“The Last King of Java” and his legacy:

Humanitarian Islam, the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, and Nahdlatul Ulama’s mission to “foster the emergence of a more just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being”

“Even more important than his role as a politician, [Abdurrahman] Wahid was the spiritual leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, and probably in the world. He was a product of Indonesia’s traditionally tolerant and humane practice of Islam, and he took that tradition to a higher level and shaped it in ways that will last long after his death.”

~ Wall Street Journal, “Wahid and the Voice of Moderate Islam”

C. Holland Taylor (H. Muhammad Kholil), Charles Bhagaskara Taylor, and KH. Nur Hidayat at President Wahid’s grave in Jombang, East Java on 2 August 2024

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina — Established in 2003 by former Indonesian president H.E. KH. Abdurrahman Wahid and American C. Holland Taylor, LibForAll Foundation works with a family of closely affiliated institutions linked to Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). With over 100 million followers and 28,000 Islamic boarding schools, NU is the world’s largest Muslim organization.

Over the past 20 years, LibForAll’s world-class achievements have been widely praised by international policy experts, government leaders, and blue-chip media outlets, who regard LibForAll Foundation as a pioneer in developing and operationalizing effective counter-radicalization strategies worldwide.

Since President Wahid’s death on 30 December 2009, senior Nahdlatul Ulama leaders including KH. A. Mustofa Bisri and KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf have worked closely with Mr. Taylor to help realize Indonesia’s strategic potential as an engine of spiritual progress for humanity. These efforts include establishing LibForAll sister organizations Bayt ar-Rahmah and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV); the Humanitarian Islam Movement; the G20 Religion Forum (R20); and the ASEAN Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Conference (ASEAN IIDC).

All of these institutions share a common vision, mission, and overlapping governance.

After many years of serving as the primary vehicle for distributing communiqués about these shared efforts, LibForAll Foundation’s board of directors and management have decided to transfer primary responsibility for public communications regarding our joint endeavors to the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (CSCV).

Future communiqués issued by LibForAll Foundation and its sister organizations, including Bayt ar-Rahmah and CSCV, will be distributed via the email address: secretariat@civilizationalvalues.org. Please be on the lookout for future communications originating from this email address. To ensure that you receive our communications going forward, please add this email address to your trusted contacts.

Based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, CSCV was established in 2021 by LibForAll Board Members C. Holland Taylor and F. Borden Hanes, Jr.; LibForAll Senior Advisor and former Chairman of the NU Supreme Council, KH. A. Mustofa Bisri; General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board, KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf; Minister of Religious Affairs for the Republic of Indonesia, The Honorable H. Yaqut Cholil Qoumas; and CSCV Director of Strategic Initiatives Dr. Timothy Samuel Shah.

Long-time LibForAll staff member Thomas G. Dinham serves as CSCV’s Director of Communications, while Carolyn Agner, who has worked with LibForAll Foundation for over 16 years, serves as the Center’s Publications Manager.

2009 meeting of LibForAll Foundation board members and senior advisers, which led to the founding of Bayt ar-Rahmah, the Humanitarian Islam Movement, and Center for Shared Civilizational Values. Counter-clockwise from bottom right: H.E. KH. Abdurrahman Wahid; Dr. Ahmad Syafii Maarif; KH. A. Mustofa Bisri; and C. Holland Taylor.

CSCV serves as Permanent Secretariat of the G20 Religion Forum (R20), which Nahdlatul Ulama established in 2022 in conjunction with Indonesia’s Presidency of the G20. In May of that year, CSCV and the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which stipulated:

1. That the Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board (“PBNU”) and the Center for Shared Civilizational Values (“CSCV”) shall cooperate in the development of a framework for identifying shared values that may serve as the basis for harmonious coexistence between the diverse people, cultures, nations and religions of the world, and in the building of a global movement dedicated to overcoming any and all forms of tyranny;
2. That PBNU and CSCV shall jointly develop and expand this “Movement for Shared Civilizational Values” by attracting and mobilizing people of good will of every faith and nation — including opinion leaders, civil society institutions, and governments throughout the world — who wish to strengthen and support a rules-based international order founded upon universal ethics and humanitarian values, including respect for human dignity, justice, virtue and moral self-governance;
3. That PBNU and CSCV shall join people of good will of every faith and nation in a common effort to abolish the primordial cycle of hatred, tyranny and violence that has plagued humanity since time immemorial;
4. That PBNU and CSCV shall cooperate in developing and implementing a global strategy to block the political weaponization of identity within and between nations, and thereby avert a devastating clash of civilizations….

8. That PBNU and CSCV will cooperate in fulfilling Nahdlatul Ulama’s “civilizational mission,” as bequeathed by the Wali Songo, the “Nine Saints” who in the 15th and 16th centuries proselytized Islam Nusantara, rooted in the principle of rahmah (universal love and compassion); as described by Hadratus Shaykh Kyai Haji Hasyim As’yari in Mukaddimah Qanun Asasi (Introduction to the Fundamental Principles of Nahdlatul Ulama); and as expressed in the lives and vision of NU’s founders, including Kyai Haji Wahab Chasbullah;
9. That PBNU and CSCV will cooperate in realizing the civilizational vision of H.E. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, who inspired the birth of the global Humanitarian Islam movement.

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Gus Dur:
Champion of the People

One of many popular tributes to the first democratically-elected president of Indonesia, Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, which emerged spontaneously in the years following his death in December of 2009.

Gus Dur:
Remembrance of God

Javanese mystical poem sung by LibForAll co-founder Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid at a spiritual gathering of Nahdlatul Ulama followers, to praise God and convey the essence of Islamic teachings.

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The title refers to a characteristic saying of President Wahid that he used to calm public disturbances, by encouraging the acceptance of cultural and religious differences as an expression of Divine Will.

“God Needs no Defense”