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(OPINION) The world’s largest organization of Muslims is campaigning for thorough worldwide reform of how to understand the faith’s religious law, Shariah, and applied jurisprudence, Fiqh.

Such an ambitious goal may seem unlikely, and to date, Western media have given the effort minimal coverage. It’s time for that trend to change.

Far from some esoteric intellectual discourse, such a philosophical change could potentially affect the future of the world’s second-largest faith regarding democracy, blasphemy laws, human rights, education, the role of women, treatment of other religions, warfare, extremism, terrorism and crime and punishment.

The organization in question is Nahdlatul Ulama (NU, meaning Revival of Islamic Scholars) in Indonesia, the nation with the largest Muslim population. Consider these numbers from James M. Dorsey, a freelance writer and adjunct senior fellow in international studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University: NU encompasses an estimated 90 million lay followers, tens of thousands of religious scholars, 44 universities and 18,000 lower schools.

NU upholds Sunni orthodoxy, but with a more tolerant tone than is customary in the Middle East. Its legal reform program was prominent during the massive February celebration of its 100th anniversary, analyzed in Dorsey’s March 31 Substack column. His article is a good starting point for journalists, but its opinionated viewpoint warrants careful follow-up interviewing. Also note this 2021 NU backgrounder by political scientist Ahmet T. Kuru (akuru@sdsu.edu).

Moderate Muslim thinkers have long favored some sort of move away from rigid legal traditionalism. Dorsey depicts a two-sided struggle among them, pitting allies of NU’s fully democratic and tolerant outlook against religious leaders beholden to rulers in the Middle East, as in Saudi Arabia, where certain social liberation is being allowed without fundamentally rethinking Islamic law or politics.

Muhammad Abu al-Fadl, who covered NU’s centennial events for Egypt’s Al Ahram newspaper, commented, “If the leadership of religious institutions in the Arab world continues to insist on burying heads in the sand, then Arab states may require another 100 years to absorb the Nahdlatul Ulama project.”

NU issued a centennial declaration that especially targets the traditional belief that all Muslims have an obligation to create a worldwide religious empire known as the caliphate. (Turkey abolished a weak remnant of the once-mighty caliphates of the past in 1924.) Even authorities who in 2014 issued an “open letter” denouncing oppression under the Islamic State group’s supposed caliphate said Muslim scholars agree that restoration of the authentic caliphate remains “an obligation upon the Ummah” (the global community of Muslim believers).

But the NU declaration insists “it is neither feasible nor desirable to re-establish a universal caliphate that would unite Muslims throughout the world in opposition to non-Muslims.” NU says this would “inevitably be disastrous and contrary to the purposes of Shariah, i.e., the protection of religion, human life, sound reasoning, family and property.”

Instead, NU calls for a “new vision” of Fiqh designed to curtail “communal hatred” and promote respect for all the world’s diverse peoples, in accord with the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 57 nations in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation embrace the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which subjects interpretation of all claimed human rights to Islam’s legal traditions.

CONTACTS:

* James M. Dorsey is reachable at isjmdorsey@ntu.edu.sg or jamesmdorsey@substack.com.

* A Boston University press release said one of the eight non-Muslim experts NU invited to observe its centennial was anthropologist Robert Hefner, director of the Asia center at its School of Global Studies (rhefner@bu.edu and 617–353–2194).

* NU has a U.S. offshoot working against extremism, Bayt ar-Rahmah, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (336–922–1278 or info@baytarrahmah.org).

* Prominent American Muslims are among 126 endorsers of the 2014 “Open Letter” who embraced a future authentic caliphate — listed here.

Richard Ostling is a former religion reporter for The Associated Press and a former correspondent for TIME Magazine. He’s also worked in broadcast TV and radio journalism covering religion and received a lifetime achievement award from Religion News Association. This piece first appeared at GetReligion.org.