Indonesia's biggest Islamic group is split over its friends abroad

Nahdlatul Ulama, or NU, is Indonesia's largest Islamic organisation, with tens of millions of members. For years its leaders sold a project called "Humanitarian Islam" abroad: the idea that Indonesian Islam is moderate and tolerant, a model for the world. New Mandala, an academic site, reports that this outward push has now blown back on NU at home and split its leadership just before a big national congress in 2026.

The trouble is who NU befriended to spread the message. Its leaders built close ties with American neoconservatives, a hawkish and strongly pro-Israel group in US politics, and with pro-Israel figures more widely. Chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf met Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2018, and NU activists met Israel's President Herzog in 2024 while the Gaza war was going on. Its leaders even shared a stage with a Hindu-nationalist figure from India. To many ordinary members, whose villages and religious schools are NU's real base, these friendships looked like hypocrisy.

The anger boiled over after a US official named Peter Berkowitz, known for pro-Israel views, gave a lecture at an NU leadership academy in August 2025. When this became public, NU's top spiritual authority demanded the academy be shut and the chairman removed. Gus Yahya apologised and survived two attempts to push him out, keeping his job for now. The writers argue the lesson is simple: a religious group that draws its power from ordinary followers cannot run its own foreign policy over their heads.

Why it matters

If you are one of NU's tens of millions of members, or simply live in a country where NU shapes public life, this fight is about who speaks for mainstream Indonesian Islam and how far foreign money and contacts can pull it. Watch the 2026 congress: it will show whether the grassroots or the internationally connected leaders win control. A weaker, divided NU would also shift the balance against harder-line Islamic groups in Indonesian politics.