Abdurrahman Wahid, Former Indonesian President, Dies at 69

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JAKARTA -- Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a key religious moderate and spiritual leader of one of the world's largest Muslim organizations, died on Wednesday aged 69.

Mr. Wahid, an almost-blind and wheelchair-bound cleric whose health had deteriorated sharply in recent years, died in a central Jakarta hospital, an aide said. The cause of death was not immediately known but Mr. Wahid has suffered regular health problems in the past decade since suffering a near-fatal stroke.

As head of the Nahdlatul Ulama, an Islamic organization with 40 million members founded in 1926 by his paternal grandfather, Mr. Wahid came to be seen as a key ally of the West in its ideological struggle against Islamic radicalism.

He fought to keep the NU out of politics in the 1980s and 1990s at a time when Muslim organizations across the Middle East and Asia were agitating to implement Islamic Shariah laws.

"He was against political Islam as a concept," said Robin Bush, the Indonesia country representative for the Asia Foundation, a San Francisco-based think tank. "He was one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of Islam in Indonesia. It's a huge loss."In recent years, Indonesia has experienced a rise in more conservative forms of Islam. A number of local governments passed Shariah laws earlier this decade and homegrown terrorists have launched attacks on Western hotels and embassies, as well as the resort island of Bali.

But a large majority of Indonesia's 240 million people remain moderates who lean more toward Mr. Wahid's vision, and his death is unlikely to open the door to Islamists, analysts say. The current leaders of NU lack Mr. Wahid's charisma and remain wedded to his moderate and secular views, as do most politicians from other Muslim-based parties, Ms. Bush said.

Mr. Wahid, who was widely known by his nickname Gus Dur, embodied the nation's syncretic religious traditions, which meld more austere Middle Eastern strands of Islam with older Hindu and animistic traditions. Mr. Wahid himself was a descendent of an old Hindu royal family, and enjoyed being irreverent about Islamic traditions. He said he disliked his time in the 1960s studying at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's premier seat of learning, because of the dull rote-learning of verses from the Quran, Islam's holy book.

But Mr. Wahid ended up -- against his better instincts -- entering politics, a decision that clouded his legacy.

His term as president between 1999 and 2001 after the fall of authoritarian president Suharto in 1998 disappointed many of his followers. Although Mr. Wahid worked to roll back the role of the military in political life and to decentralize power to Indonesia's far-flung provinces, his administration was frequently chaotic, characterized by unpredictable cabinet reshuffles and allegations of nepotism in the appointment of government positions.

Mr. Wahid's presidency was also wracked by concerns about his health after he suffered a stroke shortly before assuming office.

His spell in office ended with his impeachment for alleged corruption in the alleged misappropriation of state funds. Mr. Wahid was forced to step down, but denied any wrongdoing and said the impeachment was politically motivated by Suharto-era figures vying to return to power.

Mr. Wahid said he was a reluctant politician pushed in to the arena by other leaders in NU. He defended his move by saying the National Awakening Party, which he founded in 1999 before running for president, was a secular-minded organization that admitted non-Muslims.

In recent years, Mr. Wahid lost control of the National Awakening Party amid bitter infighting among members. More recently, he founded the Wahid Institute, which promotes moderate Islam and his headed by his daughter.

Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com

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