COVER STORY Standing Up for Islam
Muslims are fighting back—not just against the West but also against the militancy in their midst. A TIME Special Report on the diversity of Islam in Asia
After Bali
Asia—and the world—reels after a devastating attack (Oct. 28, 2002)
Indonesia's Rage Culture
Why does a moderate Islamic nation serve as a hotbed for religious extremists? (Oct. 28, 2002)
Taking the Hard Road
Indonesia's tough choice: crack down on extremists and risk backlash—or incur America's wrath (Sep. 30, 2002)
The Moderate Majority
Asia's progressive Islam can be a strong weapon against extremism (Oct. 28, 2002)
A Jihadi's Tale — page 2
It begins after midday prayers at Al-Azhar mosque in south Jakarta, with a young student—long hair, blue jeans, moustache—being confronted by an Indonesian man some 12 years his senior seeking recruits for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. "What are you doing while your brothers are being slaughtered?" the man reproaches him. "Don't call yourself a Muslim until you do something meaningful for Islam." Habib becomes furious, thinking, "ŒHow dare he talk to me that way?' I come from a religious background!" It is the mid-1980s, and Habib has just met the man who will alter the course of his life.
Habib's background is indeed religious, but not austerely so. His grandfather was a pious man who had visited many Muslim countries as the captain of a German-owned merchant ship, and who lived to the age of 97—just long enough to teach his grandson some first words of Arabic. Habib's late father made him recite a portion of the Koran each evening until the boy knew most of it by heart. When he was 10, Habib accompanied his father on the hajj. It was the same year a fanatic attacked the holy Kaaba, and with the atmosphere among the pilgrims particularly tense, Habib stuck close to his father's side. "I remember walking through the market, hearing him talk Arabic for the first time," he recalls. The rest was a blur of relatives—doting Arabs who boasted the same name as the Indonesian boy and the same illustrious bloodline. For the first time Habib became aware of his place in a larger Muslim world.
Though born in Ambon, Habib grew up in Jakarta in relative prosperity—"not rich like Osama," he winks, "but still good." Good enough that his father could buy him a secondhand Mercedes to tool around town after he enrolled in a business course at a private university. He also taught himself guitar. "This is Indonesia!" he cries. "You're not a man if you don't play the guitar." Or if you didn't dance: at that time the film Grease ruled cinemas across the globe. "Those were the John Travolta days," says Habib.
But his Travolta days were numbered. In 1979 the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran was deposed and Ayatullah Khomeini returned from exile to Tehran to proclaim an Islamic republic. For Muslims the world over, the Iranian revolution was an inspirational event that demonstrated that Islam could reinvent itself into a cleansing, populist force with the power to topple repressive regimes. "We all loved Khomeini," says Habib. "I had a big poster of him in my room. I remember my father telling me, ŒKhomeini is a very brave man for standing up to the Americans.' It was an amazing time. I went to the Iranian embassy in Jakarta to get free books about Khomeini. The people there asked me, ŒAre you ShiŒa, then?' And I replied, ŒSure. What the heck?'"
The euphoria didn't last. The same year ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At home, Islamic opposition to Suharto's rule was growing increasingly violent and would peak in September 1984, when troops opened fire on Muslim demonstrators at Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, killing 33 people. In the following years Suharto's security apparatus snuffed out almost all Muslim agitation and sent many radicals into exile. Among them was a still obscure Muslim cleric called Abubakar Ba'asyir who later earned global notoriety as the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the regional terror outfit believed to be behind the Bali bombings and other atrocities. Abubakar—who, like Habib, is of Yemeni descent—fled in 1985 to Malaysia, which would soon become a breeding ground for radical Islamic groups from across the region.
The seeds of another form of extremism were also sown in these turbulent years. Saudi Arabia regarded the ShiŒa revolution in Iran as a direct challenge to its puritanical interpretation of Sunni teaching, known as Wahhabism—the same creed spouted by Osama bin Laden and other extremists. The Saudi government channeled millions of petrodollars into a campaign to prevent the spread of ShiŒism worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, this campaign included distributing leaflets condemning any deviation from Wahhabi teaching, building mosques and paying Indonesian students to attend the hard-line Al-Jamia Al-Islamia University in Medina—"Wahhabi U.," as Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group's Jakarta chapter calls it. It is no coincidence that most radical groups in Indonesia today have ideological affinities with Wahhabism.
