Moderate Muslims fear fundamentalist backlash from war

Ulil Abshar-Abdalla knows how hard it is to speak out about reforming Islam. The Indonesian cleric runs the Liberal Islam Network and is a member of an interfaith organization promoting tolerance. Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, also has significant Hindu and Christian minorities.

Late last year, Athian Ali, an Indonesian cleric who advocates an Islamic state, issued a death threat against Mr. Ulil because of the latter's argument that wearing a veil and cutting off the hands of thieves are not required under Islam.

Other Islamic opponents have sought to brand him a "US puppet" for his views. Ulil worries that his struggle could lose further ground in the event of a US invasion.

"There is a possibility that this war will increase the prominence of the radicals and make their opinions seem more credible,'' he says. "It's not happening yet, but that could change as soon as there are civilian casualties."

Indonesian Islamist political groups who say they expect big gains in the 2004 election, have begun to criticize the government for not being strong enough in its condemnation of the US. President Megawati Sukarnoputri has upped the antiwar rhetoric in response. Five cabinet ministers attended antiwar protests earlier this month.

A minor casualty of invasion may also be the loss of US prestige in the eyes of reformers like Ulil. "For people like me, it's easy to separate between the American government and American people - but of course I'm really disappointed by the Bush administration. From my perspective, the Bush war in Iraq is a sort of jihad, its own sort of fundamentalism."

Yesterday, Islamic scholars in Cairo called on Muslims to fight a jihad if US forces invade Iraq. Their comments followed a sermon last week by a moderate Egyptian cleric, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, asking Muslims not to aid US troops.

Erstwhile Muslim allies are being pushed away from America. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed delivered a thinly veiled attack on the US earlier this month that stung US officials, who had been pleased with Malaysia's efforts to neutralize Al Qaeda-linked terror cells over the past year.

Political analysts say that while Dr. Mahathir's comments probably reflected his opinions, the force and publicity with which they were delivered was calculated to protect his own position from attack by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), his principal opposition and an advocate of making Malaysia an Islamic state. PAS has been gaining in strength in recent years, and has often sought to portray the secular Mahathir as pro-American.

Most frightening, from a US perspective, has been the boom in support for fundamentalist Islamic parties in Pakistan, which have used the US ties of the regime of General Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, to win political support.

In national elections last October, the Islamist coalition won a third of the seats in parliament and control of the Northwest Frontier province by hammering Musharraf on his support for the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Page: 1 | 2