Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Empowering moderates to speak up in the increasingly divided Islamic world is essential to promote peace and cultivate interfaith harmony, the chairman of Indonesia's largest Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama said Tuesday.
Hasyim Muzadi, addressing the opening of the second International Conference of Islam Scholars, said challenges in today's Islamic world required the strengthening of the voice of moderates in the modernization of the religion.
"Moderates are not those without an opinion. Moderates are those with strong views based on a conviction about what is right and just. Moderates strike the balance between faith and tolerance for peace and social welfare, and maintain solidarity."
Hasyim hoped the conference, organized by the NU and bringing together more than 300 scholars from 53 countries, would be able to serve such a need through "pooling intellectual resources and integrate endeavors to promote solidarity".
He also said there should be concerted efforts to eliminate the use of symbols of religion to justify acts of violence and terror. "People need to share common ideas about peace, and this conference is seeking for us to promote modernization in Islam. There is such a discouraging phenomenon in the form of conflicts that continue to plague the Islamic world."
In his remarks, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned about the rising global prejudice against Islam, and urged Muslims to demonstrate the religion's teachings were peaceful and encourage understanding of different faiths.
"Islamophobia is an emerging issue for today's Muslims. It is pertinent for us to think about how Muslims should live in countries where Islam is not the religion of the majority. It's also pertinent for us to show, through exemplary deeds and persistent advocacy, that Muslims are peaceful."
Yudhoyono, noting drawn-own conflicts in Muslim populated countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan, stressed the importance of enhancing the role of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to reach a resolution.
"It's important to ensure that we tell our non-Muslim fellows what we want them to understand as it is to ensure that we listen to what they want us to understand. We reach out as we take out." The head of hard-line organization Islam Defenders Front (FPI), Habib Rizieq, said that the world's governments should provide immediate answers to the problems of global-scale injustice, which he said was the cause of such radicalism.
However, he declined to comment on whether hard-line organizations should bear religious symbols in striving for their cause.