INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES SPRING 2016
origin of regulation for non-religious practice is everything is lawful , except if there is specific regulation which bans the case ). For NU , the religious guidance is not always from Qur ’ an and hadiths , but possible through other methods such as ijma ( consensus ), qiyas ( analogy ), and urf ( local tradition ). Regarding Islamic texts not mentioning a specific form of a state , NU did not consider establishing an Islamic state as a religious obligation so that it was willing to negotiate the form of state with other socio-political forces ( Abdurrahman Wahid , 2007b , p . 300 ).
Wahid understands that the NU ’ s support for the contemporary political system or regimes was different from one time to another . He argues that the NU ’ s support for the Netherland East Indies was in terms of country , not in terms of the state , because it did not participate in the management of the state . In this regard , NU justified the existence of the NEI because the latter facilitated an institution for managing internal Muslim affairs in a way acceptable to the NU . Meanwhile , in 1945 NU justified the Republic of Indonesia in terms of its acceptance of the form of the state with its national ideology . By doing so , NU leaders have participated in the governance of the state since 1945 , both as officials and politicians . At last , in 1984 NU accepted the supremacy of the national ideology as it adopted Pancasila as the basis of its organization which implies the goals of Indonesian government is similar to those of NU ( Abdurrahman Wahid , 1989 , pp . 11-12 ). When the Soeharto regime tried systematically to marginalize the role of NU in national political life , some NU leaders responded creatively to assure the existence of NU without losing its critical stand towards the regime . NU was the first mass organization to accept Pancasila as the only basis for political party and mass organization . This flexibility is rooted in NU ’ s Fiqh paradigm approach to the relationship between Islam and the state , recognizing Islam and the state as different entities , besides NU ’ s understanding of the plurality of Shari ’ a . It was not easy for the followers of the Islamic ideological paradigm to accept Pancasila as the basis for their organizations because they believe in the monolithic Shari ’ a .
Apart from the modernist Muslims ’ adoption of Islamic ideological paradigm , the Soeharto regime developed more accommodation to them than to the traditionalist Muslims , especially NU , as the regime tried to make use of them to reduce the political role of the traditionalist Muslims . Consequently , in 1984 NU corrected its political preference to PPP ( the United Development Party ) and declared its neutrality to any political parties . As a result , the Soeharto regime became more favourable to the followers of NU , but it was not easy for him to co-opt Abdurrahman Wahid , the executive leader of NU . Accordingly , the regime continued developing close cooperation with the modernist Muslims within ICMI for the purpose of marriage of convenience : the regime made use of them to create a political balance to the military , meanwhile the modernist Muslims persuaded the regime to support their agenda for bureaucratization of Islam in the form of creating ‘ Islamic society ’ ( masyarakat Islam ) ( Subianto , 2008 , p . 176 ). In this regard , Wahid was critical of ICMI for its support of the autocratic regime as well as its agendas of bureaucratization of Islam , which
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