Ahmadiyya in Indonesia
During the summer of 1925, roughly two decades prior to the Indonesian revolution, a missionary of the Community, Rahmat Ali, stepped on Indonesia's largest island Sumatra.
[2] However, in the modern times it has faced increasing intolerance from religious establishments in the country and physical hostilities from radical Muslim groups.
It has been suggested that a number of Ahmadi Muslim journals and books published in India were widely circulated in South East Asian countries of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, in the 1920s.
[5] Moreover, in October 1920, Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, the leader of the splinter group Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement toured Southeast Asia where he successfully managed to win confidence among some Indonesian Muslims.
Whilst in the city they began their education in Islamic studies at Madrasah Nizhamiyyah Darun Nadwah under the supervision of Abdul Bari-al Ansari.
However, a more popular opinion suggests that Abdus Sattar was himself convinced of the superiority of the main branch, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and was spiritually aligned to them.
[6] Soon after their arrival, the three students decided to take oath of allegiance at the hands of Caliph Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad and opted to continue their studies in Qadian.
On invitation, a further 23 students from the Indonesian boarding school Sumatra Tawalib, arrived in Qadian to further pursue Islamic studies and having learnt of the Ahmadi teachings, they too converted to the Ahmadiyya movement.
Subsequently, in the summer of 1925, under the directive of the caliph, Rahmat Ali, a missionary of the Ahmadiyya movement, arrived in Tapaktuan, Aceh, the northern province of the Sumatra Island.
Due to a lack of effort produced by the Lahori Ahmadis in seeking converts in Indonesia, and into the faith in general, the group failed to attract a sizeable following.
[1] Due to the organizational strength adopted in overseas missionary activity, during the era of the second Caliphate, and for various financial and theological reasons, the main Ahmadiyya branch became increasingly successful in gaining converts to their interpretation of Islam.
[5] Shielded by Indonesia's Constitution, which guaranteed religious freedom, the Ahmadi Community continued to grow, whilst facing little persecution up until the fall of the Suharto government.
[9] A year later, following the arrival of Rahmat Ali, a committee Komite Mencari Hak (committee for finding the truth) was assembled by Tahar Sultan Marajo, a non-Ahmadi Muslim in the Pasar Gadang locality of Padang, western Sumatra, in order to bring Ahmadi missionaries and orthodox clerics together to debate on religious matters.
[9] Local millenarian beliefs concerning the arrival of a Ratu Adil (Just Ruler), the Imam Mahdi, and the promised Messiah were some of the pull factors that accompanied the rise of the Ahmadiyya movement in Indonesia.
Similar beliefs in the coming of the Imam Mahdi or the promised Messiah abound in many cultures, traditions and ethnicities all over the islands of Java and Lombok.
Boland, the apologetic and polemic characteristic of Ahmadiyya literature has become a guide and inspiration for Muslim organizations across Indonesia that deal with missionary activities.
Although Indonesian Sunni clerics hold this fact from public for fear of arousing resistance, some do recognize that their references come from Ahmadiyya literature.
Due to a lack of effort produced by the Lahori Ahmadis in seeking converts in Indonesia, and into the faith in general, the group failed to attract a sizeable following.
[1] Since the earliest days of the Ahmadiyya Islamic movement in Indonesia numerous fatwas have been issued by Indonesian religious organizations.
However the New Order government of the second President of Indonesia, Suharto, gave little support in the implementation of the final part of the fatwa through actual state policy.
This fatwa, accompanied with the fall of the Suharto government a few years back in 1998, played a pivotal role in providing ideological justification and an open platform for the opposition and the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims all over the country.
[18] In July 2010, a mob of 200 Indonesians surrounded an Ahmadi mosque in Manislor village in Kuningan district, in the province of West Java.
Footage of the bludgeoning of their naked bodies, while policemen watched on, was posted on YouTube and subsequently broadcast on international media,[21] gaining widespread public attention.
"[23] To the surprise of human rights groups, Judges at Serang District court sentenced an Ahmadi victim to six month imprisonment of the Cikeusik attack, for not obeying the police to "leave the house."
[25] In April 2014, the Indonesian Ulema Council of Ciamis in West Java asked the local Ahmadiyya community to cease activity at the Khilafat Nur Mosque after police warned from possible attacks following the legislative election.
