300 Muslim leaders gather to denounce extremism and curb radicalism

Three hundred Muslim leaders from 33 countries gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia recently to denouce extremism and to find a way to curb radicalism.

"Muslim majority nations are now making statements globally and nationally to push back on extremism, and you will see more of it," Texas pastor Bob Roberts told Christianity Today. "This is sending signals to their citizens and the world that the tide is turning."

Nahdlatul Ulama, described as the largest Muslim organization in the world with somewhere between 30 million and 50 million members, hosted the conference. Called "International Summit of Moderate Islamic Leaders," it was attended by representatives of Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, and others, who signed the Jakarta Statement, which, according to The Huffington Post, calls for a coalition of governments and religious groups in order to stop the religious support for terrorism and extremism.

One of the points that was emphasized during the summit is the misinterpretation of the idea of jihad by radical youth.

"That's why the role of Islamic clerics is needed to do more to correct the misinterpretation," said Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla. "We gather here today for that purpose, to produce the solution to curb radicalism in the form of terrorism, wars and conflicts."

Indonesia's population is comprised of around 87.2 percent Muslim, 7 percent Christian, 2.9 percent are Roman Catholic, and the remainder includes Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian and unspecified, according the CIA World Factbook. The officially secular country has seen its people of different religious backgrounds living quite peacefully alongside each other.

"We don't want to dictate to the world, but we want to inspire [other countries by showing that] our concept of Islam could maintain peace and harmony within the diversity of Indonesia," NU chairman Said Aqil Siradj said.

Roberts, according to Christianity Today, believes that this is a sign of what is yet to come. He was present at an earlier conference, held in January in Morocco, where a gathering of Muslim scholars, heads of state, and religious leaders called for predominantly Muslim countries to protect the rights to freedom of Christians and other religious minorities. It was where they released a document titled "The Marrakesh Declaration."

"We hereby ... Call upon the various religious groups bound by the same national fabric to address their mutual state of selective amnesia that blocks memories of centuries of joint and shared living on the same land; we call upon them to rebuild the past by reviving this tradition of conviviality, and restoring our shared trust that has been eroded by extremists using acts of terror and aggression," the declaration reads in part, and they "AFFIRM that it is unconscionable to employ religion for the purpose of aggressing upon the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries."