Nahdlatul Ulama authorizes the establishment of a National Leadership Academy (AKN–NU) for high-level NU cadres
“Preparing NU leaders to transform Indonesian society and shape the emergence of a global civilization in the 21st century”
~ KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf
General Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board
“Final moments of the 2024 PBNU Plenary Meeting: ‘Nurturing All of Creation, Developing Civilization.’” The Center for Shared Civilizational Values’ Deputy Chairman & CEO, C. Holland Taylor (H. Muhammad Kholil), is seated (r) with members of the NU Central Board.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 27 – 28 July 2024, senior Nahdlatul Ulama leaders gathered to approve a number of strategic initiatives that will promote the comprehensive and coherent organizational development of the world’s largest Muslim organization over the coming decades. One of these initiatives is the establishment of a National Leadership Academy of Nahdlatul Ulama (AKN–NU), whose curriculum will be developed in conjunction with the North Carolina-based Center for Shared Civilizational Values, which senior NU leaders established in 2021.
Participants in the Plenary Meeting included the entire leadership of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board (PBNU); theologians representing over 28,000 Islamic boarding schools throughout Indonesia (RMI-NU); and the heads of a wide range of other autonomous bodies affiliated with the mass, grassroots organization, which has well over 100 million followers.
Constituting approximately half of Indonesia’s population, Nahdlatul Ulama is a potent force in the social and political life of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and Southeast Asia’s largest economy. In recent years NU has also become an increasingly dynamic and influential actor upon the world stage.
As stated in an AKN–NU concept paper distributed to participants in the 2024 PBNU Plenary Meeting:
In order to sustain, expand, and effectively leverage Nahdlatul Ulama’s growing influence, it is essential to equip a significant number of NU cadres for strategic leadership at both the domestic and international levels. If these cadres are to transform Indonesian society and positively impact the world at large, they will require a firm grounding in the integrated religious and civilizational worldview of ahlussunnah wal jamaah an-nahdliyyah (“Nahdlatul Ulama Sunni Islam”).
Senior NU cadres should also possess a strongly developed capacity to understand and navigate the historical, political, cultural, and economic dynamics shaping the 21st century, and the fundamental skills and habits of successful leadership, including the ability to craft and deploy persuasive narratives capable of prevailing in what NU Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf terms “an intense competition regarding what values will form the basis of a new global civilization.”
At a time of rising geopolitical conflict and instability, Nahdlatul Ulama is acting decisively to “preserve and strengthen a rules-based international order founded upon universal ethics and humanitarian values,” in line with the aspirations expressed in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In a December 2023 op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Law Professor and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Dr. Mary Ann Glendon, described “Humanitarian Islam, the inclusive, tolerant form of Islam promoted by that 100-million-member group, [NU]” as having “real potential to shift the probabilities for peace in many parts of the world” (“There’s Life Yet in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”).
Strategic initiatives approved at the PBNU Plenary Meeting include:
“01: The PBNU Plenary Meeting resolved to adopt a strategic plan that will serve as the foundation and initial design for comprehensive and coherent organizational development over the next three years (2024 – 2027).”
“02: The PBNU Plenary Meeting resolved to adopt and implement a digital transformation strategy and platform model named DIGDAYA NU (NU Data and Service Digitalization), in order to bring Nahdlatul Ulama operations and records into the 21st century.”
“03: The PBNU Plenary Meeting resolved to establish the National Leadership Academy of Nahdlatul Ulama (AKN–NU) as a vehicle to educate high-level NU cadres, beginning in August 2025.”
The PBNU Plenary Meeting (photo above) further resolved to cooperate with the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV) in developing the international component of AKN–NU’s curriculum. CSCV Deputy Chairman and CEO H. Muhammad Kholil (C. Holland Taylor) — who serves as Special Advisor for International Affairs to the General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board — participated in the two-day PBNU Plenary Meeting.
Incorporated in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in June of 2021 by the former head of the NU Supreme Council, KH. A. Mustofa Bisri; the Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf; and Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs, the Honorable Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, with F. Borden Hanes, Jr., C. Holland Taylor, and Dr. Timothy Samuel Shah, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values strives to “identify shared values that may serve as the basis for harmonious coexistence between the diverse people, cultures, nations, and religions of the world.”
CSCV also functions as Permanent Secretariat of the R20, which Nahdlatul Ulama established in 2022 in conjunction with Indonesia’s Presidency of the G20. NU and CSCV are also executing an ambitious strategy, known as the “Ashoka Approach,” to “consolidate South and Southeast Asia as an alternate pillar of support for a rules-based international order founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.” The ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (IIDC), whose findings were endorsed by the Chairman’s Statement of the 43rd ASEAN Summit, represents one element of this strategy.
The 2024 PBNU Plenary Meeting received widespread coverage from Indonesian media, which reported extensively on Nahdlatul Ulama’s newly adopted strategic initiatives.
Participants in the Plenary Meeting included KH. Abdul Ghofur Maimoen (upper left) and KH. Abdul Moqsith Ghazali, both of whom played a key role in drafting NU’s 2019 ruling that the legal category of infidel (kafir) is no longer relevant within Islamic law. Indonesia’s former Minister of Education (2009 – 2014), The Honorable Mohammad Nuh (upper right), serves as Vice Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama’s Supreme Council.
Hj. Alissa Qotrunnada Munawaroh Wahid (bottom right) — the eldest daughter of former NU Chairman and Indonesia’s first democratically elected president, H.E. KH. Abdurrahman Wahid — serves as Vice Chair of the Nahdlatul Ulama Executive Board. Upper left: KH. Saifullah Yusuf, General Secretary of the NU Executive Board. Lower left: KH. Said Amin Husni, Deputy Chairman of the NU Executive Board.
Nahdlatul Ulama leaders pray for divine guidance and blessings on Sunday, 28 July 2024
The Nahdlatul Ulama symbol, created in 1926 by KH. Ridhwan Abdullah, displayed in the KH. Hasyim Asy’ari Museum of Indonesian Islam in Jombang, East Java
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Nahdlatul Ulama’s Civilizational Strategy