Regents’ professor speaks on new liberal Islam trend

  ELI GILL UC Regents’ professor Goenawan
Mohamad addresses topics of Islam in his lecture Monday.
Muslim intellectuals in Indonesia are turning toward a "liberal
Islam" that breaks away from traditional beliefs, he said.

By Jessica Chung
Daily Bruin Contributor

The collapse of the World Trade Center Twin Towers on Sept. 11
brought immense publicity to a religion that has become a topic of
interest: Islam.

Though Islam has gained much recognition in the past few months,
a different side of the religion has remained largely disregarded
in Indonesia, which is home to the world’s largest Muslim
population.

Recently, a trend in Muslim thinking that breaks away from
traditional Islamic beliefs has developed among young Indonesian
Muslim intellectuals, University of California Regents’
professor Goenawan Mohamad said in his lecture Monday in Royce
Hall.

The lecture, sponsored by the UCLA Center of Southeast Asian
Studies and the International Studies and Overseas Program,
introduced this new trend, called “liberal Islam.”

It is mostly young Muslim intellectuals below the age of 40 who
believe in “liberal Islam” and do not see the religion
as an “ideology,” but an inspiring source of conduct,
free from political stigmas and myths, Mohamad said.

“Our initial interest was to look at the role of religion,
namely Islam, as a political factor in Indonesia. Now it’s
looking at the bigger question of Indonesia as a Muslim
country,” said Barbara Gaerlan, assistant director of
CSEAS.

The Sept. 11 attacks were the reason for the change in the
lecture’s objective, she said.

“I was especially struck with God’s return into the
public arena as people trusted his mercy. Religion has again become
a site for solace and a rallying cry,” Mohamad said about the
aftermath of the attacks.

Sept. 11 not only caused people to turn to their own religion,
it also brought other religions, specifically Islam, into the
spotlight. But there are a variety of ways to interpret Islamic
beliefs, Mohamad said.

The information in his lecture was new to most listeners. One
Indonesian student said topics like the one Mohamad lectured on
were rarely heard in her country.

“It was interesting because I received an interpretation
of Islam that I’d never seen before, something that we
don’t usually hear in mass media,” said Matt Hill, a
fourth-year history and mathematics student.

Mohamad also lectured on the lives of several prominent Muslims,
including Nurcholish Madiid, the most prominent Muslim spokesman in
Indonesia, and former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, the
previous leader of the Nahdlatul Ulama ““ Indonesia’s
largest Muslim organization.