Atlas / Organisations / Nahdlatul Ulama
Nahdlatul Ulama
NU · 1926– · Indonesia · Traditionalist Islamic Civil Society · Movement · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
The largest Muslim organisation in the world, committed to a form of Islam explicitly compatible with a non-religious state.
Economic model
A vast network of schools, clinics, cooperatives and pesantren rather than an economic doctrine.
Organisation of powers
Defends Pancasila and rejects an Islamic state; supplied Indonesia's first democratically elected president.
Reading note
Roughly forty million members, and the single most important counter-example to the claim that mass traditional Islam and constitutional pluralism are incompatible.
Check a claim about Nahdlatul Ulama. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored +01
Coded +1: a vast school and clinic network rather than an economic doctrine.
- Documented act or statuteOperates tens of thousands of pesantren boarding schools across the archipelago.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +05
Coded +5: traditionalist Islamic practice with explicit constitutional pluralism.
- Programme textIts 1984 congress accepted Pancasila as the sole ideological basis, ending the Islamic state question for its members.
AU · Organisation of power · scored −03
Coded −3: a civil society organisation that supplied a democratically elected president.
- Documented act or statuteIts chairman became Indonesia's first president elected by a free parliament, in 1999.
SC · Scale of decision · scored −02
Coded −2: a federated structure of local branches and schools.
- ScholarshipAuthority runs through regional boards and independent pesantren.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +04
Coded +4: a confessional organisation defending the rights of non-Muslims.
- Programme textIts Islam Nusantara doctrine explicitly rejects a caliphate and defends religious minorities.
CH · Method and tempo · scored −08
Coded −8: institution-building over a century.
- Documented act or statuteFounded in 1926 and has never had an armed wing or sought power by force.
Where it came from, and what came after
- was succeeded byPDI-P
Two rival readings of Indonesian pluralism, one confessional and one secular, both defending the same constitution.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Social Catholicism3.5
- Postwar Christian Democracy4.7
- Fianna Fáil5.2
- Ennahda5.2
- CDU/CSU5.3
- Mongolian Democracy5.4
Countries
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