For
decades, Indonesian society has experienced a slow process of Islamization. In
2017, the pace picked up.
By Sebastian
Strangio
JAKARTA
– Five months after its closure, the doors of the Al-Hidayah mosque were sealed
with wooden planks and crisscrossed with yellow police tape, as if it some kind
of grisly crime had taken place within. Barred from entering their house of
worship by official order, four young men held their midday prayer in the heat
outside, their bodies bent towards a large sign driven into the concrete by the
local authorities. Its message was emblazoned in red: “Activities are banned.”
In
February, police converged on this green-tiled mosque in Depok, 15 kilometers
south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, to enforce an order sealing off the
building until further notice. The order followed a clamor from Islamic
fundamentalists, who held protests calling for the expulsion of this small
congregation of Ahmadi Muslims from the district. “We had a permit to build
this mosque, so we have no idea why they sealed it,” said Abdul Gofur, 42, the
caretaker of the site.
The
unpretentious Al-Hidayah mosque, a box-like building lacking the otherworldly
dome and minaret of many Muslim houses of worship, has a long history of
run-ins with the local authorities. Gofur said the mosque had been “sealed” six
times since 2011, and has survived a concerted campaign from hardline vigilante
groups, including the notorious Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI, which sees
Ahmadis as heretics and apostates.
On
June 23, two nights before Idul Fitri (as Eid al-Fitr is known in Indonesia),
the festival marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, Gofur said that
white-robed militants pelted the building with eggs and paint, and strung up
spray-painted banners calling for the expulsion of the Ahmadiyah. The
400-strong congregation has erected its own signs reading, “Love for All,
Hatred for None.”
The
Ahmadi minority numbers around 500,000 people scattered across this island
nation of 260 million. The sect is not officially recognized in Indonesia,
which acknowledges just six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism,
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. While most Ahmadiyah see themselves as
Muslims, they cleave to unorthodox tenets: the sect has its own holy text, the
Tadzkirah, and does not regard Muhammad as the final prophet – a belief that
many Indonesians see as heresy. As a result, they have become both a subject of
official discrimination, and a target for religious vigilantes.
Things
got particularly bad after 2007, when a leading clerical body declared the Ahmadiyah
a deviant sect; the following year, then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
signed a decree banning Ahmadi Muslims from disseminating their faith. Following
the decree, mosques were shuttered and burned, and members of the community
were subject to violent attacks. In February 2011, west of Jakarta in Banten
province, three Ahmadi men were beaten to death by a mob; the perpetrators
received only light sentences. According to the Jakarta-based Setara Institute
for Democracy and Peace, which monitors religious freedom in Indonesia, there
have been a total of 546 violent incidents against Ahmadi Muslims since 2007.
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Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons; Beawiharta Beawiharta, Reuters
