MAGETAN/BOYOLALI, Indonesia – A gentle laugh accompanies almost every single sentence uttered by Mr Imtihan Syafi’i, the principal of an Indonesian Islamic boarding school – or pesantren – in Magetan regency, about three hours away by car from Solo in Central Java.
When he points out the Wi-Fi router in the sparsely furnished room in a nondescript building on the grounds of Pesantren Darul Quddus, a boyish glee takes over, as he repeatedly exclaims how modern and connected the school is.
At this mixed-gender school spread out over four blocks, about 40 students aged between 17 and 25 are housed in separate dormitories for males and females. They are free to keep in touch with the wider world via smartphones, and one teenager was even spotted strolling around with shoulder-length hair – which the principal shrugs off with a laugh, saying the students are old enough not to be dictated to on such matters.
But his affable smiles and easygoing manner belie a darker past.
Mr Imtihan, who is in his early 50s, was a key leader in the now-defunct terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), acting as the head of its fatwa council. And since its inception in 2015, Pesantren Darul Quddus had served as recruitment ground for the group.
“All of our teachers were members, and some of our older students were part of JI too,” he told The Straits Times, which visited the school on Sept 13.
However, he stressed that the active recruitment of students to become JI members has ceased since the arrest of former JI chief Para Wijayanto in 2019.
Formed in 1993 in Indonesia, JI was the South-east Asian affiliate of Islamist militant organisation Al-Qaeda. The group was outlawed in 2008 after deadly attacks in the Philippines and Indonesia, including the bombings on the holiday island of Bali in 2002 that killed more than 200 people, many of them Australian tourists.
There are 42 JI-linked pesantrens across the archipelago today, according to Wijayanto – a small percentage compared with the over 41,000 Islamic boarding schools registered with the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
When JI announced its dissolution on June 30, senior figures in the organisation had promised a change to the educational curriculum of its affiliated pesantrens. Besides ensuring that lessons would align with mainstream Islamic beliefs, they said that extremist content would be removed from teaching materials.
This would entail JI-affiliated pesantrens changing tack to focus on cultivating religious knowledge and an in-depth understanding of Islam. “The curriculum here is mostly centred around ‘fiqh’, or Islamic jurisprudence. To be a student of fiqh is to always be learning and evaluating… their (Islamic laws’) context and relevance today,” said Mr Imtihan.
But experts say that in the past, extremist education at these schools had extended beyond the classroom for select pupils.
Faculty members evaluated which students had potential to join the select group and be taught extremist content. Usually the students whose fathers were jailed or active JI members were given priority, explained anti-terrorism expert Adhe Bhakti of the Centre for Radicalism and Deradicalisation Studies (Pakar).
“These extra-curricular sessions were conducted outside the regular classroom or activity hours. The participants are the new recruits,” he told ST.
With terror group disbanded, JI-linked schools in Indonesia change tack
