Although my ancestors have lived in the southeast of the
United States for over three centuries, I personally have
lived, travelled and worked in Muslim-majority countries for
much of my life. At the age of nine, I moved to Iran with my
family and was immersed in Persian culture for three years,
from 1965-68. The sound of the Muslim call to prayer was
thus integral to my childhood, as was the pluralistic,
tolerant and spiritual form of Islam practiced by most
Iranians.
While attending high school in Germany during the early
seventies, I twice journeyed overland through the Middle
East and beyond - to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
- where I further explored Islam's diverse cultural
expressions and rich artistic heritage.
During the 1990s, I was the CEO of an international
telecommunications firm that sold a strategic stake to the
national carrier of Indonesia. This led to my eventual
retirement from the telecom industry, my relocation to Java
and my study of its history and to the establishment of the
LibForAll ("Liberty for All") Foundation in conjunction with
Indonesia's first democratically-elected president,
Abdurrahman Wahid.
SITUATED ON Islam's eastern periphery, Indonesia has long
been known to have the most liberal, tolerant version of
that religion practiced anywhere on earth. But back in the
sixteenth century, newly Muslim city-states along its
northern coast destroyed local Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms as
they extended their power to the island's interior, causing
great upheaval.
Flush with victory, fanatical adherents of the new
religion - many of Arab or Chinese descent - spread terror
as they sought to eradicate the island's ancient cultural
heritage. Opposing them were indigenous Javanese - now led
by Muslim saints and political figures, such as Sunan
Kalijogo - who sought continuity and common ground between
religions.
For nearly a hundred years, the opposing forces struggled
for the soul of Java - and, ultimately, for that of
Indonesian Islam - in a war whose decisive engagements
occurred not only on the field of battle, but in the hearts
and minds of countless individuals. For in this conflict
between religious extremists and Sufi Muslims, the Sufis'
profound spiritual ideology - popularized among the masses
by saints, storytellers and musicians - played a role even
more vital than that of military force in defeating
religious extremism in Java. Indeed, my own lifelong
appreciation for one of the world's great religious
traditions had only been heightened by my exposure to the
rich spiritual legacy of Sufism, or mystical Islam, which
lies at the heart of most Muslim societies worldwide.
In the end, a new dynasty arose, which established
religious tolerance as the rule of law, and guaranteed
freedom of conscience to all Javanese - long before similar
ideas took firm root in the West. The founder of that
dynasty was a Javanese Sufi Muslim named Senopating Alogo,
whose victory was based on the popular appeal of his message
of freedom, justice and profound inner spirituality.
IN THE wake of 9/11 and a series of terrorist attacks in
Indonesia, President Wahid and I established the LibForAll
Foundation - inspired by the methods used by President
Wahid's own ancestors to defend Javanese culture from
religious extremism five centuries ago.
Within Indonesia, we have formed a network of opinion
leaders in the fields of religion, education, popular
culture, government, business and the media working to
preserve their culture's enlightened embrace of religious
tolerance and diversity in the face of a renewed tide of
extremism that is sweeping the entire Muslim world.
We are also busy expanding on LibForAll's success in
Indonesia to export the smiling face of Islam, by linking
"moderate" Muslim leaders "in a network of lighthouses
within the Muslim world that will promote tolerance and
freedom of thought and worship." As a result, LibForAll's
field of operations has expanded to include South Asia, the
Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States.
The key to success in this global struggle is encouraging
Muslim opinion leaders in all walks of life to join in
proclaiming that "the emperor has no clothes" (that
is, radical Islam has no theological validity), and thereby
mobilize the "great silent majority" of Muslims to reject
the extremists' ideology of hatred and violence.
The analogy of the emperor with no clothes is apt, and
key to LibForAll's strategy. For despite efforts to
legitimize their ideology of religious hatred by draping
themselves in the "mantle of the Prophet" radical Muslims
are in fact the heirs of the Kharijite movement - a violent,
heretical sect that murdered the Prophet's own son-in-law,
Ali, for being "insufficiently Muslim."
Our goals were aptly summarized by President Wahid when
he wrote: "Muslims themselves can and must propagate an
understanding of the 'right' Islam, and thereby discredit
extremist ideology. Yet to accomplish this task requires the
understanding and support of like-minded individuals,
organizations and governments throughout the world. Our goal
must be to illuminate the hearts and minds of humanity, and
offer a compelling alternate vision of Islam as a religion
of Divine love and tolerance that banishes the fanatical
ideology of hatred to the darkness from which it emerged."
The writer is chairman & CEO of the LibForAll
Foundation, www.libforall.org, an Indonesia and US-based
non-profit organization that works to reduce religious
extremism and discredit the use of terrorism.
