Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

2 0 2Islam i n World Cult u r e sthis, there were also a number of more general compromises in which at leastsome of the more politically oriented figures within NU were willing to supportgovernment development programs, including those considered religiouslycontroversial, such as family planning. In general, a shift in organizationalorientation that accompanied the return was acknowledged in order toallow NU to redirect its energies, especially in the area of education, in moreproductive directions than those pursued in relation to the organization’s previouspolitical preoccupations.Although NU has long been considered to represent adherents to a moretraditionalist Islam, this characterization must be considerably qualified to describeits later configuration. The reorientation of the NU’s primary focusaway from party politics and toward religious and social activities also affordeda reascendancy of wider influence for the u l a m a , who had originally been theo r g a n i z a t i o n ’s core constituents. In addition, since NU’s acceptance of P a n-c a s i l a in 1984 as an ideological foundation, a spirit of open inquiry into religiousquestions grew within the younger ranks of the organization. The NUcontinues to emphasize the traditions of Muslim scholarship, especially the importanceof following the jurisprudence of one of the established Sunnischools of law, and it has also in the New Order years and after effected a powerful transformation of mainstream Islam in a secular state.These developments within the ranks of the NU involved a conscious reevaluationof the traditional corpus of Muslim scholarship with an eye to establishingits relevance to contemporary needs. The changes within the NU in theNew Order years coincided with a renewed interest in the canon of establishedMuslim scholarship by thinkers outside the organization. It may be that thesedevelopments within the NU were actually facilitated by the development of agrowing appreciation of the traditional corpus of Muslim scholarship by Indonesianneomodernists. Across a spectrum of Muslim thought in contempora ry Indonesia, many progressive thinkers had come to recognize the shortcomingsof “classical modernism” and were searching for ways to accessuniversally Islamic sources of depth, authenticity, and authority in their approachto Islam in order to solve real social and religious problems. In thoughtand practice, many Indonesian Muslims were reaffirming models of revelation,especially the Qur’an, the primary orientation for what Mark Woodward (1996)has termed a “new paradigm” of positive social change in the modern world.Scripturalist Reformism and the Call for IjtihadTo this day, the mainstay of Muslim education in NU circles remains the p e-s a n t re n tradition. Other Muslim organizations, as well as the Indonesian government,of course introduced some major structural, curricular, and institu-