in the Middle East has begun to penetrate our beloved country. Conscious of the virulent threat that confronts us, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor always and explicitly rejects those [Sunni radicals] who claim to possess a monopoly on religious truth while condemning the beliefs of others, who constitute the majority of Indonesia’s citizens. Gerakan Pemuda Ansor also rejects the weaponization of religion as a political tool to acquire worldly power, which the tragic example of the Middle East and other regions proves to be a source of bitter conflict and division—by deliberately inciting the inhabitants of a nation to despise, reject and even seek to destroy their fellow citizens. Continue reading H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas’ full Pekalongan address with images. . .
2018_12_17_Ljubljana Address
Muslim Emissary Warns Europe from its Balkan Faultline: “Act Now to Address Islamist Extremism, Terror and Migration, or Face Mass Upheaval”
Panel, from left to right: Aleš Hojs (President, VSO and Former Defense Minister); Boštjan Perne (Former Director of the Intelligence and Security Service); Yahya Cholil Staquf (General Secretary, Nahdlatul Ulama); Security Expert (The Asimetric Group); Janez Janša (Former Prime Minister and Chairman, SDS), Marjan Podobnik (Chairman, SLS)
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia: On December 17, 2018, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf—General Secretary of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim organization and Emissary of Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party (PKB)—addressed the Slovenian nation at the invitation of its former Prime Minister, Janez Janša. The address, delivered at a heavily-attended public forum in the capital Ljubljana, on the topic of “Migration, Terrorism [and] Freedom of Speech,” came three years after a mass influx of largely Muslim migrants flooded through Slovenian territory into Central and Western Europe, triggering continent-wide social and political upheaval; a wave of Islamist terrorism; and the resurgence of populism as a potent political force for the first time since the Second World War.
In his speech—hosted by the Slovenian Democratic (SDS) and Slovenian People’s (SLS) parties—Mr. Staquf warned that among the consequences of this laissez faire approach to immigration is the re-emergence of supremacist ethno-religious identities that many Europeans pride themselves on having left behind, but are now once again threatening European stability, social harmony and the respect for human rights embraced by its political mainstream. Continue reading the full communiqué with images. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2019
2019_01_03_Towards an Islamic Jurisprudence Suitable to Our Emerging Global Civilization
Leading Muslim Scholars Encourage the Reform of Problematic Tenets Within Islamic Orthodoxy: “Shall We Remain Silent, or Confront Tyranny?”
Forum participants (photo courtesy of Sofian J. Anom)
REMBANG, Central Java, Indonesia: On January 3, 2019, one of the most respected Islamic boarding schools in Southeast Asia—PP Raudlatut Thalibin—hosted an all-day forum to examine the necessity of recontextualizing (i.e., reforming) obsolete tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that constitute the center of gravity for a wide range of Islamist movements, including ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb ut-Tahrir. Entitled “GP Ansor’s Nusantara Manifesto: Towards an Islamic Jurisprudence [Suitable to Our] Emerging Global Civilization,” over 70 Islamic scholars from throughout Indonesia attended the event, co-sponsored by the 5-million-member Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) young adults movement, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, and its theological wing, Rijalul Ansor.
In his opening remarks, Rijalul Ansor Director KH. Aunullah Habib stated that, “Today, the world is facing chaos because of attempts by Muslim extremists to implement elements of fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] that are no longer compatible with 21st century reality. The catastrophic violence and human misery that result from these attempts are most visibly on display in the Middle East but threaten the entire world, presenting each of us with a profound moral choice: shall we remain silent or follow the example of the noble prophets in confronting tyranny?” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_01_25_Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Recognizes the Contribution of Indonesian Islam to Peace and Democracy
“A Worthy Model for the World to Emulate”
Former Muhammadiyah Chairman, Dr. Syafii Maarif:
“An Antidote to the Disease, and Civilizational Decay, Afflicting the Middle East”
H.E. José Ramos-Horta
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia: On January 17 and 25, 2019, Gadjah Mada University (UGM)—Indonesia’s preeminent institution of higher learning—held a pair of high-profile events to accompany the launch of a global campaign to nominate the world’s largest Muslim organizations for the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of their unique contributions to Islamic democracy and global conflict resolution.
H.E. José Ramos-Horta—who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996; led East Timor’s independence movement; and served as its president from 2007 – 2012—joined UGM and an international assembly of scholars to discuss Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah’s historic achievements and their nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Both groups’ contributions to Indonesian democracy played an essential role in granting independence to East Timor in 1999, following 24 years of Indonesian military occupation. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_02_01_World’s Largest Muslim Organization Promotes European Unity
Leader of massive, grassroots Islamic movement urges Europe’s political center to unite
“Engage in honest discourse about Islam, to end the cycle of religious supremacism, separatism and terror that has polarized European societies, and may trigger widespread civil unrest”
Portuguese Socialist MEP and Chair of the Indonesia–European Parliament Friendship Group, Ana Maria Gomes, greets KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, BRUSSELS: On January 31 and February 1, 2019, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf—General Secretary of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim organization, and Emissary of Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party, PKB—led an official delegation to address the European Parliament’s center-left and center-right political groupings at the invitation of Portuguese Socialist Party MEP Ana Maria Gomes and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI).
Visiting in his capacity as a member of Indonesia’s Presidential Advisory Council, with a protocol rank equivalent to Minister of State, Mr. Staquf delivered a heavily-attended speech urging Europe’s centrist politicians to halt the rapidly accelerating polarization of European societies by acknowledging and addressing legitimate concerns raised by populist forces about the nexus of national and international security threats linked to Islam, terrorism and migration. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_03_22_Nahdlatul Ulama-Based PKB Joins Centrist Democrat International
Indonesia’s Largest Islamic Political Party, PKB, to Project “Soft Power” Globally
Muhaimin Iskandar and César Rosselló at a press conference in Jakarta, displaying a document that welcomes PKB to full membership in CDI. They are flanked by Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary and Presidential Advisor KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf (wearing a white shirt) and members of PKB’s Central Board.
JAKARTA, Indonesia: On March 22, 2019, a delegation representing the world’s largest political network—Centrist Democrat International (CDI), with over 100 affiliated parties in more than 70 nations—visited Jakarta, where they met with the Central Board of Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party. H. Muhaimin Iskandar, Chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB) and Deputy Speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), greeted the delegation, headed by César Rosselló, CDI’s General Coordinator for Asia Pacific and Latin America. CDI—originally, an exclusive coalition of Christian Democrat parties—approved PKB’s accession unanimously and in record time at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Cape Verde on November 27, 2018.
Indonesia’s print and broadcast media heavily covered the event, providing widespread favorable publicity for PKB in the midst of a national election campaign. The nation’s presidential and legislative elections will be held on April 19, 2019. PKB is allied with President Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) of Indonesia and the party controls four cabinet posts in the current Jokowi administration. The nation’s leading newspaper, Kompas, reported that PKB—the first Indonesian political party to join an international network—was swiftly granted full membership status by CDI “due to its party ideology, which is based on democracy, moderation and anti-radicalism.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_03_22_Japanese Communist Party Showcases Islamic Mass Movement
Official Newspaper of One of the World’s Oldest and Largest Non-Governing Communist Parties Highlights the Role of Nahdlatul Ulama in Defending Indonesia’s Democracy from Extremists
JAKARTA, Indonesia: On March 22, 2019, Red Flag (Shimbun Akahata)—the official newspaper of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), with a distribution of 1.2 million copies—published an extensive interview with Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Entitled “Islam Needs Tenets that Reflect Contemporary Reality,” the article examines the role of the NU in defending Indonesia’s pluralistic, tolerant and multi-religious nation state from Islamist extremists motivated by obsolete and problematic elements of Islamic orthodoxy. The last in a 5-part series on Indonesia’s April, 2019 presidential and legislative elections, the interview with Mr. Staquf underscores rising concern among traditional leftist political movements about the weaponization of ethnic, religious and political identities worldwide.
Like Nahdlatul Ulama (est. 1926), JCP traces its heritage to the anti-colonialist struggle of the 1920s, and has a history of fighting for the principles of popular sovereignty, anti-sectarianism and self-determination. One of the oldest and largest non-governing Communist parties in the world, it was founded in 1922 and claims a membership of over 300,000. Anti-imperialist and anti-militarist, JCP was the only Japanese political party to actively oppose Imperial Japan’s invasion of China and its entry into World War II, and seeks to turn Japan into a non-aligned nation. The pacifist international order to which the party aspires, however, is increasingly threatened by a rising tide of ethnic and religious hatred, discrimination and violence, fueled in large part by widespread perceptions that Islam threatens non-Muslims, and is synonymous with terrorism. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_03_25_Don’t weaponize the term Islamophobia
To prevent another Christchurch, Islam must confront the attacks in its name that have radicalised the West
YAHYA CHOLIL STAQUF | 25 MARCH 2019
How can we prevent another atrocity like the one in Christchurch? CREDIT: REUTERS
How can we – Muslims and non-Muslims together – prevent another atrocity like the one in Christchurch? As I have watched New Zealanders of all faiths mourn, this has been the question on my mind. So far, few of the answers offered have come close to the truth.
What the massacre revealed was the need for a clear understanding of the weaponisation of ethnic, religious and political identities that is going on throughout the world. This was Brenton Tarrant’s evil aim: to contribute to a polarisation of the West – and to a parallel phenomenon in the Muslim world. His actions, which eerily resemble those of Isil and other Islamist terror groups, were calculated to intensify the hostility and suspicion that already exist towards Muslims in the West. They were also designed to elicit a response from Islamists and so encourage a cycle of retaliatory violence.
We must not let him, or anyone else, succeed. Solidarity across racial, religious, cultural and political lines to address this global crisis is the only answer. But this means resolutely acknowledging the causal factors of the violence that we are seeing in so many parts of the world. As a Muslim, this leads me to questions that require difficult but honest answers. Continue reading this article with images. . .
2019_04_10_World’s Largest Political Network Embraces Humanitarian Islam
Centrist Democrat International Adopts PKB Resolution, Signaling a Profound Shift in Global Discourse Regarding Extremism and Terror
BRUSSELS, Belgium: On April 10, 2019, the Executive Committee of Centrist Democrat International (CDI)—the world’s most extensive political network, with over 100 affiliated parties in more than 70 nations—unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the “universal principles and aspirations” of the global Humanitarian Islam movement, and calling for the “widespread dissemination and study” of its foundational texts.
A “Resolution on acknowledging that universal human fraternity is essential to the emergence of a global civilization founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being,” was drafted and presented to the Committee by the National Awakening Party (PKB), Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party. The resolution commends Nahdlatul Ulama—the world’s largest Muslim organization—for its “groundbreaking” role in having “first articulated the concept of universal human fraternity as a shari‘ah basis for legal equality between Muslims and non-Muslims” at its National Congress held in Situbondo, East Java, in 1984. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_04_17_Muslim Scholar’s Call for “Honest Discussion” Elicits Global Response
Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary’s Appeal to “Renounce the Practice of Weaponizing Islam for Partisan Advantage” Praised for Offering a “Way Forward” in the Aftermath of Christchurch Terror Attacks
On March 25, 2019, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the world’s largest Islamic organization—Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), with over 90 million followers—responded to the brutal slaughter of 50 Muslims at prayer in Christchurch, New Zealand. Writing in The Telegraph, a prestigious newspaper with close links to Britain’s governing Conservative Party, Mr. Staquf urged people of all faiths and none to go through the “uncomfortable” process of “resolutely acknowledging the causal factors of the violence that we are seeing in so many parts of the world,” and summon the courage to ask “questions that require difficult but honest answers.” The article, entitled “To prevent another Christchurch, Islam must confront the attacks in its name that have radicalized the West,” was welcomed by policy experts, journalists, opinion leaders and government officials for encouraging discourse about a highly-fraught and complex phenomenon that threatens all humanity.
2019_04_25_Calls for U.S. to Engage with Nahdlatul Ulama in the Wake of Indonesia’s Presidential Election
Professor, Policy Expert and Religious Freedom Advocate A.J. Nolte: “NU. . . represents one of the few genuinely influential, well-organized, and politically powerful voices of moderate Islam”
President Jokowi reaching out to voters in the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy
United States diplomats, government departments and foreign policy practitioners are being encouraged to engage with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)—the world’s largest Muslim organization, with over 90 million followers—after NU-oriented voters from the heavily-populated island of Java, which constitutes the geographic, political and economic center of Indonesia, proved “decisive” in re-electing moderate Muslim leader Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to his second and final term in office. Writing in Christian foreign policy journal Providence, A.J. Nolte—assistant professor of politics at Regent University’s Robertson School of Government—noted how “Jokowi’s winning coalition was based almost entirely on support from areas of East and Central Java dominated by the Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama.”
“Indonesia may be undergoing a kind of electoral ideological sorting into three camps, whose differing views on the relationship between Islam and the state will have a huge impact on the country moving forward,” observes Nolte. Whilst the heavily-Javanese NU supports religious toleration, a second emerging bloc, which voted overwhelmingly for Jokowi’s rival Prabowo Subianto, represents “an ominous trend worth watching.” This bloc is “committed to a rigid application of political Islam in Indonesia” and consists of “two groups: West Javanese, whose version of Islam is influenced by Wahhabi teachings brought back to Indonesia from Mecca, and Malay Muslims from the so-called ‘out-islands,’ who have generally been somewhat more rigid in their orthodoxy than their Javanese counterparts for centuries.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_05_15_Prominent Jewish Figures Warn About the Perils of Weaponizing Identity
Muslim Leader Concurs: “Overcoming White Supremacism, Antisemitism and Islamist Extremism Will Require Courage, Honesty and Compassion”
Saint Sebastian’s Church in Columbo, Sri Lanka following an attack on April 21, 2019
In the weeks following white supremacist Brenton Tarrant’s live-streaming of his brutal slaughter of Muslims at prayer in New Zealand, Jews, Muslims and Christians have all fallen victim to shocking acts of terror. In response to these tragedies, a number of prominent Jewish figures have joined Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf—General Secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim organization—in urging religious, cultural and political elites to end the practice of weaponizing identity, which exacerbates communal hatred and short-circuits analysis of the complex phenomena that contribute to ethnic and religious violence. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_05_15_Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama Helps Shape British Government Policy Through High Profile Commentary and Policy Exchange Report On Islamophobia
General Secretary of the World’s Largest Muslim Organization Warns Europeans Against the Horrors of Weaponizing “Tribal Identity”
Joins UK center-left and center-right opinion leaders in derailing a concerted effort “to strip Western societies of the freedom of speech required to challenge ethnic and religious supremacism”
LONDON, United Kingdom: On May 15, 2019, the British government rejected calls to adopt a vague yet sweeping definition of the term “Islamophobia,” that would undermine counterterrorism policy, empower Muslim extremists, enable media censorship and open the door to criminalization of frank discourse about Islam, including the crystal-clear links between jihadist doctrine, goals and strategy and certain problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy and its historic practice.
The move follows a series of high-profile interventions in continental Europe and the UK by Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). In his latest intervention, Mr. Staquf supported a broad cross-section of British civil society and its political establishment, who warned the British government not to adopt the policy recommendations of an informal grouping of UK parliamentarians—the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims (APPG)—that seeks to weaponize a highly problematic definition of Islamophobia as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_06_12_“Reforming the Faith”
Award-winning Journalist and Scholar Chronicles Global “Battle for the Soul of Islam”
Veteran foreign correspondent, Middle East expert and Senior Fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Dr. James M. Dorsey, has written a comprehensive, 22-page analysis of Humanitarian Islam—a global, multi-faith movement guided by the spiritual leadership of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). The movement seeks to reform obsolete and problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that enjoin religious hatred, supremacy and violence. Titled “Reforming the Faith,” Dorsey’s wide-ranging article examines the history, challenges and potentially far-reaching consequences of the NU leaders’ effort to block the weaponization of Islam for political purposes, which fuels Islamist extremism and terror worldwide. In his conclusion, Dr. Dorsey observes that:
“Nahdlatul Ulama’s campaign amounts to more than simply confronting ultra-conservatism and militancy. It is a pushback against the notion that secularism and pluralism are expressions of a Western conspiracy to undermine Islam. . . If successful, Nahdlatul Ulama’s strategy could have far-reaching consequences. For many Middle Eastern autocrats, adopting a more tolerant, pluralistic interpretation of Islam would mean allowing far greater social and political freedoms and embracing concepts of pluralism. That would likely lead to a weakening of their grip on power.”
2019_07_18_African American Muslims Welcome Nahdlatul Ulama and Humanitarian Islam
NU General Secretary Delivers Nationwide Address to U.S. Muslims from Historic Mosque in Washington, DC
WASHINGTON, DC: On the evening of Thursday, July 18, 2019, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf—General Secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization—delivered a sermon that was live-streamed to members of the African American Muslim community gathered in mosques, Islamic centers and homes throughout North America and abroad. Mr. Staquf spoke from the hallowed precincts of Masjid Muhammad, The Nation’s Mosque, home to the oldest Muslim community in Washington. Masjid Muhammad was the first mosque built from the ground up in America’s capital city by its citizens, and also the first in the U.S. built by descendants of enslaved African Americans. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_07_18_World Evangelical Alliance Envoy Highlights the Potentially Historic Significance of Humanitarian Islam
“A serious response to religiously motivated violence,” whose sophisticated theology “merits attention from scholars, diplomats and activists”
Speakers at the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom roundtable event, “An Exploration of Religiously Motivated Violence,” from right to left: Faith McDonnell (Institute on Religion and Democracy); Dr. Thomas K. Johnson (International Institute for Religious Freedom); Dr. Paul Marshall (Hudson Institute); and Jacob Rudenstrand (Swedish Evangelical Alliance).
WASHINGTON, DC: On the morning of Thursday, July 18, 2019, Reverend Professor Thomas K. Johnson (above, speaking), Special Envoy to the Vatican and Senior Advisor on Religious Freedom for the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA)—which represents more than 600 million evangelical Christians worldwide—delivered a penetrating analysis of the Humanitarian Islam movement and its theology on the sidelines of the U.S. State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. Hosted by the DC-based Institute on Religion & Democracy, which is affiliated with the WEA and forms part of its coalition of over 100 international organizations and churches present in 129 nations, the address was attended by a range of delegates to the Ministerial, including Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and co-founder of the global Humanitarian Islam movement. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_09_16_Chairman of Indonesia’s Largest Islamic Political Party Champions Humanitarian Islam in the UK
Deputy Speaker of Indonesia’s Parliament Advises UK Government Officials on Issues Related to Islam, Security and Migration
Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, H. Muhaimin Iskandar and Dean Godson, the executive director of Policy Exchange
LONDON, United Kingdom: On September 16, 2019, H. Muhaimin Iskandar—Deputy Speaker of Indonesia’s upper legislative assembly (MPR) and General Chairman of its largest Islamic-based political party (PKB)—arrived in London for private talks with key policymakers within the administration of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Mr. Iskandar, whose political party is rooted in Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim organization, was accompanied by C. Holland Taylor, who serves as Emissary for the UN, Americas and Europe for Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, NU’s 5-million-member young adults movement. Thomas Dinham—Director of Strategic Outreach for Bayt ar-Rahmah, a U.S.-based nonprofit headed by Mr. Taylor and Nahdlatul Ulama’s spiritual leaders—also attended discussions. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_09_25_Pope Francis to NU Leaders: “Pray for me and I shall pray for you. We are all brothers.”
“Humanitarian Islam and its foundational texts represent a compelling moral, ethical and theological basis for close cooperation between Nahdlatul Ulama and the Roman Catholic Church”
Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue welcomes opportunity to “renew our close relationship” with NU spiritual leaders
Pope Francis and NU General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf discuss the foundational texts of the Humanitarian Islam movement, following a general audience at St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican
VATICAN CITY: On September 24 and 25, 2019, a delegation of Indonesian Muslim and Roman Catholic leaders met with senior Vatican officials to discuss the global Humanitarian Islam movement and possible cooperation with the Vatican in promoting a shared humanist agenda. The multi-faith delegation was jointly led by Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf (“Gus Yahya”), Religious Affairs Advisor to the President of Indonesia and General Secretary of the world’s largest Muslim organization—Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)—and Monsignor Agustinus Agus, the Archbishop of Pontianak in West Kalimantan (Borneo).
The delegation also included the senior-most leadership of Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, NU’s 5-million-member young adults movement; scholars from of one of Indonesia’s most prestigious Islamic boarding schools, PP. Krapyak; a group of Dominican priests; and Indonesian businessman Paulus Totok Lusida. Senior journalists from Indonesia’s two leading print media groups, Kompas and Jawa Pos, accompanied the delegation and covered its meetings in depth. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_10_11_Christian Democrats and Humanitarian Muslims Unite to “Shape the Geopolitical Landscape of the 21st Century”
World’s largest political network “resolves to systematically foster the emergence of a global consensus regarding key ethics and values that should guide the exercise of power”
Deputy General Secretary of Indonesia’s National Awakening Party (PKB), H. Anggia Ermarini, submitting PKB’s Resolution on ethics and values that should guide the exercise of power to the Executive Committee of Centrist Democrat International in Rome
ROME, Italy, October 11, 2019: At a ceremony rich with symbolism, a senior representative of Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party hailed the spiritual, philosophical and political achievements of Christian humanism, and pledged to work with exponents of this tradition to defend the precious legacy of a rules-based international order.
In response, the Executive Committee of Centrist Democrat International (CDI) unanimously adopted a resolution stating that “Humanitarian Islam and the diverse strands of humanist philosophy that historically emerged in the West are kindred traditions, whose spiritual and philosophical values are consonant with—and, in the case of Western humanism, helped to shape and secure the adoption of—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).”
The resolution goes on to state: “It is our belief that the spirit of universal human fraternity that animates UDHR, Christian humanism and the global Humanitarian Islam movement represents a compelling moral, ethical, religious and, indeed, political basis for close cooperation between IDC–CDI member parties, and between people of goodwill of every faith and nation.” Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_10_16_NU Rejects the Relevance of “Infidel” as a Legal Category within Modern Nation States
Unprecedented Rulings Issued by the Highest Authority of the World’s Largest Muslim Organization
Historic Effort to “Transform the Prevailing ‘Muslim Mindset,’ for the Sake of World Peace and to Achieve a Harmonious Communal Life for All Mankind”
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia delivers the opening address at the 2019 National Conference of NU Religious Scholars, (“2019 Munas”) in the presence of top theologians from Indonesia and the Middle East
BANJAR, West Java and JAKARTA, Indonesia: In a major break with Islamic conservatism, the world’s largest Muslim movement—Nahdlatul Ulama—has abolished the legal category of infidels, those who do not adhere to Islam, which has long cast a shadow over the faith’s relationships with other religions.
The Central Board of the Indonesian movement recently published documents, based on a gathering of some 20,000 Muslim religious scholars (“2019 Munas”) that endorsed the concept of a nation state rather than caliphate and recognized all citizens irrespective of religion, ethnicity or creed as having equal rights and obligations.
The documents decreed that the modern nation state is theologically legitimate; that there is no legal category of infidel (kafir) within a modern nation state, only ‘fellow citizens’; that Muslims must obey the laws of any modern nation state in which they dwell; and that Muslims have a religious obligation to foster peace rather than automatically wage war on behalf of their co-religionists, whenever conflict erupts between Muslim and non-Muslim populations anywhere in the world. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2019_11_01_Pakistan’s Newspaper of Record Praises Nahdlatul Ulama for Addressing a Deep-seated Problem Within the Muslim Tradition
Turkish author and frequent New York Times contributor Mustafa Akyol lauds the NU’s vision for a “humanitarian Islam”
KARACHI, Pakistan: On November 1, 2019, Pakistan’s oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper, Dawn (est. 1941), published an opinion piece commending the General Secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama—KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf—for his role in promoting the global Humanitarian Islam movement. This movement seeks to recontextualize (i.e., reform) problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that encourage discrimination and violence against non-Muslims, and to restore rahmah (universal love and compassion) to its rightful place as the primary message of Islam.
The article—reproduced below, with external links added by Bayt ar-Rahmah—was written by Mustafa Akyol, a prominent Turkish author, political commentator, frequent New York Times contributor and senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2019_11_11_Rising Tide of International Recognition for the Humanitarian Islam Movement
Middle East Expert Hails “Revolutionary Move” that “Challenges Historic Pattern” Within the Muslim World
MELBOURNE, Australia: On November 11, 2019, Dr. Giora Eliraz—a prominent author and scholar who specializes in Middle Eastern and Indonesian Islam—added his voice to a rapidly growing array of policy experts, journalists, government figures and other opinion leaders highlighting the significance of the global Humanitarian Islam movement and its campaign to recontextualize (i.e., reform) obsolete and problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that enjoin religious hatred, supremacy and violence.
Dr. Eliraz’s analysis, detailed in an article titled “A distinctive Islamic voice against extremism” (below), constitutes the latest in a series of high-profile commentaries from across the world’s political and religious divides that have begun to acknowledge the potentially historic significance of the Humanitarian Islam movement. These diverse voices include key figures from within the Roman Catholic, Evangelical Protestant and Jewish communities worldwide; prominent African American Muslims; Nobel Laurate and East Timor independence leader H.E. José Ramos-Horta; Vice President of the United States, Michael R. Pence; Indonesian President Joko Widodo; leaders of the European Parliament’s two largest political groupings (EPP and S&D); and veteran foreign correspondent, Middle East expert and Senior Fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Dr. James M. Dorsey. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2019_11_21_Top EU Figures Welcome Leaders of the Humanitarian Islam Movement to Political Summit in Zagreb
A “Values-driven” Alliance to Promote Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights, and Defend a Rules-based International Order from Authoritarian Threats
ZAGREB, Croatia: On 20 and 21 November, 2019, leaders of the global Humanitarian Islam movement joined nearly 2,500 members of Europe’s largest and most successful political group—the European People’s Party (EPP)—who gathered in the Western Balkans nation of Croatia to elect new leaders for the 2019 to 2022 period, and to discuss EPP priorities for the new Parliamentary term in Brussels.
Senior Indonesian political and religious figures attended the European People’s Party Congress as guests of EPP Secretary General Antonio López-Istúriz White. Their participation signifies an unexpected and potentially momentous geopolitical development, as European and Indonesian leaders have begun to articulate, and adopt, key elements of a shared humanitarian agenda rooted in universal values, as well as spiritual and philosophical principles derived from the Christian and Islamic faith traditions. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2020
2020_01_16_Abrahamic Faiths Initiative
“Religions should serve as a basis for resolving problems, not creating them.”
Pope Francis to Visit Indonesia in 2020
NU General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, center, invited his fellow theologians to “reflect honestly upon the role that obsolete and problematic religious teachings play in many contemporary conflicts. . . threatening humanity and even the future of civilization itself.”
ROME, Italy and VATICAN CITY: From 14 – 16 January 2020, eighteen Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders gathered to explore potential avenues of cooperation between the various Abrahamic faiths, in order to address a rapidly metastasizing global crisis that is strongly colored by animosity and violence between rival ethnic and religious groups. The two-day event, convened at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome under Chatham House Rule, included prominent religious scholars and the heads of major faith communities from Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe and North America.
Participants included Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem and all Palestine; Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf (“Gus Yahya”), General Secretary of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Supreme Council; prominent Shi’ite scholar Sayyed Yousif al-Khoei; Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, Chairman of the UAE Fatwa Council; Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee; Reverend Thomas K. Johnson, who serves as the World Evangelical Alliance’s Special Envoy to the Vatican and to Humanitarian Islam; and Sam Brownback, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_01_24_Western Humanism, Christian Democracy and Humanitarian Islam: An Alliance for the 21st Century
World’s largest political network seeks to preserve, and strengthen, a rules-based international order founded upon universal ethics and humanitarian values
Results of the CDI Executive Committee Meeting and Eurasia Forum Held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (22 – 25 January 2020)
Indonesia is emerging as a major force within the geopolitical arena for the first time since the 1950s, as the Humanitarian Islam movement forges religious, socio-cultural and political alliances globally (photo of Indonesia’s State Palace in Jakarta, courtesy of the government of Hungary)
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia: From 22 – 25 January 2020, political leaders from across the world’s cultural, geographic and religious divides gathered to address the profound ethical and strategic implications of a long-term shift in the global economic and geopolitical center of gravity away from the North Atlantic and towards Eurasia. Hosted by Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party (PKB), the world’s most extensive political network—Centrist Democrat International, or CDI—held its Executive Committee meeting in Asia for the first time in 15 years. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_01_24_Indonesia’s Contribution to the Future of Civilization
Speech by H. Muhaimin Iskandar
Chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB)
and Deputy Speaker of the People’s Representative Council, Republic of Indonesia
Delivered before the Executive Committee of Centrist Democrat International (CDI) and assembled dignitaries at the CDI Eurasia Forum
24 January 2020, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
H. Muhaimin Iskandar (second from left) with Indonesian Vice President KH. Ma‘ruf Amin; Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuono X; CDI President Andrés Pastrana Arango and Centrist Democrat International/European People’s Party Secretary General Antonio López-Istúriz White, strolling to the venue where Mr. Iskandar delivered his keynote speech, Indonesia’s Contribution to the Future of Civilization
Note: Founded in 1998 by the spiritual leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama, PKB is the largest Islamic political party in Indonesia and a coalition partner within the government of President Joko Widodo.
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, brothers and sisters, many of whom have travelled thousands of miles to be here today: may the peace, mercy and blessings of God be with you.
When preparing for the establishment of Indonesia as an independent nation state, our founding fathers did not concern themselves merely with the fate of Indonesia, while ignoring the rest of the world. The profound religious, philosophical, ethical and political principles upon which they established our nation were not designed to promote the interests of Indonesia alone. Our founders contemplated the future of the entire world—proffering a set of noble aspirations that others could embrace, while striving to create a more dignified and auspicious future for all human beings, and for civilization as a whole. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
Centrist Democrat International (CDI) meeting in Indonesia with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban attending.
2020_01_26_Drawing Battle Lines: Center-Right Parties Take On Civilizationalism
January 26, 2020 | James M. Dorsey
The Centrist Democrat International (CDI), in an attempt to counter the rise of civilizationalist states and leaders, has called for the creation of an alliance of nations, political parties and faith groups, that would seek to ensure that politics and international relations remain grounded in humanitarian values at a time of increasingly unimpeded violations of international law and human rights abuse.
CDI’s call carries weight given that it is the world’s largest coalition of almost 100 political parties from across the globe, including ruling parties in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere ranging from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union to Fidesz, the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, a professed illiberal who envisions his country as a Christian nation.
The call takes on added significance because it was issued by a group that traces its roots to European and Latin American Christian democracy at a meeting in Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy and its most populous majority Muslim country, hosted by the largest Indonesian Islamic political party, the National Awakening Party (PKB). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_02_27_Muslim World League
Secretary General of Saudi-based Muslim World League Praises Nahdlatul Ulama Initiatives to Foster Peace and Harmony in the Global Arena
Visit to NU headquarters in Jakarta comes amid intense competition for religious and political authority in the Muslim world
Muhammad bin Adul Karim Al Issa (center) with KH. Said Aqil Siradj, Chairman of the NU Executive Board (center right); KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council (center left); and H. Hilmy Feisal, General Secretary of the NU Executive Board (far right), photo courtesy of Tempo magazine
JAKARTA, Indonesia: 27 February 2020. For the first time in the 58-year history of the Saudi-backed Muslim World League (MWL), its Secretary General visited the headquarters of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). The NU was founded in 1926 in direct response to the Saudi/Wahhabi conquest of Mecca and Medina, in order to preserve the spiritual traditions of Sunni Islam by blocking the spread of Wahhabi extremism in Maritime Southeast Asia (i.e., the Malay Archipelago).
The visit comes at a time of intense rivalry between Middle East powers—including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey and Iran—for political and religious authority, as reflected in the wars raging in Syria, Libya and Yemen, and intense maneuvering to influence governments and civil society throughout the Muslim world and the West. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_03_09_World Security Forum
“This version of Islam. . . is just the opposite of our prejudices and stereotypes”
Short film documents political breakthrough, establishing “a concrete basis for cooperation between Islamic countries and Western, Christian democratic nations”
“This is key for the European Union”
VIENNA, Austria: The Vienna-based World Security Forum has released a short film (09’38”) that documents the transformative impact of “Humanitarian Islam” upon European perceptions of the Islamic faith, and its potential to reshape political and socio-cultural relations between the Muslim world and the West.
The film was shot on location in and around Yogyakarta, Indonesia—the heartland of traditional Javanese culture—during a gathering of the world’s largest political network, Centrist Democrat International (CDI).
Those familiar with current political dynamics in Europe may be surprised by, and will probably recognize the significance of, Zsolt Németh—Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Hungary’s National Assembly—stating: “It is high time to realize that we have bad, negative stereotypes about Islam. Partially, this can be explained, but we should extend our attention to Indonesia, the biggest—and democratic—Islamic country in the world.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_03_09_The Trial: the strange case of Trevor Phillips
How the accusation of Islamophobia is used to stifle free speech
NU General Secretary defends British anti-racism campaigner
Longest-serving Muslim Member of Parliament concurs: “The Labour Party… seems to be intent on wielding [accusations of Islamophobia] as a weapon for rooting out ‘difficult’ voices.”
Trevor Phillips, anti-racism campaigner and former chair of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission
LONDON, United Kingdom: On March 9, 2020, Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary and co-founder of the global Humanitarian Islam movement, KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf (“Gus Yahya”), defended one of the UK’s most respected anti-racism campaigners from accusations of Islamophobia, in the epilogue to a comprehensive report by premier British think tank Policy Exchange. In doing so, the Indonesian Islamic scholar added his authoritative voice to that of prominent center-left and center-right UK figures in confronting the political weaponization of Islam, which threatens to drag Muslim communities into the highly polarized and increasingly lethal “culture wars” roiling much of the West. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_04_22_Global Evangelical and Muslim Organizations Launch Major Joint Religious Freedom Project
“Evangelical Christians and Humanitarian Muslims are committing to help protect each others’ religious communities, guided by a moral compass that is rooted in universal ethics and values.”
World Evangelical Alliance and Humanitarian Islam leaders sit beneath a painting that depicts Indonesia’s founding father, Sukarno, cradling a barefoot independence martyr slain by Dutch colonial forces in late-1940s Java. A crucifix dangles from the young man’s neck. Sri Ayati’s Legacy hangs in the Jakarta headquarters of Nahdlatul Ulama’s young adults organization, GP Ansor, and has become a potent symbol of the Humanitarian Islam movement.
JAKARTA, Indonesia and NEW YORK, USA: 22 April 2020. Leading figures in the world’s largest Muslim organization and the world’s largest Evangelical Christian organization announced today that they are undertaking an ambitious joint effort to reshape how the world thinks about religion and to counter two threats to religious freedom and to society more broadly: religious extremism and secular extremism.
The Muslim participants represent Humanitarian Islam, which is rooted in the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), with an estimated membership of more than 90 million, primarily in its home country of Indonesia. Since its founding almost a century ago, NU has gained wide recognition for its promotion of a version of Islamic orthodoxy characterized by respect for religious pluralism and tolerance. Its members are now found in most major cities around the globe. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_07_08_Nahdlatul Ulama Poised for Global Leadership: Strategic Review
Indonesia’s Top Foreign Affairs Journal Spotlights Humanitarian Islam
“A movement is underway to change the face of Islam, whose base is shifting from the Middle East to Asia”
JAKARTA, Indonesia / July 2020: The largest Muslim organization on earth is spearheading a mass, grassroots, multi-faith campaign to revitalize the post-WWII rules-based international order and forge a positive role for Islam upon the world stage, where a harsh, repressive and all-too-often violent understanding of the faith has been promulgated by Middle Eastern autocrats for decades.
Acknowledging this momentous shift, Strategic Review: the Indonesian Journal of Policy, Leadership and World Affairs published on July 2nd two lead stories about the Humanitarian Islam movement. The movement seeks to “recontextualize (i.e., reform) obsolete and problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy” and “foster shared civilizational values to revitalize a rules-based international order.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_07_23_Islam and the Disappearing People
Prominent Muslim scholar acknowledges “the long and tragic history of religious persecution in the Islamic world”
Coptic icon depicting 21 Christians who were beheaded by ISIS in Sirte, Libya, in 2015
PRINCETON, New Jersey, July 23, 2020: The General Secretary of Indonesia’s 90-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has called upon Muslims to lead by example and act to end the widespread, systematic and ongoing persecution of religious minorities across the Islamic world.
“Systemic prejudice and discrimination towards others, and the weaponization of ‘tribal’ identity—whether for self-preservation or self-aggrandizement—have been characteristic of nearly all societies throughout history,” said Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, in response to recent upheavals in the U.S. and Western Europe triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of a U.S. policeman. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_07_29_Britain turns to Nahdlatul Ulama to help formulate a new Indo-Pacific strategy
“South and Southeast Asia are poised to emerge as independent pillars of support for the rules-based international order”
LONDON, United Kingdom, July 29, 2020: KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf—General Secretary of the world’s largest Muslim organization—has joined a high-profile international commission dedicated to forging “a new approach” to the Indo-Pacific as Britain seeks to place this strategically vital region at the center of its pursuit of a renewed global role in the wake of its exit from the European Union (Brexit).
Newly established by the most influential think tank in the United Kingdom, Policy Exchange, the Indo-Pacific Commission is led by former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who recognizes the formative effect its recommendations are likely to have upon British foreign policy. Writing in The Telegraph—a prominent British newspaper with close links to that country’s governing Conservative Party—Harper said. . . Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_07_30_Middle East Analyst James Dorsey:
“Indonesia: A Major Prize in the Battle for the Soul of Islam”
“This is the Saudis playing a double game”
Representatives of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth open one of dozens of mosques recently constructed in Central Java. The transformation of the Indonesian landscape has been continuously progressing for over two generations.
SINGAPORE: On July 30, 2020, veteran correspondent, Middle East expert and senior fellow at Singapore’s Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Dr. James Dorsey, published a hard-hitting analysis of Saudi policy in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and democracy titled, “Indonesia: A Major Prize in the Battle for the Soul of Islam.”
The article, which first appeared in the U.S.-based online magazine Inside Arabia, reveals that “Saudi support of religious ultra-conservatism in Indonesia contradicts Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promotion of an undefined form of moderate Islam intended to project his kingdom as tolerant, innovative, and forward-looking. It also suggests that Saudi Arabia is willing to work with the Muslim Brotherhood despite its denunciation of the group as a terrorist organization.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_08_06_Europe’s Largest and Most Influential Political Network Responds to Inflammatory Remarks by Turkish President
“With his call to revive Islamic supremacism, President Erdogan is stoking a fire that threatens to engulf the entire world”
“The global resurgence of identity politics is progressively undermining the rules-based international order and fragile consensus on human rights”
Sultan Mehmet II triumphally enters Constantinople in 1453 (Benjamin Constant)
BRUSSELS, Belgium: On July 22, 2020, members of the largest political networks in the world, and Europe, set aside long-standing differences to join Indonesia’s National Awakening Party, PKB, in a call for “Muslims and people of good will of every faith and nation to prevent the political weaponization of religion.”
Centrist Democrat International (CDI) adopted—and the European People’s Party (EPP) publicly endorsed—a PKB statement issued in response to inflammatory remarks by President Erdogan of Turkey regarding the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_08_14_Indonesia Religious Freedom Landscape Report
Religious Freedom Institute:
“Bayt ar-Rahmah’s devout Muslim leaders represent the most theologically potent and operationally effective actors promoting religious liberty in the Islamic world today”
The report states that: “Despite the existence of major threats and challenges to religious freedom in Indonesia, it is nevertheless home to powerful actors that are systematically and institutionally maneuvering to strengthen the prospects of religious liberty in Indonesia, the Indosphere, and the world at large. Viewed from a regional or even global perspective, Indonesia thus embodies what scholars of child nutrition in the developing world—beginning in the 1960s and 1970s—came to describe as ‘positive deviance.’” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_08_18_The Islamic Religious Community of Italy (COREIS): “Hagia Sophia unites Christians and Muslims across the globe”
“The largest international political network, inspired by Christianity, allies with the world’s largest Islamic organization to denounce the political weaponization of religion”
Home page of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy (COREIS) featuring an image of Hagia Sophia, flanked by the European Union headquarters in Brussels and Baiturrahman Mosque in Banda Aceh, Indonesia
MILAN, Italy / August 18, 2020: Two days before the Islamic New Year (1 Muharram 1442 AH) Imam Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini—President of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy (COREIS)—published a message from Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf to the 1.4 million Muslims who live in Italy.
In an article that accompanied the NU General Secretary’s message, COREIS welcomed the recent adoption—by Centrist Democrat International (CDI) and the European People’s Party (EPP)—of a statement issued by the NU-based National Awakening Party (PKB) of Indonesia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_09_17_Evangelical Review of Theology
“A Case for Ethical Cooperation between Evangelical Christians and Humanitarian Islam”
Senior World Evangelical Alliance theologians at the headquarters of Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, Nahdlatul Ulama’s 5-million-member young adults organization, in November of 2019. Dr. Thomas Johnson appears seated to the left of NU General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf (center).
BONN, Germany (August 1, 2020): The flagship theological journal of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA)—which represents 600 million Christians in 130 nations—has published an extensive analysis of the Humanitarian Islam movement that concludes: “Though we understand and relate to God in very different ways. . . [t]he level of philosophical agreement between evangelical Christians and Humanitarian Islam demonstrated in this paper justifies a concerted joint effort to build a world in which religious faith can flourish for the benefit of humanity.”
The 14-page essay, titled “A Case for Ethical Cooperation between Evangelical Christians and Humanitarian Islam,” was published by Evangelical Review of Theology: the World Evangelical Alliance’s Journal of Theology and Contemporary Application. Its author, Dr. Thomas K. Johnson, describes Humanitarian Islam as “a philosophically sophisticated response to some of the crucial questions of our era” which “fully accepts the existence of multiple religious communities within one country, with the hope that those communities and their members can flourish together.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_09_23_Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary at the 75th United Nations General Assembly
Hailed as key partner in an emerging values-driven alliance to “foster respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being”
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo:
“We must rediscover the nature of human rights, and we must have the courage to defend them. Your presence here today gives me great confidence that we are up to that task.”
NU General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf addressed UN delegates at two events broadcast live by the U.S. Department of State during High Level Week of the 75th UN General Assembly
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY, 23 and 25 September 2020: There are growing indications that the U.S. Department of State has begun to mobilize its extensive diplomatic capacity to foster awareness of Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf and the Humanitarian Islam movement he co-founded. The Indonesian religious leader is increasingly viewed in Western political circles as a potential lynchpin in an effort to forge a global, values-driven alliance dedicated to strengthening the rules-based international order and Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) at a time of increased geopolitical uncertainty and rising human rights abuse.
Over the past year, the State Department has increased both the level and intensity of its diplomatic outreach to Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), coordinating closely with Mr. Staquf on matters related to fundamental human rights, including religious freedom. These efforts are set to continue with a planned visit to Indonesia in October of 2020 by U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, his Director of Policy Planning, Peter Berkowitz, and Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Chair of the State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights. The U.S. delegation will be hosted by Mr. Staquf and Nahdlatul Ulama’s 5-million-member young adults organization, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, which co-founded the Humanitarian Islam movement. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_10_01_World’s largest political network promotes global solidarity in response to COVID-19 crisis
CDI endorses Humanitarian Islam’s call to embrace “the spirit of cooperation rather than conflict, within and between civilizations”
CDI President Andrés Pastrana Arango
BRUSSELS, Belgium, October 1, 2020: Gathering virtually for the first time in its 59-year history, Centrist Democrat International’s (CDI) Executive Committee has adopted a resolution to address “the widespread social isolation, economic hardship, despair, fear and anger triggered by the COVID-19 crisis in societies across the globe.”
The call to action was issued in a Resolution on promoting solidarity and respect among the diverse people, cultures and nations of the world, unanimously passed by the Executive Committee of CDI—a center-right coalition spanning 73 nations that includes the European Union’s largest and most successful political group, the European People’s Party (EPP), and many ruling parties in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Antonio López-Istúriz White—Secretary General of both CDI and EPP—warmly thanked leaders of Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam movement for drafting the resolution. He also expressed his appreciation for the Indonesians’ having recognized Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain’s role in laying the foundations of a rules-based international order in the aftermath of WWII, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Second Vatican Council and the establishment of the European Community. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
Al-Arab (The Arabs), a leading Arabic-language newspaper founded in 1977
2020_10_27_Indonesia is Washington’s Gateway for Promoting Islamic Reform
Supporting local Islamic groups is an American recipe for confronting fundamentalism.
Tuesday, 27 October 2020
Local groups lead the battle for Islam’s renewal
Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama—an Islamic mass movement—is hosting a two-day conference in the capital Jakarta to explore the “shared civilizational aspirations” of Indonesia, the United States and Islam. The event will be attended by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is pushing his administration to promote Islamic reform.
JAKARTA: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is determined to strengthen the efforts of the world’s largest Islamic mass movement to reform the faith’s prevailing religious discourse. The Secretary of State will be visiting Indonesia during the last leg of a tour of three Asian nations, as U.S. strategy increasingly focuses upon supporting tajdid (renewal) movements capable of accomplishing Islamic reform and mobilizing Muslim communities against radicalism and terror.
Local religious groups such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Muhammadiyah—which has distanced itself from its Salafist origins—and the Sufi-oriented Movement for Support and Guidance play a key role in supporting Indonesian government efforts to foster widespread rejection of radicalism and extremism. The main goal of these mass movements is to promote the peaceful and moderate face of Islam and—thanks to their extensive social work caring for the poor and orphans, establishing religious schools, and preserving Indonesian social unity—they enjoy widespread popular support in this endeavor. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_10_29_U.S. Secretary of State Praises Nahdlatul Ulama, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, Humanitarian Islam and the Movement for Shared Civilizational Values
“Indonesia has an incredible reach and potential as a force for good in the region and indeed throughout the entire world.”
“I am ecstatic to be part of this event today.”
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo addressing leaders of the global Humanitarian Islam movement, while observing COVID-19 social distancing restrictions
JAKARTA, Indonesia (October 29, 2020): U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo delivered a major speech in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and democracy, at an event hosted by Nahdlatul Ulama’s 5-million-member young adults movement, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, and Bayt ar-Rahmah, which coordinates the global expansion of NU and Ansor activities.
Titled “Nurturing the Shared Civilizational Aspirations of Islam Rahmatan li al-‘Alamin, the Republic of Indonesia and the United States of America,” the event took place at the Four Seasons Hotel in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and was part of a two-day forum attended by top leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama, Ansor, the Government of Indonesia, the U.S. Department of State and all six of Indonesia’s major religions. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_11_23_Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary helps shape British grand strategy for the emerging “Eurasian century”
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison:
“In 1941 Europe was certainly in the cockpit of history. Now in the 21st century the Indo-Pacific will shape the destiny of the world.”
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan:
“I warmly welcome today’s report from the Policy Exchange Indo-Pacific Commission” which “chart[s] out a path of renewed British engagement in the region [and] points the way towards a truly globally co-operative era”
LONDON, United Kingdom and CANBERRA, Australia, November 23, 2020: Current and former Prime Ministers from four of the world’s most economically powerful countries have endorsed recommendations contained within a landmark report on the future of the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR). Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, helped shape key elements of the 52-page strategic plan, which was warmly received by 10 Downing Street, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Britain’s Parliament. Mr. Staquf serves as one of 16 members of the Indo-Pacific Commission, which is chaired by former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
In a major foreign policy speech that accompanied the launch of the Commission’s report, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison welcomed “the UK’s acknowledgment of the strategic significance of the Indo-Pacific Region” and said: “I endorse the report’s vision for a reinvigorated community of free and independent nations with a single overriding goal, namely: to reinforce a sustainable rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific that is resilient but adaptable to the great power realities of the 21st century.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2020_12_01_Hudson Institute’s Current Trends in Islamist Ideology:
“Nahdlatul Ulama has emerged as a formidable challenger to powerful state actors in the battle for the soul of Islam”
“The [Humanitarian Islam] movement has gone beyond paying lip service to notions of tolerance and pluralism with the issuance of fatwas intended to re-contextualize the faith by eliminating categories like infidels”
Indonesian Muslims wearing masks and maintaining social distance perform Friday prayer at the At-Tin Grand Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia on June 5, 2020. (Eko Siswono Toyudho/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, D.C.: A leading U.S. think tank has published an in-depth analysis of “The Battle for the Soul of Islam,” reporting that Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama has emerged as a formidable contender in the Islamic world’s competition for religious soft power and leadership — capable of operating on the same level as states such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey and Iran.
The 18-page article by Dr. James M. Dorsey — a Middle East expert who is a senior fellow at prominent universities in Singapore, Germany and Israel — appeared in the journal Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, which is published by Hudson Institute’s Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2021
2021_01_07_Co-founder of the Humanitarian Islam Movement Appointed as Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs
“Religion should be an inspiration for society, not a vehicle for the political aspirations of those who seek worldly power”
Antara News: “Yaqut is an active leader of GP Ansor, and has an extensive network stretching from the very center of power all the way to Indonesia’s grass roots”
PRESIDENTIAL PALACE, JAKARTA, Indonesia: On December 22, 2020, Indonesian President Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) appointed H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas (“Gus Yaqut”) —Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama’s 5-million-member young adults organization, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, and co-founder of the global Humanitarian Islam movement — as Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs. The appointment, which received viral coverage across Indonesian print, broadcast and social media, signals the Jokowi administration’s determination to block the political weaponization of Islam and neutralize its potentially destabilizing effects in the run-up to Indonesia’s 2024 national elections. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_01_07_Commission on Unalienable Rights: Lessons Learned
Last month, the head of the world’s largest independent Muslim organization sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a gracious letter thanking him for his recent visit to Indonesia — home to the world’s largest Muslim population — to discuss the report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights.
The visit and the letter vindicate Secretary Pompeo’s decision in the summer of 2019 to establish the commission to review the principles of freedom that inform America’s founding commitment to the rights inherent in all persons. By recounting the history of those universal principles and of the United States’ struggle to honor them at home and champion them abroad, the commission aimed to call Americans to what is best in our country’s traditions and to invite other peoples and nations to draw on their own heritages to renew a shared dedication to human rights. The secretary’s Jakarta visit and the letter from the general secretary of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) furnish an inspiring example of the exciting opportunities for which the commission’s work has laid the foundations. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_01_14_How to Make the Islamic World Less Radical
Recontextualize the teachings of Islam to address extremism—and to inspire reform.
By Yahya Cholil Staquf | Jan. 14, 2021
Members of Nahdlatul Ulama, the biggest Muslim organization in Indonesia, hold a mass prayer to welcome Ramadan in Jakarta, June 14, 2015. PHOTO: ADEK BERRY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Nearly a generation after 9/11, the world has made little progress in freeing itself from the threat of radical Islam. For every Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the U.S. eliminates, 100 radicals pop up.
Horrendous violence has engulfed much of the Islamic world, from Central Asia through the Middle East to Africa. It also erupts periodically on the streets of London, Paris and New York. As of 2019, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency alone maintained watch lists comprising over 35,000 Islamist terror suspects believed to pose a threat to the U.K.
Why is the modern world plagued by Islamic extremism? Why do al Qaeda, Boko Haram and Islamic State display such savagery? Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2021_02_18_CDI Seeks to Deepen and Expand Cooperation with its Indonesian Sister Party, PKB
World’s Largest Political Network Commends Indonesia for Appointing Humanitarian Islam Co-founder as its Minister of Religious Affairs
A major step “in realizing our shared aspirations for a better world.”
Observers hail Minister’s swift action in defense of women’s rights, religious minorities and Indonesia’s Constitution
BRUSSELS, February 18, 2021: The Executive Committee of the world’s largest political network, Centrist Democrat International (CDI), has unanimously adopted a formal statement praising the appointment of Humanitarian Islam co-founder H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas (“Gus Yaqut”) as Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs. The appointment has been widely hailed by analysts as evidence of a growing determination by the government of Indonesian President Joko Widodo to combat Islamist extremism, uphold the Constitution and defend Indonesia’s ancient traditions of religious pluralism and tolerance. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2021_02_27 World Evangelical Alliance Secretary General
Bishop Thomas Schirrmacher, friend of Humanitarian Islam, appointed as WEA Secretary General
Heir to a tradition of religious liberty and respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being
“It is only the prayer of millions, and the prayer of close friends… that makes it possible to take over a task which is too big for just one human being”
Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher, Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance, stands with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) General Secretary Yahya Cholil Staquf beside the Indonesian and NU flags (Jakarta, 2019)
BONN, Germany, February 27, 2021: Bishop Thomas Schirrmacher — co-founder of an initiative that unites evangelical Christians and the Humanitarian Islam movement in promoting religious freedom across the globe — has been appointed Secretary General & CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA). Founded in 1846, WEA is the largest international organization of evangelical churches, representing over 600 million Protestants and national evangelical alliances in 140 countries. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2021_03_05_Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity, and the Clash of Civilizations
Global evangelical leader and scholar urges “Christians to develop extensive interfaith cooperation with Humanitarian Islam”
BONN, Germany, March 5, 2021: The world’s largest Protestant organization has endorsed the Humanitarian Islam movement as an essential vehicle for peacefully and definitively resolving “the Muslim-Christian clash of civilizations, which started almost 1,500 years ago.”
On the day that Pope Francis commenced an historic papal visit to Iraq — which included a meeting with the world’s preeminent Shi‘ite spiritual leader and a tour of Mosul, until recently a stronghold of the defeated ISIS caliphate — the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Theological Commission published Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity, and the Clash of Civilizations: A New Partnership for Peace and Religious Freedom. Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2021_04_14_Shifting Youth Attitudes Threaten State-controlled Interpretations of Islam
Battle for the Soul of Islam:
Spotlight on the Gap Between Regimes and Populations
“Trouble is brewing in the backyard of Muslim-majority states competing for religious soft power and leadership of the Muslim world.”
“Nahdlatul Ulama’s critical mass of Islamic scholars… offer a bottom-up alternative to state-controlled religion that seeks to ensure the survival of autocratic regimes and the protection of vested interests.”
BELGRADE and NEW YORK, April 14, 2021: Nahdlatul Ulama spiritual leaders are at the vanguard of a grassroots, global trend — especially prevalent among Muslim youth — to reject the political weaponization of Islam by Middle East autocrats and Islamist movements. This dramatic shift in Muslim attitudes was recently detailed by Dr. James M. Dorsey, a veteran foreign correspondent and Senior Fellow at National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute (MEI).
In an 18-page article titled “Battle for the Soul of Islam: Spotlight on the Gap Between Regimes and Populations,” Dr. Dorsey writes that “[s]hifting youth attitudes towards religion and religiosity threaten to undermine the rival efforts of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and, to a lesser degree, the United Arab Emirates, to cement their individual state-controlled interpretations of Islam as the Muslim world’s dominant religious narrative. Each of the rivals see their efforts as key to securing their autocratic or authoritarian rule as well as advancing their endeavors to carve out a place for themselves in a new world order in which power is being rebalanced. . . . Continue reading full communiqué with images. . .
2021_07_13_The Nation’s Mosque Statement
Leaders of the world’s largest Islamic and Evangelical organizations establish alliance with African American Muslims to promote human dignity and equality worldwide
“God Needs No Defense:
Reimagining Muslim–Christian Relations in the 21st Century”
Imam Talib Shareef: “We are against weaponizing identity”
From left to right, Rev. Thomas L. Bowen, Minister of Social Justice at Shiloh Baptist Church; Rev. Christopher Zacharias of John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church; Imam Talib Shareef of The Nation’s Mosque; KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary; Bishop Thomas Schirrmacher, WEA Secretary General & CEO; and Ibrahim Mumin of The Nation’s Mosque
WASHINGTON, DC, July 13, 2021: Major faith leaders from around the world gathered at Masjid Muhammad, known as “The Nation’s Mosque,” to announce the establishment of a global alliance that aims to promote human dignity and equality.
In a signed statement, Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders said their alliance “seeks to prevent the political weaponization of identity; curtail the spread of communal hatred; promote solidarity and respect among the diverse people, cultures and nations of the world; and foster the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.”
Participants in the unlikely religious summit included Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization with 90 million followers; Bishop Thomas Schirrmacher, Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), which represents 600 million Protestants in 140 countries; Imam Talib Shareef of The Nation’s Mosque; Rabbi David Saperstein, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom; prominent U.S. evangelical figure, Reverend Johnnie Moore; and HRH Prince Gharios El Chemor of Ghassan Al-Nu’man VIII. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_07_14_Religious Freedom and a Free and Open Indo-Pacific
Indonesian and U.S. Statesmen agree that “shared civilizational values” are essential building blocks of a rules-based international order
Former Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo:
“The places where we can build peace, the places where we can identify overlapping interests will always revolve around shared values.”
NU General Secretary Yahya Cholil Staquf:
“We need to mobilize civil society actors and mass-based organizations to foster societal consensus regarding fundamental values, if a rules-based international order is to endure.”
Yahya Cholil Staquf, Kenneth Weinstein and Michael R. Pompeo
WASHINGTON, DC: On July 14, 2021, Hudson Institute Distinguished Fellow Kenneth Weinstein moderated a discussion between Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, and Hudson Distinguished Fellow and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency/U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo. It was the first time the Indonesian and U.S. statesmen had met face-to-face since Secretary Pompeo addressed leaders of the Humanitarian Islam movement in Jakarta on October 29, 2020, days before the U.S. presidential election.
Their wide-ranging discussion covered a variety of topics including: Indonesia’s and America’s founding values; mobilizing public support for a sustainable rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific that is resilient and adaptable to the great power realities of the 21st century; the future of the post-World War II human rights project; the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities; threats posed by the political weaponization of identity; genocide; the role of sovereign nation states, and civil society, in preserving and strengthening the rules-based international order; and the need to maintain a stable balance of power within the Indo-Pacific region. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_07_15_International Religious Freedom Summit
Nahdlatul Ulama leader on “The Rise of Religious Nationalism”:
“We need to address obsolete values within our own traditions, which prevent peaceful coexistence”
WASHINGTON, DC, July 15, 2021: Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary Yahya Cholil Staquf delivered a keynote address to nearly 1,000 civil society and government leaders at the 2021 International Religious Freedom Summit, during a five day visit to the United States. His topic was the complex and often controversial subject of religious nationalism.
Mr. Staquf is co-founder of the global Humanitarian Islam movement and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, which seek “to prevent the political weaponization of identity; curtail the spread of communal hatred; promote solidarity and respect among the diverse peoples, cultures and nations of the world; and foster the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_07_26_Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“The Voice of Moderate Muslims”
“Indonesia is a model for the transition from an autocratic to a democratic system”
Indonesian Muslims at prayer
FRANKFURT, Germany / July 26, 2021: One of Germany’s leading experts on the contemporary Middle East has written a penetrating analysis of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and its “credible” efforts to reform obsolete and problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy, such as the legal concepts of kafir (infidel) and dhimmi (conquered and subordinate non-Muslims).
The article examines NU’s engagement with the World Evangelical Alliance, which has officially “recognized [Nahdlatul Ulama’s] pioneering work. The most populous Islamic country has thus acquired a ‘points advantage’ within the intra-Islamic competition to become the leading religious ‘soft power’ in the Muslim world.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_08_09_Fundamental Principles of Nahdlatul Ulama
Historic speech, published in English for the first time, offers a stark reminder to the West
“Social unity is the highest virtue and most powerful instrument for promoting the common good”
“Division has been the cause of weakness, defeat and failure throughout the ages”
“A house divided against itself cannot stand” ~ Abraham Lincoln
WASHINGTON, DC, August 9, 2021: The world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), has made a century-old speech by one of its founders, KH. Hasyim Asy’ari, available for the first time in English. The publication of this speech — titled Introduction to the Fundamental Principles of Nahdlatul Ulama — is part of a larger effort by the 90-million-member NU to promote shared civilizational values and discourage the political weaponization of identity.
The speech, which was delivered at the inaugural meeting of Nahdlatul Ulama in 1926, warns that social divisiveness “is the root of destruction and bankruptcy, the source of collapse and ruination, and the agent of humiliation and chaos.” Nearly a century after its delivery, this address, which articulates the ethical and theological framework embraced by the world’s largest Muslim organization, remains the foundational document of Nahdlatul Ulama. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_08_12_God Needs No Defense
God Needs No Defense:
Reimagining Muslim–Christian Relations in the 21st Century
Kyai Haji A. Mustofa Bisri:
“We wish to submit to the dictates of conscience”
WASHINGTON, DC, July 13, 2021: Spiritual leaders of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) have published a Festschrift, or collection of essays, honoring Bishop Thomas Schirrmacher, the newly appointed Secretary General & CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA).
“We hope this book will mark the beginning of a long and important journey of these two religions [Islam and Christianity] towards a more harmonious relationship, characterized by peaceful co-existence,” NU General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf told an audience of nearly 1,000 religious freedom activists and government leaders gathered at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC, for the 2021 International Religious Freedom Summit. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_08_17_Independence (Day) Prayer
Indonesians reaffirm shared moral and spiritual values in nationwide ceremony
Minister of Religious Affairs delivers prayer composed
by KH. A. Mustofa Bisri:
“Illuminate us with Your Light, oh Light of Lights,
that we may perceive the beauty of truth
and follow it.
That we may perceive the ugliness of falsehood
and distance ourselves from it.
That we may perceive the beauty of honesty
and fully embrace it.
That we may perceive the evil of lies
and guard against them.”
“Remembering Indonesia’s Declaration of Independence 76 years ago:
Live broadcast on Tuesday, 17 August, 2021 at 09:00 a.m.”
JAKARTA, Indonesia, August 17, 2021: During a ceremony broadcast throughout the Indonesian Archipelago, Minister of Religious Affairs H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas read a prayer composed by Nahdlatul Ulama spiritual leader and Humanitarian Islam co-founder Kyai Haji A. Mustofa Bisri.
In the midst of the COVID pandemic, tens of millions of Indonesian school children, parents and other adults stood to attention in their homes as they watched an elaborately staged celebration of the nation’s independence broadcast from Istana Merdeka (Independence Palace) in downtown Jakarta. President Joko Widodo and his cabinet ministers, wearing traditional attire, solemnly presided over the ceremonial raising of Indonesia’s red-and-white flag. From 1945 – 1949, Indonesian Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists alike waged a bloody four-year struggle to prevent the re-imposition of Dutch colonialism following Imperial Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_09_08_Muslim–Christian Relations: Becoming Good Neighbors
Evangelical Podcaster John W. Morehead:
“Two of the most important religious leaders in the world, an evangelical and a Muslim, neither of whom are Americans, came together in Washington, D.C. to launch a book.”
Why?
“Because what happens on the borderline between religion and politics in the United States affects the whole world.”
Over the course of a one-hour discussion with Reverend Dr. Thomas K. Johnson and C. Holland Taylor — who co-edited the book God Needs No Defense: Reimagining Muslim–Christian Relations in the 21st Century — Reverend Morehead and his guests discussed the nature and ramifications of an unprecedented alliance that has emerged between the world’s largest Protestant and Muslim organizations.
During the course of the interview, Reverend Morehead explored the genesis of the book as well as its structure and contents, asking “What can readers look forward to in this volume?” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_09_09_Taliban perpetuate Muslim world’s failed governance paradigm
Al-Arab:
“The Taliban’s control of Afghanistan spotlights the failed model of government in Muslim states”
Nahdlatul Ulama represents a unique exception to the mosque–state alliance perpetuated by Middle East autocrats
SINGAPORE, September 9, 2021: In a hard-hitting article published on the eve of the 9/11 attacks’ 20th anniversary, veteran foreign correspondent and Senior Fellow at National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, Dr. James M. Dorsey, argued that Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama constitutes a unique exception to the cycle of authoritarianism, underdevelopment and violence that afflicts so much of the Muslim world.
Dr. Dorsey wrote:
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan perpetuates a paradigm of failed governance in the Muslim world based on a centuries-old alliance between Islamic scholars and the state that, according to scholar Ahmet T Kuru, explains underdevelopment in many Muslim-majority states and authoritarianism in most.
The takeover also highlights that, in a twist of irony, a majority of competitors for Muslim religious soft power, leadership of the Muslim world, and the ability to define Islam have as much in common as they have differences. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_09_11_9/11: A 20-Year Retrospective
Regent University, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, welcomes Indonesian Muslim leader on the eve of 9/11 anniversary
U.S. evangelicals endorse General Secretary of the world’s largest Islamic organization
Praised as “a leading Muslim voice” who seeks “to reform obsolete tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that enjoin religious hatred, supremacy and violence”
VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia, September 9, 2021: Regent University — which, together with the Christian Broadcasting Network, may be said to represent “the beating heart of evangelical Christianity in the U.S.” — invited Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Secretary of the world’s largest Muslim organization, to deliver a keynote address at Regent’s commemoration of the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
The invitation may signal a major shift in evangelical attitudes towards Islam and Muslims, inspired by Nahdlatul Ulama’s willingness to acknowledge and address certain tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that underlie and animate Islamist extremism worldwide. These tenets are often employed by groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram to condemn those they regard as infidels, thereby legitimizing the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_09_14_G20 Interfaith Forum in Bologna, Italy
Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs sets agenda for the G20 Interfaith Forum to be held in 2022
Urges religious leaders to “act decisively to ensure that religion is no longer ‘part of the problem,’ and instead becomes ‘part of the solution’”
BOLOGNA, Italy, September 12 – 14, 2021: Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs, H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, has delivered a landmark address setting the agenda of the world’s largest Muslim majority nation and democracy for its chairmanship of the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20), to be held in 2022.
The video address — delivered to political and religious leaders gathered from around the globe at the historic Salone del Podestà in Bologna’s 13th-century Palazzo Re Enzo — outlined Indonesia’s strategy to mobilize the world’s great faith traditions to preserve and strengthen the post-WWII rules-based international order at a time of increasingly unimpeded violations of international law and rising human rights abuse. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_09_23_The Conversation: “Humanitarian Islam is different”
Does Nahdlatul Ulama offer a solution to the Muslim world’s authoritarian malaise?
Award-winning Turkish scholar:
“In terms of membership, the organization hugely outstrips that of the Taliban – yet this face of Islam has not been sufficiently recognized on the international stage”
SAN DIEGO, September 23, 2021: One of the world’s preeminent scholars of political Islam — Turkish American Professor Ahmet T. Kuru — has highlighted Humanitarian Islam’s transformative potential as an alternative to the mosque-state alliance that has kept much of the Muslim world trapped in a cycle of authoritarianism, underdevelopment and violence for centuries.
Titled “How the world’s biggest Islamic organization drives religious reform in Indonesia,” Professor Kuru’s article originally appeared in The Conversation, a multi-lingual network of media outlets that publishes news stories written by academic experts and researchers. The article was also prominently featured by a number of leading news, educational and foreign policy outlets — including AP, Religion News Service, International Policy Digest and Britannica — and translated into Bosnian, French, German, Indonesian, Spanish and Turkish. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_10_28_Nahdlatul Ulama Circular Letter: Full Report
“Always be honest and open, there’s no need to be afraid”
Nahdlatul Ulama moves to prevent foreign and domestic interference in its affairs
It is in light of these dangers — i.e., the perennial threat posed by an alliance between Muslim extremists and self-aggrandizing politicians — that the Nahdlatul Ulama Circular Letter published on September 20, 2021, should be understood.
As the intense polarization currently roiling much of the West demonstrates, the weaponization of identity can swiftly undermine even well-established democracies, to say nothing of those societies, such as Indonesia’s, that have recently undergone a transition from authoritarianism to democracy.
In this perilous environment, the behavior of even well-intentioned actors who lack the requisite knowledge of Islam, and sufficient experience, may easily produce unintended and devastating consequences.
Hence, the Nahdlatul Ulama Circular Letter may be viewed as a timely reminder to anyone who wishes to promote equal rights for religious minorities in the Muslim world: it is essential to conduct such efforts in a manner that strengthens, rather than undermines, the fabric of social harmony and political stability that are essential to a nation’s well-being and ensuring the rule of law. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_10_28_Peace Conference Ends in Death Threats and Recrimination
Participants claim they were misled
New York Times quotes the son of keynote speaker:
“Four times al-Qaeda tried to assassinate us. One day they blew up our house in Baghdad. Now we are wanted by everyone.”
ERBIL, Iraq, September 24, 2021: A conference held in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq attracted global media coverage when its keynote speaker issued a demand for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords and recognize the state of Israel. Yet within 24 hours, conference participants were denying any foreknowledge of the event’s controversial agenda as Sunni and Shiite militias launched a manhunt for those involved.
Held two weeks before Iraq’s national elections, the conference appears to have inadvertently played into the hands of Islamist militias and extremist political parties, including that of prominent Shiite cleric Muqtadr al-Sadr, whose party won a plurality of votes in the election. Sadr was swift to condemn the event in Erbil and to declare that it is legitimate to shed the blood of conference participants. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_10_28_Nahdlatul Ulama Circular Letter: Executive Summary
2021 National Conference of Nahdlatul Ulama Religious Scholars Press Conference: “[Strengthening] East Indies Islam and NU Autonomy, for the Sake of Global Civilization”
JAKARTA, Indonesia, September 20, 2021: The Central Board of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization, has instructed all of its chapters, institutions and autonomous bodies to cancel or suspend all activities with an Indonesian NGO and two of its foreign partners, and to submit any proposed future activities for approval by the Central Board. The order is designed to protect and enhance minority rights while preserving social harmony and political stability, rather than seeking to curtail NGOs’ freedom to engage in activities of their choice.
The order was issued in the form of a circular letter distributed to those who govern Nahdlatul Ulama, in response to efforts by the Leimena Institute, a Jakarta-based NGO and its foreign backers — the U.S.-based Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) — to harness Nahdlatul Ulama and Indonesia’s powerful Ministry of Religious Affairs in service of a potentially disruptive agenda dictated by foreign actors, who seek to reshape Indonesia’s complex socio-cultural, religious and political landscape.
For the past century, Nahdlatul Ulama has consistently sought to block the infiltration of Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements into Indonesia’s religious mainstream. The unanimous decision by NU’s Supreme Council and its Executive Board to cancel or suspend any and all cooperation with Leimena, IGE and AJC suggests that NU is also concerned about Western NGOs acting in pursuit of agendas that have the potential to induce social unrest and political instability in Indonesia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_10_28_Freedom of Religious Belief
Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs affirms the constitutional right to freedom of conscience
The Honorable Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs: “To my brothers and sisters in the Baha’i community, wherever you may be, I wish you a joyful celebration of your new year 178 EB [marking the anniversary of your founder’s teaching]”
JAKARTA, Indonesia: In July of 2021, Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs responded to harsh Islamist criticism of a video address — in which he warmly conveyed a New Year’s greeting to Indonesia’s miniscule Baha’i minority — by affirming that every Indonesian citizen has a constitutional right to religious freedom, and to practice the teachings of his or her faith.
A government regulation dating from the mid-1960s provides official recognition to only six religious communities in Indonesia: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Confucianism.
Muslim extremists were swift to condemn Minister Qoumas for acknowledging and greeting members of Indonesia’s Baha’i community. Despite the viral nature of the controversy that exploded in print, broadcast and social media, the Minister did not apologize for his action. Demonstrating the strength of his convictions — and widespread popular support for his position — the Honorable Minister of Religious Affairs simply instructed officials within his Ministry to explain the constitutional, legal and regulatory framework that guarantees freedom of conscience to every Indonesian. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_10_29_Centrist Democrat International appoints PKB Chairman as Vice President
Muhaimin Iskandar elected Vice President of the world’s largest political network
CDI resolution lauds speech by Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs and pledges support for “the [G20] agenda described by Minister Qoumas in that address”
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša addresses a hybrid (online and in-person) CDI Executive Committee meeting in Brussels on October 28, 2021. His nation currently holds the Rotating Presidency of the EU Council.
BRUSSELS, Belgium, October 28 – 29, 2021: The world’s largest political network has resolved to support the agenda set by Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs & Humanitarian Islam co-founder H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas for his nation’s G20 Interfaith Forum — a move likely to bolster Indonesia’s Presidency of the G20 and increase its global impact.
In a strong demonstration of support for the global Humanitarian Islam movement, the Honorable H. Muhaimin Iskandar, Chairman of PKB — Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party, which Nahdlatul Ulama spiritual leaders founded in 1998 — was appointed CDI Vice President and joined CDI’s Executive Committee, the organization’s highest decision-making body. Centrist Democrat International (CDI) has over 100 member parties in more than 70 nations, including the largest political group within the European Union, the European People’s Party (EPP). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_11_10_National Defense University
NU General Secretary Addresses Indonesia’s Defense Establishment:
“Indonesia is strategically positioned to foster global stability and help ensure the survival of the post-WWII international order”
“Our founding fathers strove to create a new world order built upon justice and the equality of nations”
KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf with Prof. Dr. Amarulla Octavian, Rector of Indonesia’s prestigious National Defense University
BOGOR, Indonesia: On November 10, 2021, Nahdlatul Ulama General Secretary KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf addressed the assembled faculty, staff and students at Indonesia’s National Defense University, stating that Indonesia has a strategic role to play in preserving and strengthening the post-WWII international order, as well as shaping its future.
“It is time for us to realize this great potential and act wisely, so that Indonesia’s influence among the community of nations may steadily rise, reflecting its status as the world’s fourth most populous country and sixteenth largest economy. . . As the world moves towards a new equilibrium between major powers, Indonesia has a vital interest in preserving and strengthening our current, rules-based international order. Likewise, the international community has a strategic interest in ensuring that Indonesia remains strong, independent and sovereign,” Mr. Staquf told senior members of Indonesia’s defense establishment. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_11_16_“The Indigenization and Universalization of Islamic Law in Indonesia”
EU counter-terrorism expert and Professor of Islamic Studies regarding Nahdlatul Ulama’s recontextualization of Islamic law:
“[I]t is possible to understand this process… as the development of a genuine Indonesian school of thought beginning to operate at a global level and claiming Islam as part of the universal values of humanity”
VIENNA, Austria: In July of 2021, one of Europe’s foremost scholars of jihadism and Islamic law published an in-depth analysis of the indigenization of Islam within Indonesia and its recent emergence upon the world stage as the Humanitarian Islam movement. Humanitarian Islam offers a unique, dynamic and universal alternative to the supremacist, political understanding of Islamic law that animates Islamist ideology and has trapped much of the Muslim world in a cycle of authoritarianism, underdevelopment and violence for centuries.
The 21-page analysis, titled “Fiqh Reconsidered: Indigenization and Universalization of Islamic Law in Indonesia,” was written by Rüdiger Lohlker, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Vienna’s Oriental Institute and a renowned expert on the links between Islamic theology and Islamist terrorism. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_11_16_Inalienable Rights and the Traditions of Constitutionalism
Conference at University of Notre Dame explores the nature of human rights and their future in an uncertain world
“Grounding analysis of human rights in fundamental principles, not policy preferences”
Members of the United Nations committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Charles Malik, of Lebanon, to her left
SOUTH BEND, Indiana: From November 14 – 16, 2021, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame convened thirty international scholars to explore and extend the work of the Commission on Unalienable Rights (COUR) — an independent and nonpartisan body convened from 2019 through 2020 and composed of academics, philosophers, and religious scholars. Its charge was to provide the US State Department with advice on human rights grounded in the nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Keynote speakers included Dr. Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School, who chaired the Commission on Unalienable Rights; Dr. Joseph Weiler, NYU Law Professor and Co-director of the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice; Dr. Robert P. George, Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University; Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik, Rabbi of Shearith Israel, America’s first Jewish Congregation, founded in Manhattan in 1654; and Dr. Peter Berkowitz of Hoover Institution, Stanford University, who served as Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, executive secretary of the department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights, and senior adviser to the Secretary of State. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_11_16_Deepening Ties Between Indonesian and African American Muslims
Senior Indonesian politicians visit The Nation’s Mosque:
“the blessed place where Islamic proselytism began in Washington, DC”
“An example of the ‘indigenization of Islam’ in the world’s most powerful nation”
Imam Talib Shareef of The Nation’s Mosque and the Honorable H. Muhaimin Iskandar
WASHINGTON, DC: On November 16, 2021 a delegation of senior Indonesian politicians affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama visited the first mosque in the United States built by descendants of enslaved African Americans, and paid their respects to leaders of the Imam W. Deen Mohammed Community, which operates hundreds of mosques and Islamic centers nationwide.
The delegation was led by the Honorable H. Muhaimin Iskandar (“Gus Imin”), who is Chairman of Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party, PKB; Deputy Speaker of the People’s Representative Assembly in Indonesia (DPR); and Vice President of the world’s largest political network, Centrist Democrat International (CDI), whose headquarters are in Brussels at the heart of the European Union. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_12_21_Director of Strategic Outreach
Member of Bayt ar-Rahmah’s core team stands down:
“It has been an enormous privilege to support Nahdlatul Ulama spiritual leaders as they advance a pluralistic and tolerant understanding and practice of Islam worldwide”
Thomas Dinham seated at his work desk in Nahdlatul Ulama headquarters, Jakarta (2018)
LONDON, United Kingdom, December 21, 2021: Bayt ar-Rahmah’s Director of Strategic Outreach — Thomas Dinham — is standing down after over three years in the role, during which he worked closely with Nahdlatul Ulama spiritual leaders to help the world’s largest Muslim organization emerge upon the world stage as “a formidable challenger to powerful state actors in the battle for the soul of Islam. . . This struggle has and will affect the prospects for the emergence of a truly more tolerant and pluralistic interpretation of one of the three Abrahamic religions.” (“The Battle for the Soul of Islam,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, Hudson Institute Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World).
Mr. Dinham is an accomplished geopolitical analyst, journalist, author and strategic communications professional, who cut his teeth as a Middle East specialist covering events in Syria, Libya and Egypt during the height of the Arab Spring. Described by the BBC’s flagship current affairs program, From Our Own Correspondent, as “a witness to crucial days in the history of Egypt,” he has lived, studied and worked in several of the region’s key power centers, including Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Damascus and Beirut. Fluent in classical and colloquial Egyptian Arabic — both spoken and written — Mr. Dinham has profound knowledge of the manner in which state and non-state actors throughout the Muslim world deliberately weaponize problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy in order to maintain or acquire political, military and economic power, with all the human suffering this entails. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2021_12_24_Humanitarian Islam Co-founder Elected General Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama
Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf:
“NU was founded to develop a new civilizational framework, following the collapse of the old civilizational construct after WWI and the dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate.”
Nahdlatul Ulama launches a movement to “revive Gus Dur’s humanitarian vision” and “create a better, more noble future for human civilization as a whole”
KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf addresses leaders of NU provincial and regional chapters who gathered to support his candidacy as Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Executive Board (December 21, 2021)
BANDAR LAMPUNG, Indonesia: On December 24, 2021 Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf was elected General Chairman of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, with a mandate to promote Humanitarian Islam on the global stage — in order to foster the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.
In a fiercely contested election whose complex maneuvering dominated Indonesian media coverage for weeks prior to NU’s 34th National Congress — held from December 22 – 24, 2021 in Lampung province on the island of Sumatra — Mr. Staquf received 337 votes to 210 votes cast in favor of the incumbent Dr. KH. Said Aqil Siradj, who served two terms as General Chairman of the NU Executive Board from 2010 – 2021. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2022
2022_01_26_Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, RSIS
“Humanitarian Islam”: New Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman and the Global Initiative to Promote Religious Moderation
Alexander Raymond Arifianto | 26 January 2022
Humanitarian Islam at work: teaching the children. Photo by Andri Helmansyah on Unsplash.
SYNOPSIS
Nahdlatul Ulama — Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation — recently elected Yahya Cholil Staquf as its new chairman. A close analysis of his background and past accomplishments reveals that Yahya has a potential agenda to transform the organisation into a global voice on religious moderation through his promotion of “humanitarian Islam”.
COMMENTARY
On 24 December 2021, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) — Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation — concluded its 34th national congress (muktamar) in Lampung. Congress delegates elected Yahya Cholil Staquf, formerly general secretary of the organisation, as its next chairperson.
Yahya’s election means that NU, which claims nearly 100 million Indonesian Muslims as its followers, will once again be led by a cleric with a strong genealogical linkage to the family of its founding fathers, what NU activists internally refer to as “blue blood” (darah biru). The last NU chairman who came from a “blue blood” background was the late Abdurrahman Wahid, who later became Indonesia’s first democratically elected president. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_01_27_International Holocaust Remembrance Day
NU Chairman Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf:
“Holocaust remembrance serves as a memorial and vivid reminder of the cruelty, violence and suffering that so many human beings… have, for thousands of years, inflicted upon others.”
“Today, in remembrance of the Holocaust and its millions of victims, Nahdlatul Ulama and I wish to raise our voices in a simple, heart-felt call:
“‘Let us choose compassion!’”
U.S. Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-Kentucky) looks on after Buchenwald’s liberation
LOS ANGELES and MANAMA, Bahrain. On January 27, 2022, KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf — newly elected Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board — joined global leaders in commemorating the United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place every year on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.
In doing so, Mr. Staquf is walking in the footsteps of his predecessor and mentor, H.E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, who convened the historic Bali Holocaust Conference in 2007 to reject “The Evils of Holocaust Denial” and affirm religion as a source of universal love and compassion (rahmah).
Jointly sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and The King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence, the global webinar featured former Israeli Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who is also a child Holocaust survivor; President Isaac Herzog of Israel; Reverend Johnnie Moore, leading American Evangelical Pastor and former member of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom; Rabbi Marvin Hier, CEO and Founder of Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance; and former U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_01_31_Inauguration of Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia:
“NU’s contribution to our religious and national life has transformed Indonesia into a nation united by the principle of ‘Oneness Amid Diversity.’ This achievement may serve as a model and an inspiration to other nations.”
Welcoming Nahdlatul Ulama’s Centennial: Nurturing the Earth and Building a Global Civilization
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan, Indonesia: On January 31, 2022, Indonesian political leaders gathered to witness the inauguration of the newly elected Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, which will govern the world’s largest Muslim organization from 2022 – 2027 under the Chairmanship of Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf.
Held on the island of Borneo, at the city of Balikpapan’s Sport and Convention Center, the event was attended by Indonesian President Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”); Vice President KH. Ma’ruf Amin; former Vice President Jusuf Kalla; Puan Maharani, the granddaughter of Indonesia’s first president Sukarno and currently Speaker of Indonesia’s National Assembly; nine cabinet ministers; and Indonesia’s chief of police. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_02_11_Indonesian Government Restores Hindu and Buddhist Worship at UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs:
“Prambanan Temple will no longer be simply a tourist destination, but rather a center of active worship for Hindus from Indonesia and throughout the world”
The restoration of Hindu and Buddhist worship at the great temple complexes of Prambanan and Borobudur reflects the compassionate spirit of Islam Nusantara (“East Indies Islam”) and offers a glimmer of hope amid the widespread destruction of religious and cultural sites across the world
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — On February 11, 2022, senior Indonesian government officials and religious leaders met to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on the Use of Prambanan Temple and Borobudur Temple for the Religious Interests of Hindus and Buddhists in Indonesia and the World. As a result, two of Asia’s most renowned sacred sites, which in recent decades had been largely closed to ritual worship, are now available for the performance of Hindu and Buddhist religious rituals on a regular basis.
This development comes amid a dramatic rise in the destruction of religious and cultural sites, not only in the Middle East and Africa, where Muslim extremists seek to destroy the world’s diverse cultural and religious heritage, but also regions such as Europe and North America. In Canada alone, at least 56 churches were set aflame or vandalized in the summer of 2021, many of them burned completely to the ground, while over the past decade thousands of churches were desecrated, vandalized and/or set ablaze in Europe. In recent years, synagogues, churches, mosques, and other houses of worship have been the target of deadly attacks in many Western nations, including Canada, the United States, France, and New Zealand. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_02_17_Our Beloved Shaykh Muhammad Kholil of Bangkalan
Reflecting upon Nahdlatul Ulama’s 99th anniversary: “Caring for the universe, building a more noble civilization”
“May God bless our beloved Shaykh and may we recall his final injunction to Nahdlatul Ulama…. We must have the self-discipline and courage to devote all that we possess to strive for a more noble and glorious civilization. Not merely for ourselves… not merely for Nahdlatul Ulama… not merely for Indonesia… not merely for the world’s Muslim population… but for ALL of humanity.”
~ H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
BANGKALAN, Madura, East Java, 17 February 2022 — Following his December 2021 election as General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf initiated a year-long series of events anticipating the approach of Nahdlatul Ulama’s centennial according to the Islamic lunar calendar. The 99th anniversary celebration of the world’s largest Muslim organization was held on the island of Madura, at the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) of Kyai Muhammad Kholil bin Abdul Latif al-Bangkalani (1820 – 1925), whose disciples established Nahdlatul Ulama shortly after his death. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
Referred to as “Our Shaykh” (Syaikhona), Kyai Bangkalan is widely revered as a saint among NU’s 100-million-plus followers.
2022_02_18_Leading Hindu Nationalist Endorses Humanitarian Islam
“Indian Muslims Need to Emulate the Indonesian Model:
The humanitarianism of eastern Islam”
Sri Ram Madhav addressing the Centrist Democrat International (CDI) Eurasia Forum in Yogyakarta, Indonesia on January 24, 2020. Others (left to right) are: C. Holland Taylor, co-founder, Humanitarian Islam movement; Dr. Teresita Cruz-del Rosario, National University of Singapore; Antonio López-Istúriz White, Secretary General, CDI and European People’s Party; and Dr. James M. Dorsey, geopolitical analyst.
NEW DELHI, India: February 18, 2022 — An influential Indian politician, author, public intellectual and member of the National Executive of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the group that gave birth to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has called on Indian Muslims to emulate Indonesia’s concept of Humanitarian Islam.
Writing in Open, an Indian current affairs weekly magazine, former BJP General Secretary Sri Ram Madhav Varanasi advocated that India and Indonesia “join hands as nations with the world’s largest and second largest Muslim populations, respectively, to steadfastly promote the concept of the ‘Humanitarian Islam of the East’.”
Mr. Madhav’s endorsement of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama for “champion[ing] a version of Islam that promotes peace and pluralism” — in contrast to Wahhabi and other forms of Islamist extremism that originate in the Middle East — is significant, given that the RSS has been a driving force of Hindu nationalism for nearly a century. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_02_23_Kompas: Nahdlatul Ulama’s Civilizational Mission
“Sharing the vision of a universal humanity — i.e., universal humanism — has become an integral part of NU’s efforts to project strategic influence upon the world stage”
Pictures of Nahdlatul Ulama figures line the entry hall at NU headquarters in Jakarta, Tuesday (6/8/2019). KOMPAS/RADITYA HELABUMI
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On February 23, 2022, Indonesia’s largest and most influential newspaper, Kompas, published another in a series of articles examining the impact of KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf’s December 2021 election as General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board. With an estimated daily readership of 2.25 million people, Kompas is Indonesia’s “newspaper of record,” helping to shape public opinion in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and democracy. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_02_24_Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Threatens the Current World Order
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine requires an urgent response from the world community”
“General Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board Responds to Conflict Between Russia and Ukraine”
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On February 24, 2022, shortly after the Russian Federation launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, the Chairman of the world’s largest Muslim organization described the attack as a profound threat to the post-World War II international order and called for a global response to Russia’s violation of Ukrainian territory.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Chairman of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, said that the attack also risks undermining stability within the Islamic world by normalizing aggression between states — a practice that was widespread throughout human history prior to the United Nations Charter of 1945. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_03_04_Saudi Arabia and Indonesia: Clashing Visions of Moderate Islam
Dr. James Dorsey:
Muhammad bin Salman and Yahya Cholil Staquf represent “diametrically opposed visions of moderate Islam,” mirroring the global struggle between autocracy and democracy in the 21st century
SINGAPORE, March 4, 2022: Drawing a stark contrast between two “clashing visions” of Islam and its global future, a new essay by award-winning journalist and geopolitical analyst Dr. James Dorsey highlights the profound civilizational differences between the religious reform agenda of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and that being proffered by Middle East governments, including Saudi Arabia.
For nearly twelve centuries, Muslim populations in the Middle East were ruled by Islamic caliphates, which systematically fused religious doctrine and political power. The 17,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago, on the other hand, were never part of the Ottoman Empire or any previous caliphate. Rather than weaponize religion for political purposes or coercively impose religious norms upon unwilling populations, Islam Nusantara (East Indies Islam) has historically prioritized peaceful coexistence with diverse ethnic and religious communities. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_03_14_The Classical Intellectual Heritage of Islam Nusantara
Nahdlatul Ulama challenges Middle East claims to possess a monopoly on Islamic authority and religious discourse
Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman:
“Re-awakening the rich intellectual heritage of East Indies ulama will enable us to contribute significantly to the future of world civilization in partnership with stakeholders from other great civilizations, including Europe, India, China and the Middle East”
NU Central Board members and the Governor of Jakarta attended the launch of an exhibit on the classical Islamic heritage of Islam Nusantara (East Indies Islam)
JAKARTA, Indonesia, March 14, 2022: In a move reminiscent of Martin Luther’s challenge to the authority of Rome in the 16th century — which launched the Protestant Reformation and paved the way for an explosion of scientific and technological progress in Europe — Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is challenging Middle East governments’ claim to possess a monopoly on Islamic authority and discourse.
Islamic institutions and public discourse are tightly controlled by governments throughout the Arab world, as well as in Iran and Turkey. Nahdlatul Ulama — a traditional Sunni Muslim organization with over 90 million followers — offers a stark contrast to such authoritarian-friendly models of Islam, and to the extreme violence perpetrated by ultraconservative Sunni groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_03_23_Autocratic vs. Democratic Islam
“Dr. James Dorsey has drawn a stark contrast between Nahdlatul Ulama’s democratic vision and the autocratic view of Islam represented by Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah”
Majelis Ulama Indonesia (the Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars, or MUI) is a quasi-governmental body created in 1975 by the Suharto regime, which sought to by-pass the religious authority of Nahdlatul Ulama — an organization that has steadfastly maintained its independence from government since its founding in 1926. Following President Suharto’s relinquishment of power in 1998, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, dozens of extremist organizations infiltrated MUI and have sought to use its perceived authority to advance an Islamist agenda, backed by a government-issued monopoly on the certification of halal products.
Writing in The Times of Israel, geopolitical analyst and scholar Dr. James M. Dorsey has drawn a stark contrast between Nahdlatul Ulama’s democratic vision and the autocratic view of Islam represented by Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah, Chairman of the United Arab Emirates Fatwa Council. An 87-year-old Mauritanian-born scholar of classical Islamic law — who for many years played a key role in Saudi Arabia’s and Qatar’s propagation of ultra-conservative Sunni Islam — Shaykh bin Bayyah severed his close ties with Muslim Brotherhood figure Yusuf al-Qaradawi in the wake of the Arab Spring and moved to Abu Dhabi. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_04_01_The Ashoka Approach
“The ‘Ashoka Approach’ and Indonesian Leadership in the Movement for Pluralist Re-Awakening in South and Southeast Asia”
Capital of inscribed Ashoka pillar at Sarnath, India (250 BCE; photographed in 1904)
JAKARTA, Indonesia and NEW DELHI, India — Leaders of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization, are working to consolidate South and Southeast Asia as an alternate pillar of support for a rules-based international order founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being. Integral to this effort is a regional strategy called the “Ashoka Approach,” which seeks to reawaken the ancient spiritual, cultural, and socio-political heritage of the Indianized cultural sphere, or “Indosphere” — a civilizational zone that pioneered, long before the West, key concepts and practices of religious pluralism and tolerance.
Roughly co-extensive with South and Southeast Asia, the Indosphere is a vast geographic and cultural zone stretching from Pakistan to Indonesia, which was formatively and permanently shaped by the great spiritual traditions — particularly Hinduism and Buddhism — that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_04_23_India Today – Cover Story
“A Deepening Divide?”
“How India can avert strife” by embracing the “inclusive and humanitarian Islam… promoted by organisations like Nahdlatul Ulama”
“Indian social leaders need to stand up to the forces of hatred and violence” on both sides of the communal divide.
NOIDA, UTTAR PRADESH, India – April 23, 2022. The most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million, has published a cover story advocating the embrace of “a more inclusive and humanitarian Islam” by Indian Muslims, in order to help bridge that nation’s deepening communal divide.
Authored by Hindu social and political leader Sri Ram Madhav, the essay was one of seven commissioned by India’s leading news magazine, in the midst of rising polarization in a country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population and a highly popular Hindu nationalist government, which has been widely criticized by Western media and human rights organizations for its treatment of religious minorities.
Mr. Madhav, the former National General Secretary of India’s ruling political party, BJP, was recently described by a prominent Western observer as a moderate alternative to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has been accused of expressing anti-Muslim sentiments. “I personally think [Ram] is smart and world-savvy,” wrote the observer, “and is the most compelling BJP candidate to succeed [Narendra] Modi” as India’s Prime Minister. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_05_09_Can Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam inspire a Hindu nationalist equivalent?
“Reawakening the ancient spiritual, cultural, and socio-political heritage of the Indianized civilizational sphere”
JAKARTA and NEW DELHI, May 9, 2022 — Amid rising hostility between the world’s great powers, Hindu and Muslim leaders have begun to explore strategies to “stem the tide of chaos” and preserve a rules-based international order, by strengthening “the humanitarian values of the East.”
These discussions are unfolding against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; ongoing wars and the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East; China’s Belt and Road Initiative; and the continuing spread of identity-based conflicts in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. Significantly, Indonesia will host leaders of the world’s largest economies (the “G20”) in November of 2022, while India will hold the G20 presidency next year.
On May 9, Hindu social and political leader Ram Madhav Varanasi traveled to Jakarta to meet with NU Chairman Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf and C. Holland Taylor, co-founders of the Humanitarian Islam movement and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_05_12_Muslim World League: Forum on Common Values
At Saudi Conference, NU Chairman Invites Religious Leaders to Develop a Strategy for Transforming the Mindset of Religious Communities Worldwide
“Many religious communities still view the relationship between religions as a form of political competition. Hence, it is no surprise that religion is often used as a political weapon to acquire or retain power.”
Will Saudi Arabia sever its long-standing ties with Indonesian groups that seek to establish an Islamic state?
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — May 12, 2022: For the first time in its 61-year history, the Saudi-funded Muslim World League has chosen to engage substantively with the world’s largest Muslim organization — Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama — and convey NU’s message of religious pluralism and tolerance to Muslims worldwide.
Long known for spending billions of dollars to promote ultra-conservative Sunni Islam, in recent years the Muslim World League (MWL) has begun to shift its messaging and modes of engagement under the leadership of Dr. Mohammad bin Abdulkarim al-Issa, who was appointed Secretary General of MWL in 2016.
On May 11 – 12, 2022, the Muslim World League convened 90 religious leaders for the Forum on Common Values among Religious Followers. Participants included 47 Muslim scholars, 24 Christian leaders, 12 rabbis and 7 Hindu and Buddhist figures. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_05_18_India Today: The Integration of Muslim Minorities in Europe
“Unless serious efforts for greater integration on the lines of NU are made, the divide between Muslims and non-Muslims is bound to grow.”
Humanitarian Islam seeks to unite the center-left and center-right in blocking the political weaponization of identity
NEW DELHI, India, May 18, 2022 — Writing in South Asia’s leading news magazine, India Today, a major Hindu social and political leader has analyzed the severe challenges European nations face in integrating their Muslim minority populations. The article concludes that Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, with its systematic efforts to reform obsolete and problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy, may hold the key to overcoming obstacles to Muslim integration in Europe and elsewhere.
“NU leadership has fearlessly championed the cause of Islamic reform”
Significantly, the author of the article, Sri Ram Madhav Varanasi, acknowledged that dangerous forms of “anti-Islamist radicalism” have emerged among non-Muslim populations in many parts of the world, triggered in part by Islamist separatism, supremacism, and violence. Mr. Madhav concludes his article by calling for “enlightened citizens and governments of the world” to combat Islamic radicalism through a serious and responsible program of reform, and thereby avert a catastrophic eruption of identity-based violence. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_05_20_Center for Shared Civilizational Values
Nahdlatul Ulama and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values
“Striving to ensure that religion in the 21st century functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems”
JAKARTA, Indonesia and WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina, May 20, 2022 — In the midst of rising identity-based conflict world-wide, leaders of Indonesia’s 90-million-member Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) have created an organizational vehicle to “identify shared values that may serve as the basis for harmonious coexistence between the diverse people, cultures, nations and religions of the world.”
The North Carolina-based Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV) provides an institutional platform for global cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
CSCV was incorporated in June of 2021 by the former head of the NU Supreme Council, KH. A. Mustofa Bisri; the Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf; and Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs, the Honorable Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, with Americans C. Holland Taylor, F. Borden Hanes, Jr., and Dr. Timothy Samuel Shah. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_07_07_The Print: Islam Nusantara Can Help India Too
Major Indian media outlets praise NU and the G20 Religion Forum (R20):
“[A] unique and significant initiative. . . that will bring together leaders of all the important world religions to assist G-20 governments in building a united, pluralist and peaceful world”
“Islam Nusantara aims to transform the role of religion from being a source of conflict and hatred to a wellspring of compassion and collaboration”
Home page of The Print (July 8, 2022)
NEW DELHI, India — July 7, 2022: Leading Indian news outlets have published a pair of articles that highlight the newly established G20 Religion Forum and the potential role of Islam Nusantara (“East Indies Islam”) in countering Islamist extremism in India, whose Muslim population is second only to that of Indonesia.
On July 7, an article authored by Indonesian scholar Hadza Min Fadhli Robby appeared in The Print under the title: “Islam Nusantara saved Indonesia’s Muslims from ISIS. It can help India too.” The brainchild of award-winning journalist Shekhar Gupta, The Print is an online newspaper launched in 2017 with the support of prominent Indian billionaires, including N.R. Narayana Murthy, Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Nirmal Jain.
Dr. Robby, who lectures at the Indonesian Islamic University (UII) in Yogyakarta, highlights the role of Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf in establishing the G20 Religion Forum (“R20”). This coming November, Nahdlatul Ulama will launch the R20: a first-of-its-kind G20 event designed to tackle religious extremism and establish a framework to help ensure that religion functions as a source of genuine solutions, rather than problems, in the 21st century. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_08_14_G20 Religion Forum and the Muslim World League
G20 Religion Forum (R20):
“Helping to ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems”
Nahdlatul Ulama invites Muslim World League Secretary General to co-chair R20 Summit
JAKARTA, Indonesia and RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The official host of this year’s G20 Summit — the Republic of Indonesia, led by popular two-term President Joko Widodo — has decided to place religion and religious leaders near the center of geopolitical discourse for the first time in the history of the G20.
The world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, established the G20 Religion Forum (R20) in order to “help ensure that religion in the 21st century functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems.”
In order to fulfill this vision, the R20 will mobilize diverse religious, political and economic leaders from G20 Member States and elsewhere throughout the world “to prevent the weaponization of identity; curtail the spread of communal hatred; promote solidarity and respect among the diverse peoples, cultures and nations of the world; and foster the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_09_23_Official Statement by the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
Official Statement of the NU Central Board Regarding R20 and Ongoing Discussions with India & RSS
“Nahdlatul Ulama encourages people of good will of every faith and nation to reject the weaponization of identity”
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board has published an official statement that outlines the vision and objectives of the newly-established G20 Religion Forum (R20), and its approach to interreligious conflict.
Signed by NU Chairman, KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, and its General Secretary, H. Saifullah Yusuf, the document states:
Nahdlatul Ulama believes that the only way to overcome entrenched historical grievances and promote peaceful co-existence is to engage all parties and refuse to indulge in the sentiment of enmity and hatred, based upon a claim of unique communal victimhood.
Nahdlatul Ulama is aware of the potential for genocide in South Asia, not only because of contemporary geopolitical dynamics, but also due to the history of the region, including the Bangladesh genocide of 1971; the massacres that accompanied Partition in 1947; British colonial policies of divide and rule; and centuries of invasion from the northwest, accompanied by massive destruction, slaughter, and enslavement. Even the Emperor Ashoka is known for his massacre of over 100,000 inhabitants of Kalinga during the third century B.C.E., prior to his conversion to Buddhism. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_10_02_Religious Soft Power
Indonesia’s Religious Soft Power on Display in the Middle East
As Qatar doubles down on its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Saudi-based Muslim World League has “forged an unlikely alliance with Nahdlatul Ulama”
Indonesia’s “Nahdlatul Ulama is arguably the world’s only mass movement propagating a genuinely moderate and pluralistic form of Islam”
DOHA, Qatar and MECCA, Saudi Arabia — The fierce competition for religious soft power between Middle East nations was on stark display in September with the announcement of diametrically opposed initiatives by major Islamic organizations backed by the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Reflecting the growing influence of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, Indonesian religious leaders are at the heart of both initiatives.
As reported by geopolitical analyst Dr. James Dorsey, on 10 September:
[F]ormer Indonesian Minister of Social Affairs Habib Salim Segaf Al-Jufri was named Secretary General of the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), founded by controversial Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the world’s foremost Muslim theologians associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Al-Qaradawi died on Monday in Doha at the age of 96.
Intriguingly, Mr. Al-Jufri, a senior member of Indonesia’s Brotherhood-affiliated Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), also represents the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in East and Southeast Asia, a Saudi government-funded organization initially established in the 1970s to promote Saudi religious ultra-conservatism globally.
Arab commentators have described Al-Jufri as a Muslim Brotherhood loyalist and argue that his election reflects not only the difficulties confronting the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, but also the group’s hope to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_10_31_R20 Spiritual Ecology Movement
Muslim and Hindu Leaders Launch Spiritual Ecology Movement at Historic R20 Gathering in Bali
Mahamahopadhyay Bhadreshdas Swami:
“Dharma is that which upholds the whole universe.
Similarly, spiritual ecology is that which protects the whole of creation.”
BALI, Indonesia — On the afternoon of 31 October 2022, religious leaders met to break new ground by launching a global “spiritual ecology movement” to foster balance within nature and society. The event was held at Puja Mandala, a religious complex consisting of five houses of worship built side-by-side, including a Hindu temple, a mosque, Protestant and Catholic churches, and a Buddhist vihara.
The gathering began with a ritual purification ceremony and offerings made by Balinese Hindu priests (photograph below) prior to the planting of twenty trees considered sacred within Hindu cosmology. This ceremony and tree planting are believed to enliven the spiritual unity that connects all of creation and thereby secure harmony and balance between the seen and unseen worlds. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_02_R20 Plenary Session 1
G20 Religion Forum (R20) Opening Session
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia addresses R20 participants:
“[R]eligious leaders of different faiths and nations must work together to strengthen religion’s contribution to solving the world’s problems, reduce rivalry, end conflict, and achieve a peaceful, united world.”
BALI, Indonesia, 2 November 2022 — Over 400 religious leaders and scholars from around the world gathered for the first annual R20 Summit, which the Government of Indonesia welcomed as an official “main event” during its Presidency of the G20. Reflecting the profound spirituality characteristic of Nusantara (“East Indies,” or Indonesian) civilization, the R20 was carefully designed to infuse the world’s political and economic power structures with moral and spiritual (i.e., religious) values, rather than instrumentalize religion to serve a purely secular agenda.
Frankly acknowledging that religion has often contributed to identity-based conflict, both throughout history and in the present day, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and the U.S.-based Center for Shared Civilizational Values founded the G20 Religion Forum (R20) in order to “help ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems, in the 21st century.”
This communiqué provides extensive excerpts from addresses delivered on the morning of Thursday, 2 November 2022, during the R20’s opening session. These excerpts are intended to allow readers — including religious leaders, policy makers, scholars, journalists, and other interested parties — to readily access and understand the substantive nature of the R20’s agenda and of the presentations delivered by prominent religious leaders at the R20 Summit in Bali. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_02_R20 Plenary Session 2
G20 Religion Forum (R20) Plenary Session 2:
Identifying and embracing values shared by the world’s major religions and civilizations
“The aspirations of the R20 are ambitious and the obstacles great…. [but] the time is right for a multicultural, multinational effort to broaden and deepen the quest for shared civilizational values.”
~ Keynote address by Professor Mary Ann Glendon
Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs, the Honorable Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, addressing the R20’s second plenary session
BALI, Indonesia, 2 November 2022 — A diverse array of religious, political, business, and academic leaders gathered on the first day of the R20 Summit to discuss the urgent need to identify “shared values common to all religions, which may become the basic reference point from which we can embark upon a joint endeavor. . . to ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of global solutions rather than problems” (R20 Founding Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf).
The second plenary session began with a keynote address titled “The Quest for Shared Civilizational Values,” delivered by Harvard Law Professor and former US Ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon. Author of the book, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Professor Glendon is a leading expert on the emergence of the post-World War II human rights project. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_02_R20 Plenary Session 3
G20 Religion Forum (R20) Plenary Session 3:
Historical grievances, truth-telling, reconciliation, and forgiveness
“If we are to proceed beyond the surface talk and shallow agreement typical of most interfaith gatherings, and truly be worthy to contribute to global discussions and decision-making, we must first confront the violent sectarianism amongst us.”
~ Keynote address by Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda
BALI, Indonesia, 2 November 2022 — A diverse panel of religious leaders and scholars from the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, North and South America, and the Caribbean convened on the first day of the R20 Summit for a candid and wide-ranging conversation about the injustices that religious communities have inflicted upon each other throughout history. Their conversation was directly inspired by R20 Founding Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, whose address to the opening plenary urged religious leaders “to engage in honest discourse” and “acknowledge the problems that befall us so that we can find a way out of identity-based conflict.”
In his remarks, Mr. Staquf observed:
For centuries, human civilization has grappled with the reality of strife between religious communities. Today, we inherit a situation in which people of different faiths are engaged in competition, antagonism, and conflict motivated by religion. We still witness this crisis of conflict across the world: in West Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and even in Europe and America. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_03_R20 Plenary Session 4
R20 Plenary Session 4:
What values do our respective traditions need to relinquish to ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems?
“Traditional religions travel heavy and do not throw texts away. They may think that they do not use a given problematic text anymore, so they lay it aside, but it returns. And in every generation, we may have to reread it again, and again.”
~ Keynote Address by Rabbi Alan Brill
BALI, Indonesia — On the morning of 3 November 2022, prominent religious leaders and scholars gathered at the R20 Summit to discuss teachings embedded within their respective religions that are, or were, incompatible with peaceful coexistence and a rules-based international order founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.
In his keynote address delivered at the opening plenary of the G20 Religion Forum (R20), NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf invited the world’s religious leaders to join Nahdlatul Ulama in an open and honest discussion about “what values our respective traditions need to relinquish, to ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems, in the 21st century.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_03_R20 Plenary Session 5
G20 Religion Forum (R20) Plenary Session 5:
What values do we need to develop to ensure peaceful co-existence?
“I believe that we can readily identify shared civilization-building ethical norms… that work against a clash of civilizations in the same way as the right medicine from our doctors can effectively counteract disease in our bodies.”
~ Rev. Professor Thomas K. Johnson
Rev. Dr. Paolo Benanti displaying a “deepfake” video of actor Morgan Freeman, generated by artificial intelligence, during Rev. Benanti’s presentation in Plenary Session 5
BALI, Indonesia, 3 November 2022 — The fifth plenary session of the R20 Summit featured a diverse array of religious leaders, scholars, and activists who discussed “the importance of developing a global consensus regarding shared values that the world’s diverse cultures will need to embrace if they are to co-exist peacefully” (R20 Founding Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf).
Speakers addressed a wide range of topics, including the need to bring moral and spiritual values to bear in institutional and governmental decision making; the threat to human dignity and freedom posed by artificial intelligence; the resurgence of tribalism worldwide; and the 2020 report of the US Department of State’s Commission on Unalienable Rights. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_03_R20 Plenary Session 6
G20 Religion Forum (R20) Plenary Session 6:
Spiritual Ecology:
Fostering Balance within Nature and Society
“A creation-inflected spirituality means that we celebrate the divine presence within all of God’s creatures, however we spell out the details of that presence. A sense of spirituality is precisely that which brings us closer to an appreciation of nature and a sense of awe before its wonders.”
~ Keynote Address by Rabbi Arthur Green
BALI, Indonesia — On the afternoon of 3 November 2022, Nahdlatul Ulama religious leaders announced the launch of the Spiritual Ecology movement during Plenary Session 6 of the R20 Summit. The opening speaker was Kyai Haji Jadul Maula, Chairman of the Institute of Indonesian Muslim Cultural Artists, or Lesbumi — an autonomous branch of the world’s largest Muslim organization.
Established in 1962, Lesbumi was originally intended to safeguard and strengthen traditional artistic communities that were threatened by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), whose “People’s Cultural Institute” (Lekra) sought to harness all artistic expression in the service of an atheistic, Marxist-Leninist agenda.
In recent decades, Lesbumi has vigorously defended traditional artistic communities threatened by the spread of Wahhabi/Muslim Brotherhood ideology, which demonizes the diverse cultural expressions of Islam Nusantara (“East Indies Islam”).
The symbol of Lesbumi (depicted above) is based on the gunungan (“mountain”, a.k.a. kayon, or “tree”), which constitutes an essential element of Javanese shadow puppet theater, or wayang kulit. Its shape reminiscent of a “fire mountain,” or volcano, the gunungan symbolizes the universe. Surrounded by wild animals, the kayon symbolizes the “cosmic tree,” which emerges from the Void (“suwung”) of the “Divine Being that encompasses all things” (“Hyang Maha Segalanya”). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_03_Handover Ceremony
R20 Plenary Session 7: Handover Ceremony
“See you in India!”
“I think R20 has set in motion a tectonic force here in Bali. From Bali it will go to India, from there to Brazil, from there onwards to wherever G20 is held.”
~ Sri Ram Madhav Varanasi
BALI, Indonesia — Formal deliberations at the R20 Summit in Bali concluded with an official handover ceremony on the afternoon of 3 November 2022. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, Founder and Chairman of the R20, passed the R20 banner to prominent Hindu leaders, who will host the R20 Summit during India’s 2023 presidency of the G20. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_03_R20 Bali Communiqué
The G20 Religion Forum (R20)
Final Communiqué
“[T]he R20 is mobilizing religious, social, economic, and political leaders from throughout the world to ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems.”
~ R20 Bali Communiqué, point 3
BALI, Indonesia, 3 November 2022 — Following two days of intense and substantive discussion among over 400 religious leaders and scholars gathered from around the world and across its major faith traditions, the first annual G20 Religion Forum, or R20, issued a final communiqué. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_09_The Hill
German Marshall Fund scholar hails the G20 Religion Forum (R20) as “the world’s most important interfaith venue”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On 9 November 2022, The Hill, a top U.S. political newspaper that is widely read by Washington insiders, published an article describing the newly established G20 Religion Forum (R20) as “hugely significant” and “in just its first year, the world’s most important interfaith venue.”
According to the author, Muddassar Ahmed, a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund:
A remarkable transformation has been taking place in the Muslim world, a years-long shift towards pluralism and tolerance belying common assumptions about Islam.
Maybe we missed this earlier: A lot has been going on, after all. But last week in Bali, at the G20’s ground-breaking Religion Forum, the R20, that transformation took center stage. Not only is it an epochal moment in modern Islam, but this moment also helped create the world’s most important interfaith conversation.
By expanding beyond the G7 to the G20 — the world’s 20 largest economies — the developed world has created more space for non-Western populations to enter the space of global governance and bring their perspectives and insights with them. That extends to India, with the world’s largest Hindu population and a massive Muslim minority, as well as three Muslim-majority countries: Turkey, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
Over the course of a week in Bali, I watched, spellbound. Three hundred senior leaders from the world’s major faith traditions explored how to interject religious frameworks into questions of global governance. . . .
It’s not only the world’s many people of faith who gain from having their religious leaders exposed to high-level political conversations that connect the West and other parts of the world. The same can be said for secular leaders enriched by the insights of faith leaders they might never have otherwise interacted with — how, after all, can Western leaders pursue global challenges without understanding what shapes most global sentiments?
But what if I told you that’s not the most important thing about the R20? Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_22_The Times of Israel
Geopolitical Analyst Dr. James M. Dorsey, writing in The Times of Israel:
“Major Muslim and Hindu organisations are battling to define the role of religion in global politics”
WEST JERUSALEM, Israel — On 22 November 2022, leading international affairs expert Dr. James M. Dorsey published an in-depth analysis of the recently concluded G20 Religion Forum (R20) and its geopolitical ramifications. Writing in The Times of Israel, a multi-language newspaper that documents developments in Israel, the Middle East, and around the Jewish world, Dr. Dorsey argued that the R20 “positioned Nahdlatul Ulama. . . . as a leading force in defining moderate Islam and promoting concepts of genuine religious reform not only of Islam but also of other major faiths such as Hinduism.”
Dr. Dorsey went on to observe that “from Nahdlatul Ulama’s perspective, jurisprudential reform of religious law is the key to positioning religion ‘as a source of solutions, not problems.’”
The article, titled “Behind lofty declarations, major Muslim and Hindu groups compete for power,” describes Nahdlatul Ulama’s engagement with the Muslim World League — which NU invited to co-host the R20 — as “a bold but risky strategy that also underlies Nahdlatul Ulama’s engagement with Hindu nationalism.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_11_29_India-Indonesia Strategic Partnership
High-level Ulama Delegation of “National Treasures” Visits India in the Wake of R20 Summit
“We take pride in our relations with Indonesia, which have been elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in recent years.”
~ India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval
NEW DELHI, India, 29 November 2022 — The India Islamic Cultural Center hosted a day-long dialogue on the role of ulama, or Muslim scholars, in fostering interfaith peace and social harmony in India and Indonesia, as part of a comprehensive strategic partnership emerging between the world’s largest and third largest democracies.
India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and his Indonesian counterpart, Mahfud MD, held two days of high-level discussions that included meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its Minister of External Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. As Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, the Honorable Mahfud MD led a 25-member Indonesian delegation that included senior Muslim scholars and representatives of other faiths including Roman Catholicism and Hinduism. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_12_01_The Muslim 500
NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf recognized as one of the 20 most influential Muslims in the world
AMMAN, Jordan, 1 December 2022 — The Muslim 500, the world’s premier index of Muslim power and influence, has acknowledged KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf as among the world’s 20 most influential Muslims in its newly released 2023 edition. This comes amid a rising tide of international recognition for the Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman and organizations that he has founded, including Bayt ar-Rahmah, the Humanitarian Islam movement, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, and the G20 Religion Forum, or R20.
At number 19, Mr. Staquf is ranked just nine places below Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia — an indication of Nahdlatul Ulama’s enormous influence. The Muslim 500 describes Nahdlatul Ulama as “the world’s largest Muslim organisation, [which] teaches that the primary message of Islam is universal love and compassion.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2022_12_12_A Curious Courtship
As G20 Presidency moves to India, the R20 “is part of a larger Muslim struggle that is likely to define Islam in the 21st century”
“India is not where the battle for the soul of the world’s major religions, including Islam and Hinduism, will be decided, but it is the battle’s next arena.”
~ James M. Dorsey
R20 participants from India observe a Hindu ritual at Prambanan Temple on the Indonesian island of Java
BANGKOK, Thailand, 12 December 2022 — Geopolitical expert and commentator James M. Dorsey has written an extensive, 1,300-word analysis of the intensifying soft power competition surrounding the G20 Religion Forum, or R20, the results of which will determine whether Muslims “choose between taking the high or the low road to coming to grips with history.
“The high road involves confronting painful truths in a quest for a healthier, more pluralistic, and socially cohesive society. The low road allows autocrats to either rewrite history or sweep it under the table and opportunistically bend it to their will.”
Founded by Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf in 2022 in conjunction with Indonesia’s Presidency of the G20, the next R20 Summit will occur in India in 2023. At stake, observes Dr. Dorsey, is whether the event will retain its original focus “on coming to grips with the problematic histories of various religions, including Islam, to generate genuine religious reform” or follow other interfaith summits and become “geared towards themes likely to curry favour in Western capitals.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2023
2023_01_14_Sciences Po “Bulletin”
Elite academic publication supported by France’s Ministry of Armed Forces highlights the geopolitical significance of the R20
“It would be truly a game changer, I will suggest, if the R20 were to stimulate the world’s most important religious authorities to reform their traditions from within and become forces for peace, carrying along with them the huge number of adherents that each of them could mobilize.”
~ Dr. Jonathan Benthall, writing in Sciences Po’s Bulletin de L’Observatoire International du Religieux
Soldiers patrol in front of the Eiffel Tower in 2015, following a major terrorist attack in Paris
PARIS, France, January 2023 — An academic program affiliated with Sciences Po (the Paris Institute of Political Studies) and supported by the French Ministry of Armed Forces has published an article examining the geopolitical significance of the G20 Religion Forum (R20). As the article notes, “the largest Muslim civil society organization in the world initiated [the R20] in conjunction with the Indonesian Presidency. . . of the Group of 20 political and economic summit.”
In the words of KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, Chairman of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, and founder of the R20: “The purpose of the G20 Religion Forum is to ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions rather than problems in the 21st century. Through the R20, we hope to facilitate the emergence of a global movement, in which people of goodwill of every faith and nation will help bring the world’s geopolitical and economic power structures into alignment with the highest moral and spiritual values, for the sake of all humanity.”
An R20 working group (WG-3 on the recontextualization of obsolete and problematic tenets of religious orthodoxy) examines and addresses teachings embedded within the world’s major religions that are incompatible with peaceful coexistence and a rules-based international order founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_01_19_Launch of the R20 Website
R20 establishes multifaceted online presence “to help ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems”
“A unique and significant initiative… to assist G-20 governments in building a united, pluralist and peaceful world”
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 19 January 2023 — The G20 Religion Forum (R20) has launched an extensive website to provide religious leaders, government officials, journalists, scholars, and other interested parties with ready access to authoritative information about the R20, including its vision, mission, goals, and agenda.
The world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), established the R20 in conjunction with Indonesia’s Presidency of the G20 group of the world’s largest economies, in 2022, and appointed the Center for Shared Civilizational Values to serve as the R20’s permanent secretariat.
A number of R20 events are planned for 2023 in the U.S., the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia, following the rotation of the G20 Presidency from Indonesia to India. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_01_21_Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization
Establishing a shari‘ah basis for the nation state and a rules-based international order, which guarantees the equal rights and dignity of all
“Through these discussions on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) for a global civilization, NU is creating a future characterized by a strong and beneficent nationalism. For civilizational fiqh obliges all citizens to prevent their nation from being undermined, either from within or without.”
~ Senior Nahdlatul Ulama scholar Shaykh KH. Abdullah Kafabihi Mahrus
“Islamic Laws of Governance and Citizenship”
“The Citizenship Status of Non-Muslims from the Perspective of Islamic Law”
(“Efforts to Contextualize the Concept of Citizenship in the Governance of Modern Nation States”)
KEDIRI, East Java, Indonesia — On the morning of 21 January 2023, over 300 ulama (Muslim scholars), seminarians, and academics gathered at one of Indonesia’s largest and most influential Islamic seminaries, Pondok Pesantren Lirboyo, in preparation for the first International Convention on Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization, which will be held on 6 February 2023 in Surabaya, East Java.
The event at Lirboyo represents the culmination of a series of 231 halaqoh (“study circles”) launched in August 2022, at which leading Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) scholars discussed and popularized the subject of Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization (Arabic: fiqh al-hadarah/Indonesian: fikih peradaban). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_01_22_President Jokowi Honors NU
Indonesian President Joko Widodo:
“Everyone already knows, full well, Nahdlatul Ulama’s enormous contribution to the well-being of our nation.”
“In sixteen days Nahdlatul Ulama will celebrate its centennial. We invite all NU followers, and all Indonesian citizens, to join in this celebration, as together we strive to create a more noble future for humanity”
~ NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
SURAKARTA, Indonesia, 22 January 2023 — On an early Sunday morning, tens of thousands of Nahdlatul Ulama followers joined Indonesian President Joko Widodo and NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf in a 3.5 kilometer “Healthy Walk Towards the NU Centennial” in downtown Surakarta (“Solo”), former capital of the Mataram Sultanate and birthplace of President Jokowi. The event is one of hundreds being held nationwide, in honor of Nahdlatul Ulama’s centennial (1344 – 1444 in the Islamic calendar).
Accompanying President Jokowi were First Lady Iriana and their grandson, Jan Ethes Srinarendra; Mr. Staquf; KH. Ahmad Said Asrori, General Secretary of the NU Supreme Council; C. Holland Taylor, Special Advisor for International Affairs to Mr. Staquf; Puan Maharani, Speaker of the House of Representatives and granddaughter of former president Sukarno; Mahfud MD, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs; Erick Thohir, Minister of State Owned Enterprises; Zianudin Amali, Minister of Youth and Sport; Ganjar Pranowo, Governor of Central Java; General Listyo Sigit, Chief of the National Police; and Yenny Wahid, the daughter of former Indonesian president KH. Abdurrahman Wahid. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_02_06_First International Convention on Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization
Is There a Need to Establish an Islamic Legal (Fiqhi) Foundation for Global Peace and Harmony?
“The view that Muslims should have a default attitude of enmity towards non-Muslims, and that infidels should be subject to discrimination, is well established within the tradition of Islamic jurisprudence.”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
SURABAYA, East Java, Indonesia — On 6 February 2023 (15 Rajab 1444 H), over 300 Islamic scholars, political leaders, and international observers gathered to discuss the legal status of the modern nation state under Islamic jurisprudence and whether Muslims throughout the world have a religious duty to establish an Islamic caliphate. Titled the “First International Convention on Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization,” the event was convened by the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, and the G20 Religion Forum (R20).
Islamic law, or fiqh — often conflated with shari‘ah — emerged during the centuries following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, at a time of endemic warfare between Muslims and non-Muslims. Still taught in Islamic seminaries worldwide, the principles of fiqh siyasah (laws of governance) remain authoritative tenets of Islamic orthodoxy and thus continue to shape the prevailing Muslim mindset in the 21st century.
Terrorist movements including ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Shabab seek to establish a universal Islamic caliphate, a goal they share with non-violent Islamist movements including the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami. Religious hatred, supremacism, and violence directed towards those regarded as non-Muslim (kuffar, or infidels) have long been associated with orthodox tenets of Islamic law. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_02_07_Nahdlatul Ulama Centennial March
Nahdlatul Ulama launches its Centennial March at a gathering of nearly two million men, women, and children
“Let’s strengthen our intent
and forge an unbreakable determination
to continuously perform good deeds,
increasing our service to God and humanity.
“Spreading love and compassion to all of creation
and building a new and noble civilization
for the sake of peace and happiness together,
acting in accord with the will of Allah, the Great
‘One,’ and receiving His blessings.”
~ Nahdlatul Ulama Centennial March
Lyrics by KH. A. Mustofa Bisri
SIDOARJO, East Java, Indonesia — On 7 February 2023, the world’s largest Muslim organization released the Nahdlatul Ulama Centennial March (music video above) to celebrate its 100th anniversary according to the Islamic lunar calendar.
The song — whose lyrics were composed by the revered religious scholar, poet, painter, and Muslim intellectual KH. A. Mustofa Bisri — was performed by a live orchestra at a massive event attended by the President of Indonesia and a crowd of nearly two million NU followers, who converged upon the small town of Sidoarjo to take part in the centennial celebrations. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_02_07_Nahdlatul Ulama Centennial
Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf:
“Welcome to the second century of Nahdlatul Ulama!”
“In the view of Nahdlatul Ulama, the most appropriate and effective means to promote the wellbeing of Muslims worldwide is to foster the wellbeing of all humanity, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and to acknowledge the brotherhood of all human beings.”
~ Nahdlatul Ulama Centennial Proclamation
SIDOARJO, Indonesia — On 7 February 2023 nearly two million people converged upon a small town in East Java to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim organization. The crowd was so large that the motorcade of popular Indonesian president Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) ground to a halt several hundred meters from the entrance to Gelora Delta Stadium. President Jokowi and his wife waded through a joyful throng of NU supporters to join participants who had camped overnight in anticipation of the celebration. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_02_16_al-Ahram
Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper hails Nahdlatul Ulama project “to transform Islam from a problem — as it is in many nations — into a solution”
“The majority of Muslims look to the Arab world for guidance, but the failure of this region’s ulama to keep up with the transformations taking place will lead to the rug being pulled out from under them… by Nahdlatul Ulama and its new Chairman”
~ Mohamed Abu Al-Fadl
Deputy Editor, al-Ahram (The Pyramids)
CAIRO, Egypt, 16 February 2023 — One of the oldest and most influential newspapers in the Arab world, Egypt’s al-Ahram (est. 1875), has published a highly favorable analysis of Nahdlatul Ulama’s efforts to recontextualize obsolete and problematic tenets of Islamic orthodoxy. In the words of Mohamed Abu Al-Fadl, deputy editor of al-Ahram, “NU inevitably faces great challenges, and deserves support. For Nahdlatul Ulama’s project is not only consistent with a rules-based international order and the Charter of the United Nations, but could clearly serve the interests of Arab governments that are locked in an unavoidable confrontation with extremist ideas.”
Dr. Abu Al-Fadl’s article appeared following his participation in the First International Convention on Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization in Surabaya, Indonesia on 6 February. This was Dr. Abu Al-Fadl’s third visit to Indonesia since 2015, when his extensive reporting on Nahdlatul Ulama, in al-Ahram and al-Arab, precipitated The New York Times’ publication of a highly influential article titled “From Indonesia, a Muslim Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic State.”
Dr. Abu Al-Fadl’s latest article includes a highly critical analysis of the Arab world’s failure to substantively engage with Nahdlatul Ulama’s project to recontextualize Islamic teachings, and the consequences thereof. “Nahdlatul Ulama’s project revolves around separating politics from religion and breaking out of the mental prison of calls to establish an Islamic caliphate. . . . So long as the Arab world remains mired in the trench of traditional Islamic orthodoxy, we will not escape the catastrophic impact this has upon governments, nations, and the future.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_02_13_Doctor Honoris Causa
Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot,
MCCJ Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue at the Holy See:
“I am deeply touched to be the first Roman Catholic Cardinal ever to receive an honorary doctorate from an Islamic University”
KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf,
Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board:
“All my activism under the flag of Nahdlatul Ulama — both domestically and internationally — bears the theme of this struggle for the wellbeing of all humanity and the future of human civilization”
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — On 13 February 2023, Pope Francis’ personal emissary for interreligious dialogue, Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, joined Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf and former Muhammadiyah Chairman Dr. Sudibyo Markus in a ceremony at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University, where the three religious leaders were awarded honorary doctorates for “Fostering Global Peace, Human Fraternity, and Unity in Diversity.”
Broadcast live and heavily covered by Indonesian mass media, the ceremony was attended by a wide range of dignitaries, including religious leaders, academics, and senior officials from both the Vatican and the government of popular two-term Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_03_07_Short Film: R20 Summit in Bali
“Welcome to Bali, the land of Hindus, in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country”
“Even before I came to this meeting, I was anticipating that [the R20] was going to be a landmark event for one reason: it represented an acknowledgment on the part of the G20 that religion is a factor that can’t be ignored in geopolitical policy and planning.”
~ Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University
H.E. Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia, addresses the opening session of the R20 Summit
JAKARTA, Indonesia and WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina / 7 March 2023 — The permanent secretariat of the G20 Religion Forum (R20) has released the first of two films documenting the inaugural R20 Summit — which was held from 2 – 3 November 2022 on the tropical island of Bali — and a subsequent R20 planning conference convened in the heartland of Javanese civilization. An official G20 Main Event, the R20 Summit gathered more than 400 religious, political, economic, and thought leaders from around the world to “help ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems, in the 21st century.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_03_09_Short Film: R20 in Java
“Shine Your Light, the great Light, so that we may grasp the beauty of Truth and follow it, and can grasp the consequences of evil and stay away from it.”
“Yesterday we told all of our students that THIS [R20] is the jihad of today”
~ KH. Azka Sya’bana, Trustee
Pandanaran Islamic Boarding School (Yogyakarta)
JAKARTA, Indonesia and WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina / 9 March 2023 — The permanent secretariat of the G20 Religion Forum (R20) has released the second of two films documenting the inaugural R20 Summit in Bali and a subsequent planning conference held in Yogyakarta, the heartland of Javanese civilization. Created by a team of European filmmakers who have decades of experience producing advertisements for some of world’s major fashion houses and corporate brands, the 10-minute film enables viewers to directly experience the culture that gave birth to Nahdlatul Ulama and the R20.
Following two days of intensive, formal deliberations among more than 400 religious leaders and scholars gathered from around the world and across its major faith traditions, R20 delegates traveled from Bali to the island of Java to plan the future direction of the R20. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_03_13_Borobudur: A Center of Worship for Buddhist Pilgrims
Indonesian film promotes Buddhist pilgrimage in world’s largest Muslim-majority nation
“Borobudur is a civilizational wonder that belongs to all humanity. We pray that Buddhists throughout the world will visit this great temple for pilgrimage and worship”
~ Minister of Religious Affairs H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas
Bhante Sri Pannavaro Mahathera, Vice President of the World Theravada Sangha and head of Vihara Mendut, a Buddhist monastery 3 kilometers from Borobudur Temple
BOROBUDUR, Indonesia, 13 March 2023 — The government of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and democracy has released a 16-minute film (above) inviting Buddhist pilgrims throughout the world to visit Borobudur Temple, one of the religion’s most sacred and historic sites.The 9th century Buddhist temple — the largest on earth — is located on the heavily populated island of Java, which constitutes the geographic, political, cultural, and economic center of Indonesia, and is the heartland of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_03_21_Strategic Triangulation
Wall Street Journal:
“India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is, from the standpoint of American national interests, the most important foreign political party in the world”
NEW DELHI and LUCKNOW, India — On 21 March 2023 Wall Street Journal foreign affairs analyst Walter Russell Mead published his weekly “Global View” column with the title “India’s BJP Is the World’s Most Important Party.” He went on to add that “It may also be the least understood.”
Mr. Mead’s column appeared immediately “[a]fter an intensive series of meetings with senior BJP and RSS leaders, as well as some of their critics,” facilitated by Dr. Timothy S. Shah, Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, and Sri Ram Madhav Varanasi, who previously served as National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mr. Madhav is also a member of the National Executive of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, or RSS), a Hindu-nationalist mass organization established in 1925. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_03_29_Sciences Po “Focus”
Sciences Po, the EU’s top university in the field of politics and international affairs
“Nahdlatul Ulama has laid down a marker that other Muslim religious authorities will ultimately be unable to ignore if they want recognition as proponents of a genuinely moderate Islam.”
~ Dr. James M. Dorsey
L’Observatoire International du Religieux
KH. A. Mustofa Bisri, former Chairman of the NU Supreme Council, delivering the Nahdlatul Ulama Centennial Proclamation in Sidoarjo, East Java on 7 February 2023
PARIS, France, March 2023 — For the second time in three months, an elite academic research program supported by France’s Ministry of Armed Forces has highlighted the geopolitical significance of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, and its efforts to reform obsolete and problematic tenets of religious orthodoxy.
Established at the height of the Islamic State movement, when over 4,000 French citizens joined ISIS, L’Observatoire International du Religieux seeks to clarify contemporary religious phenomena and their interaction with politics. The Observatory is financially supported by the Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy of France’s Ministry of Armed Forces. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_04_02_Dawn
Ongoing dialogue between Nahdlatul Ulama and Hindu nationalists attracts increasing global attention
“Indonesia has been contributing significantly to the development of discourse on Islamic jurisprudence.”
~ Dawn (Pakistan)
Badshahi mosque in Lahore, Pakistan, former capital of the Mughal Empire
KARACHI, Pakistan, 2 April 2023 — Pakistan’s newspaper of record and most influential English-language daily, Dawn, has published an article praising Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and its significant contribution to the development of discourse on Islamic jurisprudence.
In an article titled “End of ideology,” prominent security analyst and columnist Muhammad Amir Rana noted that “Nahdlatul Ulama has been advocating for abolishing the concept of caliphate and replacing it with the idea of the nation state. It has also issued a decree or fatwa to erase the concept of kafir or infidel from Islamic jurisprudence and replace it with the idea of citizenship.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_04_11_GetReligion
Award-winning journalist Richard Ostling:
Nahdlatul Ulama’s “[c]ampaign for thorough reform of Muslim law deserves mainstream coverage – now”
Nahdlatul Ulama leaders pray at a gathering of almost two million followers in Sidoarjo, East Java on 7 February 2023
NEW YORK, 11 April 2023 — One of America’s leading religious affairs commentators — a veteran journalist who produced 23 cover stories for Time Magazine over the course of his decades-long career — has called on Western media to take note of Nahdlatul Ulama’s campaign for “thorough worldwide reform of how to understand [Islam’s] religious law (Sharia),” and give it the serious coverage it deserves.
“Far from some esoteric intellectual discourse,” Richard Ostling writes, “such a philosophical change could potentially affect the future of the world’s second-largest faith regarding democracy, blasphemy laws, human rights, education, the role of women, treatment of other religions, warfare, extremism, terrorism and crime and punishment.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_04_13_Ramadan Forum
Building Peace Between Palestine and Israel, on the Basis of Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization (fiqh hadarah ahl al-sunnah wa-al-jama‘ah) and Jewish Law (halakha)
“Many people involved in this conflict believe that the solution is to eliminate the other side. But a genuine solution requires striving to create a better future for all humanity, not simply our own religious group.”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, addressing the Ramadan Forum at UIII
DEPOK, Indonesia — On the afternoon of 13 April 2023, Indonesia’s flagship International Islamic University (UIII) served as the venue for a wide-ranging discussion of the prospects for building peace between Palestine and Israel, through the reform of obsolete and problematic tenets of both Islamic, and Jewish, orthodoxy. The Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board (PBNU) initiated and co-sponsored the event — advocating a novel approach to fostering Middle East peace.
Experts on Islam, Judaism, and the Middle East addressed a live audience during a 2 ½ -hour discussion that was livestreamed by UIII and TVNU.
Shaykh Mohammed Abdalhafez Yousef Azzam, Deputy Chief Judge of the Palestinian Authority’s Islamic court system, stated his position clearly in remarks delivered before an international audience gathered at UIII in a suburb of metropolitan Jakarta: “There is no basis within Islamic law for establishing peace with Israel.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_04_21_In the Black Hole
Pakistani nuclear scientist and human rights activist, Pervez Hoodbhoy, hosts in-depth public discussion of Nahdlatul Ulama’s agenda
“Past proponents of reform in Islam were individual thinkers, maybe small groups of thinkers. They were not organisations with the kind of power that Nahdlatul Ulama represents.”
The following text and transcript appear courtesy of Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy and Dr. James M. Dorsey:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan / 21 April 2023 — Pakistan ranks high on the list of Muslim-majority countries in which significant segments of the population are, in religious terms, militantly ultra-conservative. It’s a country where the impact of decades of Saudi funding of ultra-conservative religious thinking has left deep inroads.
It’s also a country in which numerous people over the years have been killed or lynched by outraged individuals or mobs over allegations of blasphemy, or for expressing opposition to harsh laws that mandate the death sentence for blasphemy. Since 1990, more than 80 people have been killed in such violence. This month, a Chinese national was remanded in custody after protesters accused him of blasphemy. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_04_24_Anglican Schism
The Turbulent World:
“Anglican schism is not just about theology. It’s about geopolitics too.”
“In a twist of irony, Nahdlatul Ulama, a conservative, Indonesia-based reformist Muslim civil society movement, has discreetly stepped into the breach left by the Anglican church…. NU included Archbishop Henry Ndukuba, the primate of Nigeria, in the opening plenary of [the R20] summit of religious leaders held in Bali in November 2022.”
Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf presents a commemorative plaque to Archbishop Henry Chukwudum Ndukuba, Primate of the Church of Nigeria, at the G20 Religion Forum (R20) in Bali
James M. Dorsey | April 24, 2023
KIGALI, Rwanda — A schism that could tear the Anglican church apart is about more than LGBTQ rights. It’s about fundamental cultural and religious differences with potentially profound consequences for the geopolitical battle to shape a 21st-century world order.
The rift also raises questions about the Church of England’s priorities at a time when the Anglican congregation in Nigeria, home to the world’s largest Anglican community, is under persistent attack by Muslim militias in an environment of escalating violence in the country that targets multiple communities. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_05_06_Muslim Women Prepare to Lead
Nahdlatul Ulama empowers women to issue Islamic rulings (fatwas)
“The principle is ‘appoint whoever is most able.’ It’s as simple as that. If women have a greater capacity than men, that’s not a problem, for the Prophet said of [his wife] Sayyidina Aisha, ‘take half of your religion from this woman.’”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
NU encourages Muslims to follow a “middle path,” between the extremes of Islamist and militant secular ideology
PURWAKARTA, West Java, 6 May 2023 — For the first time in its 100-year history, the world’s largest Muslim organization has authorized female religious scholars to address issues related to Islamic law, by opening participation in Lembaga Bahtsul Masa’il (LBM) decision-making to women.
A prestigious division of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), LBM is composed of prominent ulama (religious scholars) whose knowledge and mastery of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) qualifies them to issue authoritative rulings on matters of practical and immediate concern to Muslims. Historically, throughout the Muslim world, the authority to issue fatwas has, with rare exceptions, been conferred almost exclusively upon men. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_05_18_Centrist Democrat International Resolution on the R20
World’s largest political network endorses the G20 Religion Forum:
“[T]he R20 functions as an inclusive, cross-cultural platform designed to infuse the world’s political and economic power structures with moral and spiritual values”
BLED, Slovenia — On 18 May 2023, the world’s largest political network, Centrist Democrat International (CDI) — which has 109 member parties in 83 countries — unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the G20 Religion Forum (R20) at its General Assembly, held in close proximity to the Church of the Assumption of Mary (photo above), an ancient pilgrimage site that lies at the heart of Slovenian identity.
The resolution, submitted by Indonesia’s National Awakening Party (PKB), “calls upon [CDI] member parties, and all G20 Member States, to cooperate in securing recognition of the R20 as a permanent G20 Engagement Group,” “as a means of providing a seat at the G20 table for religious communities and their leaders.”
As the resolution points out, “religious believers constitute the single largest demographic within the human family, whose share of the global population is estimated to exceed 80%.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_06_15_ASEAN Shared Civilizational Values
World’s largest Muslim organization launches a movement for pluralist re-awakening in South and Southeast Asia
NU coordinates with the Government of Indonesia and ASEAN to build consensus regarding values that may serve as the foundation for an emerging global civilization
“[S]hared civilizational values can play an important role in mobilizing a vast constituency to support a more peaceful and harmonious global civilization, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, Minister of Religious Affairs, Republic of Indonesia; President Joko Widodo; and KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, following discussion of the ASEAN Summit
SURABAYA, Indonesia — On 15 June, 2023, religious leaders from around Indonesia and across its faith traditions gathered in East Java for a workshop socializing Nahdlatul Ulama’s vision and strategy to consolidate South and Southeast Asia as an alternate pillar of support for a rules-based international order founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_06_30_“Pak Kaji Muh”
Special advisor to Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman performs haj — one of the five “pillars of Islam” — for the first time, in the company of NU spiritual leaders
“Because of his devoted service to Nahdlatul Ulama, Gus Yahya bestowed a ‘special gift’ upon Mr. Taylor: an invitation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform the haj pilgrimage”
~ Suara Merdeka (The Voice of Freedom)
C. Holland Taylor (aka Muhammad Kholil) at Mount Arafat with senior NU leaders including KH. Miftahul Akhyar, Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council; KH. Afifuddin Muhajir, Deputy Chair of the Supreme Council; and the heads of prominent pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) KH. Abdul Hamid Wahid; KH. Ahmad Jauhari; and KH. Ubaidillah Faqih
MINA (MECCA), Saudi Arabia — On 30 June 2023 (12 Dhuʻl-Hijjah, 1444 H) senior leaders of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization, held a selamatan ceremony (traditional meal accompanied by prayer) to formalize the awarding of an Arabic name to C. Holland Taylor, following his successful completion of the haj for the first time. Mr. Taylor serves as Special Advisor for International Affairs to the General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, Kyai Haji Yahya Cholil Staquf. At Mr. Staquf’s request, Mr. Taylor assumed the name Muhammad Kholil during his pilgrimage to Mecca in the company of more than forty Nahdlatul Ulama leaders. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_07_26_The Manifold Foundations of Human Rights
Flagship journal of the New Left showcases the importance of Nahdlatul Ulama’s “Indo-Islamic rights tradition” to international peace and security
“The flourishing of a distinctive Indo-Islamic rights tradition in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation is of great significance to the global human rights community [for it demonstrates that] the concept of inalienable human rights enjoys broad if not universal resonance among the world’s great cultures and civilizations.”
~ C. Holland Taylor and Timothy S. Shah,
writing in Telos
NEW YORK, 26 July 2023 — The independent peer-reviewed journal Telos has released a special edition on “The Manifold Foundations of Human Rights” featuring contributions by numerous world class scholars. One of these essays, by Timothy Samuel Shah and C. Holland Taylor, examines the significance of emerging cooperation between the ancient “Indo-Islamic” rights tradition of Maritime Southeast Asia — which finds its modern expression in Humanitarian Islam — and Western traditions of constitutionalism, individual liberty, and Christian Democracy centered in Europe and the United States.
Founded in 1968 by Paul Piccone and other New Left graduates of SUNY-Buffalo, Telos was launched at a time of intense intellectual and cultural ferment in the West. It provided an intellectually rigorous outlet for the New Left, and introduced English-speaking readers to Western Marxism, the Frankfurt School, phenomenology, and related traditions while maintaining a distinctly leftist orientation. Known for its erudite, theoretically dense scholarship, Telos continues to publish high-level, critical articles on modernity, culture, and power. Continue reading full communiqué…
2023_08_04_R20 Book Launch
Proceedings of the R20 International Summit of Religious Leaders illuminates NU strategy to avert a global “clash of civilizations”
“The launching of this book… is nothing less than a transformative moment in contemporary world affairs. The book provides a breathtaking overview of the ideas and exchanges animating the most comprehensive meeting of religious leaders from around the world ever organized”
~ Robert Hefner,
Professor of Anthropology and International Relations at Boston University and President of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — On 4 August, 2023, scholars and religious leaders from across the world gathered in the historic Senate Building of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) — Indonesia’s premier seat of higher learning — for the official launch of a seminal work titled Proceedings of the R20 International Summit of Religious Leaders in Bali, Indonesia. A panel of highly respected scholars representing a wide range of academic disciplines praised the 428-page volume for providing a clear vision and practical roadmap whereby the world’s major religions “may become a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems.”
In a world in which scholarly publications are often slow to reach the printing press and strikingly expensive, Nahdlatul Ulama, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, and the G20 Religion Forum (R20) worked with Gadjah Mada University Press — the publishing house of Indonesia’s top university — to make Proceedings of the R20 available in both high-quality hardback and an open-access online version, nine months after the event was held in Bali, Indonesia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_08_07_ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (ASEAN IIDC)
Indonesian leadership in the movement for pluralist reawakening in South and Southeast Asia
“We have launched the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference in order to begin consolidating a vast constituency upon the basis of shared civilizational values, capable of fostering peace, tolerance, and harmony throughout ASEAN and, God willing, of inspiring a similar dynamic worldwide.”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf and H.E. Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia (center), with religious leaders from ASEAN Member States and beyond
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 7 August, 2023, senior religious and cultural figures from across South and Southeast Asia convened with the leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Government of Indonesia to chart a course for the region’s re-emergence as a cohesive, vital, and proactive civilizational sphere.
Hosted by Nahdlatul Ulama with the full support of the Government of Indonesia and the ASEAN Secretariat, the two-day ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (IIDC) offered a striking demonstration of broad institutional, popular, and governmental backing for a regional strategy pioneered by NU leaders and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV), known as the “Ashoka Approach.” Continue reading full communiqué…
2023_08_07_ASEAN IIDC Session 2: Character Education
Indonesia’s Minister of Education commends students for their contribution to ASEAN:
“Your outstanding proposal has helped shape key elements of the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference and its long-term agenda”
“We urge government leaders to strengthen character education within the national curricula of ASEAN Member States, so that youth may successfully adapt to the modern world, while simultaneously developing a way of life that imparts the inner resources, character, and resilience required to overcome the negative influences of modernity and globalization.”
~ Students of State Middle School 1
Magelang, Central Java
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 7 August and 5 September 2023 — The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has endorsed a call by Indonesian middle school students to “strengthen character education within the national curricula of ASEAN Member States, so that youth may successfully adapt to the modern world, while simultaneously developing a way of life that imparts the inner resources, character, and resilience required to overcome the negative influences of modernity and globalization.”
The Chairman’s Statement of the 43rd ASEAN Summit, which was unanimously adopted by all 10 ASEAN heads of state and government, who convened in Jakarta, Indonesia from 5 – 7 September 2023, “reaffirmed the importance of fostering the values of an inclusive, sustainable, resilient, dynamic, and harmonious ASEAN Community through facilitating a greater understanding of shared civilisational values derived from the ASEAN region’s culture and religions.” Continue reading full communiqué…
2023_08_07_ASEAN IIDC Plenary Session 3
ASEAN Shared Civilizational Values: Building an Epicentrum of Harmony to Foster Peace, Security, and Economic Prosperity in Southeast Asia
“What the world needs today is unconditional love, which heals divides that are based on the color of our skin, the languages we speak, and the religions we profess. This pure, unconditional love may be found in the essence of all religions.”
~ Sister Loh Pai Ling
President of the Buddhist Missionary Society of Malaysia
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 7 August 2023 — Plenary Session 3 of the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference featured a series of short addresses delivered by prominent religious leaders from ASEAN Member States, India, and China regarding how moral and spiritual values shared by the diverse peoples of Southeast Asia might help transform the region into an epicentrum of peace, harmony, and economic prosperity.
The session featured contributions from senior Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Confucian religious leaders, and was hosted by Dr. Al Makin, rector of one of the world’s leading Islamic universities, Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_08_07_ASEAN IIDC Plenary Session 4
The Ashoka Approach:
Rediscovering and re-enlivening the principle of “unity in diversity” throughout Southeast Asia
“The ASEAN region constitutes a unique ‘civilization of civilizations.’ It is, in fact, a ‘confluence of civilizations.’ In a world riven by conflict, it can help other societies, and cultures, learn how to coexist peacefully.”
~ Dr. Timothy S. Shah
Co-founder & Director of Strategic Initiatives, Center for Shared Civilizational Values
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 7 August 2023 — The fourth plenary session of the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (ASEAN IIDC) convened religious leaders and scholars from South and Southeast Asia for a panel discussion that explored how to reawaken the ancient spiritual, cultural, and socio-political heritage of what was once a largely cohesive Indianized cultural sphere, or “Indosphere.” Home to an immense variety of ethnic and religious groups, this region pioneered shared civilizational values rooted in the principle of “oneness amid diversity,” including religious pluralism and tolerance, long before the West began to widely embrace these values in the modern era.
Roughly co-extensive with South and Southeast Asia, the Indosphere is a vast geographic and cultural zone stretching from Pakistan to Indonesia, which was formatively and permanently shaped by great spiritual traditions — including Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism — that originated in the Indian subcontinent.
The panel was moderated by Dr. Timothy S. Shah, an Indian-American scholar of Jain descent, who directs the Center for Shared Civilizational Values’ South Asian operations from an office in Bangalore, India. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_08_07_ASEAN IIDC Plenary Session 5
Transforming ASEAN into an epicentrum of peace, tolerance, and harmony through shared civilizational values
“We share a civilization dating back 2,600 years, and stand on a common ground of shared values, ancient language, culture, and spirituality. This makes us who we really are as ASEAN.”
~ Venerable Phra Shakyavongsvisuddhi (Anil Sakya)
Director, Peandin Dhamma Foundation
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 7 August 2023 — The fifth plenary session of the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference discussed the potential for religious leaders to revitalize Southeast Asia’s shared civilizational heritage in order to resolve conflict and foster peace, tolerance, and harmony throughout the region.
Moderated by Dr. Muhammad Najib Azca — Deputy General Secretary of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board and a senior lecturer in the Sociology Department of Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia’s premier seat of higher learning — the plenary convened religious leaders with decades of experience in conflict resolution and a deep appreciation for the powerful socio-political reality of ASEAN shared civilizational values. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_08_07_ASEAN IIDC Plenary Session 6
From ASEAN to the World:
The Movement for Shared Civilizational Values
“There are efforts underway — in ASEAN and other parts of the world — to develop and strengthen a conceptual framework that does not regard others as solely good or evil, but views politics in terms of doing what is right and avoiding the greatest evil of all, which is war.”
~ H.E. Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro
Director General for ASEAN Cooperation,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 7 August 2023 — The ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (ASEAN IIDC) showcased the burgeoning efforts of Nahdlatul Ulama, the Government of Indonesia, and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV) to revive the ancient civilizational heritage of South and Southeast Asia through an initiative also known as “The Ashoka Approach.”
The final plenary session of the ASEAN IIDC discussed the global ramifications of these efforts. Specifically, Nahdlatul Ulama and CSCV seek to facilitate the re-emergence of South and Southeast Asia as a coherent civilizational sphere and powerful, independent pillar of support for a rules-based international order at a time of rising international chaos and human rights abuse worldwide. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_08_07_ASEAN IIDC: A View from Outside
Renowned Harvard law professor and international human rights scholar extolls the “Ashoka Approach”
“As Pak Yahya outlined this morning, the distinctive Indo-Islamic Ashoka tradition is highly relevant to the challenge of strengthening an international order founded on universal ethics and humanitarian principles… [as it] contains rich resources for promoting unity amid diversity, for respecting differences, and for fostering harmony among groups.”
~ Mary Ann Glendon,
Learned Hand Professor, Emerita, Harvard Law School and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 7 August 2023, Professor Mary Ann Glendon, one of the world’s leading authorities on the post-World War II human rights project, delivered a keynote address in which she praised the “Ashoka Approach” and Indonesia’s leadership in the movement for pluralist reawakening in South and Southeast Asia.
Author of A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Professor Glendon has had a stellar career in academia and public service. In 1995, Pope John Paul II appointed her to represent the Holy See at the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, China, thus making Professor Glendon the first woman ever to represent the Vatican at an international conference.
On 26 June 2013, Pope Francis named Glendon a member of the Pontifical Commission of Inquiry for the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), which is also known as the Vatican Bank. In July 2014 she was appointed to be a member of the board of the IOR. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_08_07_ASEAN IIDC Closing Ceremony and Final Communiqué
“Shared civilizational values are a bridge that unites us, offering ASEAN the potential to become a major regional and global power.”
~ His Excellency H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas
Minister of Religious Affairs, Republic of Indonesia
“Islam in Indonesia has always been a religious tradition inclined to provide refuge and protection to minority groups. We want that spirit of humility, kindness, and service to others to become the dominant expression of religiosity throughout the world.”
~ Hj. Zannuba Ariffah Chafsoh (Yenny Wahid)
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 7 August 2023 — The seventh and final plenary session of the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference witnessed the adoption of the Summit’s final communiqué, the ASEAN IIDC Jakarta Declaration. The 5-page document articulates a clear strategic vision and program of action to foster the re-emergence of Southeast Asia as a coherent civilizational sphere and powerful, independent pillar of support for a rules-based international order. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_08_16_The Economist
The Economist: “Indonesia wants to export moderate Islam”
“The world’s largest Muslim-majority country enters the Islamic debate”
The news story highlighted NU’s Centennial Proclamation, with its “call for the abandonment of the Caliphate,” and a 2019 fiqh (Islamic-jurisprudential) ruling that Muslims should “accept the reality of the nation state,” as well as “reject the concept of kafir, or infidel, and accept non-Muslims as fellow citizens.” The Economist also noted the significance of the G20 Religion Forum (R20) and the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (IIDC), which Nahdlatul Ulama convened in November 2022 and August 2023, respectively. Continue reading full communiqué…
2023_09_05_Chairman’s Statement of the 43rd ASEAN Summit
ASEAN Heads of State/Government unanimously endorse ASEAN IIDC and the Movement for Shared Civilizational Values
“I hope that the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference will contribute to the broadening and deepening of mutual understanding and will become a solid foundation upon which ASEAN can rise as a global epicentrum of harmony and growth”
~ H.E. Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia
“[We] invite governments and civil society institutions to help project ASEAN’s cultural and religious soft power globally, through the Movement for Shared Civilizational Values, which seeks to preserve and strengthen a rules-based international order founded upon universal ethics and humanitarian values”
~ ASEAN IIDC Jakarta Declaration
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 5 – 7 September 2023, the Heads of State/Government of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the 43rd ASEAN Summit under the Chairmanship of the Republic of Indonesia, with the theme “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth.” The Chairman’s Statement of the 43rd ASEAN Summit explicitly endorsed the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (IIDC) and its outcomes.
Almost precisely one month earlier, senior religious and cultural figures from across Southeast Asia convened with the leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Government of Indonesia, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to chart a course for the region’s re-emergence as a cohesive, vital, and proactive civilizational sphere.
These developments offer a striking demonstration of broad institutional, popular, and governmental backing for a strategy pioneered by NU leaders and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV), known as the “Ashoka Approach.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_09_28_Brill Academic Publishers: “Humanitarian Islam”
Leading academics explore the significance of Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam movement in a volume published by Brill
“Humanitarian Islam can, indeed, be analyzed as a powerful discursive strategy of Indonesian foreign policy”
~ From the Introduction to “Humanitarian Islam”
LEIDEN, Netherlands and VIENNA, Austria — In August 2023, one of continental Europe’s oldest and most prestigious academic publishers released an edited volume compiling analyses of Indonesia’s “Humanitarian Islam” movement by some of the world’s leading scholars of Islam in Europe and the United States.
Co-published by Brill (est. 1683) and the University of Vienna (est. 1365), Humanitarian Islam: Reflecting on an Islamic Concept was co-edited by Dr. Rüdiger Lohlker and Dr. Katharina Ivanyi, and appears as Volume 24 in a series titled “Religion and Transformation in Contemporary European Society.” With offices in Leiden, Boston, Paderborn, and Singapore, Brill publishes 275 journals and around 1,200 new books and reference works each year, all of which are subject to external peer review. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_10_09_Gaza Crisis
Nahdlatul Ulama moves to block the political weaponization of religion amidst the escalating Gaza crisis
“We urge that religious inspiration — including the values of universal love and compassion, human fraternity, and justice — be brought to the forefront of public awareness to help resolve conflict at every level of society, from the grassroots to the corridors of state power.”
~ Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 9 October 2023, the world’s largest Muslim organization released an official statement in response to the Gaza crisis and its potentially devastating regional and global consequences.
The statement by Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) comes amid escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which threatens to destabilize societies worldwide by enflaming ethnic and religious tensions in regions as diverse as North America, Latin America, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_11_06_Spiritual Ecology and COP28
Spiritual Ecology: “Fulfilling Our Qur’anic Mandate to Serve as Stewards of God’s Creation (Khalifah fi-al-Ardh)”
“Many of the world’s inhabitants depend on fossil fuels in their daily lives to ensure a minimal level of economic wellbeing… We must devise environmental strategies that are fair, benefit everyone, and give people adequate time to adjust to any changes. Radical, top-down prescriptions that do not account for the interests of those who lack wealth and power will simply destabilize societies and further jeopardize our shared environment.”
~ H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
Abu Dhabi’s state palace, Qasr al-Watan
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — On 6 November 2023 the General Chairman of the world’s largest Muslim organization, H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, addressed over 100 prominent religious figures who had gathered for the Global Faith Leaders Summit on Climate Action. The Summit was held three weeks prior to the 28th UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), during which over 83,000 international participants from 197 nations convened in Dubai, UAE, from 30 November to 13 December 2023.
Billed as “a global summit for faith leaders from around the world, to underscore the crucial role of faith communities in addressing climate change,” the Global Faith Leaders Summit on Climate Action was organized by the Muslim Council of Elders in partnership with the COP28 Presidency, the UN Environment Programme, and the Catholic Church under the patronage of the UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_11_14_ASEAN and Centrist Democrat International
Strengthening ties between Nahdlatul Ulama, ASEAN, and the world’s largest political network, Centrist Democrat International
“[Centrist Democrat International] calls upon CDI member parties to expand cooperation with ASEAN Member States and the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference, in order to strengthen shared civilizational values and thereby foster peace, security, and economic prosperity worldwide”
~ CDI Executive Committee, Brussels, 14 November 2023
BRUSSELS, Belgium — On Tuesday 14 November 2023, the Executive Committee of Centrist Democrat International unanimously adopted a resolution calling upon CDI member parties to expand cooperation with ASEAN and the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (ASEAN IIDC).
The event was held in the Jacques Delors Building, which houses The European Committee of The Regions (CoR), the European Union’s assembly of local and regional representatives that provides sub-national authorities with a direct voice within the EU’s institutional framework. CDI’s European affiliate is the European People’s Party (EPP) — the largest political grouping within the European Parliament, whose member parties govern sixteen (16) EU Member States.
CDI’s endorsement of the ASEAN IIDC throws the collective weight of the world’s largest political network — with 109 member parties in 83 countries — behind a visionary agenda pioneered by Nahdlatul Ulama and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values: i.e., the re-emergence of Southeast Asia as a coherent civilizational sphere and powerful, independent pillar of support for a rules-based international order. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_11_24_Lessons from the Israel–Hamas War
“Gaza divides the wheat from the chaff among religious leaders”
~ Dr. James M. Dorsey, Times of Israel
“The illusion that fundamentalism and terrorism can be overcome with Western tools has been completely shattered. In light of the left’s intellectual hypocrisy and the right’s lust for war, it may be time for a new approach.”
~ Dr. Amit Varshizky, Haaretz
TEL AVIV, Israel, 24 November 2023 — Two essays that were recently published in leading Israeli newspapers highlight religion’s critical role in shaping geopolitical dynamics. The articles contrast the humane and constructive engagement of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama in this vital arena with the harsh and polarizing rhetoric generally employed on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.
In an in-depth analytical piece titled “Israel–Hamas War: What if there’s another way to fight fundamentalism?” author and historian Dr. Amit Varshizky writes:
Only a Muslim struggle which calls, for example, for what’s known as ijtihad (renewal of religious rulings in the direction of openness and social reform), or the adoption of a moderate, tolerant form of Islam such as was introduced by Abdurrahman Wahid, the fourth president of Indonesia and onetime chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Sunni religious-political movement, will be able to accelerate liberalization processes in Muslim society and mitigate entrenched resentments that originate in the disparity between a feeling of religious supremacy and political weakness. Voices like this, it must be acknowledged with regret, are very much absent in the Muslim Middle East today. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_11_27_R20 ISORA
R20 International Summit of Religious Authorities (ISORA):
Religion’s Role in Addressing Middle East Violence and Threats to a Rules-based International Order
“I would like to thank all R20 ISORA delegates for actively working with Indonesia to help bridge differences and uphold international peace and security. For it is unconscionable that in today’s hyper-modern world, civilians, women, and children are openly massacred, and wars continue to rage unchecked.”
~ H.E. Joko Widodo
President of the Republic of Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 27 November 2023, the president of the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy joined the leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama, the G20 Religion Forum (R20), and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values in convening leaders of the world’s major faith traditions to discuss “Religion’s Role in Addressing Middle East Violence and Threats to a Rules-based International Order.”
The R20 International Summit of Religious Authorities (ISORA) was convened in direct response to the 7 October 2023 surprise attack upon Israel, and the massive civilian casualties inflicted by both parties to the current Israel-Hamas war.
In a striking demonstration of his personal support for Nahdlatul Ulama and the R20, President Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) delivered the R20 ISORA’s keynote address in the presence of multiple cabinet ministers, foreign ambassadors, and religious authorities from six continents, who gathered in Jakarta on short notice to discuss and develop effective strategies to: (i) prevent the political weaponization of identity; (ii) curtail the spread of communal hatred; (iii) promote solidarity and respect among the diverse peoples, cultures, and nations of the world; and (iv) foster the emergence of a more just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being. Continue reading full communiqué…
2023_12_08_Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal op-ed highlights Nahdlatul Ulama and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values:
“Humanitarian Islam, the inclusive, tolerant form of Islam promoted by that 100-million-member group [NU], has real potential to shift the probabilities for peace in many parts of the world.”
~ Mary Ann Glendon,
“There’s Life Yet in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”
NEW YORK CITY, New York, 08 December 2023 — Two days before the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Harvard Law Professor (emerita) and former US Ambassador to the Holy See Mary Ann Glendon, analyzing the current state of the UDHR.
Titled “There’s Life Yet in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Professor Glendon noted that “In the face of war and atrocities, the principles of the 75-year-old document remain sound.” In particular, Professor Glendon noted that:
The Center for Shared Civilizational Values, founded by the Indonesia-based Nahdlatul Ulama, wants to build a movement to strengthen a rules-based international order grounded in universal principles. Joining in that endeavor is the world’s largest network of political parties, Centrist Democrat International, composed mostly of European and Latin American political parties. In 2020 both organizations called for renewed global support of the human-rights principles in the Universal Declaration. That East-West collaboration is evidence that the core principles of the Universal Declaration have foundations in most of the world’s great philosophical and religious systems. Continue reading full communique. . .
2023_12_14_R20 Princeton UDHR Conference
Towards a Global Consensus that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Embodies a Civilizational Vision that the World’s Diverse Peoples, Faiths, and Nations Should Strive to Fulfill
“This is not just another meeting among countless meetings. It is essential to say ‘Hineni!’ — We are here! In the midst of so much hate speech, polarization, death, horror, wars, and the widespread trampling of human dignity: We are here!”
~ Rabbi Silvina Chemen
Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano (Argentina)
Nassau Hall at Princeton University (est. 1746)
PRINCETON, New Jersey — On 13 – 14 December 2023, international religious authorities and scholars representing the world’s major faith traditions gathered in Princeton to discuss the future of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and build upon the momentum of previous G20 Religion Forum (R20) summits held in Bali, Surabaya, and Jakarta, Indonesia.
Princeton University’s James Madison Program for American Ideals and Institutions hosted the conference, which was co-sponsored by the world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV), the R20, and the global Humanitarian Islam movement.
Following a two-day exchange of ideas and substantive discussion, participants adopted a twelve-point R20 Princeton Declaration, which concludes: Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_12_17_Real Clear Politics
The Future of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“75 years ago the UDHR achieved an imperfect but impressive transcultural consensus. Thanks in no small measure to the far-sighted leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, the UDHR may again imperfectly but impressively capture the shared convictions of the world’s peoples and nations.”
~ Peter Berkowitz, writing in Real Clear Politics
“Princeton Conference Celebrates UDHR’s 75th Birthday”
Dr. Peter Berkowitz (center left, arms folded) with, around the table from left to right, Rt. Rev. Henry Ndukuba (Anglican Primate of Nigeria); Charles Bhagaskara Taylor (NU); Dr. Najib Azca (Deputy General Secretary, NU); Rabbi Prof. Alan Brill (Seaton Hall University); Rabbi Silvina Chemen (Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano, Argentina); Shaykh Syed Salman Chishty (Dargah Ajmer Sharif, India); Elder Robert M. Daines (LDS Church); Rob Howell (LDS); The Hon. Ján Figel (former European Commissioner, Slovakia); Prince Gharios El Chemor of the 1,500-year-old Christian Ghassanid dynasty (Lebanon/Brazil); Dr. Robert Hefner (Boston University); and Shaykh Kabir Helminski (USA)
PRINCETON, New Jersey — On 17 December 2023 Dr. Peter Berkowitz, former Director of the Policy Planning Staff at the US State Department and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, published an article in which he wrote:
Amid political turmoil abroad and widespread intellectual confusion at home, renewing appreciation of human rights and their proper place in democratic self-government and responsible foreign policy is for the United States a vital act of democratic self-government and responsible foreign policy. . . .
In the face of these daunting headwinds – and almost exactly 75 years to the day after the United States joined 47 other nations at the United Nations to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (none voted against the UDHR, eight abstained, two did not vote) – a two-day conference held last week at Princeton University gathered approximately 40 religious leaders and scholars from around the world to reaffirm the power of human rights to unite peoples and nations. Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions cohosted “The Future of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” with Nahdlatul Ulama, headquartered in Indonesia and, with around 100,000,000 members, the world’s largest independent Muslim organization; the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, which works closely with NU; and the G20 Religion Forum (R20), for which the Center for Shared Civilizational Values serves as a permanent secretariat. The conference aimed to build a “global consensus” that the UDHR embodies assumptions, principles, and goals that, consistent with the best in their own traditions, the world’s peoples and nations “should strive to fulfill.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_12_20_Bandung AAA Planning Conference
Nahdlatul Ulama and the Republic of Indonesia launch “AAA Initiative” to mobilize the Global South in support of a rules-based international order
“As occurred in this very hall, in 1955…. we of the Global South need to raise our collective voice once again. We need to raise a powerful voice in unison, to remind and educate the people of the world about the remarkable, precious, and yet highly fragile consensus that humanity achieved in 1945: namely, the United Nations Charter.”
~ H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
BANDUNG, Indonesia — From 20 – 22 December 2023, the Government of Indonesia and the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, convened an international planning conference designed to “Revive the Spirit of Bandung and the Non-bloc Movement in Response to Current Geopolitical Dynamics.”
Government ministers, policymakers, foreign observers, diplomats, and ambassadors from 25 nations gathered in the iconic Merdeka Building on Asia-Afrika Street in the city of Bandung, site of the 18 – 24 April 1955 Bandung Conference (image below). The original summit, which was held in the midst of the Cold War, aspired to remake the world on terms more just and favorable to those across the Global South who had been colonized for centuries. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2023_12_25_Egypt and Indonesia
Egypt’s largest newspaper — state-owned al-Ahram — publishes call for the world to acknowledge and cooperate with Indonesia and Nahdlatul Ulama
“It is important for us to note, and draw the attention of the entire world, to the fact that from 1945 to the present day… Indonesian leaders have steadfastly resisted Islamist efforts to transform their nation into the center of an Islamic state encompassing much of Asia.”
~ Hisham al-Najjar,
al-Ahram (The Pyramids)
CAIRO, Egypt — On Christmas Day 2023, one of the oldest and most influential newspapers in the Arab world, Egypt’s state-owned al-Ahram, published an article highlighting the vital role Indonesia has played, for nearly 80 years, in blocking the spread of Islamist extremism in the Muslim world and beyond, and the similar role played by Egypt.
Had the governments of Egypt and Indonesia not prevented the establishment of transnational Islamic states in Egypt, North Africa, and the Levant, and in Southeast Asia, the world would be faced with a situation in which religious extremists had consolidated political and military power in the heartland of the Arab world and in much of Southeast Asia, as political Islam spread from Indonesia to Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Burma, Singapore, and beyond. These geopolitically strategic regions would threaten non-Muslims worldwide in a manner that would make the church bombings of Christmas Eve 2000, the 2002 Bali bombings, the 1997 Luxor massacre, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 appear trivial in comparison.
The article’s author, Hisham al-Najjar, enjoys a close relationship with the Egyptian military. In May 2023, he was awarded the title of Distinguished National Leader by Egypt’s highest military educational facility, Nasser High Military Academy for Strategic Studies, whose Supreme Council is headed by the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Mr. al-Najjar has also been honored by Egypt’s National Defense College. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2024
2024_01_01_National Post
Roman Catholic priest, professor, and columnist highlights Humanitarian Islam’s potential to transform the Muslim world
“‘Humanitarian Islam’ — a religious vision tolerant of pluralism and committed to interreligious harmony, human rights and democracy [has] the potential to change the thinking of hundreds of millions of Muslims in the next generation… It is a development very much worth watching and, at year’s end, a cause for hope”
~ Fr. Raymond J. de Souza
Senior Fellow at Cardus and the University of Toronto
TORONTO, Canada, 1 January 2024 — On the first day of the New Year, prominent Canadian Catholic priest, professor, and commentator Father Raymond J. de Souza dedicated his column in Canada’s National Post to an expansive analysis of the prospects for Middle East peace.
In his article, titled “A budding peace grows in the Islamic world, despite terrorist efforts,” Fr. de Souza praised Nahdlatul Ulama’s Humanitarian Islam movement for having a greater long-term potential impact than recent diplomatic breakthroughs in the region, such as the Abraham Accords or the Chinese-brokered détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_01_02_The Muslim 500 — 2024
NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf among world’s 20 most influential Muslims
“We need to find a new, moral interpretation of religion that will guide people of different faiths to have more harmonious relations with one another”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
The Muslim 500
AMMAN, Jordan, 2 January 2024 — For the second year running, the world’s premier index of Muslim power and influence, The Muslim 500, has ranked Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf among the 20 most influential Muslims on earth.
Mr. Staquf is at the forefront of a global movement working to reform obsolete and problematic tenets within religious orthodoxy, and thereby ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems, in the 21st century. He has co-authored numerous landmark theological treatises, declarations, statements, and proclamations that have been disseminated to millions, and which carry the unambiguous support and religious authority of the world’s largest Muslim organization.
The Muslim 500 is published by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, a research entity affiliated with the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, headquartered in Amman, the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_01_28_“Gus Dur” at al-Azhar
Egypt’s al-Azhar University celebrates the life and legacy of KH. Abdurrahman Wahid
“Al-Azhar considers Nahdlatul Ulama to be its sister organization, for NU employs the same classical Sunni religious methodology taught at al-Azhar al-Sharif”
~ Dr. Osama al-Azhari
Advisor for Religious Affairs to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
CAIRO, Egypt, 28 January 2024 — In a sign of Nahdlatul Ulama’s burgeoning influence in the Middle East, al-Azhar University — one of the oldest and most influential seats of learning in Sunni Islam — held an official celebration of H.E. KH. Abdurrahman Wahid’s life and legacy. Popularly known as “Gus Dur,” the long-time Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (1984 – 99) and first democratically elected president of Indonesia, attended al-Azhar University in the 1960s.
President Wahid (1940 – 2009) was renowned for his lifelong efforts to promote a pluralistic and tolerant understanding of Islam that enables Muslims to live at peace with the modern world and to embrace the values of democracy and universal human rights. Nahdlatul Ulama’s current initiatives — including the Humanitarian Islam movement, Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization (fiqh al-hadarah), and the Movement for Shared Civilizational Values — were directly inspired by President Wahid and are being executed by his close friends and disciples. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_01_29_Nahdlatul Ulama’s Civilizational Strategy
NU National Congress highlights Nahdlatul Ulama’s civilizational strategy
“At a time when many secular-minded people in the West subscribe to a new cultural relativism that denies the reality and importance of shared civilizational values, it is NU and Indonesia who call upon all nations of the world to affirm a shared moral purpose….
“There are few spiritual messages more profound than this, and none more relevant for the troubled times in which humanity today lives.”
~ Robert Hefner
Professor of Anthropology and International Relations at Boston University and President of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — On 29 January 2024, hundreds of Islamic scholars joined political leaders and experts in the fields of geopolitics, religious studies, and international peace and security to celebrate the 101st anniversary of Nahdlatul Ulama’s founding according to the Islamic hijri calendar. Held in conjunction with Nahdlatul Ulama’s National Congress (KONBES), which sets policy for the 100-million-member organization, the event opened with a discussion of Nahdlatul Ulama’s strategy to bring the world’s geopolitical and economic power structures into alignment with the highest moral and spiritual values.
The KONBES was held at the prestigious al-Munawwir Krapyak madrasah in Yogyakarta, one of Indonesia’s most storied and influential Islamic seminaries. Once run by the venerated scholar and Chairman of the NU Supreme Council, Kyai Haji Ali Maksum (1915 – 1989), many of Indonesia’s most prominent modern figures were educated within its halls, including its first democratically elected head of state, H.E. KH. Abdurrahman Wahid (“Gus Dur,” 1940 – 2009), the widely revered religious scholar, public intellectual, painter, and poet, KH. A. Mustofa Bisri (“Gus Mus,” 1944 – present), and current Nahdlatul Ulama General Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_01_31_MBZ College for Future Studies
Nahdlatul Ulama/UAE strategic engagement deepens: President Joko Widodo and Emirati leaders inaugurate MBZ College for Future Studies at NU University of Yogyakarta (UNU)
“UNU must be prepared to serve as a locomotive, inspiring and facilitating an extraordinary leap of progress within Nahdlatul Ulama’s institutions of higher learning throughout Indonesia”
~ H.E. Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia
H.E. Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, UAE Minister of Energy & Infrastructure, presents a 3D model of an Abu Dhabi-funded UNU campus building to H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — On 31 January 2024, Indonesian President H.E. Joko Widodo, Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, and United Arab Emirates Minister of Energy & Infrastructure H.E. Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei laid the foundation stone of a high-rise building that will house the Mohamed Bin Zayed College for Future Studies (CFS) on the campus of Nahdlatul Ulama University of Yogyakarta (UNU Yogyakarta).
Construction of the CFS facility represents a significant expansion of strategic collaboration between Nahdlatul Ulama, the Abu Dhabi-based Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities, and the Governments of Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under the leadership of UAE President H.H. Mohamed Bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi has pledged $100 million dollars for the development of UNU Yogyakarta and the College for Future Studies. A unique feature of CFS will be the integration of Islamic values such as rahmatan lil alamin, or universal love and compassion, into an educational curriculum focused on science, technology (including AI and robotics), and future studies, thereby contributing to the development of peaceful, inclusive, tolerant, prosperous, and sustainable societies. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_02_05_Zayed Award for Human Fraternity
Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah organizations recognized for their contributions to humanity and to international peace and security
“The largest Islamic organization in the world, Nahdlatul Ulama, plays a major role in spearheading global peace and diplomatic efforts”
~ Zayed Award for Human Fraternity
KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board (left) and Dr. Haedar Nashir, Chairman of the Muhammadiyah Central Board, at the Zayed Award ceremony in Abu Dhabi
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — On 5 February 2024, the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity — a joint initiative of the Holy See, Egypt’s al-Azhar University, and the Government of Abu Dhabi — presented the 2024 Zayed Award for Human Fraternity to Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah organizations for their “respective roles in the humanitarian field, as well as their peacebuilding efforts at the national, regional, and international levels.”
The humanitarian award is named after Shaykh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founder of the United Arab Emirates, and the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. His Holiness Pope Francis and His Eminence Shaykh Ahmed al-Tayyeb of al-Azhar signed the Document on Human Fraternity on 4 February 2019 in Abu Dhabi, during the first-ever Papal visit to the Gulf region.
Prior recipients of the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity include Pope Francis and Shaykh Tayyeb; UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres; King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan; and the Roman Catholic grassroots organization Sant’Egidio. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_02_19_Royal Anthropological Institute
Journal of the world’s oldest anthropological institute recognizes Humanitarian Islam’s global importance
“[Nahdlatul Ulama’s] ambition is high: not merely to counterbalance the dominance currently exercised by Saudi and Egyptian religious authorities, tied to autocratic regimes, but also to set an example for all other scriptural religions, to renounce their ‘hard texts,’ which can be cited to justify xenophobia and violence.”
~ Dr. Jonathan Benthall
Department of Anthropology, University College London
LONDON, United Kingdom, 19 February 2024 — The world’s oldest scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology — Britain’s Royal Anthropological Institute (est. 1871) — has published an academic review of Humanitarian Islam: Reflecting on an Islamic Concept (Brill | Schöningh, 2023), an edited volume compiling analyses by some of the world’s leading experts on the global Humanitarian Islam movement.
The review — published in Volume 30, Issue 1 of Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute — is the latest in a series of analyses by world-leading experts in the fields of anthropology, international relations, geopolitics, religious studies, and global peace and security, who recognize that Humanitarian Islam merits serious academic research.
Dr. Jonathan Benthall — an Honorary Research Associate at University College London who served as Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute for a quarter-century and is founding editor of the academic journal Anthropology Today — wrote the review, which may be read in full below. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_04_13_CDI Marrakech
World’s largest political network highlights the need to foster human fraternity as an antidote to the intensifying clash of civilizations
“O people, your Lord is One, and your Father is One: all of you are from Adam, and Adam was from the earth. The noblest of you in God’s sight is he or she who is most fully conscious of God”
~ Muhammad bin Abdullah (saw.)
“Discrimination saying, ‘This one is a relative, that [other one] a stranger,’ is only for the small-minded. For the noble-minded, the whole world is a single family”
~ Maha Upanishad
MARRAKECH, Morocco, 13 April 2024 — Leaders of the world’s largest political network, Centrist Democrat International (CDI), have unanimously adopted a Resolution on the urgent need to foster universal human fraternity in order to address multiple crises facing humanity. The resolution cites “the re-emergence of religious conflict in the 1990s and post-9/11, as well as indications of an intensifying clash of civilizations, which threaten to unravel the rules-based international order established in the wake of the Second World War.”
The resolution was drafted by Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party, PKB, which was founded in 1998 by senior leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization. It notes that “in 2022, Nahdlatul Ulama established the G20 Religion Forum (R20), in conjunction with Indonesia’s Presidency of the G20, in order to ‘help ensure that religion functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems, in the 21st century.’” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_05_15_KAICIID Global Dialogue Forum
An Islamic approach to “spiritual ecology”
“The principle of environmental stewardship, which lies at the heart of Islamic teachings, should not be abused to justify misguided policies that injure human beings”
~ H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
His All Holiness Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, addressing the Opening Plenary of the KAICIID Forum in Lisbon
LISBON, Portugal — On 16 May 2024 Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman and Founder of the G20 Religion Forum (R20) KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf outlined key principles associated with the R20 Spiritual Ecology Movement before an audience of religious leaders, politicians, and environmental activists gathered for a three-day Global Dialogue Forum hosted by the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID).
KAICIID was established in 2012 by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Austria, and the Kingdom of Spain, acting upon the joint initiative of Pope Benedict XVI and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The Holy See is a founding observer.
Mr. Staquf shared an Islamic perspective on Spiritual Ecology, which inculcates respect for the environment among religious believers at a grassroots level by emphasizing humanity’s divine mandate to serve as stewards of God’s creation (khalifah fi-al-ardh). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_06_06_Jules Isaac
“The Historian Jules Isaac: From the Teaching of Contempt to the Teaching of Esteem”
“In 1963, both Pope John XXIII and Jules Isaac passed away. Unfortunately, the valiant historian and the Pope were not granted the opportunity to witness the fruition of their tenacious efforts… the adoption of Nostra aetate”
~ Carol Iancu and André Kaspi from the film, “The Historian Jules Isaac”
“Our [Masorti] movement is uniquely qualified to understand that both laws and concepts change in accord with differing times and conditions and that not everything said and taught in the name of Judaism need be defended. Indeed, it is our responsibility to define what is appropriate for us in our time basing it upon those teachings within the tradition that represent the highest ideals of Judaism.”
~ “The Status of Non-Jews in Jewish Law and Lore Today”
A teshuvah unanimously adopted by the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Law and Standards in 2016
From left to right: Cardinal Augustin Bea, primary drafter of Nostra aetate; Jules Isaac, the renowned historian and postwar advocate of Jewish-Christian reconciliation; and Pope John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Council in 1962
PARIS, France — A French production company, Beamlight Films, has released a documentary about the life, sorrows, and lasting achievements of the distinguished French-Jewish scholar Jules Isaac (1877 – 1963), author of the seminal work Jesus and Israel. The 53-minute film — titled The Historian Jules Isaac: From the Teaching of Contempt to the Teaching of Esteem — traces the career of one of the most influential European scholars of history, who was dismissed from his position as Director General of Public Education in France during the German occupation, and whose wife and daughter perished at Auschwitz.
After the Second World War, Jules Isaac played a central role in the 1947 Seelisberg Conference and in persuading Pope John XXIII to address antisemitic elements of Catholic theology at the Second Vatican Council. Ultimately, this led to the publication of Nostra aetate: Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Proclaimed by His Holiness Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_07_03_The Battle for the Soul of Islam
Geopolitical analyst Dr. James Dorsey identifies Humanitarian Islam as the only “truly inclusive and pluralistic” contender in a multi-front battle for the soul of Islam
“In the search for a non-autocratic vision of ‘moderate’ Islam, Nahdlatul Ulama is the only game in town that has the political, organisational, and religious clout to ensure that its voice cannot be ignored”
~ James M. Dorsey,
The Battle for the Soul of Islam: Defining the Muslim Faith in the 21st Century
LONDON, United Kingdom — On 3 July 2024, Palgrave Macmillan, a leading academic and trade publishing house, released a widely anticipated book by geopolitical analyst, scholar, and veteran journalist Dr. James M. Dorsey. An award-winning, two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, Dr. Dorsey spent decades in the Middle East reporting for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Christian Science Monitor. His newly published in-depth study — titled The Battle for the Soul of Islam: Defining the Muslim Faith in the 21st Century — identifies Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama as the only contender in a global competition for Islamic authority whose “understanding of the faith demonstrate[s] Islam’s compatibility with modernism, human rights, and principles of tolerance and pluralism.” Continue reading full communiqué. . . .
2024_07_28_PBNU Plenary Meeting
Nahdlatul Ulama authorizes the establishment of a National Leadership Academy (AKN–NU) for high-level NU cadres
“Preparing NU leaders to transform Indonesian society and shape the emergence of a global civilization in the 21st century”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
“Final moments of the 2024 PBNU Plenary Meeting: ‘Nurturing All of Creation, Developing Civilization.’” The Center for Shared Civilizational Values’ Deputy Chairman & CEO, C. Holland Taylor (H. Muhammad Kholil), is seated (r) with members of the NU Central Board.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 27 – 28 July 2024, senior Nahdlatul Ulama leaders gathered to approve a number of strategic initiatives that will promote the comprehensive and coherent organizational development of the world’s largest Muslim organization over the coming decades. One of these initiatives is the establishment of a National Leadership Academy of Nahdlatul Ulama (AKN–NU), whose curriculum will be developed in conjunction with the North Carolina-based Center for Shared Civilizational Values, which senior NU leaders established in 2021.
Participants in the Plenary Meeting included the entire leadership of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board (PBNU); theologians representing over 28,000 Islamic boarding schools throughout Indonesia (RMI-NU); and the heads of a wide range of other autonomous bodies affiliated with the mass, grassroots organization, which has well over 100 million followers. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_08_15_A family of closely affiliated institutions
“The Last King of Java” and his legacy:
Humanitarian Islam, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, and Nahdlatul Ulama’s mission to “foster the emergence of a more just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being”
“Even more important than his role as a politician, [Abdurrahman] Wahid was the spiritual leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, and probably in the world. He was a product of Indonesia’s traditionally tolerant and humane practice of Islam, and he took that tradition to a higher level and shaped it in ways that will last long after his death.”
~ Wall Street Journal, “Wahid and the Voice of Moderate Islam”
C. Holland Taylor (H. Muhammad Kholil), Charles Bhagaskara Taylor, and KH. Nur Hidayat at President Wahid’s grave in Jombang, East Java on 2 August 2024
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina — Established in 2003 by former Indonesian president H.E. KH. Abdurrahman Wahid and American C. Holland Taylor, LibForAll Foundation works with a family of closely affiliated institutions linked to Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). With over 100 million followers and 28,000 Islamic boarding schools, NU is the world’s largest Muslim organization. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_08_22_Indonesia as “the Emerging Center of Global Islam”
University of Toronto expert on Islamic law urges scholars of the Muslim world to “pay close attention to Indonesia”
“I have returned [from Indonesia] convinced that we as North American scholars of Islamic Studies, particularly those of us interested in Islam in the modern world, must stop treating Southeast Asia as peripheral to Islamic Studies and instead give it pride of place as the emerging center of global Islam.”
~ Dr. Mohammad Fadel
Professor of Law, University of Toronto
and Senior Visiting Fellow, Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia
TORONTO, Canada and DEPOK, West Java — Canadian scholar and expert on Islamic law, Professor Mohammad Fadel, recently published an essay urging scholars of the Muslim world — as well as Western experts in the fields of religion, political science, and economics — to pay close attention to Indonesia, “the largest Muslim-majority state in the world. . . . [and] a political success story in a region that continues what appears to be an unstoppable ascent.”
Professor Fadel recently returned from a stint as a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center of Islam and Global Challenges (IGC) at Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII) in Depok, West Java, where he noted “the intellectual ambition of UIII,” its excellent facilities, and “the large number of female students enrolled in graduate-level Islamic Studies.”
He goes on to observe: “The dearth of Muslim women in Islamic Studies, particularly Islamic law, has been commonly decried, but few positive solutions have been found. Indonesia, by contrast, seems to have succeeded in integrating women into Islamic Studies to a degree much greater than other regions of the Muslim world, something for which they are to be congratulated.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_09_04_Humanitarian Islam Movement Launches Arabic Website
New website introduces Humanitarian Islam to Arabic-speaking audiences across the Middle East and the Islamic world
“To restore the majesty of Islamic civilization, Muslims must renew religion itself by returning to the Prophet’s original message of rahmah (universal love and compassion)”
~ H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
Nahdlatul Ulama co-founder Kyai Haji Hasyim Asy’ari is pictured alongside the NU flag and point 15 of the International Summit of Moderate Islamic Leaders (ISOMIL) Nahdlatul Ulama Declaration, which reads:
“Nahdlatul Ulama calls upon people of goodwill of every faith and nation to join in building a global consensus not to politicize Islam, and to marginalize those who would exploit Islam in such a way as to harm others.”
The three linked blue buttons, from right to left, state: “Read the Declaration”; “International Summit”; and “Watch CNN’s Coverage.” Two of the three buttons in the above banner link to Arabic translations of the documents in question.
JAKARTA, Indonesia and ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — Leaders of the world’s largest Muslim organization have launched Bayt ar-Rahmah’s website in Arabic, signaling a new phase in the expansion of Nahdlatul Ulama operations in the Middle East. The launch reflects rising interest in the Humanitarian Islam movement across the region following the December 2021 election of the movement’s co-founder, H.E. KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, to the Chairmanship of Nahdlatul Ulama’s Central Board: the most senior executive position in the 100-million-plus Indonesian mass movement.
The launch of Bayt ar-Rahmah’s Arabic website coincides with increasingly cordial and constructive relations between Nahdlatul Ulama and key Middle East power centers, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. On 5 February 2024, the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity — a joint initiative of the Holy See, Egypt’s al-Azhar University, and the Government of Abu Dhabi — presented the 2024 Zayed Award for Human Fraternity to Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah organizations for their “respective roles in the humanitarian field, as well as their peacebuilding efforts at the national, regional, and international levels.” For two years running, the world’s premier index of Muslim power and influence — The Muslim 500, headquartered in Amman, Jordan — has ranked Mr. Staquf among the 20 most influential Muslims on earth. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_09_06_Papal Visit to Indonesia
Pope Francis praises Indonesia’s “magnificent mosaic” of ethnic and religious harmony in historic visit to the world’s largest Muslim majority nation and democracy
“I am grateful to those who work with the conviction that we can live in harmony and peace, and are aware of the need for a more fraternal world. I hope that our communities may increasingly be open to interreligious dialogue and be symbols of the peaceful coexistence that characterizes Indonesia.”
~ His Holiness Pope Francis
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 3 September 2024, His Holiness Pope Francis arrived in Jakarta for the first papal visit to Indonesia in over 34 years. As the New York Times reported:
Pope Francis began an 11-day tour of four island nations across Southeast Asia and Oceania last week, an ambitious trek to faraway corners of the Roman Catholic world.
His first stop was Indonesia, a country made up of thousands of islands with the largest Muslim population in the world, as well as millions of people following other religions. There, Pope Francis talked about interfaith dialogue and coexistence, praising Indonesia as nurturing harmony between its different ethnicities, languages and religions, which he compared to the country’s rich ecological biodiversity. (“Inside the Pope’s Visit Across Asia and Oceania,” New York Times, 4 September 2024). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_09_17_The Washington Institute
Amidst a deepening crisis in the Middle East, Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman consults with U.S. Government officials and policy experts
“A leading Muslim thinker explains how religious figures can play a truly effective role in regional peacebuilding by questioning the embedded norms that fuel intercommunal violence, including in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
~ The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
WASHINGTON, DC, 15 – 17 September 2024 — Against a backdrop of escalating tensions in the Middle East that threatened to erupt into a full-scale regional war, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) General Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf visited the United States to consult with U.S. policymakers, government officials, and Washington insiders regarding NU’s strategy to transform religion from a source of conflict into an engine for Middle East peace.
Head of the world’s largest Muslim organization and founder and Chairman of the G20 Religion Forum (R20), Mr. Staquf traveled to America shortly before the inauguration of Indonesia’s newly elected president Prabowo Subianto and his administration, which occurred on 20 October 2024. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and democracy and dominates the Straits of Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok, through which approximately half of the world’s seaborne trade passes. It is also the largest Member State of ASEAN, whose Secretariat is located in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_11_04_Institute for Humanitarian Islam
Launch of the Institute for Humanitarian Islam
“This initiative seeks to address a multitude of contemporary crises, through the realization of Islamic teachings rooted in universal love and compassion, empathy, and responsibility towards others”
~ H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas,
Executive Director of the Institute for Humanitarian Islam
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 4 November 2024 — On the eve of a high-profile Conference on Humanitarian Islam attended by eminent scholars from North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, senior Nahdlatul Ulama leaders launched the Institute for Humanitarian Islam (IHI), in order to accelerate the movement’s global expansion from its newly established headquarters in Jakarta.
Headed by Indonesia’s former Minister of Religious Affairs (2020 – 2024) and co-founder of the Humanitarian Islam movement, H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, IHI will systematically promote the Humanitarian Islam agenda in cooperation with Nahdlatul Ulama and a group of closely affiliated entities, including Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, LibForAll Foundation, Bayt ar-Rahmah, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, and the G20 Religion Forum (R20). Continue reading full communiqué…
2024_11_05_Presidential Address to the International Conference on Humanitarian Islam
Indonesia’s new president endorses the vision and values of Humanitarian Islam
“The Golden Indonesia Vision 2045 represents our commitment to transform Indonesia into a developed country that plays an active role in fostering world peace. Humanitarian Islam is a key pillar in our efforts to achieve this vision.”
~ H.E. Prabowo Subianto, President of the Republic of Indonesia
Former President H.E. Joko Widodo (left) watches H.E. Prabowo Subianto take the presidential oath of office at Indonesia’s National Assembly on 20 October 2024
DEPOK, West Java, Universitas Indonesia — On Tuesday 5 November 2024, the newly inaugurated President of Indonesia, H.E. Prabowo Subianto, outlined key elements of his foreign policy agenda in an address delivered at the opening session of the International Conference on Humanitarian Islam.
Unable to attend the event due to exigent circumstances, President Prabowo instructed his newly appointed Minister of Religious Affairs, Dr. Nasaruddin Umar, to read the presidential address before an audience that included six ministers in his Merah Putih (“Red and White”) cabinet, as well as foreign ambassadors, religious authorities, university administrators, professors, students, and top scholars from around the world who participated in the International Conference on Humanitarian Islam.
Following remarks by Professor Ari Kuncoro, Rector of the University of Indonesia; Shaykh Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Secretary General of the Muslim World League; and KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, President Prabowo’s speech outlined his vision for Humanitarian Islam, just two weeks after his inauguration as leader of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and democracy. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_11_06_International Conference on Humanitarian Islam
Distinguished scholars from around the globe convene in Indonesia to examine the significance of Nahdlatul Ulama’s Humanitarian Islam movement
“The ethical message at the heart of Humanitarian Islam is one the whole world needs to heed now more than ever”
~ Professor Robert W. Hefner, Boston University
President of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies
JAKARTA, Indonesia — During the first week of November 2024, prominent scholars from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia gathered to examine the significance and global impact of the Humanitarian Islam movement. The three-day conference was co-sponsored by the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, and Universitas Indonesia.
Dr. Robert W. Hefner (above) — a renowned professor of anthropology and global studies at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Affairs, and president of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) — serves as lead editor of the academic volume that will emerge from the International Conference on Humanitarian Islam, held from 4 – 6 November in Jakarta. A second volume, containing foundational “source” texts of the Humanitarian Islam movement, will be published in conjunction with more than 20 essays produced by scholars for the Conference volume itself. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_11_18_CDI Siem Reap
Centrist Democrat International endorses Indonesian initiative to promote Humanitarian Islam worldwide
CDI “welcom[es] the efforts of PKB, Nahdlatul Ulama, and the Government of Indonesia ‘to unite Islamic principles with an inclusive and humanist national spirit,’ as part of the Republic of Indonesia’s historic ‘commitment to promote solidarity, independence, and world peace,’ both regionally and globally”
~ CDI Resolution quoting His Excellency Prabowo Subianto, President of the Republic of Indonesia
Members of the CDI Executive Committee attending a gala dinner held at Thammanon, a 12th-century Hindu temple within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Angkor Wat
SIEM REAP, Cambodia, 17 – 19 November 2024 — At its biannual meeting, the Executive Committee of the world’s largest network of political parties, Centrist Democrat International, unanimously endorsed a Resolution on the outcome of the 2024 general elections in Indonesia, and CDI Member Party PKB joining the government of H.E. Prabowo Subianto.
Hosted by the Cambodian People’s Party and the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia, the three-day meeting addressed a number of critical issues, including global threats to democracy and the erosion of a rules-based international order. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2024_11_22_The Road Not Yet Taken
Nahdlatul Ulama launches “The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative: A Multireligious Path Towards Middle East Peace”
“I have told President Prabowo that Indonesia must speak up about the conflict in Gaza, and he agreed with me that Nahdlatul Ulama is the most appropriate and potentially effective actor to foster peace in the region.”
~ H.E. Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, Chairman of the National Council of Economic Advisors, Republic of Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On the afternoon of Friday, 22 November 2024, leaders of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, the newly established Institute for Humanitarian Islam, and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV) held a public seminar to launch The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative: A Multireligious Path Towards Middle East Peace. The official launch of this initiative followed months of discussions NU and CSCV leaders have held with major stakeholders in the region, including a recent visit by NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf to Washington, D.C.
Lieutenant General (ret.) H.E. Luhut Binsar Panjaitan — one of the most influential figures in the presidential administration of H.E. Joko Widodo (2014 – 2024) and currently Chairman of President Prabowo Subianto’s Council of Economic Advisors — delivered a keynote address in which he declared:
As the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia and the world, Nahdlatul Ulama must take the lead in Middle East peace efforts, employing the Humanitarian Islam and multireligious approach, engaging various parties…. With more than 100 million followers, NU has eighteen times the membership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. As a result, NU has enormous political power, which includes determining the direction of [Indonesia’s] national politics. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2025
2025_01_01_The Muslim 500 — 2025
Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman is among the world’s most influential Muslim leaders
“As the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama adheres to the traditions of Sunni Islam, and teaches that the primary message of Islam is universal love and compassion”
~ The Muslim 500
AMMAN, Jordan, 1 January 2025 — For the third year running, the world’s premier index of Muslim power and influence, The Muslim 500, has ranked Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf among the 20 most influential Muslims on earth.
At number 19, Mr. Staquf is judged to be more influential than Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who governs the Arab world’s most populous state (ranked number 20), and seven places behind Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_01_05_KH. A. Mustofa Bisri
A Unique Approach to Middle East Peace
“Our starting point must be an honest search for the truth. Always speaking the truth and conducting ourselves in a manner that will touch the hearts of others. There are many whose voices are heard by only one side to a conflict. We strive to listen to, and be heard by, all.”
~ KH. A. Mustofa Bisri
Chairman, Center for Shared Civilizational Values
REMBANG, Indonesia, 5 January 2025 — In a meeting held at his home in Rembang, Central Java (above), the senior-most spiritual leader of the world’s largest Muslim organization — KH. A. Mustofa Bisri, who is affectionately known as “Gus Mus” — discussed, blessed, and helped shape a unique approach to Middle East peace: The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative.
Officially launched on 22 November 2024 at the Jakarta headquarters of the 100-million-member Nahdlatul Ulama, The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative is a joint undertaking by the NU Central Board and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV). The Center is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and serves as the Permanent Secretariat for the G20 Religion Forum (R20).
CSCV Deputy Chairman and CEO H. Muhammad Kholil (C. Holland Taylor) and his family were visiting Rembang to pay their respects to KH. A. Mustofa Bisri, and to attend the haul (“annual commemoration of the death”) of his elder brother, KH. Muhammad Cholil Bisri, whose eldest son, KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, is the current General Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama’s Central Board. Continue reading full communiqué…
2025_01_23_European External Action Service
NU Chairman articulates a binding legal framework to secure peace between Muslims and non-Muslims
Pacta sunt servanda (“Agreements must be honored”)
~ Brocard (Legal maxim in Latin)
“Acknowledging the leading role of Nahdlatul Ulama in interfaith dialogue and the promotion of a moderate, positive paradigm for religious actors across the world, it will be a great honor to. . . hear about the activities of Nahdlatul Ulama, both in Indonesia and internationally.”
~ Aude Maio-Coliche
Director, Strategic Communication and Foresight (SG.STRAT), Secretariat-General of the European External Action Service
BRUSSELS, Belgium — On 23 January 2025, Religion and Diplomacy Advisors representing the European Union and its 27 Member States assembled at the headquarters of the EU’s foreign service (above), for an annual working group meeting to discuss the complex interplay of religion and foreign policy. The gathering featured a major policy address by, and 90-minute discussion with, Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf.
Convened by Ms. Aude Maio-Coliche, Director of Strategic Communication and Foresight at the European External Action Service (EEAS), the meeting was also addressed by Ambassador Olof Skoog, the EU’s Special Envoy for Human Rights, who on 1 March 2025 will assume the position of EEAS Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_02_02_Nahdlatul Ulama, R20, and the COUR Report
Leading public intellectual urges U.S. Secretary of State to “seize the opportunity. . . to highlight what is great in America” by partnering with Nahdlatul Ulama
“The [Unalienable Rights] Commission’s 2020 breakthrough with Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama. . . offers a model for orienting U.S. partnerships and friendships around a shared commitment to the basic rights and fundamental freedoms that give expression to the dignity of the individual”
~ Peter Berkowitz, Real Clear Politics
“Secretary Rubio Should Build on the Commission on Unalienable Rights”
WASHINGTON, DC — On 2 February 2022, former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department, Dr. Peter Berkowitz, published an open letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging him to establish wide-ranging cooperation with Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and its G20 Religion Forum (R20).
A Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Dr. Berkowitz described NU as “an eminent Muslim organization — with a membership greater in number than the populations of most nation-states and from a country with the world’s largest Muslim population — that [is] keen to promote mutual understanding of peoples and nations grounded in respect for universal rights.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_02_05_Appointment of International Advisors
Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board Appoints Special Advisors for International Affairs
“Nahdlatul Ulama [is] a great organization, a magnificent home of religious scholars, of Islamic leaders who constantly strive to preserve a pluralistic, tolerant, and peaceful understanding of Islam, a humane Islam that fosters universal love and compassion”
~ H.E. Prabowo Subianto
President of the Republic of Indonesia
President Prabowo greets Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf at the celebration of Nahdlatul Ulama’s 102nd anniversary in the Islamic calendar
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 5 – 6 February 2025 — For the first time in its history, the world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (est. 1926), has formally appointed three Special Advisors for International Affairs to assist in the continued expansion of its operations worldwide. The three advisors are H. Muhammad Kholil (C. Holland Taylor) of the United States; Shaykh Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini of Italy; and Professor Greg Barton of Australia.
Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf introduced the newly appointed advisors at the opening session of a National Consultation of Nahdlatul Ulama Religious Scholars and Major Conference (Munas/Konbes), which was attended by senior NU leaders from throughout Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and democracy. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_02_22_Maha Kumbh Mela
Indonesian Muslim leader addresses international summit at the world’s largest gathering of religious pilgrims, the Maha Kumbh Mela
“The Islamic approach to Spiritual Ecology is both idealistic and pragmatic, seeking to bring human well-being and environmental protection into alignment rather than conflict, in order to nurture the environment and ensure human flourishing.”
~ KH. Ulil Abshar Abdalla
Vice Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
PRAYAGRAJ, Uttar Pradesh, India, 21 – 23 February 2025 — One of Indonesia’s leading Muslim scholars, KH. Ulil Abshar Abdalla, delivered an address describing the R20 Spiritual Ecology movement at a Global Summit on Development and Sustainability held amidst a gathering of approximately 400 million Hindus, as reported by The New York Times.
The scion of a long line of Javanese ulama (religious scholars), Kyai Ulil observed:
It is particularly significant and auspicious that you have invited me, a Muslim religious scholar, to address this august summit during the largest religious gathering on earth, the Maha Kumbh Mela. I understand that over the past 40 days, hundreds of millions of Hindu devotees have visited Prayagraj to bathe at the junction of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati rivers. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_03_07_Building Bridges
Muslim World League hosts “The Second Global Conference for Building Bridges Between Islamic Schools of Thought and Sects”
KH. Miftachul Achyar, Chairman of the NU Supreme Council, voices support for Muslim World League initiative
“The diversity of schools of thought, sects, and ideologies among Muslims is a manifestation of divine will, emphasizing the inevitability of diversity as a part of God’s laws”
~ The Charter of Building Bridges Between Islamic Schools of Thought and Sects
MECCA, Saudi Arabia, 6 – 7 March 2025 — Signaling a decisive break with the past, the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL) has convened senior religious scholars from throughout the Islamic world to strategize and implement The Charter of Building Bridges Between Islamic Schools of Thought and Sects. Held during the fasting month of Ramadan, the conference served to reinforce Saudi Arabia’s remarkable turn away from hardline Wahhabi ideology, under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_05_30_CDI General Assembly in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Centrist Democrat International urges recognition of the G20 Religion Forum (R20) as a G20 main event and permanent engagement group
“CDI Urges member parties and all G20 Member States, including the United States of America, to prioritize long-term cooperation with the world’s major religions through the existing mechanism of the G20 Religion Forum (R20), in order to foster international peace, security, and prosperity”
~ Centrist Democrat International
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — On Friday 30 May 2025 members of Centrist Democrat International (CDI) — the world’s largest coalition of political parties, which was formerly known as Christian Democrat International — unanimously endorsed a Resolution on fostering international peace, security, and prosperity through cooperation between the G20 Religion Forum (R20) and IDC-CDI.
The resolution was drafted by the world’s largest Muslim organization, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and submitted to CDI by an NU-affiliated political party, PKB, which has held a CDI Vice Presidency since October 2021. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_06_21_AKN–NU
Launch of the Nahdlatul Ulama National Leadership Academy (AKN–NU)
“This heralds the dawn of a new era in Nahdlatul Ulama strategic leadership education, [for AKN–NU is] designed to meet the very real challenges of our times”
~ NU Online
“Inaugurating the National Leadership Academy, Kyai Miftah [Chairman of NU’s Supreme Council] states, ‘Our cadres must be prepared to face a wide range of geopolitical and economic threats’”
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On Saturday 21 June 2025, senior leaders of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board (PBNU) and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV) gathered at the Yuan Garden Hotel in Central Jakarta for the opening ceremony of the Nahdlatul Ulama National Leadership Academy (AKN–NU), a strategic initiative jointly developed by Nahdlatul Ulama and its U.S.-based affiliate, CSCV. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_11_05_Providence Magazine
Eminent foreign policy strategist John Lenczowski on the geopolitical significance of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama
“If there were ever a cost-free way our foreign policy could support those Islamic forces that oppose radical jihadism, it would be for the U.S. officially to recognize and host the Religion 20 Summit (R20) as part of America’s Presidency of the G20 next year.”
~ Dr. John Lenczowski
National Security Council Advisor to Ronald Reagan
and Founder of the Institute of World Politics
Dr. Lenczowski with senior leaders of Lembaga Ketahanan Nasional Republik Indonesia (Indonesia’s National Defense Institute), where he delivered a lecture to over 100 senior military officers regarding geopolitics and the current threat matrix facing Indonesia
WASHINGTON, D.C., and JAKARTA, Indonesia, 5 November 2025 — One of America’s leading experts on the practice of statecraft has authored a 2,700-word essay for Providence magazine titled “Indonesia and the War of Ideas against Radical Islamism.” Published by the Institute on Religion & Democracy, Providence examines global statecraft from the perspective of Christian realism.
Dr. John Lenczowski — former advisor to President Ronald Reagan and founder of the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. — argues that:
Unfortunately, American knowledge of Indonesia is embarrassingly weak and that just contributes to our minimization of ideology as a strategic factor in global politics. Our nation and our foreign policy community ignore at our peril the fourth largest country in the world, the largest Islamic country in the world with the most politically moderate version of Islam, the third largest democracy in the world, and the most strategic country along the most trafficked commercial waterway in the world. It is a nation that should be much closer to the United States. We need to adjust our priorities accordingly.
During a week-long visit to Jakarta in August 2025, Dr. Lenczowski delivered a series of lectures on “International Relations, Statecraft, and Integrated Strategy,” totaling over 18 hours, to senior NU leaders participating in the Nahdlatul Ulama National Leadership Academy (AKN–NU). Launched in June 2025, the Academy is the brainchild of NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, who tasked it with “preparing NU leaders to transform Indonesian society and shape the emergence of a global civilization in the 21st century.” Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2025_11_22_CDI São Paulo
World’s largest center-right political network endorses pioneering Middle East peace initiative led by Indonesia
“The CDI encourages Member Parties and their political foundations to cooperate with Nahdlatul Ulama and the G20 Religion Forum (R20) in their effort to foster compassion, reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace — rather than hatred, violence, and revenge — in the Middle East, through The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative.”
~ Centrist Democrat International
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, 22 November 2025 — Meeting in the industrial capital of Latin America’s most populous nation, the world’s largest network of political parties unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing the strategic value of The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative: A Multi-Religious Path Towards Middle East Peace. The resolution urged member parties of Centrist Democrat International (CDI) and their political foundations to cooperate in the execution of this peace initiative, which is led by Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the G20 Religion Forum (R20), and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values.
Later that same day, the CDI General Assembly re-elected Indonesian political leader H. Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar (photo below) to a second four-year term as CDI Vice President and member of its Executive Committee. Mr. Iskandar, who heads Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party — the Nahdlatul Ulama-affiliated PKB — currently serves as Coordinating Minister for Social Empowerment in President Prabowo Subianto’s Red and White Cabinet. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉS – 2026
2026_01_01_The Muslim 500 — 2026
Yahya Cholil Staquf is ranked among the world’s most influential Muslim leaders for the fourth consecutive year
“His leadership positions NU as a counterweight to extremism, offering a vision of Islam rooted in tradition, inclusivity, and peace… a model of moderate religious authority for the Muslim world.”
~ The Muslim 500
AMMAN, Jordan, 1 January 2026 — For the fourth year running, the world’s premier index of Muslim power and influence, The Muslim 500, has ranked Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf among the 20 most influential Muslims on earth.
At number 19, Mr. Staquf is ranked four places behind Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto (ranked number 15), and five behind Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who is ranked number 14. Notably, he is judged to be more influential than Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who governs the Arab world’s most populous state (ranked number 22).
KH. A. Mustofa Bisri, former head of the Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council and Chairman of the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, was selected in the report to represent Indonesia under the “scholarly” category, with the The Muslim 500 stating that “These scholars, thinkers, and educators are well-respected leaders who have made significant contributions to the study and cultivation of Islamic knowledge and Muslim culture.” This is the sixteenth consecutive year that Kyai Bisri has been named as one of the world’s most influential Muslims. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2026_01_06_Religion News Service
Powerful interfaith coalition urges President Trump to put religion back on the G20 agenda
“The existing mechanism of the R20 offers an effective vehicle through which the U.S. and other G20 Members may cooperate with the world’s major religions to foster global peace, security, and prosperity.”
~ Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, in a letter to President Donald J. Trump
WASHINGTON, D.C., 6 January 2026 — As reported by Religion News Service, a coalition of 84 prominent U.S. religious leaders, scholars, and security experts “led by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan; Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; former Vatican ambassador Mary Ann Glendon; and First Liberty Institute President Kelly Shackelford, sent President Donald Trump a letter urging him to… ‘officially recognize the Religion 20 Summit (R20) as part of America’s presidency of the G20 in 2026.’”
The R20 Coalition Letter was sent to President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio by His Eminence Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, as one of his last acts before the announcement of his retirement from the post. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2026_03_05_Congressional Hearing on the G20, Religion, and Human Rights
Co-Chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission voice bipartisan support for the G20 Religion Forum (R20)
“I urge the Trump administration to consider formally recognizing the R20 as a permanent G20 Engagement Group. The R20 would strengthen the cause of human dignity, amplify voices committed to peace, pluralism, and freedom, help counter religious extremism, and defend persecuted minorities. For these reasons, it deserves serious consideration and support.”
~ Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ)
Co-Chair of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Lantos Commission
“We need to do everything we can to promote religious freedom through the R20 and other methods.”
~ Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Co-Chair, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On 5 March 2026, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission convened distinguished experts on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), international peace and security, Islam, Nahdlatul Ulama, and Indonesia to “explore how the Trump administration can highlight and drive human rights issues in connection with [America’s] G20 Presidency.” The Lantos Commission — named after the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the U.S. Congress — is a bipartisan congressional body dedicated to promoting and defending human rights globally.
As stated in the Commission’s Hearing Notice — U.S. Presidency of the G20 – An Opportunity to Champion Human Rights — the hearing’s major focus was “religious freedom, particularly the experience of Indonesia’s 2022 G20 Presidency, which incorporated an R20 International Summit of Religious Leaders as an official Main Event of Indonesia’s G20.”
The G20/R20 hearing was convened in the prestigious Armed Services Committee Hearing Room, located in Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. Significantly, from the perspective of many Christians and Muslims, the hearing also happened to fall during the holy seasons of Lent and Ramadan, which are roughly coterminous this year. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2026_04_09_Anne Frank House/R20 Delegation to the Holy Land
A Multi-Religious Path Towards Middle East Peace
“If we truly wish to resolve this [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, it is unproductive for us to lecture the other side about why we are right and they are wrong. It is impossible to reconcile our competing historical narratives. Instead, we must create new and compelling narratives that acknowledge the innate human dignity, and rights, of both peoples.”
~ Maoz Inon, co-author of The Future is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land
Prayer of Mothers for Life and Peace
God of Life
Who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds,
Please hear the prayer of mothers,
For You did not create us to kill one another,
Nor to live in a state of fear, anger, or hatred in Your world,
But rather, to remember Your Name and magnanimously permit each other to sanctify
Your Name of Life, Your Name of Peace,
In this world.
~ Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum and Shaykha Ibtisam Mahameed
Olive grove outside the old city of Bethlehem
(Mujaddara, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
BEIT JALA, BETHLEHEM, JERUSALEM, NAZARETH, and TEL AVIV, Israel and Palestine — From 2 – 9 January 2026, a small but influential delegation of Dutch and Argentinian leaders affiliated with the renowned Anne Frank House visited the Holy Land. Their purpose was to engage with Israeli and Palestinian religious authorities, educators, activists, and other civil society figures who are striving to create a viable framework to ensure peaceful coexistence and long-term security for both peoples.
The delegation consisted of three individuals: Ronald Leopold, Executive Director of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Héctor Shalom, Director of the Anne Frank Center for Latin America in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is the representative/partner of Anne Frank House for the region; and Rabbi Silvina Chemen of the Masorti (Conservative) Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano. Rabbi Chemen serves on the Board of the G20 Religion Forum (R20) and works closely with Indonesia’s 100-million-member Nahdlatul Ulama organization in developing and executing The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative: A Multi-Religious Path Towards Middle East Peace. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2026_04_21_NU/WEA Joint Communiqué
Faith Leaders Forge a Multi-Religious Path Towards Middle East Peace
NAZARETH, Israel and JAKARTA, Indonesia — On April 16, 2026, hours before a temporary ceasefire was declared in Lebanon, leaders of the world’s largest Muslim organization and the largest international network of evangelical Christians met to discuss conflicts roiling the Middle East and their global impact. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2026_04_28_Anne Frank Center for Latin America and the R20
Anne Frank Center for Latin America and the G20 Religion Forum (R20) help forge a multi-religious path towards Middle East peace
Un camino multirreligioso hacia la paz en Medio Oriente
“Si verdaderamente queremos resolver este conflicto [israelí-palestino], es contraproducente dar conferencias a la otra parte sobre por qué nosotros tenemos razón y ellos están equivocados. Es imposible reconciliar nuestras narrativas históricas en competencia. En cambio, debemos crear narrativas nuevas y convincentes que reconozcan la dignidad humana intrínseca y los derechos de ambos pueblos.”
~ Maoz Inon, coautor de El futuro es la paz: un viaje compartido a través de Tierra Santa
Oración de las madres por la vida y la paz
Dios de la Vida,
Tú que sanas a los de corazón quebrantado
y vendas sus heridas,
escucha, por favor, la oración de las madres.
Porque Tú no nos creaste para matarnos unos a otros,
ni para vivir en un estado de miedo, enojo u odio en Tu mundo,
sino más bien para recordar Tu Nombre
y permitirnos unos a otros, generosamente, santificar
Tu Nombre de Vida,
Tu Nombre de Paz,
en este mundo.
~ Rabina Tamar Elad-Appelbaum y Shaykha Ibtisam Mahameed
Olivar a las afueras de la antigua ciudad de Belén-
(Mujaddara, CC BY-SA 3.0, vía Wikimedia Commons)
BEIT JALA, BELÉN, JERUSALÉN, NAZARET y TEL AVIV, Israel y Palestina — Del 2 al 9 de enero de 2026, una pequeña pero influyente delegación de líderes neerlandeses y argentinos afiliados a la reconocida Casa de Ana Frank visitó la Tierra Santa. Su propósito fue interactuar con autoridades religiosas israelíes y palestinas, educadores, activistas y otras figuras de la sociedad civil que están esforzándose por crear un marco viable para asegurar la coexistencia pacífica y la seguridad a largo plazo para ambos pueblos.
La delegación estuvo compuesta por tres individuos: Ronald Leopold, Director Ejecutivo de la Casa de Ana Frank en Ámsterdam, Países Bajos; Héctor Shalom, Director del Centro Ana Frank para América Latina en Buenos Aires, Argentina, que es el representante/socio de la Casa de Ana Frank para la región; y la Rabina Silvina Chemen del Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano Masortí (Conservador). La Rabina Chemen forma parte del Board del Foro de las Religiones del G20 (R20) y trabaja estrechamente con la organización Nahdlatul Ulama de Indonesia, que cuenta con 100 millones de miembros, en el desarrollo y la ejecución de The Road Not Yet Taken Initiative: A Multi-Religious Path Towards Middle East Peace. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2026_06_26_University of Notre Dame — Rome
Religious Humanism Conference in Rome explores points of convergence between Christian Democracy and Humanitarian Islam
“At a time when some in the West have come to subscribe to a new cultural relativism that denies the possibility of shared humanitarian values, Nahdlatul Ulama has called for Muslims to join with Christian Democrats and others to recognize and affirm shared values across cultures and faith traditions”
~ Keynote address by Professor Robert W. Hefner,
Boston University
President of the American Institute
for Indonesian Studies
(Stefan Bauer, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons)
ROME, Italy — From 25 – 26 June 2026 prominent scholars from North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia convened at the University of Notre Dame’s prestigious Rome Global Gateway facility — located on Via Ostilia in the shadow of the Colosseum — for a conference discussing the origins, development, and enduring legacy of various forms of religious humanism, including the contributions of the global Humanitarian Islam movement.
Titled “Religious Humanisms, Inclusive Citizenship, and Democracy,” the international symposium was convened by the University of Notre Dame in partnership with the G20 Religion Forum (R20), the Jakarta-based Institute for Humanitarian Islam (IFHI), and a number of institutions historically associated with Christian Democracy in Europe. These include the Luigi Sturzo Institute, named after the founder of Italy’s Christian Democracy movement; the Hanns Seidel Foundation, which is affiliated with Bavaria’s dominant political party, the Christian Social Union (CSU); LUMSA, a Catholic university whose founder, Luigia Tincani, was an influential religious sister who played a decisive role in Christian Democracy’s rebuilding of Italy and its educational system following decades of fascism and war; and John Cabot University. Continue reading full communiqué. . .
2026_06_27_Abdurrahman Wahid and His Legacy in the Arab World
Egyptian government publicly endorses Nahdlatul Ulama and the legacy of KH. Abdurrahman Wahid
“We consider Nahdlatul Ulama to be an extension of al-Azhar al-Sharif, based on the commendations given by al-Azhar scholars to the works of its founder, the great scholar Hasyim Asy’ari… Abdurrahman Wahid’s grandfather”
~ Shaykh Dr. Osama al-Saeed al-Azhari
Minister of Religious Endowments,
Arab Republic of Egypt
ISMAILIA, Egypt — On 27 June 2026, Egypt’s Minister of Religious Endowments, Shaykh Osama al-Saeed al-Azhari, headed the Examination and Discussion Committee at a widely publicized Master’s thesis defense examining the life, thought, legacy, and global significance of long-time Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman (1984 – 99) and former Indonesian President KH. Abdurrahman Wahid (“Gus Dur”), whose enduring legacy includes the Humanitarian Islam movement.
The unusual decision to have a sitting minister and presidential advisor host the Examination Committee for a thesis defense at Suez Canal University highlights the significance of Nahdlatul Ulama and its Humanitarian Islam initiative to the administration of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In 2024, al-Azhar University hosted a major conference that celebrated its Indonesian alumnus, KH. Abdurrahman Wahid. The conference highlighted Wahid’s role in pioneering a theological framework and successful model of Islam that supports a patriotic, modern, inclusive, multireligious, and multi-ethnic nationalism. Continue reading full communiqué. . .