NU committed to disseminating Islam Nusantara

Surabaya, NU Online
As the country's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is committed to disseminating the ideas of Islam Nusantara based on the teachings of Ahlussunnah wal jamaah (Aswaja).

Chairman of the East Java's Maarif NU Prof Dr KH Abdul Haris made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting with NU Online here recently, saying that Islam Nusantara widely propagated by the Nahdliyin-based organization was a typical Indonesian Islam that promotes tolerance in addition to accepting differences, whether religious, ethnic, racial, or cultural.
"Thus, the NU ideas of Islam Nusantara become a primary element in building solidarity through such inclusive values as tawasuth (moderation), tasamuh (tolerance), taáwun (mutual help), tawazun (harmony), and others," Kiai Haris said.

According to him, the inclusive values have plunged on the basis of the awareness of Muslims in Indonesia. Instead of expressions of worship and religious rites alone, Indonesian Islam has also been formed by and embedded in it the aspects such as cultures, traditions, customs and others.

He added that the religious life of Muslims at this time was inseparable from the process of dakwa (religious propaganda) or the spread of Islam in Indonesia since a few centuries earlier.

"Before Islam arrived in Indonesia, the cultures of the archipelago had mostly been influenced by long-standing religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, including various traditional beliefs such as animism, dynamism, and so on," he said.

"The Islamic cultures eventually became small traditions in the swirl of the great traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. The small traditions then affected each other and maintained their existence." (Masdar)