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Recovering a Non-violent Identity for an Islamist Pesantren 

07 Jan 2016
Saipul Hamdi, Paul Carnegie & Bianca Smith
Indonesian Islamic women praying. Photo Source: Tanti Ruwani (Flickr). Creative Commons.

Hidayatullah is one of Indonesia’s largest local Islamist pesantren (Islamic boarding school) networks. More than a decade has passed since the pesantren network came into the cross hairs of geopolitics and international concerns over possible sources of terrorist proselytising and recruitment pathways, the consequences of which have impacted Hidayatullah economically, socially and politically.

The Hidayatullah network first gained an international reputation at the height of the War on Terror after an article by the journalist Jane Perlez appeared in the New York Times in 2002. It was based on a short investigation she had carried out about the pesantren headquarters in Balikpapan. Perlez interviewed a small number of teachers and students, and concluded that Pesantren Hidayatullah promoted anti-US sentiment and radical militant views amongst its students. The terrorism link featured again in the international press when Romesh Ratnesar published a similar article in Time a few months later, claiming that terrorist Omar Faruq had a military camp at the pesantren headquarters.

The matter escalated further based on an International Crisis Group (ICG) investigation implicating Hidayatullah in the sheltering of terrorists on the run, drawing the conclusion that it was an implicit supporter of terrorist activity. Due to these allegations, the Hidayatullah pesantren network became synonymous with terrorism and, even now, it still carries the terrorism label for those unaware of its narrative of recovery.

Recovering a non-violent identity

As a result of the international media’s attention and allegations, the Indonesian government started surveillance of the Hidayatullah pesantren network, including all branches in East Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Papua and Java. The pesantren leader at that time was aware of the possible effects of the newly introduced terrorism laws on Hidayatullah: if found guilty, the pesantren could be closed down. Given this, the pesantren community responded by rebuilding communication and partnerships with the government and other Islamic organisations, despite the hostile climate unsettling pesantren staff at the time and making communication with the local government difficult.

Prior to the allegations, Hidayatullah had a healthy relationship with local government and political parties. The pesantren went to great lengths to allay its negative image by campaigning to the government and the public in order to prove that the allegations were incorrect. Hidayatullah did its best to show the community that it was not a terrorist group by visiting government organisations, the military and the police in Balikpapan in order to explain its perspective and position. Ordinary Hidayatullah members felt intense social pressure as a result of state surveillance. In the aftermath of the ICG report, the government sent in Indonesian researchers to investigate the pesantren’s curriculum and teaching materials, as well as question teachers’ and students’ beliefs, especially in relation to the idea of jihad. The pesantren community willingly cooperated, as it was in their interests to disprove any association with terrorist activity.

They continued to assist the military, police and government research bodies in further ongoing investigations into their activities and curriculum in the pesantren in order to disprove the existence of any jihadist practices. The pesantren’s teachers became active in the media by writing articles disputing the terrorist claims, arguing that Hidayatullah was non-violent and anti-terrorist. During this recovery process, the pesantren multiplied its number of religious sermons and held seminars at local and national levels to discuss terrorism and radicalisation in the pesantren network.

The transparency of its activities is further revealed by Hidayatullah’s strong links with local and national government. Special occasions in the pesantren often involve the presence of local and national government figures. In July 2013, Hidayatullah’s silaturrahmi nasional (‘national gathering’) of more than 6000 members from its pesantren branches across Indonesia saw the attendance of national political party figures, the governor of East Kalimantan, Awang Faroek Ishak, and some highly regarded national figures.

These influential figures spoke about the role of pesantrenin society, and Hidayatullah in particular, in strengthening education, anti-corruption discourses, the economy, and the relationship between Islam and the state. It suggests that Hidayatullah has an important role to play at national and local political levels in its push for “clean” Islamic practice. As part of this agenda, it held an academic seminar which addressed sensitive issues about terrorism and pesantren in order to promote the notion that pesantren are not sources of violent jihadism. Hidayatullah’s renewed openness suggests that it is actively working to (re)shape its non-violent identity and image in the public sphere.

The increasingly active role of pesantren and religious leaders in politics since the onset of regional autonomy helps explain Hidayatullah’s presence in the political arena. After ex-president Suharto’s downfall in 1998, many pesantren leaders entered politics, drawing on their extensive religious networks for support. Pesantren are a great political resource in terms of mobilising entire communities in support of political parties. Hidayatullah is institutionally apolitical, focusing on social activities, education and the economy; however, like other pesantren, it too has formed relationships with politicians and political parties as a way to generate funding.

As part of its recovery, Hidayatullah is actively pursuing funding from political parties in order to build new pesantren, as well as opening offices for dakwah and religious consultation for community members. The success of Hidayatullah’s pesantren and its network has seen it become one of the largest government-backed Islamist groups in Indonesia. By consciously engaging with government actors and politicians, Hidayatullah has reclaimed an even stronger national identity as a home-grown, non-violent Islamist movement; in fact, the international and national hype surrounding the allegations more than a decade ago brought a new popularity to Hidayatullah, and it continues to grow and gain new members from a range of educational, class and ethnic backgrounds in Indonesia. Many scholars working in the field have refused to accept dominant discourse emerging about pesantren as places for radicalisation.

More than a decade later, the Hidayatullah organisation has resurfaced with a reshaped identity. Despite its narrow focus on establishing a syari’ah state in Indonesia and the socio-religious tensions this elicits in the wider community, it has re-entered public life by joining forces with other major Islamic movements to participate in the nation’s political party campaigns. In doing so, it is advocating a form of anti-violent Islamism. Indeed, the group’s re-emergence in the public sphere parallels a conscious effort to promote a non-violent identity and a “clean” social image.

This article was authored by Saipul Hamdi, Paul Carnegie and Bianca Smith and is an edited extract from ‘The recovery of a non-violent identity for an Islamist pesantren in an age of terror‘ and is published in full in the Australian Journal of International Affairs Volume 69, Issue 6, 2015.