Nahdlatul Ulama Meeting Offers Ban on Calling Non-Muslims Kafir

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Members of the national Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Munas Alim Ulama meeting recommended that the country's largest Islamic group should refrain from calling non-Muslim Indonesians kafir. 

Meeting chair Abdul Moqsith Ghazali said the kyais (Islamic teachers) deemed the use of the term kafir could offend non-Muslim Indonesians.

“It’s considered to contain theological violence. It’s the reason the kyais, with respect, will not use the term kafir and exchange it instead with muwathinun, which means a citizen. This way their status is equal to other Indonesians,” said Abdul at the Pondok Pesantren (Islamic boarding school) Miftahul Huda Al-Azhar in Banjar City, West Java on Thursday, February 28. 

Read: NU, Muhammadiyah Urged to Promote Tolerant Islam Worldwide

He asserted this suggestion did not mean that NU was attempting to entirely erase the term kafir from the holy Al Quran, but rather a reaction to the term that had been abused by certain groups as a discriminative term.

“Labeling Indonesian citizens who participated in designing the country with the word kafir is not wise,” he said.

He added the recommendation to bar the word kafir showed NU’s position on the matter, and that it would not be officially forwarded to the Recommendation Commission but will rather be discussed in the Munas Alim Ulama session. 

AHMAD FAIZ IBNU SANI