"Latino women finding a place in Islam"

"Latino women finding a place in Islam"
by Carmen Sesin ("NBC News," September 30, 2005)

Union City, USA - On a hot summer day, Stefani Perada took a break from her job in West New York, N.J., and stepped outside in her long jilbab, the flowing clothes clothes worn by many Muslim women.

Meanwhile, other Latinas in the mostly Hispanic neighborhood were taking advantage of the warm day, walking around in shorts and midriff-exposing halter tops. Perada, 19, who converted to Islam just over a year ago, is still trying to become acclimated to certain customs, such as the jilbab and the hijab, which covers her head and hair.

"Mostly it's because of how your friends and family are going to look at you," she said. "They look at you like, ‘Why is she wearing that, it’s so hot.’”

But, she said, “I am doing this for God, and one day I will be rewarded for what I am doing.”
And there's an immediate benefit: She's not harassed as much by men when she walks down the street.

“You know how guys [say], ‘Hey Mami, come over here?’ I used to always hate that. I would cross the street just to get away. Now you still get some guys that are still curious, but it’s much less,” she explained.

“They are going to look at me for me, and not for my body.”

Growing number of converts?

Perada is not alone as a Hispanic women converting to Islam. The exact number of Latino Muslims is difficult to determine, because the U.S. Census Bureau does not collect information about religion. However, according to estimates conducted by national Islamic organizations such as the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) there are approximately 40,000 Latino Muslims in the United States.

Likewise, it is difficult to break-down the number of Latino converts to Islam into male versus female. But, according to anecdotal evidence and a survey conducted by the Latino American Dawah Organization (LADO), whose mission is to promote Islam within the Latino community in the United States, the number of Latinos converting to Islam tilts slightly in favor of women — with 60 percent women to 40 percent men.

Juan Galvan, the head of LADO in Texas and the co-author of a report "Latino Muslims: The Changing Face of Islam in America," explained that those numbers are unscientific, but based on the results of a voluntary survey that has been conducted on the LADO website since 2001.

“From observation and experience those numbers are correct,” Galvan said. “From my personal experience, there are definitely more Latina Muslims than Latino men.” Galvan explained said that there “just seem to be more” Latina Muslims at the various events he attends through his work with LADO.

At the Islamic Education Center of North Hudson, 300 of the people who attend the mosque are converts, and 80 percent are Latino converts. In addition, out of the Latino converts, 60 percent are women, according to Nylka Vargas, who works at the mosque with the Educational Outreach Program.

Overall growth

Peter Awn, an Islamic studies professor at Columbia University, says there is no doubt that the number of Latinos converting to Islam is growing.

Louis Cristillo, an anthropologist who focuses on Islamic education at Columbia University, points out there are several indicators that reflect the growing trend of Latinos converting to Islam.

For example, there are a number of regional and national organizations that cater to Latino Muslims, and there are even support groups that can be found on-line specifically for Latino converts — in particular Hispanicmuslims.com, as well the LADO organization at latinodawah.org.

In fact, last weekend, Latino Muslims in this country celebrated the third annual Hispanic Muslim Day with different activities throughout the day.

Converting to Islam can be shocking for families who are largely Catholic and harbor stereotypes of Muslims, specifically concerning women.

Perada says her mother, who is Colombian, accepted her decision to convert because she never really pushed her into Catholicism. However, her father, who is of Italian origin, has had a tough time dealing with it.

“Sometimes he says things about the way I dress,” said Perada. “He’ll say, ‘Why do you have to dress that way. I’m Christian. I don’t walk around with a cross in my hand.'

“He always complains to my mom about it, but with me he just keeps it to himself. But I know for him it is very hard,” Perada added.

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Vargas, 30, from the Islamic Education Center, is of Ecuadorian and Peruvian descent. She says her family is already accustomed to the idea of her being Muslim, since it has already been ten years since she converted. But she recalls the days in which her family was dealing with the initial shock of her new faith. “When I started being more visible, that’s when things started getting weird. My sisters couldn’t understand why I would cover myself. They thought I was being oppressed or brainwashed,” said Vargas.

She admits it was difficult at first to adjust to certain customs, such as wearing the hijab or a headscarf and having to pray five times a day. “First it felt kind of weird to be covered, but after a while it [the headscarf] becomes your hair. I refer to my hijab as my hair.”

‘A return to traditional values’

Like other ethnic groups, Latinos convert for a variety of reasons. Some, says Cristillo, grew up in inner-city areas ravaged by poverty, drugs and prostitution, and were attracted in part by the fact that some Islamic communities were very active in cleaning up the neighborhoods.

Vargas, meanwhile, says she questioned many things about the Catholic faith in which she was raised and felt an emptiness in Christianity. Galvan, from LADO, pointed out that many people come to Islam through people that they know, "friends, co-workers, classmates, boyfriends or husbands.”

Professor Awn said that many Latinas find there is a greater sense of economic and social stability in Islam and that it also represents “a return to traditional values.” In that regard, Awn does not think Islam is any more patriarchal than other traditional religions, but recognized that “the younger generation is looking for a more progressive form of Islam." And Perada does not feel that her adherence to the Muslim faith restricts her freedoms as a woman.

“If I get married, I know I am going to work, but I am going to be there for my kids, too,” said Perada, dismissing any notions that Islam would prevent her from living the life of any other modern woman.

"Ahmadiyah fights back -- in civilized way"

"Ahmadiyah fights back -- in civilized way"
by A'an Suryana ("Jakarta Post," September 30, 2005)

Jakarta, Indonesia - With their mosques and homes destroyed and their members terrorized, the Jamaah Ahmadiyah Congregation is fighting back, by peacefully filing a lawsuit against the Bogor administration after it banned the Islamic sect from any activity in the regency. The legal maneuver is just one of many measures being prepared by the embattled sect to stay alive amid violent attacks from conservative Muslim groups in recent months.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Thursday, Ahmadiyah lawyers said the lawsuit was being completed and would be filed with the state administrative court on Oct. 7. The congregation is challenging Bogor's ban as they believe it would be proven legally weak, said Erna Ratnaningsih, the deputy director of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH).

The decree, issued jointly by the Bogor city government, police, prosecutor's office and the Bogor Council of Ulema in July, clearly ran counter to the nation's Constitution, which protects freedom of religion, argued Erna. The decree was also against a law on regional government, which stipulates that religious affairs are managed by the central government and not regional governments. "We will demand that the Bogor decree be declared invalid and be revoked," said Erna.

The decree was issued shortly after a group of nearly 10,000 Muslim extremists attacked an Ahmadiyah campus in Parung outside of Bogor city in July. None of the Ahmadiyah members were injured during the attack, but Ahmadiyah members were stunned again as the Bogor administration promptly issued a decree that banned them from practicing their faith in the regency. The decree was issued, according to Bogor officials, in order to maintain social harmony. "The decree was the entry point for more pressure directed at the Jamaah Ahmadiyah Congregation," said Wirawan, the director of Bandung LBH.

As police officers refused to arrest the attackers, it encouraged extremist Muslims from other areas across West Java to exert more pressure against Ahmadiyah members. After the July attack, conservative groups in Cianjur attacked Ahmadiyah again, destroying mosques and homes earlier this week. The violence was soon followed by the joint regulation issued by the Cianjur regency administration that banned Ahmadiyah members from holding activities in the regency.

Aware that their existence was under threat of outspoken Muslim conservatives that had been making inroads in the country in recent years, the congregation is preparing three sets of actions to assure its survival. The first is the aforementioned legal measure. The second is a plan to lobby various leaders in order to help defend freedom of religion for Ahmadiyah members, said Erna. "We are going to have meetings with the president and the House of Representatives," said Erna. The third measure was to form a coalition with other minority religious groups such as the Indonesian Bishop Conference (KWI) and the Liberal Islamic Network (JIL) in order to help promote religious freedom in the country, said Erna.

Ahmadiyah was established in Pakistan in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The organization has been in Indonesian since 1926 and formally recognized in 1953. It is estimated that there are 200,000 followers of Ahmadiyah in Indonesia.

The controversy hinges on the sect's belief that the last prophet was not Muhammad as mainstream Muslims believe, but Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the organization's founder. The organization has also been criticized for its exclusivity. Ahmadiyah members hold Friday prayers in their own mosques and do not participate in Friday prayers in any other mosques.

"A Modern, Mystic Ramadan"

"A Modern, Mystic Ramadan"
by Carlyle Murphy ("The Washington Post," October 4, 2004)

Washington, USA - Ali Unsal pulled the table closer to his chair and opened the Koran, Islam's holy book. His friends, gathered in his simply furnished Fairfax living room, grew quiet, and their weekly Islamic study session began.

Unsal's reading from the book was followed by a discussion about religious sincerity. The three women and eight men then talked about the spiritual benefits of fasting to prepare for Ramadan, the Islamic holy month that begins tonight when the new, very thin crescent moon appears.

For these young professionals, all immigrants from Turkey, the regular gatherings are enriching. "It's kind of like brainstorming," said Zehra Turan, 34, of Fairfax City, a mother of two who is studying for her medical board exams. "Ten minds are looking from maybe 10 windows on the same subject. So we can see more sides. . . . It helps me feel more strongly about my faith."

Such sessions are common among Turkish Muslims who -- like the Fairfax group -- embrace the ideas of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish mystic and scholar who teaches a moderate, outward-looking brand of Islam.

Gulen, 64, has been living in the United States for the past six years. A reclusive figure, he shuns interviews and television appearances. But in recent years, his outlook, which stresses modern life and Islamic spirituality, has gained a growing number of supporters in Turkey and among the Washington area's estimated 20,000 Turks.

He presents "a modern interpretation of Islam compatible with science, democracy and freedom," said Hasan Ali Yurtsever, 38, a research scholar in Georgetown University's mathematics department and a member of the study group.

"After 9/11, a lot of groups said they are moderate and changed their rhetoric," said Zeyno Baran, director of International Security and Energy Programs at the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank. "But the Gulen movement for the last 30 to 40 years has been saying the same thing. They have not changed their language because they want to be okay now."

Gulen's thought is heavily influenced by Sufism, the ancient mystical sect of Islam that emphasizes a personal religious experience of God as divine love. In particular, the Gulen movement reveres the 13th century Sufi mystic and poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, who lived in Turkey. And Gulen serves as honorary chairman of the Rumi Forum, a Washington area group that promotes interfaith activities and such cultural events as recent performances in Washington and Norfolk of the Whirling Dervishes of Istanbul.

Whirling dance is a form of prayer for some Sufis. But nowadays, it is more a cultural expression of Sufi Islam, said Yurtsever, the forum's president. In Turkey, the Gulen movement is a presence in hundreds of schools that follow a rigorous secular curriculum heavily weighted toward science. Religious instruction follows a government-approved syllabus or is nonexistent. Gulen followers in Turkey also run the daily newspaper Zaman, an Islamic-oriented television channel, radio stations and an Islamic bank.

Though nonpolitical, the movement is controversial in some Turkish quarters. Radical Islamists revile it, saying it is too open to Western ideas and other faiths, and many military officials and secular-oriented intellectuals worry that Gulen and his devotees secretly want to establish an Islamic state in Turkey.

Gulen has faced criminal charges several times of seeking to overthrow Turkey's established secular political order. The latest charges against him, made in 1999, were nullified after recent legal reforms there, according to Turkey scholars, who say Gulen lives in the United States -- in Pennsylvania and New Jersey -- so he can be treated for a heart condition.

At Unsal's home in Fairfax, the guests came casually dressed and, following Turkish custom, left their shoes inside, at the front door.

In a Prison's Halls, the Call to Islam

"In a Prison's Halls, the Call to Islam"
by Tracy Wilkinson ("LA Times," October 04, 2005)

Rome, Italy - The guards, heavy brass keys swinging from their belts, open and shut the metal gates to each floor of the labyrinthine Bollate prison as the Muslim call to prayer echoes in the corridors. Prisoners rush to the makeshift mosques that have sprouted in every building.

At the end of the hall on the fourth floor of Building 1, a hand-lettered paper sign proclaims, in Italian, moschea — mosque. Furnishings inside are sparse, just three green prayer rugs, pointing eastward, and on the wall a plaque with verses from the Koran.

Abdelfattah Jendoubi, serving a sentence on drug charges, throws on a dishdasha, pulls off his shoes and makes his way to the room. The 42-year-old Tunisian is joined by two other men. He is apologetic, saying turnout is better on Fridays. Generally, though, younger Muslims in the prison are not very religious, he says. He hopes to change that.

"I want to teach the young beautiful things," he says, but it is unclear whether authorities, who lack Arabic speakers to monitor his preaching, would agree with his definition of beauty. "They have to change their lives. God wants them to leave the life of crime."

Jendoubi's mission is a difficult one: reaching out to the young men confined within these sterile walls on the outskirts of a city known the world over as Italy's vibrant fashion capital. About 30% of the inmates in Bollate are Muslim, officials say; that's in a country where Muslims make up just 2% of the population of 58 million, although there is a higher concentration of them in northern Italy around Milan.

Their burgeoning numbers in prison are a reproach to Europe's efforts to integrate its immigrants, and a boost to radical imams and hard-core militants who use cellblocks to attract followers and spread a doctrine of violence.

Many of the Muslim inmates here arrived in Italy alone, sometimes as young as 14, hoping to find an uncle or a cousin, or even a distant relative, and burdened with the overly optimistic expectations of their family back in Morocco, or Tunisia, or Algeria.

Once in Italy, they can find themselves trapped in a vicious circle. Unable to obtain proper work and residency documents, they live on the fringes, perhaps turning to crime to survive. Marginalized in society, they are doubly marginalized in prison, outsiders in an institution where Italian clout and influence are supreme. Their hopes of sending money to families who sacrificed to send them to Europe are vanquished. They will probably be deported, and going home as ex-cons will bring shame.

That fate probably awaits Bilel Sefir, an inmate with an air of quiet desperation. Sefir left his native Tunisia for France four years ago, when he was 17. After a couple of years he moved to Italy, thinking, mistakenly, that it would be easier to obtain residency papers.

Alone but for a friend who had come with him from France, he found odd jobs as a plumber and was able to support himself for about a year, until he was arrested in a crackdown on drug dealers. "I made a big mistake," he says in a voice barely above a whisper. Sefir, tall but slight, with wavy dark hair, received a relatively short sentence of 14 months and expects to be sent back to Tunisia after his release.

Like Jendoubi, he takes some comfort in his faith. Sefir says he is able to pray five times a day, as devout Muslims do, with little trouble. In fact, he finds it easier to pray inside jail than outside, where mosques are far away and tolerance more rare. "I have the time," he says. "Once in a while, other prisoners make fun of me and ask me why I do it the way I do and why do I keep praying. But most people are respectful.

"I pray mostly that God forgives me for what I've done." Jendoubi, in his quest to save souls, sees far more hardened cases in Bollate. A greater number of young Muslim men here are like Mohammed Derrag, 23, a heavily tattooed Moroccan. He does not pray at all, saying, "This is not the moment."

Derrag is caught between his family and heritage, which he acknowledges he has betrayed with his criminal ways, and the gritty world in which he survives. "I was born a Muslim and always will be a Muslim," he says. "But my family prays, not me."

On the wall of his cell, next to a photograph of his veiled mother, Derrag has put up girlie pictures clipped from a magazine. He also has a photo of his 4-year-old daughter, whom he hasn't seen since she was an infant. She lives with her Italian mother. Derrag came to Italy from Morocco seven years ago, when he was 16, and started work at a factory making plastic shoes. He committed his first robbery three years later, the second one two years after that. His take in the latter: 50 million lira — about $10,000.

"I wanted to make some money without working," says Derrag, sporting a shaved head and long, baggy shorts. With something of a swagger, he shows a visitor his cell. As prisons go, the accommodations in Bollate are not too bad. Many inmates are given single rooms with a bed, small desk and a side kitchenette, complete with sink, refrigerator and camper-type gas stove. The door to his cell isn't locked, although gates to the floors are.

Derrag, who has been in prison for 2 1/2 years, is almost philosophical about the number of immigrants in Italian prisons. "Probably we commit more crimes," he says. "So many people come here and don't find help, so logically they end up in crime. All over Italy, in all the jails, you find Arabs. And people from the south of Italy — the poorest people."

Even some young immigrants who seem destined for better things can get caught up in a hard-luck underground. As baby-faced as Derrag is tough, Yunis Qabili, 19, landed in jail after being caught with friends who had drugs. Unlike most other inmates, Qabili has lived more than half his life in Italy with his parents and siblings, who arrived legally from Morocco. The teenager, who says he speaks better Italian than Arabic, worked as a mechanic. But he fell in with a bad crowd, and now he just wants to do his time (a year), get out and finish high school.

"The police will say they don't [discriminate], but I think they look more for Moroccans," Qabili says, narrowing his eyes and taking a long drag on his cigarette. Mirroring friction on the streets, relations between Italian and immigrant prisoners are often strained. A recent and not uncommon brawl put several inmates in the infirmary. In the prison's gyms, cafeteria and library, the inmates usually divide into cliques. Muslims lift weights and exercise together, and share pork-free halal meals. Bulletin boards advertise Italian lessons for Arabic speakers. The library has copies of the Koran — as well as works by the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, known of late for her anti-Muslim screeds.

For a while, the prison employed "cultural mediators" who could translate both language and cultural sensitivities, but there's no budget for them anymore. None of the inmates at Bollate talk about waging jihad; one youth recoils physically and begins to shake when asked. But authorities here, in Spain, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe are all too aware of the ease with which prison populations have become fodder for militant networks operating in their midst. Throughout Europe, some suspects in notorious cases, including the recent London bombings, are said to have been radicalized in prison, and a number of terrorist plots are known to have been hatched behind bars.

London bombing suspect Muktar Said Ibrahim, an Eritrean immigrant, obtained British citizenship last September despite having served a five-year prison sentence for armed robberies. He found Islam in the same penitentiary where radical imams converted Richard Reid, the convicted shoe-bomber of Jamaican descent imprisoned in the U.S. for trying to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight.

And so the delicate balance for wardens like Lucia Castellano at Bollate is allowing inmates to practice their faith without letting the institution be used to recruit and indoctrinate extremists. "I'm a little scared of the imams," she says. "They don't speak Italian, we can't understand them, and in Milan that can be quite dangerous." As a consequence, and in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, she has banned imams from outside the prison. Milan has long been known as a center of radical Islam, and one of its principal mosques was named by U.S. and Italian authorities as a likely European headquarters for Al Qaeda.

Instead, Castellano allows the Muslims in each cellblock to appoint an imam from among themselves. Still, the inability to understand the language being spoken in many cells is worrisome, says Castellano, a red-haired native of Naples, one of Italy's toughest cities. Her office is decorated with Andy Warhol prints of Marilyn Monroe on one wall, a crucifix on another. "Each of my head guards can tell me who the boss [of the Muslim inmates] is on each floor," she says. "It does not mean that they are terrorists, but they are organized. We are paying attention. We are watching."

But the warden and her guards can only guess at what devout prisoners such as Jendoubi are preaching. On the fourth floor of Building 1, Italian inmates are giving hard looks to the trio of Muslims gathered to pray in the room designated as a mosque. They keep their distance, smoking cigarettes.

Jendoubi, the Tunisian, says he avoids the Italian inmates. But he praises the prison for allowing the Muslims to pray. A carpenter who has lived many years in Italy, he was not religious when he went to prison, he says, but has used his time in the three years since to study the Koran. Now he prays 12 times a day, sometimes rising well before dawn to do so. "I didn't pray before," says Jendoubi, who has a thin, graying beard. "But as I read more, I saw it was the right way."

Jendoubi is not his cellblock's imam, but he attends mosque without fail and is creating a "new life" for himself. The same, he says, awaits those young Muslims whom he persuades to turn to prayer. On this particular midday, another Tunisian calls out the summons to prayer. He, Jendoubi and a third man then move inside the one-room mosque.

The three men kneel on the small rugs and pray. They bow eastward, toward a window looking out on the cold gray concrete of the prison, and the walls topped with barbed wire.

"In Indonesia, the struggle within Islam"

"In Indonesia, the struggle within Islam"
by Tom McCawley ("The Christian Science Monitor," October 5, 2005)

Jakarta, Indonesia - Here in the world's largest Muslim country a war of ideas within Islam is playing out on an unlikely stage: a bohemian arts community in a crowded Jakarta side street. The patrons of the Utan Kayu Theater, including some of Indonesia's leading novelists and writers, normally gather to discuss such topics as avant-garde art or prewar Russian cinema.

But in recent weeks, a fierce debate over how Muslims should be allowed to worship, marry, and even think has caught the theater in its crossfire. Hard-line Muslim groups have been threatening to evict the Liberal Islam Network, a small group of intellectuals known as JIL, from their offices in the theater complex by the beginning of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan - Wednesday.

The struggle, observers say, is not only over how to interpret Islam's 1,400-year-old holy book, the Koran, but what role it will play in Indonesia's future. The tensions are driving a rising confrontation between liberals and an alliance of conservative and radical groups.

JIL's crime, according to the white-robed vigilante group the Islamic Defenders Front, is spreading liberal ideas about Islam. "The intellectual fight has turned physical," says Nong Darol Mahmada, a female JIL member, telling of death threats by telephone. "The hard-line conservatives are getting more powerful."

The Islamic Defenders, famous for attacking cafes with samurai swords, have also tried to recruit nearby poor residents to help evict JIL and its supporters, including a radio station and media think tank. JIL is preparing lawyers, and plans to seek protection from the courts.

The threats from the Islamic Defenders follow a series of fatwas, or religious edicts, from Indonesia's powerful Islamic scholar's council, the MUI. On July 29, the council issued fatwas condemning "liberalism, secularism, and pluralism." The 11 fatwas, read to a meeting of 400 Islamic scholars from across the country, also condemn inter-faith prayers and marriages between religions.

Growing power of conservative Islam

JIL activists say that fatwas mark the growing power of ultra-conservative Islam, a movement that unites both elected politicians and street vigilantes. Supporters of the fatwas say they are following their duty to protect Islam from the threat of globalization and Western ideas.
"The liberals think everything is open to interpretation," said Ma'ruf Amin, head of the MUI's fatwa commission, "and that clashes with Islamic teachings."

Syafi'i Ma'arif, former chairman of Indonesia's second largest Muslim organization, the 30-million strong Muhammadiyah, warned reporters that: "the fatwas will embolden hard-line, power-hungry groups." Since July 29 an alliance of Muslim vigilante groups, the Anti-Apostasy Movement, has stepped up a campaign to get rid of informal prayer groups and churches, causing a total of 23 to close within a year.

Mobs have also attacked the houses and mosques of the 200-member Ahmadiyah, a Muslim sect, declared by the fatwas to be "deviant," because they recognize their founder to be Islam's last prophet instead of Muhammad. In an interview, the MUI's Mr. Ma'ruf tut-tuts over the closures, condemning violence, but noting that "the churches didn't have permits."

Since its arrival from the Middle East in the 11th century, Islam has nestled alongside older Hindu, Buddhist, and animist practices. Only a tiny, violent fringe openly supports terrorist attacks such as last weekend's suicide attack in Bali that left at least 26 dead and 100 hundred injured.

Most of Indonesia's 193 million Muslims - 88 percent of the population - practice a moderate form of Islam. Muslim Indonesians often give their children Hindu names, and religious minorities such as Christians are protected under the constitution.

JIL's founders say the group was formed in 2001 to protect this spirit of tolerance through its activism, radio broadcasts, and newspaper articles. "We just want to be able to discuss religion in the same way you can discuss art or politics," says JIL coordinator Hamid Basyaib.

JIL's mission statement says the group believes in ijtihad, or the application of reason to interpreting Islamic texts. The use of ijtihad, Mr. Hamid says, has led its members away from a literal interpretation of the Koran and toward support for the separation of mosque and state.

The group has also offended conservatives by arguing that truth is relative and that other religious faiths are equal to Islam. Even worse, say hardliners, is JIL's support for the "freedom of belief," including the right not to be religious.

Mr. Hamid also rejects criticism that liberal Islam is an American import, claiming the group draws on an ancient tradition of Islamic scholarship stretching to thinkers in the 14th century.
JIL part of wider liberal network

Mr. Ma'ruf says that JIL is just part of a much wider network that includes several major state universities. He also warns liberalism has gained ground in the world's two largest Muslim organizations, the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the 30-million strong Muhammadiyah. "Some things, some passages, [in the Koran], are beyond question," he says from NU's headquarters. "It is heretical to question the literal word of God," he says.

But JIL activist Abdul Moqsith Ghazali claims the NU and the Muhammadiyah are showing signs of shifting in a conservative direction, pointing to the influx of students who graduated from Middle Eastern universities in the 1980s.

Senior members of both organizations supported the July 28 fatwas. "There's a rising tide of Islamic conservatism [in Indonesia]" says Greg Barton, an associate professor at Australia's Deakin University and scholar of Indonesian Islam.

"These people have been working for over a decade and only now are beginning to see the fruits of their labors," says Mr. Barton.

Back at the Utan Kayu Theater, Ms. Nong breathes a sigh of relief, after promises from nearby community leaders to support JIL. The group, along with the radio station, is safe for the time being. "We've won in this neighborhood," she says. "But the war of ideas will continue."