Pope Francis will arrive at Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia, tomorrow morning, where he will sign an important document with the grand imam, Nasaruddin Umar. It is the high point of his visit to Indonesia in terms of the Catholic-Muslim dialogue in the country that has the largest Muslim population in the world.
“We are very happy that he is coming here,” the grand imam told me and four Spanish-speaking journalists when we met him inside the mosque on the evening of Sept. 4, at the end of the evening prayer service. The prayer service, which lasted about 10-15 minutes, was attended by more than 100 Muslim men and no less than 50 Muslim women. We were allowed to be present in the great prayer hall, standing on the red carpet. The men were in the main sector of the hall; the women, who wore veils or head scarves, were on the left-hand sector of the same hall. We were all barefoot, as is the custom in all mosques.
The grand imam told us he “very much hopes” that Pope Francis will enter this magnificent mosque and see its beauty for himself, just as he did when he visited the Blue Mosque in Turkey in November 2014. “It would be a powerful sign of harmony and good relations [between people of faith] to the people of Indonesia,” he said. However, entering the mosque is not mentioned in the program of the papal visit.
At the time of writing, the program envisages that Pope Francis will be driven by car through the main gate to the mosque where he will be welcomed by the grand imam. They will then go together to “The Tunnel of Friendship,” an underground tunnel that links the nearby Catholic cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption with the Istiqlal Mosque.
The two will go to a large tent, set up for their encounter, where Francis will be welcomed with a traditional Muslim dance. This will be followed by readings from the Koran and from the Gospel of Luke. Grand Imam Umar will then give a welcome address to the pope, and together they will sign the “Joint Declaration of Istiqlal 2024.” After remarks from Pope Francis, they will go to the courtyard of the mosque for a group photo with other religious leaders. The grand imam will then accompany the pope to the Alfattah Gate of the Mosque, from which the pope will depart.
However, Pope Francis has already made some changes to his schedule, including visiting with refugees, the homeless and orphans during his scheduled rest time Monday evening, so a visit inside the mosque is not out of the realm of possibility.
Grand Imam Umar recalled that a Christian architect, Fredrich Siliban, the son of a Protestant pastor, presented the design for the mosque in 1954, and it was accepted, a sign of the tolerance and openness of the Indonesian model of Islam. It took 17 years to build, and it was finally opened in 1978. It is the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, with five levels representing the five pillars of Islam. Its dome is 45 meters (nearly 150 feet) across and is sustained by 12 large pillars, with a minaret reaching 90 meters (295 feet).
President Sukarno, who commissioned its building, asked that it be built close to the Catholic cathedral to symbolize religious harmony and tolerance as promoted in Pancasila, the foundational philosophy of the democratic Indonesian state.
The mosque “is a house for all humanity; everyone is welcome here,” Grand Imam Umar said, and “now it has become a place where Muslims from all over the world visit, not only from the Middle East and Asia, but also from Europe and America. So too do tourists from many countries.”
Gugun Gumilar, the chief of communications for the mosque who organized our visit, told us “[President] Obama, Lady Diana, King Charles III of England, and China’s President Xi Jinping” are among many of the notable people who have visited here.
When we met the grand imam, he introduced us to the three-star general who is head of the anti-terrorism in Indonesia, who had come to have a final discussion regarding the security for the pope’s visit. “Security is important because a terrorist can strike at any time or place, and so we need to be sure,” he said. He is confident the pope will be safe when he visits the mosque on Thursday morning, as the 300 people who will be present are all known to the organizers.
Grand Imam Umar has studied in many countries including as a visiting scholar at Georgetown University (2003-04), Sophia University in Tokyo, and SOAS University of London. Prior to that, he was a visiting Ph.D. student at both McGill University in Montreal and Leiden University in the Netherlands. He believes strongly in providing educational opportunities for Muslims, especially those under the age of 30, he said, because after that age people tend to have made up their minds on many questions.
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He said he shares much of Pope Francis’ vision of working for harmonious relations between different religions and for peace in the world. He holds interfaith meetings at the mosque on Fridays and organizes meetings for ambassadors “to discuss religious diplomacy and how it can foster peace.”
He said he also shares Pope Francis’ desire to empower women and explained that the Istiqlal Mosque is “the only one [in the world] that is preparing women to be ulemas [Muslim religious scholars].” He hopes that the Al-Azhar University in Cairo will also move in this direction. Al-Azhar is considered a main authority in the Sunni Muslim world, and 80 percent of Muslims are Sunni.
As another indication of how the Indonesian model of Islam seeks to promote tolerance and harmony, the grand imam said Istiqlal also has classes to teach Hebrew and Arabic languages. It acts as a coordinator for the one million mosques across Indonesia, seeking to spread common values.
