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Russia and Ukraine jostle for support of world’s largest Islamic group, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama
- Envoys from both countries have met Yahya Staquf, the recently elected leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, amid a battle to gain the support of the group’s 90 million members
- Under Staquf, the group’s influence throughout the world has grown. Experts say the envoys see courting the group as a way of influencing President Joko Widodo
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Russian and Ukrainian envoys to Indonesia are courting the country’s largest moderate Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), in acknowledgement of its political influence on leaders of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Last week, Ukraine’s envoy met with the recently elected NU leader Yahya Staquf. The next day, the Russian envoy showed up at NU’s headquarters in Jakarta.
After the meeting, Staquf called the events in Ukraine a “war” and called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to “stop the war now” and said that all problems could be solved through “dialogue”.
By contrast, the Indonesia government avoided mentioning Russia by name when it first spoke up against the war and it supported a UN resolution to condemn Moscow’s actions. Singapore remains the only Southeast Asian nation that has unilaterally imposed sanctions on Moscow.
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“I sincerely hope NU, Yahya and all Indonesian Muslims will speak up, say a prayer … assist somehow in bringing this war to an end, to reduce the suffering of Ukrainian people including that of some 2 million Muslim brothers in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian ambassador Vasyl Hamianin said after the meeting.
“Many people are suffering badly in many cities as the whole of Ukraine is on fire,” Hamianin added.
NU, with its 90 million followers in the world’s most populous Muslim nation of 270 million, is the world’s largest Muslim organisation.
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