NURCHOLISH MADJID, the most prominent Muslim scholar in Indonesia, had no qualms when his daughter announced she planned to wed a New York Jew, a union beyond the imagination of most Indonesians. In fact, this genial man, known as the conscience of his nation, insisted on conducting an Islamic marriage service in the couple's Washington apartment last fall.
Has his son-in-law converted? "We don't ask," he said. "We understand that religion is a very individual thing." But one thing is for sure. When his portly son-in-law tries to prostrate himself for Islamic prayers, "he falls all over everyone," Mr. Madjid said, a generous smile creasing his broad face.
The inclusive brand of Islam that Mr. Madjid has preached for decades is coming under pressure from more militant quarters in the world's most populous Muslim country. But this tolerant man is unbowed, arguing that the idea of an Islamic state is at odds with the teachings of the Koran, that religion should remain in the realm of the transcendental, and that understanding should prevail.
This has been Mr. Madjid's theme since he first appeared on the national stage, shocking his fellow Muslims with a speech that gave a favorable interpretation of "secularization" at the moment that the new military dictator, General Suharto, was consolidating power. "Islam yes, Islamic party no," was Mr. Madjid's watchword. Many Muslims thought Mr. Madjid was buying into the general's agenda.
But just as fiercely, he argued for democracy, and he stayed out of politics. Until the last hours of the general's more than 30 years in power, the dictator and the scholar never met. When they did it was quite dramatic.
In a face-to-face encounter as the streets of Jakarta were convulsed with gunfire and demonstrations in 1998, Mr. Madjid told the dictator his time was up. One day later, he was proved right.
Mr. Madjid remembers the confrontation this way: "Suharto said, `I'm tired of being president.' He used a term in Indonesian cukup. I said, `No, you are tuwuk,' which means you are fed up to here, meaning up to your neck, that you are about to vomit." Mr. Madjid swiftly drew his hand across his throat, and contorted his face. "This was rough language but I didn't care."
The general laughed at this bit of banter, Mr. Madjid recalled. "Then suddenly, he said, `I want to announce my intention tomorrow.' " After some discussion over the terms of his departure text, General Suharto announced the end of his rule on television.
Like many Indonesians, Mr. Madjid looks deceptively young - his 62 could pass for 50 - and his serene manner belies the seriousness with which his words are taken here.
Mr. Madjid talked in the office of his education foundation before leading Friday Prayers in a classroom downstairs. When he preaches, shopkeepers, stall vendors and taxi drivers overflow into the parking lot. Many, unable to afford a prayer rug, kneel on a sheet of newspaper spread out on the asphalt.
It is an honor, these people say, to listen to Mr. Madjid, who during his sermon wears his signature open-neck shirt and roomy suit with pens jabbing out of the suit pocket.
He has written voluminously on Islam, including a book, "Doors to God," where the emphasis in the first word of the title is on the plural. He is a regular on the international lecture circuit, talking on Islam from the United States to Egypt to Australia.
At a discussion panel at a salon of Jakarta intellectuals the other night, he sat next to the enfant terrible of Indonesian Islam, Jaffar Umar Thalib, the head of an extremist group, Laskar Jihad, that is fighting Christians in some of Indonesia's most brutal conflicts.
The two men represent the polar ends of Islam in Indonesia. Perhaps because of Mr. Madjid's stature, perhaps because of the intellectual audience, Mr. Thalib, dressed in white robes and turban, showed restraint.
"It was the first time I had met him," Mr. Madjid said of the notorious Mr. Thalib. "Fortunately he spoke in a very general way."
The topic of the night was "Clash of Civilizations?" In his polite way, Mr. Madjid skewered not only Mr. Thalib, but also, Samuel Huntington, the Harvard academic, who coined the phrase.
For Mr. Madjid, the professor's argument was "absurd." "Huntington does not understand Islam," he said flatly. Anyway, he added: "The important thing is to try and bridge the differences as much as possible."
In his office the next day, he said that Mr. Huntington had it all wrong because the major religions of the world have more in common than not. "It's a family quarrel. We all come from the same fountain of wisdom, God."
MR. MADJID grew up in a pious family in central Java. He was sent to Gontor, one of the academically distinguished Islamic boarding schools known as pesantren, where he excelled as a student.
After graduation, he was resolutely anti- Communist, and in the 1970's, he argued that working for change within the authoritarian system was preferable to agitating from the outside. He was often attacked as a lackey of the West, and for espousing a Western interpretation of Islam.
But his themes boiled down, he said, to the need for pluralism and democratic values. Unlike those in Western capitals who fret that Islamic militancy will also engulf Indonesia, Mr. Madjid clings to his optimism.
"Thanks to the civil liberties we have, and because we have a chance of open discourse, radicalism has a chance to be tamed," he said. In contrast to Saudi Arabia, Indonesia enjoys many freedoms, he said. (Although increasing numbers of women cover their heads, most women, including Mr. Madjid's wife, Omikomaria, does not).
Mr. Madjid refined his taste for democratic values at the University of Chicago in the late 1970's and early 1980's, where he mixed his Islamic studies with courses in political science. Hardly surprising, then, that some of his friends thought he would make a good president in the aftermath of Suharto.
AT Chicago, he had learned the seven essential qualities for leadership. He ticked them off, pausing for effect after each one: "Vision. Aggressive activism. Pragmatism. Trust. Consensus building (like Roosevelt in World War II). Charisma. Luck (optional)."
He gave himself a positive score on the first tier. Then he stopped. The real reason he could not be president, he said, was that he had never developed a legitimate base.
"When I was asked in 1999 to be a candidate, I refused. We had just learned to be democratic. Democracy means that to be president you have to have a political party. If I were to be president, it would be a disruption of democracy."
Why would the elevation of one of the most eloquent proponents of democracy be anti- democratic? "Because I didn't sweat, I didn't organize a campaign. I was afraid people would say, `He is president free of charge.' "