Jafar Umar Thalib

Personal life

Jafar (or Ja'far) Umar bin Thalib was born in Malang, East Java on November 19, 1961 as the youngest child of eight siblings. His father was Umar Thalib, a Madurese of Yemeni descent, a war veteran and a teacher at Al-Irshad Al-Islamiya school. As common in Arab community, the full name consists of his born name and his father name, Ja'far bin Umar Thalib with "bin" removed. His father taught Jafar very strictly.

Education

Thalib was educated as a child at PERSIS Islamic boarding school in Bangil and at the Al-Irshad Al-Islamiya school, until later in 1983 he became a student at LIPIA (معهد العلوم الإسلامية والعربية في إندونيسيا Ma'had al-ʻulumi al-Islamiyyah wal 'arabiyah fi Indunisia, Islamic and Arabic College of Indonesia) in Jakarta, which is a branch of the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Due to some dissension with one of his teachers, Muhammad Yasin al-Khattib, he left LIPIA. With the help of the LIPIA director, he continued his study at Maudoodi Institute in Lahore, Pakistan in 1986 with scholarship from Saudi government. After one year, he quarreled again with one of his lecturers and decided to leave the institution before completing his education in 1987.

Thalib studied the teachings of the Salafi sect from Jamilurrahman al-Salafi al-Afghani in Kunar province, near the Pakistan border around 1990. In 1991–1993 Jafar studied under another Salafi cleric, Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i in Dammaj, Yemen. He also studied the teachings of the Salafi sect from Nasir al-Albani and ibn Baz.

Activity

Jafar joined the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during its war against the Soviet Union in 1987. He fought and studied for two years under the guidance of Jamilurrahman's Jamaat al Dawa al Quran in Kunar province, near Pakistan border. Jafar met Osama bin Laden in 1987 in Peshawar, at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Although Jafar follows a radical Salafi school of thought, he contradicts himself from Osama Bin Ladin and strongly renounces the violence and terrorism ideology of Osama. He furthermore said that Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization with Khawarij ideology.

Jafar returned to Indonesia around 1989 and then taught at Al-Irshad Al-Islamiya boarding school in Salatiga run by Osman Yusuf Ba'isa before left for Yemen. Upon his return from Yemen in 1993 with the help of a few Salafi followers, he then set up a boarding school called Ihya Sunnah ("Preserving The Prophet's Tradition") in Degolan village in Sleman, Yogyakarta on the Waqf land endowed by a nephew of some military official at the time.

In 1999, he founded Forum Komunikasi Ahlussunnah Wal Jama’ah (FKAWJ) or Communication Forum of Ahlul Sunnah Wal Jamaah, a group which was meant to push for political reform. Specifically, its purpose was to denounce the campaign of a female presidential candidate, because according to their interpretation sharia law strictly forbids women from having any authority.

He declared the establishment of Laskar Jihad as a paramilitary group of FKAWJ on January 30, 2000 as an effort to defend and protect Moluccan Muslims from violence by Christians in Maluku during Maluku sectarian conflict. The group started a recruitment of members who want to wage jihad in Ambon. Although Jihad was one of the most important principles of the group, it was never meant to be an aggressor to war. It limited the jihad to defensive action to protect Muslims from Christian attacks. It was not also to mitigate a rebellion against the legitimate government.

In response to the September 11 attacks, he said:

"We would like to grieve for the US [but] you should learn from your arrogance. For Muslims, we would like to congratulate you for the revenge upon terrors committed by the biggest terrorist nation in the world, the United States, on Muslim nations"

In 2001 the police arrested him for allegedly presiding over a makeshift Islamic court that ordered a rapist be stoned to death, which is illegal under Indonesian law. He allegedly led the execution himself, though he was never prosecuted of his act. Later, POLRI accused Jafar of sowing hatred against Christians, particularly in Ambon, where about dozen masked men with guns, grenades and daggers attacked the village of Soya near Ambon, torching about 30 homes and a church and killing at least 12 Christians, on which Jafar denied Laskar Jihad was involved.

Jafar was arrested on May 4, 2002 in Surabaya as he was en route from Ambon. On October 2002, Laskar Jihad was officially disbanded by the staff and board of supervisors of FKAWJ after a marathon meeting from October 3 to October 7, 2002. Jafar Umar Thalib disagreed with the board's decision as he was still in litigation with the East Jakarta District court where he was indicted for acts of treason, inciting, and insulting Indonesian President at that time, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Jafar obliged to announce the dissolution of Laskar Jihad when reporters asked for confirmation moments after the first Bali bombing on October 16, 2002. However, Jafar apparently still tried to gather troops to perform demonstrations so that he could press the District Court to ease his sentence. However it turned out with the dissolution of the Laskar Jihad, he was ultimately acquitted. According to the judge panel, there was no proof that Jafar had insulted or defamed Megawati Sukarnoputri, inciting the masses, and for his call for hostility in his speeches at al-Fatah Mosque in Ambon, 26 April 2002 . Later he was freed from all charges on January 30, 2003.

Wahhabism and Anti Shiism

At the launch of a book entitled Mereka Bukan Thagut (They're Not cause of Evil), Jafar affirmed his stance that he is a genuine Wahabist.

As common among Salafi Wahhabists to strongly oppose shia Muslims and even consider them Infidels (see Anti-Shiism), Jafar in June 2013 once said that he would declare a jihad against Indonesian Shia Muslims which allegedly tried to intimidate a Sunni congregation in Bekasi.