QIJIS : Qudus International Journal of Islamic Studies
Volume 7, Number 1, 2019
DOI : 10.21043/qijis.v7i1.5076
REVOLUTION OF ISLAMIC PROSELYTIZING ORGANIZATION:
From Islamism to Moderate
Ilyya Muhsin
Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN), Salatiga
ilyya_muhsin@iainsalatiga.ac.id
Nikmah Rochmawati
Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) Walisongo, Semarang
rahma_mewangi@walisongo.ac.id
Muhammad Chairul Huda
Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang
muhammadchairulhuda@students.undip.ac.id
Abstract
The Student Islamic proselytizing Organization (LDK) became
a machine of cadre forming and expansion for Islamic political
movements, Ikhwanul Muslimim (Muslim Brotherhood) and
Hizbut Tahrir to achieve their ideological ambitions. These
movements were believed to have harmful threat for Islamic
moderate in Indonesia. Therefore, the adherents of Islamic
moderate at IAIN were trying to take over LDK IAIN Salatiga
from Ikhwanul Muslimin. This study aimed to describe and
analyze revolutionary movement and its development in
shaping moderate LDK networking. This study used descriptive
qualitative method. The data were taken from the study of
literature, interview and field observation. Research findings
showed that taking over LDK IAIN Salatiga by moderate group
was started with shaping LDK Nusantara as a means to form
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cadres. Having been successful in taking over LDK IAIN Salatiga,
it then went out from the networking of LDK Ikhwanul Muslimin
and planned to establish moderate LDK networking among
universities which was called FKKDKN (Communication Forum
for-in Campus Islamic proselytizing a whole Archipelago/
Nusantara). This article is expected to inspire moderate
movements on campuses believed to be machine to form cadres
of Islamic political movement and radicalism.
Keywords: LDK, Islamisme, Islamic Moderate, Revolutionary
Movement.
A. Introduction
Islamism is a global issue that emerged along with Islamism
ideological proliferation throughout the world via transnational
movement. Many Islamic countries in the world posses such
movement. Egypt, for example, experienced Islamic movement
along with the revolution and strong civil society movement
(Berman, 2003). Likewise in Tunisia, Islamism emerged along with
the country’s transition (Zeghal, 2013). Pakistan also experienced
the similar change where Islamism gave tremendous effect creating
an outstanding Sunni militancy (Nasr, 2000).
In Indonesian context, the development of Islamism is
so massive that various movements have lasted over the past
four decades. Even today, the Islamism movement is increasingly
strengthened in the lives of Indonesian society and carried out
massive contestation in the lives, both structurally and culturally.
The four decades were not a short journey. The first two decades
was a period of underground struggle. They oriented towards
cadres production at university level and strengthened them by
intensifying the understanding and direction of the struggle to be
the future pillar for this Islamic movement. This movement was
called Student Islamic Proselytizing Organization (LDK). Thus, the
LDK was born along with the Islamic movement at universities.
The last two decades was blatant struggle along with the
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fall of New Order dominance that restrained them ideologically.
This blatant endeavour continued with the LDK movement at some
universities or with the formation of new organizations for activists
outside the campus.
The preservation of LDK movement on campus was carried
out more intensively by integrating LDK as part of the intra-campus
activities with full support from the univeristy. While the afteruniversity action was carried out by forming social and political
organizations as a forum to manage their effort. The group affiliated
with Jamaah Tarbiyah formed The Action Group of Indonesian
Moslem Student (KAMMI) and political parties that participate in
Indonesian general election, namely the Justice Party which later
known as Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). While LDK alumni affiliated
with Hizbut Tahrir later became activists and leaders of Hizbut Tahrir
Indonesia (HTI) that always politically oriented even though it is out
of the system available in Indonesia. These two organizations are
the exponents of LDK alumni to continue the struggle from each
group. So, it is clear that the period of open struggle was the massive
movement period with LDK network on campus, as well as political
organizations as the goals of their struggle.
Through this four decades movement, the Islamic religious
life in Indonesia broke down into two groups, namely Islamist and
moderate movement. Islamists always attack not only the ideology,
but also the practice, tradition and even place of worship of its
opponent. Many Islamic-based mosques were threatened with their
ideological weapons, which were purely Islamic in accordance with
salafus shalih life which was not contaminated by tradition and culture.
Even the movement of pure Islam restoration was encouraged and
was used to attack the worship practice of accultural tradition. The
results were amazing. Many changes happened to religious life of the
society, especially in millennial generations in the name of “hijrah”.
In practical political life, many generations of underground
Islamists period become crucial figures and political patrons
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that persist on attacking traditionalist-moderate groups, both in
political contestation and in the ideological debates. This was the
result of their movement for the first two decades, so in the past
two decades they were able to influence the Muslims’ lives.
Cultural domain also significantly changed. Many platforms
were controlled by Islamists, such as social, printed and electronic
media, and the spread of Islamist books as millennial generations’
literature. These all were the form of massive Islamist movement;
surprisingly, it was originated from only one movement, which was
proselytizing movement on campus in the form of LDK. As a result,
with the first two decades, they were able to carry out massive and
blatant movements and directly attacked traditional-moderate groups
leading them to master the Islamic movement in Indonesia. As a
matter of fact, traditional moderates are both defenders of Indonesia’s
moderate Islamic movement and also Pancasila ideology which is the
antithesis of Islamist ideology. From this case, counter movement was
established. There were discourse, movement and expansion that were
carried out continuously by these two groups. Each of them conducted
controversial movements, and the last thing was a new and interesting
thing to study, namely the controversial movement of LDK.
What moderate Islamic groups did among the students of IAIN
Salatiga by forming LDK Nusantara was one form of this movement.
They were aware that LDK was based of massive production of
Islamist generations. For this reason, they formed LDK Nusantara
as the counterpart of Islamists LDK. The battle between Islamists
and moderate Islam was started, namely proselytizing institution on
campus. Then, what is LDK Nusantara like? What do the revolutionary
movement they run? What is the impact of the movement on life of
proselytizing on campus? These are the focus of this study. The aims
of this study are to form an understanding related to LDK Nusantara,
its formation, and its targets that will be achieved by carrying out the
revolutionary movement.
To discuss the problems, this study is narrated qualitatively
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by collecting data, information and sources from the field. The data
were collected from information and sources in the field combined
with related literary studies. The main object of this research is the
dynamics of LDK organization at IAIN Salatiga which is central to
this revolutionary movement. From the collected data, the writer
categorized, classified, reduced, analyzed, and then interpreted it
within research problem context. This was done in order to obtain
conclusions in accordance with the research problems that have
been stated.
B. LDK Movement: Literature Review and Theoretical
Framework
The discussion of LDK Movement is not new; many
researches have been done on this matter. It usually focuses on three
main groups, which are: Jamaah Tarbiyah, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia,
and Jamaat Salafi. The previous related studies were conducted
by Taufani (Taufani, 2014), Kasinyo Harto at Unsri Palembang
(Harto, 2008), Ilyya Muhsin at UNS Surakarta (Muhsin, 2016),
Syamsul Arifin in Malang (S. Arifin, 2005), Flavius Floris Andries
at Mosques of UGM and UIN Sunan Kalijaga (Andries, 2012), Arief
Ihsan Rathomy (Rathomy, 2007) and Moch Muhtarom (Muhtarom,
2009).
There are also studies related to genealogy of Islamist
movement which were conducted by Imdadun Rahmat (I. M.
Rahmat, 2008), Haedar Nashir (Nashir, 2007) and Zuly Qodir
(Qodir, 2013). The specific discussion of each movement such as
PKS was discussed by Mathias Diederich (Mathias, 2002), Imdadun
Rahmat (I. M. Rahmat, 2008), and Burhanuddin Muhtadi (Muhtadi,
2012). HTI movement was reviewed by Rakhmat Nur Hakim
(Hakim, 2014) putting emphasis on its activity in Surabaya. Ilyya
Muhsin discussed about social movement of HTI in Yogyakarta
(Muhsin, 2012) while Masdar Hilmy specifically discussed about
HTI movement transnationally (Hilmy, 2011) .
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In relation with this Islamist movement, the latest pivotal
research was carried out in UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta
Postgraduate program focusing on the Islamist literacy movement
(Hasan, 2018). Agus Iswanto also conducted the same investigation,
he specifically discussed about ideology in religious literature of
da’wah activists in ITB Bandung (Iswanto, 2017). While Alexander
R. Arifianto focused on the discussion of propaganda teachings on
campus, whether it conveyed radicalism or moderate (Arifianto,
2018).
The elaboration asserts that this research is a new study
highlighting on the on-going process, not a permanent one.
Therefore, this research has both novelty and subjectivity in the
discussion, but still within the corridor of objective research
rules. Novelty in this case suggests that this study is a new
study attempting to produce new facts, while subjectivity here
indicates that there are subjective interpretations of the writer
in understanding the facts. Interpretation and conclusion of this
study are still based on the principles of scientific and objective
research; it is about LDK revolution from Islamism to moderate
Islamism itself shows that there is an active piety in
some aspects of life (Bayat, 2005). More specifically, Islamism
is a contemporary action regarding Islam as a political ideology.
Therefore, the phenomenon of Islamic movement struggles for
Islam as a political ideology and is more practical in political
institution from the term that Islam is a political ideology as
religion (Roy, 1994). Since it makes Islam as a political ideology,
the exponents of Islamist ideology certainly fight for Islam as a
political ideology. This is the antithesis of Pancasila ideology
adopted by Indonesia and championed by moderate Islamic
groups.
According to Muhammad Ali, moderate Islam is those
who do not share the hard-line visions and actions (Ali, 2007). In
other word, Ali states that moderate Islam refers to the Islamic
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community that stressing on normal behaviour (tawasuth)
implementing religious teachings they uphold; they are tolerant
to different opinion, avoid violence, and prioritize thinking and
dialogue as a strategy. Religious method of this way is the majority
in Indonesia.
According to Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia is a country of
moderate Islam (Wahid, 2006). Even more specifically, Azyumardi
Azra asserts that Indonesia Islam is Islam with a smiling face,
full of peace and moderate, so there is no problem with plurality,
democracy, human rights and other tendencies in the modern world
(Azra, 2003). From this point, it is expected to have a moderate
religious attitude, which aims at developing the interpretation of
religious texts in a peaceful religious language, polite, and wise,
so the orientation of religiosity does not stop to solely having a
religion, it is more important than that, namely to be more religious
(Ali, 2003). This is the main concept of moderate Islam.
Terminologically, the word ‘moderatism’ is hard to interpret
since it has different point of view based on each context and
capacity (Hilmy, 2013). Masdar Hilmy points out the concept of
moderatism in the context of Indonesian Islam has characteristics
as follows; 1) non-violent ideology in propagating Islam; 2)
adopting the modern way of life with its all derivatives, including
science, technology, human rights, democracy, and the like; 3)
using logical way of thinking; 4) applying contextual approach in
comprehending Islam, and; 5) the utilization of ijtihad (intellectual
exercises to make a legal opinion in case of the explicit justification
absence from the Qur’an and Hadith). Those characteristics can
be expanded into several more characteristics such as tolerance,
cooperation and harmony among distinguished religious groups
(Hilmy, 2013).
From this elaboration, it is known that Islamism and
moderatism in Islamic religion diversity are different matters, even
though it was quoted from the same source. As a result, it emerged
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a battle between the two, in terms of its application in Indonesian
context. This was perceived during the reformation era, where
ideological Islamic groups turned into powerful strengths with various
movements undertaken by them, in accordance with vision and
mission of their respective groups. Jamaah Tarbiyah manifested itself
in the strength of Justice Party which later turned into Prosperous
Justice Party (PKS). tTheir movement followed the movement system
available in Indonesia in the political area. This was also supported
by KAMMI and LDK movements on campus which kept producing
generations of Tarbiyah and supplied cadres for PKS and KAMMI.
Likewise, Hizbut Tahrir, in reformation era, formed Hizbut
Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) organization which developed massively on
media, on their exponents that spread massively, and also at every
moment they held for the establishment of Khilafah Islam. They take
action out of the system in Indonesia, because they assumed that the
system in Indonesia is an infidel system which is not based on Islamic
system.
The group fighting for Islamic ideology was born and
developed massively. It began from LDK establishment in 1980. It
started producing cadres, and spreading their ideology until the end
of New Order behind the closed doors. Thus, the LDK movement of
ideological Islamic groups was a collective social movement. The
collective behaviour was carried out to achieve the desired goals by
confronting their opponent. This is what Quintan Wictorowicz called
as Islamic activism. Wictorowicz states that Islamic activism is the
mobilization of hostility to support the interests and goals of Muslims
(Wiktorowicz, 2012).
Wictorowicz suggests that the term “Islamic activism” is
defined broadly and inclusively. Thus, the understanding of Islamic
activism includes a variety of feuds that often arise on behalf of
“Islam”, including proselytizing movements, terrorist groups, collective
behaviours coming from Islamic symbols and identities, political
movements trying to establish an Islamic state, and inner-oriented
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groups that bring Islamic spirituality through collective efforts
(Wiktorowicz, 2012).
This Islamic activism naturally emerged as a form of strong
collective identity to determine the decisions taken by the actors
and how they adjusted their activities toward situation that changed
continuously (Melucci, 1996). This collective identity was also
driven by utilizing networks, so this collective identity could have
great power. This network could be formal, hierarchical or informal
social networks (Hasan, 2008). In this context, Islamism could be
identified as a social movement resulting from dynamic struggle
(Bayat, 2005). This could be seen from the very dynamic LDK
movement, pointing out their capability to spread its movement
network to a wider domain, such as PKS, KAMMI, HTI, and many
other movement organs that they have.
From the process of activism of LDK movement of
ideological Islamic groups, it is an antithesis with the ideology
developed in Indonesia, namely the ideology of Pancasila. When
viewed from the context of Islamic religion, the Islamic ideology
which is puritanical, exclusive, and even conservative also becomes
antithesis with the concept of moderate Islam developed by the
majority of Islam in Indonesia. Moreover, this ideological Islamic
movement is a transnational movement that probably will not
develop if applied in Indonesia. There will be costs that must be
paid when the transnational movement grows in Indonesia with
its exclusive and puritanical movement. It is caused by Indonesia
diversity nature, including with its various ethnics, religions, races,
traditions and cultures. As a result, moderate Islamic groups carried
out a counter-movement by holding a revolutionary movement
revolting this ideological Islamic movement. In this context is LDK
Nusantara movement.
In its movement, LDK Nusantara carried out a social
movement in a revolutionary way, namely to destroy the old social
order and replace it with the new one (Locher, 2002). Hence, LDK
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Nusantara movement moves by carrying out total revolutionary
changes. The goal is to entirely transform LDK society’s ideology,
from Islamic-exclusive to moderate. To reach this goal, LDK
Nusantara also carries out Islamic activism, it is exactly the same as
what had been done by LDK of ideological Islamic group.
C. LDK: Base of Ideological Islamic Nursery
Campus proselytizing Institute (LDK) is basically the main
pillar of Islamic proselytizion in campus life. Its existence is very
important to foster Islamic spirituality on campus, especially at
public universities which are lack in religion. The forerunner of its
existence has been known since the 1970s.
The dakwah kampus appeared in the early 1970s at Salman
Mosque of Bandung Institute of Technology, but did not spread
substantially until the crackdown on political student movement
that had resisted Suharto’s re-election in 1978. This time, Islamism
provided alternative activity to political movement. Without a
doubt, their religious cause was first encouraged by the Iranian
Revolution in 1979 and, later, by intensifying its propagation from
Middle East, especially, from Saudi Arabia, seeking to counter
the Shiah influence. Indonesia; thus, got involved both in a global
Islamic surge and in contests among various international Islamic
groups (Miichi, 2003).
Due to the policy of Campus Life Normalization by the
New Order government in 1978, campus political life was tightly
controlled by the government. It was not allowed to hold political
activities on campus dying down the political activity of campus
proselytizing movement.
On campuses, alternative religious-political currents
commenced to develop from the early 1980s onwards. The alIhwanul al-Muslimun (Muslim Brothers) were an important source
of inspiration for them. In addition to Indonesians’ adherence of
Sunni Islam, it was also the Iranian revolution which had contributed
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to this development. Some students were impressed by the fact
that an Islamic revolution had been successful in the 20th century.
Students made mosques inside and outside campus as one of their
few gathering places becoming the head-quarters for seemingly a
political dakwah-activities (Mathias, 2002). From this case, then
the influence of Ikhwanul Muslimin and Iran Islamic Revolution was
very crucial as inspiration to carry out proselytizing activities on
campus.
Apart from that, Indonesian Islamic proselytizing Council
(DDII) formed by Masyumi leaders in 1967 played an important
role (Hasan, 2014). The role of DDII was very crucial because it
established a mean of transmission of revivalism movement from
Middle East to Indonesia. This happened due to several factors: first,
DDII was the first Islamic institution that seriously and organically
organized students’ despatch to the Middle East before Ministry
of Religion took this role. The alumni of Middle East education
were the main actors in spreading Islamic revivalism movement
in Indonesia, especially the Tarbiyah Movement and Da’wah Salafi.
Second, DDII and Muhammad Natsir were also the initiators of the
establishment of the Islamic and Arabic Science Institute (LIPIA)
which was a branch of Muhammad Ibn Sa’ud Islamic University in
Riyadh. The alumni of this university became the agent for Salafi
movement and the important actors among Tarbiyah Movement.
Third, DDII also put initial foundation of the campus proselytizing
movement with the Mujahid Dakwah training program at Salman
Mosque of ITB. This movement was the pioneer of the emergence
of the Tarbiyah Movement (PKS) Hizbut Tahrir, and it contributed
significantly to the development of the Salafi movement. Fourth,
DDII also played an indirect role in translating the groundbreakers’
works on the Middle East Islamic revivalism movement into Bahasa
Indonesia (Rahmat, 2009).
Finally, the transnational movement came to Indonesia
through campus by following the proselytizing method practiced
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by Ikhwanul Muslimin. Terms such as halaqah, usrah, and the way
of dressing and behaving of Ikhwanul Muslimin’s style started to
appear on campus life. From this starting point, LDK was established
(Azra, 2000). In many of Indonesian universities, the establishment
of local LDK branches dated back to the 1980s (Mathias, 2002).
Campus proselytizing movement firstly began at Salman
Mosque ITB, where the role of Imaduddin Abdul Rahim was very
significant in drafting the concept of Islamic materials at campus
mosques (Rahmat, 2009). This concept then became a model and
developed at campus mosques in Indonesia (Abdul Aziz, 1989).
From this phenomenon, LDK was institutionalized with Ikhwanul
Muslimin as the movement and understanding references. Tarbiyah
movement was also established here as part of their affiliation
toward Ikhwanul Muslimin.
The next chapter, Hizbut Tahrir which was centrally
located in Jordan came to Indonesia brought by M. Mustofa and
Abdurrahman Al-Baghdadi in 1982-1983(Rahmat, 2009). With
halaqah system, Hizbut Tahrir instilled its thoughts to students.
Thus, from this point Hizbut Tahrir’s ideology developed along with
the development of campus proselytizing movement.
It was Jamaah Tarbiyah and Hizbut Tahrir that became
the sources of Islamic ideology on campus. Students’ Islamism at
prominent universities in Indonesia also appeared and later became
the leaders for their movement. With intensive and continuous
regeneration, it would create leaders who were then became
the great figures of Tarbiyah in Indonesia. The establishment of
Jamaah Tarbiyah certainly could not be separated from the role of
two factors, namely DDII with LIPIA and Ikhwanul Muslimin (IM).
DDII and LIPIA played a role in developing LDK on campuses. In
addition, IM influenced Tarbiyah in terms of establishing political
and religious point of view by studying IM figures’ thought. The
products of National Conference of IM, as well as the thought
of Shaykh Hasan Al-Banna and other IM figures were studied by
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cadres of Tarbiyah (M. I. Rahmat, 2009).
LDK then formed a network called Campus Proselytizing
Gathering Forum (FSLDK) which became the Tarbiyah network for
Indonesian univeristies alumni. FSLDK formed KAMMI, and KAMMI
formed a political party called PK which then transformed into PKS.
Hizbut Tahrir was established and developed due to
the enthusiasm of LDK. Just like Tarbiyah, Hizbut Tahrir also
developed in the form of gathering (halaqah) in campus mosques.
The difference was that Hizbut Tahrir explored the thoughts of its
figures, especially the idea from Taqiyuddin An-Nabhani (Rahmat,
2009). This idea was then developed on campus and carried out
intensively and cooperatively through the network of Coordination
Board of Campus Proselytizing Institute (BKLDK).
The success of Tarbiyah and Hizbut Tahrir certainly could
not be separated from the role of DDII which developed LDK.
Even though Jamaah Tarbiyah and HTI had their own ideological
and genealogical thought, DDII was able to play a role as umm alradha’ah for both movements (Rahmat, 2009).
The generations were formed massively and structurally,
but it was cultural in the form of campus proselytizing which
lasted nearly two decades. Along with the collapse of New Order,
the political phenomenon on campus was ended. The freedom of
having political expression among students by bringing an Islamic
ideology was unstoppable. From this matter, Jamaah Tarbiyah
managed to form a political party that enlivened the national
political map after the New Order, namely Justice Party which later
metamorphosed into the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and also
KAMMI as a political mean for students.
Hizbut Tahrir, which at first acted in discretion, after the
collapse of New Order, moved openly. With the strength of militant
mass base, they took a strategy of interacting with the people
openly and at the same time they carried out social and political
criticism and introduced that the only solution was by establishing
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khilafah Islamiyah. In Indonesian context, HTI found its momentum.
Depravity and deterioration in all aspect experienced by Indonesia
encouraged HTI to continue the establishment of Islamic law.
According to HTI, the multidimensional crisis that hit Indonesia
was caused by the secular system used to implement secular laws
of human (Muhsin, 2012).
From the explanation above, the presence of Jamaah
Tarbiyah and HTI as ideological Islamic exponents in Indonesia was
born due to their mass production for more than four decades. Four
decades was not a short time, so no wonder if Islamic ideological
movement had developed so fast in recent lives of millennial. If this
issue keeps persisting, it will certainly provides a great counterpart
for the ideology of Pancasila. In the perspective of Islamic religiosity,
this also serves as the counterpart to moderates Islam. This is what
we should consider in the context of diversity and nationality in
Indonesia.
D. LDK Revolution: From Islamism to Moderate
From the beginning, LDK of IAIN Salatiga, or commonly
known as LDK Fathir Ar-Rasyid was controlled by FSLDK network.
Thus, IAIN Salatiga became a massive production base for Tarbiyah
members. For this reason, in the context of conducting counterparts
to this mass production, the younger generation of moderate Islam
group at IAIN Salatiga did controversial movement against LDK of
Tarbiyah group. They established what so called LDK Nusantara.
This was established because of the concern of LDK as one of
student organizations on campus that received fund and facilities
and was controlled by Tarbiyah group with Islamic ideology. This
was ironic, considering the high education, especially in public
state universities, was a part of government. So, indirectly the
government had facilitated the movements that ideologically
opposing the ideology from the government.
According to the Chairman of LDK Nusantara, M. Fauzil
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Adhim, there was injustice when LDK Fatir Ar-Rasyid of IAIN
Salatiga, which normally should be a neutral organization, was
controlled by Islamists. Moreover, there was intervention from
outsiders, namely Tarbiyah alumni group, such as in the secletion
process of LDK chairman, in the group discussions, and in the
appointment of the speakers and in the process of designing the
curriculum (Adhim, 2018) .
From this phenomenon, M. Fauzil Adhim argued that LDK
should be neutral and cannot be interfered by certain groups
with contradict ideology from the nation (Adhim, 2018). The case
which happened at IAIN Salatiga showed that new students who
were accepted at IAIN from madrasa, Islamic Boarding School and
traditional communities with NU backgrounds did not realize that
LDK was the production of Tarbiyah cadres. They said it was just
common student organization, so they joined as members. As a
result, they were indoctrinated by following the liqa and halaqah.
They were also influenced by Tarbiyah’s dressing style, curriculum,
and way of thinking. The students with NU backgrounds did not get
a systematic cadre from NU organization, so their NU was lost and
turned into Tarbiyah (Arifin, 2018).
The students from NU background consolidated at one of
Islamic Boarding Schools in Salatiga. At the first meeting, there were
only 9 people, and then the next meeting there were 35 people. In
the meeting they discussed about mapping of LDK on campus.
LDK, FSLDK, KAMMI and PKS were under one supervision namely
Jamaah Tarbiyah Ikhwanul Muslimin. Jamaah Tarbiyah firstly came
to Indonesia from the LDK establishment on campus. To facilitate
LDK members consolidation, LDK founded FSLDK. The tenth
meeting of FSLDK, which took place in Malang, established KAMMI
which later founded Justice Party before it finally transformed
into Prosperity Justice Party (PKS). New students who joined LDK
must follow activity called liqa. They were unconsciously following
Tarbiyah process of regeneration. They got Tarbiyah’s curriculum,
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ideology, and culture. Surprisingly, their teacher was an outsider,
the Tarbiyah alumni, so it was obvious that there was intervention
in LDK (Arifin, 2018). As a result, students who initially had NU
backgrounds, they gradually became PKS cadres. Starting from that
issue, some members realized that NU students should make their
own LDK, and then they established LDK Nusantara (Arifin, 2018).
Secretary of LDK Nusantara, Awaliyah states LDK Nusantara
is an externa lorganization aiming to make NU students aware of
LDK and political map of Islamist movement on campus (Awaliyah,
2018). LDK Nusantara also has regeneration which is made similar
to that of on campus LDK. Its name is LDK Nusantara Cadre School.
This cadre is made systematically, beginning with filling out the
registration forms to recording the identity of new members
and following the discussion with material and presenters from
lecturers whose background is NU.
LDK Nusantara Cadre School is a medium of character
building which is specially designed for NU students, alumni of
Islamic Boarding School, alumni of NU-based MA/SMA/SMK
who are active in LDK IAIN Salatiga. The goal is to build strong
ideological character of LDK activists (syahada, aqidah, amaliyah,
harakah and siyasah), academically qualified, and well-mannered.
LDK Nusantara Cadre School Model is designed in the form of
small discussion group and big discussion group which are taken
care of by lecturers of IAIN Salatiga. Small discussion group is held
every two weeks at lecturers’ houses or certain places based on
agreement, while the big discussion group is held once a month at
NU building Salatiga (Awaliyah, 2018).
The curriculum is arranged in detail in accordance with
area of study and tendency of lecturers and their students.
However, there is a specific curriculum which is generally accepted
and must be taught to students, in addition to specific materials in
accordance with lecturers’ competencies. In order to be systematic
and sustainable, they continously monitor the students during
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their study at IAIN Salatiga. They keep supervising and directing
the students even though they have reached high level of education.
To have global competence, the members are also given language
training, especially Arabic and English (Awaliyah, 2018).
From the elaboration above, it is clear that LDK Nusantara is
a counterpart which is similar to Islamism LDK group. Though, it is
an external organization, its movement has strong impact on both
organization and regeneration. This all becomes a strong reason to
revolutionize LDK at IAIN Salatiga.
Basically, the revolution was begun by replacing the name
used by the members of LDK Nusantara when compared to Islamists
LDK. The name of Murabbi was replaced with caretaker, mutarabbi
was replaced with santri, and the term ikhwan and akhwat were
replaced sahabati-sahabati.
A small discussion group is attended by 7-9 students with
two caretakers, and the students are taught about the importance
of political understanding and political mapping in Indonesia. The
big discussion group is attended by 40 students. The program
starts with singing national anthem of Indonesia, Yahlal Wathan
song which is popular among NU members, reading barjanzi,
tahlilan, and then presenting the material of discussion. By doing
so, the traditions of NU are preserved in every meeting. This is of
absolutely different from LDK of Islamism group that increasingly
strengthens revolution (Awaliyah, 2018).
By strengthening such organization and regeneration, LDK
Nusantara is ready to conduct a coup d’état. This was preceded by
holding meetings to formulate strategies in order to be able to take
over LDK. LDK Nusantara insisted that the discussion was not held
in mosque of Campus 1 because it is the basis of Islamic LDK. The
discussion was held on campus 2 (Sharia Faculty) which was based
on NU so that it could be controlled (Anam, 2018).
The next crucial step to do was how to eliminate the role of
syura council which was represented by alumni of Jamaah Tarbiyah.
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In a great meeting, there were three presidium teams that led the
meeting. This presidium teams would lead the meeting, including
the amendment of Articles of Association of meeting. The strategy
was implemented and the presidium teams were controlled by the
members of LDK Nusantara. By doing this, the meeting was wellcontrolled. The main agenda of the meeting was to eliminate syura
council because they played a big role and owned the authority in
choosing LDK chairman (Anam, 2018).
With the existing condition, the meeting was successful in
eliminating syura council. It was because the role of syura council
which was not the student of IAIN Salatiga anymore. In addition,
in the process of electing the previous LDK chairman, alumni
were clearly unfair and undemocratic. They chose the chairman
who was in fact losing the election, just because he was close and
loyal to Jamaah Tarbiyah. From these facts, the syura council was
successfully eliminated following LDK and Tarbiyah failure to
defend it (Anam, 2018).
After syura council elimination, the alumni’s intervention
toward LDK succession was eliminated either. This was a clear
and easy way to conduct revolution. The further strategy was
conditioning the election by selecting the chairman in the same
night as the election and not in the later day. This was to anticipate
alumni’s obstruction toward the succession. If it was done at
midnight or early morning, the alumni were expected to be reluctant
to attend the event. As a result, the succession ran well. In spite of
debates, the succession started at 02.00 a.m. and was successfully
completed at 04.00 a.m. Finally, Muhammad Tajul Arifin from LDK
Nusantara won over his rival. He got 59 votes defeating his rival
from Islamist LDK who got 23 votes (Arifin, 2018). The succession
ran well and democratical for the first time. This also marked the
beginning of LDK revolution. This great meeting took place on
December 2017 (Arifin, 2018).
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E. Moderate Islamic Campaign: The Impact of LDK Revolution
at IAIN Salatiga
LDK Revolution at IAIN Salatiga ran well. This was the first
step to stop Islamism as well as to re-campaign moderate Islam on
campus. Therefore, after the revolution, LDK IAIN Salatiga cut the
connection of FSLDK, and FSLDK may not intervene in any activity
conducted by LDK IAIN Salatiga. This is so important in order to
stop the production of Islamist generation, and at the same time
re-campaigning for moderate Islam.
The next important step to do is to establish LDK network
of moderate Islam. In this case, LDK Nusantara then cooperated
with several state and private universities to explore the possibility
of making moderate LDK network. From this communication link
the representative members of LDK from six universities came
to campus II of IAIN Salatiga to discuss about working programs
from May 5-6, 2018. The six universities were IAIN Salatiga, UNSIQ
Wonosobo, UNISSULA Semarang, UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta,
IAIN Kudus and STAINU Temanggung (Shofiyatun, 2018).
The meeting was intended to discuss several things, which
were: first, the nomenclature of LDK network of moderate Islam; it
was named the Communication Forum of the Nusantara Campus
Proselytizing Corps (FKKDKN). Second, articles arrangement of
FKKDKN association. Third, election of Teguh Gumelar from UNSIQ
Wonosobo as a temporary general leader, Zaky Faiz from LDK UIN
Sunan Kalijaga as a coordinator for Yogyakarta area, the general
chairman and regional coordinator. the coordinator for pantura
area is Fauzil Adhim from IAIN Salatiga; and Islah from STAINU
Temanggung as the coordinator for Temanggung area. Fourth,
scheduling for the next meeting which would take place at UNSIQ
Wonosobo on September 7-9, 2018 to discuss about the fortification
of the organization and movement (Shofiyatun, 2018).
Shofiyatun explains that the day after the meeting, exactly
on May 7, 2018, FKKDKN was launched and continued by holding a
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national seminar entitled “The Challenges of Campus Proselytizing
Institute in Shaping Generations of Moderate Muslim Students
and Loving NKRI in Higher Education” at auditorium of Campus 1
IAIN Salatiga (Shofiyatun, 2018). The speaker of the seminar was
Dhimas Oky Nugroho, M.Phil., Ph.D (Founder of Fellowship National
Cadre) and Najib Kailani, MA., Ph.D (Postgraduate Lecturer of UIN
Yogyakarta).
The second meeting of FKKDKN was held on September,
7-9 2018 at campus 1 of UNSIQ Wonosobo, Central Java which was
attended by LDK IAIN Salatiga, LDK UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta,
LDK UNISSULA Semarang, LDK IAIN Kudus, LDK STAINU
Temanggung, LDK IAINU Kebumen, and LDK UNSIQ Wonosobo.
This meeting was intended to discuss the procedures of the general
leader election, Memorandum and Article of Association, Broad
Outlines of Organization Policy, and Broad Outlines of Work Policy
(Shofiyatun, 2018).
In this second meeting Teguh Gumelar was elected as
general leader for period of 2018 – 2020, and decided the regional
division of work networking which includes (1) Semarang, (2) Kedu,
(3) Yogyakarta. Semarang region consists of LDK IAIN Salatiga, LDK
UNISSULA Semarang, and LDK IAIN Kudus. Kedu region consists of
LDK UNSIQ, LDK IAINU Kebumen, and LDK STAINU Temanggung.
Yogyakarta region consists of LDK UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta,
LDK IIQ An-Nur, and LDK STAIYO (Shofiyatun, 2018).
On second day of meeting, they discussed about mapping
proselytizing movement in Indonesia. At the same time, they also
created logo of FKKDKN. The logo was collaborative work from
logos proposed by LDK IAIN Salatiga and LDK Kudus (Shofiyatun,
2018).
The third meeting was held on November, 23-25 2018 at
IAIN Kudus, and attended by LDK UNSIQ Wonosobo, LDK UNISSULA
Semarang, LDK IAIN Kudus, and LDK STAINU Temanggung. The
theme discussed in the third meeting was “Institutional Construction
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as Legitimation Structure of FKKDKN”. In this meeting they also
discussed about target, strategy, annual work program and the
completion of central and regional boards structure (Shofiyatun,
2018).
In the third meeting, they also discussed about the
importance of conducting Facilitator Training with all member
of FKKDKN which would be held in Wonosobo on February, 1723 2019, filming training on February 4-10 2019 in Purbalingga,
speech training on February 18-24 2019 in Semarang, and Arabic
translation training and literature writing training at Baitul
Khikmah, Bantul, Yogyakarta on February, 11-24 2019 (Shofiyatun,
2018).
In addition to carrying out revolution of LDK IAIN Salatiga
and forming a moderate LDK networking, one of important
things in campaigning moderate Islam is changing the curriculum
taught in LDKs. The materials such as Islam Nusantara, criticism
of discourse analysis, gender analysis, aswaja, deconstruction of
sharia, Islamic traditionalism, post-traditionalism, and specific
materials of moderate movements. Those are important to inculcate
in curriculum of LDK regeneration.
The determination of curriculum certainly must be in line
with reading resources provided for cadres. In this case, the strength
of Islamist movement is in massive production of references. The
Islamist movement has a book publishing and printing networking
that has a significant influence on the spread of their understanding
and thinking. Therefore, reading the resources should be a serious
focus so that the Islamic moderation campaign can be an effective
counterpart.
F. Conclusion
LDK revolution at IAIN Salatiga lasted dramatically and
was full of intrigue and strategy. With good preparation and right
strategy, LDK Nusantara was able to take over the Islamist LDK
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| Ilyya Muhsin, et. al
and then made significant changes for the LDK itself. Through a
developed and systematic networking, the revolution of LDK at
IAIN Salatiga is expected to be inspirational for other universities
to conduct similar activities.
The success of counterpart toward Islamist LDK movement
on campus can be reached by; first, taking over the organisation
from Islamist LDK on each campus as done by LDK Nusantara
IAIN Salatiga; second, establishing FKKDKN as moderate LDK
networking among campuses which aim to stop FSLDK and BKLDK
which are representative of Islamist LDK; Third, regenerating the
curriculum of LDK to reflect moderate Islam and is supported by
comprehensive discourse output; fourth, systematic and ongoing
regeneration product.
Those are the way to campaign moderate Muslim on
campus through LDK. The success of LDK Nusantara in revolution
and FKKDKN establishment is the way to stop producing Islamist
cadres in Indonesia as well as to campaign moderate Muslim which
is rahmatan lil ‘alamin.
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