Last month, the head of the Indonesian Mujahideen Council (MMI) Abu Bakar Bashir and radical preacher Abu Jibril spoke at the launch of a new magazine extolling the virtues of martyrdom at the Islamic Book Fair in Jakarta.

Both men, former JI leaders who have spent time in jail, said taking up arms to defend Islam was an obligation for all Muslims. Muslims, they said, were compelled to establish an Islamic state and implement syariah.

The MMI trains young Muslims to fight Christians in conflict zones like Ambon.

Then there is the Islamic Defenders Front, which has taken upon itself to attack bars and nightclubs, believing them to be dens of iniquity.

Equally active, however, are civil society groups seeking to debunk extremist ideology and articulate a progressive vision of Islam, as I discovered on a recent visit to moderate Muslim institutions in Indonesia. I visited the country with a group that included religious leaders, activists and journalists on a trip organised by the South-east Asian Muslim network and sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Indonesian groups concerned about the spread of radicalism include the Wahid Institute, set up in 2004 by ex-president Abdurrahman Wahid. Its motto is: 'Seeding plural and peaceful Islam'.

Then there is the Liberal Islam Network (JIL) established in 2001 by a group of Muslim scholars concerned that conservative practices were gaining ground in the otherwise tolerant Indonesian milieu.

Both groups are among a number of Muslim civil society organisations that have been attacked by hardliners as well as mainstream religious leaders. In 2005, the influential Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI), which brings together leading clerics, issued a series of fatwas describing pluralism, liberalism and secularism as against Islam.

Disagreeing on this issue but on the same page as the smaller progressive groups when it comes to opposing radical ideas are the two largest Muslim grassroots organisations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. They have 70 million members between them.

Another bedrock of moderation is the Islamic higher education system. There are about 30 State Islamic Universities (UIN) and Institutes of Islamic Studies (IAIN). They are quite different from the radical pesantrens or Islamic boarding schools, such as the one linked with JI in Solo.

They offer courses on secular subjects and on Islam. Students are encouraged to discuss issues freely. As a result, they are open to new ideas and have a flexible attitude in adapting Islamic laws to modern societies, while remaining true to their principles.

The very fact that radicals attack these Muslim institutions shows they must be doing something right, said UIN Syarif Hidayatullah lecturer Andi Faisal Bakti.

His university has an arrangement with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore to offer postgraduate diplomas to religious teachers here.

'Radicals see us as a nest of apostasy,' said Dr Andi. 'They say that if not for the IAINs and UINs, Indonesia would be an Islamic state. But we are proud of our work in halting the spread of Islamist ideas here.

'Except for God, any religious thinking can be written about and criticised.'

Dr Noorhaidi Hasan, a graduate of UIN Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta where he now teaches, argued that radical Islamists disregarded Islamic values such as moderation.

He noted that calls for an Islamic state and syariah law are louder at 'secular' universities such as the renowned Bandung Institute of Technology and Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.

He feared that lecturers from these institutions may bring their rigid views on Islam into UINs and influence students - a strange thing for a scholar in an Islamic university to be saying of his counterparts in secular universities.

Muslim scholars like Dr Hasan argue that there is nothing in scripture calling for the setting up of an Islamic state, or for religion and politics to mix. As former NU chairman Abdurrahman Wahid put it once: 'God does not want us to create an Islamic state. What God wants is injustice to be done away with.'

Dr Andi is confident that the UIN approach will continue to prevail. 'The essence of civil society is dialogue and discussion, not force or violence,' he said.

Top students are given scholarships to pursue doctorates in universities in the United States, Europe and Australia to broaden their perspectives. There they come to see Islam as a dynamic process of understanding the world, rather than a static faith that cannot change or be debated.

The power of dialogue has backers in NU and Muhammadiyah, among them Muhammadiyah's former chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif.

'Until the age of 40, I was a fundamentalist who strongly advocated the conversion of Indonesia into an Islamic state,' he said candidly.

'Then I went to the University of Chicago and had lively dialogues with my teachers and peers. I gave up my narrow vision of the world.'

Dr Syafii was quick to clarify that he is no liberal. 'I am liberal in the sense that I believe in freedom and independent thinking, but from another angle, I am a conservative. I cannot accept a permissive society,' he said.

He represents the majority of Indonesian Muslims, who oppose radicalism but are concerned about social liberalisation as well as corruption and poverty. These shortcomings give radical groups grounds to say that syariah will solve all ills, they point out.

'Once we have social and economic justice, the influence of these groups will decline steeply,' said Dr Syafii.

University of Indonesia lecturer Ade Armando, an editor of the three-month-old progressive magazine Madina, noted that the price of an open society was conservative groups articulating their interpretation of Islam.

'We have to let them have their say, but because it is an open field, we need to give people options,' he said.

Radicals have fought back, attacking progressive ideas in publications even as they have toned down their physical attacks.

The March issue of Risalah Mujahideen, which radical clerics Bashir and Jibril oversee, attacked Dr Syafii for rejecting syariah law though the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams recognised it had a place.

Mr Armando remains optimistic that the moderate view will prevail. But it is clear that the battle of ideas is far from over.

zakirh@sph.com.sg

MUSLIM UNIVERSITIES THAT ENCOURAGE DEBATE

'Radicals see us as a nest of apostasy... But we are proud of our work in halting the spread of Islamist ideas here. Except for God, any religious thinking can be written about and criticised.'
DR ANDI FAISAL BAKTI, lecturer at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah