~ Kyai Haji A. Mustofa Bisri,
describing a key principle behind
LibForAll’s successful counter-radicalization programs
Her Excellency Ibu Hajjah
Sinta Nuriyah
Her
Excellency Ibu Hajjah Sinta Nuriyah is the widow of LibForAll
co-founder and patron H.E. Kyai
Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, and his successor as LibForAll's patron
and senior advisor. Widely known and respected for her pioneering
work in the field of Qur'anic studies and gender equality, she
serves as a major inspiration for the academic, ulama and women's
divisions of LibForAll's International Institute of Qur'anic Studies.
Click here for a more
complete biography.
Ahmad Syafii Maarif
Ahmad
Syafii Maarif is the immediate past Chairman (1998-2005) of the
world’s second largest Muslim organization, the Muhammadiyah,
with 30-million members. Under his leadership, the Muhammadiyah
demonstrated a strong commitment to a pluralistic, tolerant and
peaceful understanding of Islam, and to the nation of Indonesia.
He inspired the establishment of the Young Muhammadiyah Intellectuals
Network, a progressive youth wing of the Muhammadiyah.
Dr. Maarif received his Master’s degree from
Ohio University, and a PhD in History from the University of Chicago
in the field of Middle Eastern Languages and Civilizations. At
the University of Chicago, Dr. Maarif engaged in intensive study
of the Qur’an with renowned Islamic reformist Fazlur Rahman. He
also engaged in deep discussions with future Indonesian reformer
Nurcholish Madjid, who was also studying at University of Chicago.
Together with Abdurrahman Wahid, their thought was formative in
building Indonesian civil society and preparing Indonesia for
the transition to democracy.
Dr. Maarif is a 2008 recipient of the
Ramon Magsaysay Award (often considered Asia's Nobel Prize)
in the category of Peace and International Understanding. Dr.
Maarif was honored for "guiding Muslims to embrace
tolerance and pluralism as the basis for justice and harmony in
Indonesia and in the world at large."
Dr. Maarif is a prolific writer and speaker,
whose prominent works include “The Dynamics of Islam” and “Islam,
Why Not?” He is the founder and chairman of the Maarif
Institute, a non-profit, non-governmental institution promoting
the values of Islam, humanity, and Indonesian culture.
Dr. Syafii Maarif serves as patron and
senior advisor to LibForAll's International Institute of Qur’anic
Studies (IIQS), together with H.E.
Ibu Hajjah Sinta Nuriyah, the widow of LibForAll co-founder
Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid.
Amin Abdullah
Amin
Abdullah is currently serving his second term as the Rector of
Sunan Kalijaga Islamic State University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
This was the first and "mother" of all the Islamic State
Universities/Institutes (UIN/IAIN/STAIN), and is now one of the
leading Islamic universities in Indonesia, with about 15,000 students.
Dr.
Abdullah is well known as an Islamic philosopher who distinguishes
normative Islam from historical Islam and advocates a new path
in Islamic philosophy of knowledge, one that is open to dialogue
and integration with many different sources of knowledge.
Internationally recognized for his role in promoting
a modern, pluralistic and tolerant understanding of Islam, Dr.
Abdullah helped lead the world's second-largest Muslim organization,
the Muhammadiyah, from 2000-2005, when he served as Vice Chairman
of its governing board.
Born in the regency of Pati, Central Java in
1953, Dr. Abdullah received his Baccalaureate degree from Pesantren
Gontor Ponorogo; his Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy from the Middle
East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey; and has conducted
post-doctoral study at McGill University in Toronto, Canada.
He is the author of numerous books, including Religious Education
in a Multi-Cultural and Multi-Religious Era; Between al-Ghazali
and Kant: Islamic Ethical Philosophy; The Dynamism of Cultural
Islam; and Islamic Studies in Higher Education.
He is also the author of dozens of articles, and frequently speaks
at international seminars in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
According to Dr. Abdullah, Indonesia's network
of State Islamic Institutes and Universities have long been at
the forefront of issues such as interfaith dialogue and improving
overall relations between Islam and the West (“We must explain
to the Saudis that they misunderstand the West”). Dr. Abdullah
is currently engaged in the process of modernizing his institution's
curriculum, and expanding its relationships with other leading
universities worldwide, while maintaining its links with the past.
Sunan Kalijaga University itself is named after the
Muslim saint who ensured the triumph of a mystical and tolerant
Islam in 16th century Java, and thereby helped to preserve freedom
of conscience for all Javanese.
Azyumardi
Azra
Azyumardi
Azra is one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent liberal Muslim
intellectuals. Born in West Sumatra, Indonesia in 1955, Dr.
Azra recently completed two terms (1998-2006) as Rector (President)
at the prestigious Syarif
Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta. Under
his leadership, UIN-Jakarta has played a vital role in Indonesia’s
transition from authoritarian rule to democracy – promoting a
moderate and tolerant understanding of Islam, at peace with itself
and the modern world. In this regard, the leadership, faculty
and staff at UIN-Jakarta serve as a vital bulwark against the
inroads of religious extremism inspired from abroad.
Professor Azra graduated from the Faculty of
Tarbiyah (Islamic Education) at the
Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic
Institute (now UIN) in 1982. He was appointed Lecturer there in
1985 and in the following year was selected for a Fulbright Scholarship
to pursue advanced studies at Columbia University, New York City.
He graduated with an MA from the Department of Middle Eastern
Languages and Cultures in 1988. Winning a Columbia President Fellowship,
he moved to the Department of History, Columbia University where
he undertook further studies: MA (1989), MPhil (1990) and a Ph.D.
in Philosophy (1992).
He was Vice Director of the Centre for the
Study of Islam and Society at IAIN/UIN Jakarta before his appointment
as Vice Rector for Academic Affairs. Professor Azra has been a
visiting fellow of Southeast Asian Studies at Oxford University’s
Centre for Islamic Studies; a Visiting Professor at the University
of Philippines and University Malaya; a Distinguished International
Visiting Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies,
New York University; member of the Board of Trustees of International
Islamic University Islamabad (2004-9); editor-in-chief, Studia
Islamika, an Indonesian journal for Islamic Studies (1993-present);
member of the editorial board of the journals Ushuluddin
(University Malaya); and Quranic Studies (University of
London). He has presented numerous papers at international conferences
and has lectured at many universities, including Harvard, Columbia,
Australian National University, Kyoto, Leiden and others.
Dr. Azra has published 18 books on the subject
of Islam and is a regular contributor to Indonesian newspapers
and journals. He is also a noted commentator on Indonesian Islam
and politics for the Indonesian and international media.
His latest book is entitled The Origins of Islamic Reformism
in Southeast Asia (University of Hawaii Press, 2004; Leiden:
KITLV Press, 2004; Allen & Unwin, 2004).
"Southeast Asia has an extraordinarily
large and well-developed structure of Islamic education that can
be a resource of critical importance in the ongoing war of ideas
within Islam. These institutions can be expected to keep the Muslim
communities in Southeast Asia rooted in their moderate and tolerant
values, despite the apparent onslaught of extremist ideology from
the Middle East. At a global level, they could serve as the building
blocs of a moderate or liberal Muslim international movement to
counter the influence of radical Salafi networks."
– Angel Rabasa, writing in Current Trends in Islamist
Ideology, published by the Hudson Institute's Center on Islam,
Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World
Franz Magnis-Suseno, SJ
Franz
Magnis-Suseno, SJ was born in the German province of Silesia (now
Poland) in 1936, to a family of devout Roman Catholics.
Having survived the horrors of World War II and forcible expulsion
from Silesia, the young Franz Magnis escaped to West Germany.
He joined the Jesuit Order at the age of nineteen, and received
his baccalaureate degree from the College of Philosophy in Pullach,
Bavaria in 1960. The following year he moved to Yogyakarta, in
the cultural heartland of Java, where he was ordained as a Jesuit
priest in 1967. A few years later, the young priest surrendered
his German nationality and became an Indonesian citizen, in order
to dedicate the rest of his life to serving the people of his
adopted homeland.
Father Magnis-Suseno is a widely
beloved and immensely popular figure in Indonesia, who appears
frequently in interfaith dialogues and on radio, television and
in the print media, promoting harmony and respect between Indonesia’s
many faiths. Periodically threatened by religious extremists,
he responds with a gentleness, love and courage born from his
deep faith and religious convictions.
A Doctor of Philosophy who graduated summa
cum laude from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany
(which he attended from 1971-73), Father Magnis-Suseno is currently
the Director of Postgraduate Studies at Driyakarya College of
Philosophy in Jakarta, Indonesia, which he helped to found and
then headed for many years. Driyakarya College – which is also
a place for training Roman Catholic priests – has among its students
quite a number of Muslims, including many members of Kyai Haji
Abdurrahman Wahid’s Nahdlatul Ulama organization, who come to
learn European philosophy in order to sharpen their critical thinking
and the tenets of their fellow citizens’ Christian beliefs.
Father Magnis-Suseno has served as a visiting
professor at the University of Indonesia; Parahyangan University
in Bandung, Indonesia; the College of Philosophy and Ludwig-Maximillians
University in Munich; and the University of Innsbruck. He
is the author of over 30 books, including “Javanese Ethics and
World View,” “In Search of a Rational Purpose for Life” and “Becoming
a Witness for Christ in the Midst of a Complex Society.”
Dr. Magnis-Suseno holds the Distinguished Service
Cross (“Das Grosse Verdienstkreuz) from the Federal Republic of
Germany and an honorary doctorate in theology from the University
of Lucerne, Switzerland.
Abdul Munir Mulkhan
Abdul
Munir Mulkhan was born in the town of Jember in the Indonesian
province of East Java in 1946.
He received his BA from the Department of Religious Interpretation
at Raden Intan State Islamic Institute in Lampung, Sumatra, and
his MA and Ph.D. in the field of Social and Political Science
from the prestigious Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
– graduating cum laude on each occasion.
For many years Dr. Munir has
been an active member of the governing board of the Muhammadiyah,
the world’s second largest Muslim organization with an estimated
30 million members. He has served as Vice-Secretary of the organization
as a whole (2000-2005); as Secretary of the Office for Organization
and Cadres; Secretary of the Council of Religious Interpretation;
and as a member of the Council for Higher Education Research and
Development. Since 1996 Dr. Munir has been a member of the editorial
board of Suara Muhammadiyah (the Muhammadiyah’s official
publication), and since 2002 has served as head of the Central
Muhammadiyah Board’s “Good Governance” Council, with a primary
task of eliminating corruption. In addition, Dr. Munir previously
served as Vice-Secretary of the Yogyakarta branch of the Indonesian
Council of Religious Scholars.
Dr. Munir is a member of the
faculty of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia. He has conducted post-doctoral research at McGill
University in Montreal, Canada, and served as Visiting Research
Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s Institute of Defense
and Strategic Studies in Singapore. He currently serves as a LibForAll
Foundation Fellow.
Dr. Munir is the author of over
40 books and hundreds of articles published in various Indonesian
magazines and newspapers.
Sukardi Rinakit
Sukardi
Rinakit received his B.A. from the Faculty of Social and Political
Sciences, University of Indonesia, Jakarta; his M.A. in Southeast
Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore; and his
Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science, National University
of Singapore. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of the
Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicate (SSS), Jakarta, a non-profit organization
that promotes democracy and supports the transformation of civil
society. His research focuses on the areas of the military, terrorism,
security policy, political culture, the process of decentralization,
the relationships between religion, politics and civil society,
and the protection of human rights in Indonesia.
Dr. Sukardi is the former Head of Department, Research and Development
Institute, All Indonesian Labor Unions and a former ghost writer
for the Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Security and
Defense. He has published hundreds of articles in leading journals
and national newspapers and is extensively quoted in such publications.
He has also published numerous books, including a recent one in
English, entitled Indonesian Military after the New Order.
Dr. Sukardi is a close confidante of many Indonesian political
leaders, and is privy to the internal dynamics of that nation's
military.
Shaykh Musa Abubaker Admani
Born
in Nairobi, Kenya, Shaykh Musa Abubaker Admani completed his religious
doctorates from the Darul-Ulum Deoband orthodoxy in India, and
has been an Imam in the UK since the early nineties. His early
interest in furthering inter-faith dialogue has earned him a special
place amongst faith communities across the UK. A leading moderate
thinker, the Shaykh lectures extensively on Islam’s role in the
West, loyalty to one’s country, citizenship, distortion of Jihad
as acts of terror and many other contemporary issues. In 2001,
he became the first imam to be officially appointed to Higher
Education at the London Metropolitan University. He formally established
the Luqman Institute of Education and Development in 2003 in order
to address the challenges facing Muslim communities in the West
and to promote greater civic participation and social harmony.
Magnus Ranstorp
Dr.
Magnus Ranstorp is the Research Director of the Centre for Asymmetric
Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College, directing
a large funded project on Strategic Terrorist Threats to Europe
which focuses on both radicalisation and recruitment of salafist-jihadist
terrorists across Europe and the critical issue of the convergence
between CBRN and terrorism.
Previously he was the Director of Centre for the Study of Terrorism
and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St Andrews,
Scotland. He is the author of Hizballah in Lebanon and other numerous
articles and monographs on terrorism and counter-terrorism. His
most recent edited book is Mapping Terrorism Research: State of
the Art, Gaps and Future Direction (Routledge, 2006). He is on
the International Editorial Advisory Board of the academic journal
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. Additionally, he is also on
the Editorial Board of Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict as well
as Critical Terrorism Studies, two new international, peer-reviewed,
interdisciplinary journals published by Taylor & Francis.
He is Advisor to the Terrorism Project on Violent Radicalisation
led by the Danish Institute of International Studies as well as
Scientific Advisor to the DHS Center of Excellence START programme
led by the University of Maryland. He is also on the Advisory
Board of CSTPV, University of St Andrews.
He is internationally recognised as a leading expert on Hizballah,
Hamas, al-Qaeda and other militant Islamic movements. He has conducted
extensive field work around the world, interviewing hundreds of
terrorists as well as members of militant Islamic movements. His
work on the behaviour of the Hizballah movement was recognized
by Israeli media in March 2000 as among the contributing factors
leading to the decision by the Israeli government to withdraw
from southern Lebanon.
Dr. Ranstorp has briefed many senior government and security officials
from around the world and lectures regularly to most major universities,
think tanks and intergovernmental organisations. In 2003, he was
invited to testify before the 9-11 Commission in its first hearing.
He was also a member of an Advisory Panel on Terrorism in Europe
advising the EU counterterrorism coordinator. In 2005, he was
a contributor to the George C. Marshall Center directed project
on: Ideological War on Terror: Synthesizing Strategies Worldwide
(a project funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defence).
In 2006 Dr Ranstorp was invited to join the European Commission
Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation, an official advisory body
on all matters relating to violent radicalisation and recruitment
of extremists within the EU.
He is an elected Fellow of The Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences.
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Kyai Haji Achmad Mustofa Bisri is often called “Sang
Kyai Pembelajar” – the Great Religious Scholar Devoted
to Learning – by members of the world’s largest Islamic
organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Widely revered as a religious
scholar, poet, novelist, painter and Muslim intellectual, “Gus
Mus” (Brother MUStofa) has strongly influenced the NU’s
social and political development over the past thirty years.