Islamic Foundations Shaking

Gamechange!

World’s largest Islamic organisation drops legal category of “infidel” in historic decision

The Barnabas Fund

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Indonesian Muslim political party and world’s largest moderate Muslim movement, has made a significant break with Islamic conservatism in an unprecedented decision to abolish the legal category of “infidel” (kafir) for non-Muslims.

The groundbreaking move, apparently aimed at sweeping away Islamic doctrines often used by extremists to justify terrorism, was first announced at the NU national conference in West Java earlier in 2019.

Around 20,000 Muslim scholars gathered to create and endorse a new Islamic legal framework (fiqh). The new rulings include a raft of changes embracing the modern definition of nation state, instead of a caliphate, and recognising all as “fellow citizens”, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity, with equal rights and obligation to obey modern national laws.

Kafir has become a very derogatory and insulting term for non-Muslims. In classical Islamic law they are to be killed. Christians and Jews, “the people of the book”, have dhimmi status which means they are not to be killed so long as they submit themselves to the Islamic authorities and follow a number of demeaning and humiliating regulations that show their second-class status.

The decrees speak of the obligation of Muslims to “foster peace rather than wage war” wherever there is conflict in the world between Muslim and non-Muslim populations.

Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation and the NU claims to have more than 90 million members. Its revisions of Islamic doctrine and legal rulings are expected to reverberate throughout the Muslim world.

State Terrorism

Cruel and Unjust Punishment

With the execution of the Bali Nine in Indonesia the death penalty has come back into the frame.  According to Wikipedia, Indonesia maintains the ultimate judicial sanction for nineteen offences:

• Attempt with intent to deprive the President or Vice-President of his or her life or liberty or to render him or her unfit to govern (Indonesian Criminal Code (Kitab UU Hukum Pidana – KUHP) Art. 104)
• Aiding or protecting Indonesia’s enemies at war (KUHP Art. 123 & 124)
• Fraud in delivery of military materials in time of war (KUHP Art. 127)
• Killing the head of state of a friendly state (KUHP Art. 140)
• Premeditated murder (KUHP Art. 340)
• Robbery or theft resulting in grave injury or death (KUHP Art. 365)
• Piracy resulting in death (KUHP Art. 444)
• Instigating or inciting rebellion or riot against a state defense company during times of war (KUHP)
• Extortion with violence (KUHP)
• Possession and misuse of firearm and/or other explosive (Emergency Law No. 12/1951)
• Criminal acts during air flights or against aviation infrastructure (Law No. 4/1976)
• Production, transit, import and possession of psychotropic drugs (Law No. 5/1997 on Psychotropic Drugs)
• Production, transit, import and possession of narcotics (Law No. 22/1997 on Narcotics)
• Corruption under “certain circumstances,” including repeat offenders and corruption committed during times of national emergency/disaster (Law No. 31/1999 on Corruption)
• Gross violations of human rights, including genocide and crimes against humanity (Law No. 26/2000 on Human Rights Courts)
• Acts of terrorism (Law No. 15/2003 on Combating Criminal Acts of Terrorism)

However, in actuality only murder and drug trafficking have resulted in the ultimate penalty being handed out.  But more sinister is the fact that the death penalty has been applied in Indonesia extremely rarely (whether for murder or drug trafficking) until this year (2015), where fourteen people have been executed for drug trafficking thus far.

It seems as though a political campaign is underway in Indonesia.