ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has been lauded as a champion of
pluralism and religious and political reform within Indonesia. Foreign
scholars and journalists and liberal-minded Indonesian commentators have
praised the organisation’s role in promoting inter-faith harmony, human
rights, democratisation, new Islamic thought and grass-roots development.
As such, NU is cast as a ‘progressive’ force in Indonesian society and a
potential model for Islamic movements elsewhere in the world.1
