Against the Jihadists

Jeff Jacoby talks to Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia and chairman of its largest Muslim organization, the 35 million-member Nadhlatul Ulama (via Solomonia):

”I have been called ‘Chrislam’ because I am so close to Christians,” Abdurrahman Wahid is saying. ”When I was criticized by a certain Muslim preacher for not being harsh enough against the ‘kaffir’ [infidels] — for being too close to Jews and Christians — I told him to read the Koran again. Because when the Koran speaks of ‘infidels,’ it means idolaters,” not monotheists.

Wahid, the former president of Indonesia, is speaking to me by phone from his office in Jakarta. With him is C. Holland Taylor, an American entrepreneur who fell in love with Indonesian culture en route to making a fortune in the telecom industry. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Taylor created the LibForAll Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting Islamist extremism by promoting a culture of liberty and tolerance in the Muslim world; Wahid is the foundation’s patron and senior adviser. […]

Taylor argues that because of Indonesia’s long tradition of pluralism, and because of Wahid’s great following, Indonesia is the ideal base from which to launch an intellectual and cultural assault against the jihadists’ ideology. The ”essence” of Islam, he and Wahid maintain, is summed up in the words of the Koran (Sura 109:6): ”For you, your religion; for me, my religion.” But whether such a message will resonate in the Arab world remains to be seen. After all, jihadists quote the Koran too, and the verses they cite are as intolerant and supremacist as Wahid’s is pacific and humane.

But there is no doubting Wahid’s commitment to interfaith harmony. He tells Indonesian Muslims that they can learn from Christianity and Christian life, and has dispatched armed members of Nadhlatul Ulama to protect Christian churches from Islamist violence. Not long ago, one of Wahid’s Muslim adherents was killed when he discovered a bomb in a church and used his body to shield the Christian worshipers from its blast. That stunning act of selflessness is a powerful reminder that Muslims no less than non-Muslims have a great deal riding on the defeat of the Islamofascists, and that we will not win the war against radical Islam without Muslim allies like Wahid.