Asian Muslim Fundamentalists Will Fight Anti-U.S. Jihad

Signs of an impending attack on Kabul, which will embroil Muslims in the region and beyond, have raised the question of whether moderate Islam will end up a casualty of the war, with its more liberal stance giving way to a rigid conservatism.

Already, an increasing number of the region's more conservative Muslims are openly challenging the positions of their respective governments in backing any U.S.-led military assault on Afghanistan.

In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, this is most visible in some mosques around the country. A tough, anti-American rhetoric has become a regular feature during sermons.

Some preachers have even called on their congregation to prepare for a jihad (holy war) if the U.S.-led international military force attacks Afghanistan. An attack on the predominantly Muslim Afghanistan would be tantamount to an attack on Islam, according to these preachers.

Among those who have heeded the call is Surayana, a student at an Islamic boarding school. "I have registered to go to Afghanistan. I have told my family that they might lose me," he says.

Others feel similarly, although they condemn the attacks on New York and Washington that resulted in more than 6,000 deaths.

"Many innocent people became victims in the attack. It was unjustified," says Habib Husein Al Habsyi, the leader of the Ikhwanul Muslimin Indonesia, one of the country's radical Muslim groups.

However, his organization has plans to "do something if the U.S. invades Afghanistan," he adds.

In Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country, dissent has been voiced by the country's opposition party, the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the PAS spiritual advisor, has said that Muslims are obliged to help in any way if any of their countries are attacked. Such support could even mean "sending personnel," he adds.

This week, a section of Thailand's Muslims, who are a minority in this largely Buddhist country, displayed signs of joining the bandwagon. "The United States has insufficient evidence to justify an attack on the Taliban government of Afghanistan for sheltering Osama bin Laden," declared a statement released after a meeting held at the Central Islamic Committee.

The governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are backing the United States in its effort to find bin Laden and his associates, whom Washington identifies as the principal suspects behind the Sept. 11 acts of terror on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But moderates in Indonesia dismiss the current cries to battle against the United States as the work of radical Muslim groups. "The anti-American sentiments and calls for jihad by several Muslim organizations do not represent Indonesia's Muslim majority," says Afif Muhammed, an Islamic scholar at the Bandung-based Islamic University.

In neighboring Malaysia, moderates have likewise dismissed calls for a "holy war" by vocal Muslim groups. Muslims in Malaysia should not fall for the jihad cry, argues Dr. Ismail Ibrahim, chairman of the country's National Fatwa Council.

If the United States attacked Afghanistan, it would not be an attack on Islam but aimed at finding the enemies of the United States, he adds.

These moderate voices are also banking on the region's tolerant side to prevail. That is a unique feature of Muslims in this region, says Muhammed.

According to Surin Pitsuwan, Thailand's former foreign minister and a member of the country's Muslim minority, the tolerant and moderate traits in Southeast Asian Islam stems from the region's diverse and multi-cultural roots.

"Muslims in Southeast Asia have been able to adapt to and adopt modern ways of living more readily than their co-religionists in other parts of the world, the heartland of Islam," he wrote in a commentary last week in The Nation, an independent daily here.

"This distinction has become a point of controversy ever since Islam arrived in our region over 10 centuries ago. Some consider the Southeast Asian brand of Islam less pure, and our Muslims less puritanical and less true to their faith than those in the Middle East and South Asia," he added.

Currently, East Asian Muslims consist of 170.3 million in Indonesia, 22.1 million in China, 10.8 million in Malaysia, 3.9 million in the Philippines, 3.3 million in Thailand and 500,000 in Singapore.

It is these numbers that the region's religious radicals are hoping to tap to build greater solidarity for their cause. What they seek is "Muslim solidarity and Muslim brotherhood" against "certain powers who dislike Islam and who disagree with Islamic values," says an Indonesian cleric.

Yesterday, Indonesia's leading Islamic scholars gave their imprimatur to such thinking. The Council of Ulemas (Muslim scholars) approved a call "on all Muslims of the world to unite and mobilize their forces to fight in the path of Allah (a jihad) should the aggression of the United States and its allies against Afghanistan and the Islamic world take place."

For the moment, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has refused to budge from her current stance to back any U.S.-led strike.