Indonesia's Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid as intellectual Ulama: the meeting of Islamic traditionalism and modernism in neo‐modernist thought

This paper examines two of Indonesia's leading Islamic intellectuals, Abdurrahman Wahid and Nurcholish Madjid, and the movement of thought with which they are associated, neo–Modernism, a new movement in Islamic thought in Indonesia that emerged amidst much controversy in the early 1970s and has since been of considerable influence in the development of Islamic thought, particularly amongst younger Muslim intellectuals. The paper argues that this new movement of thought represents the coming together of Islamic traditionalism, Modernism and Western education in the persons of a generation of thinkers from traditionalist backgrounds, who as youths obtained a pesantren (traditional religious boarding school) religious education and then went on to undertake modern Western–style, higher education. In doing this it focuses on the life experiences of two of the most outstanding thinkers to emerge from this generation: Nurcholish Madjid, a respected scholar and public figure and one of Indonesia's leading Islamic intellectuals, and Abdurrahman Wahid, currently serving his third term as chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the leading traditionalist organization (and with a claimed support base of 35 million, Indonesia's largest Islamic organization).