Source/Credit: The Jakrta Globe
By Fitri | November 15, 2010
Jakarta. Violence against worshipers of minority faiths continues to plague Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara as followers of the Islamic Wahhabi sect were attacked and their mosque at the Peresak village in East Lombok destroyed on Sunday evening, police said.
Hundreds of locals threw bricks and stones at the house of worship as well as leveling a home belonging to a mosque guardian, police said on Monday.
Locals told police they believed members of the Wahhabi sect living within the Sakra subdistrict were a nuisance for the majority of the locals living in the area.
“The locals do not agree with the presence of those following Wahhabism among them. So they destroyed a Wahhabi mosque and the home of a guardian. Both were destroyed quite extensively,” East Lombok Police deputy chief Comr. Darsono said on Monday, adding that the Sunday violence began at 7 p.m.
The police have made no arrests in connection with the attack, Darsono said.
He added that locals believed the Wahhabis considered themselves to be an exclusive and elite Islamic group, a fact the locals found disturbing.
According to Darsono, residents waited for the Wahhabis to finish their prayers before they attacked.
He identified the mosque guardian whose house was destroyed as Harimin, while a resident of Peresak, identified as Irpan, was allegedly beaten by a Wahhabi follower during the melee.
Hundreds of officers from the East Lombok Police sub-precinct then arrived to restore order, as hundreds of villagers began to vandalize the mosque and remove artifacts and religious documents, Darsono said.
Police then reportedly persuaded the angry crowd to not set fire to the mosque.
As soon as tensions began to die down, officers formed a police barrier around the mosque and Harimin’s home to conduct an investigation.
“We needed to study the crime scene as best as we could, which was why our first priority was to calm the masses down. We wanted them to calm down first, even though we know what their concerns are when it comes to followers of Wahhabism,” Darsono said, adding that it took over four hours from the first outbreak of violence so the crowd to settle down so that the police could begin their probe of the violence.
Wahhabism is a form of Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia, and is based on the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, an 18th-century scholar who called for the broader faith to be cleansed of what he considered corruption.
According to the teachings of Wahabbism, in believers must adhere strictly to the original teachings set forth by the Prophet Muhammad.
A number of popular practices must be shunned, including praying to saints and making pilgrimages to tombs and special mosques.
West Nusa Tenggara is no stranger to religious conflicts, particularly involving the persecution of minority faiths.
The West Lombok administration is weighing a plan to relocate members of the Ahmadiyah sect living there to a remote island after their homes were burned in religious attacks.
The group has been criticized for opposing the move.
The West Lombok administration plans to buy the assets left behind by Ahmadiyah after they were forced to leave Gegerung village in 2006, after being driven out by their neighbors.
The administration wants to send the families to Teluk Sepi Island, defending its decision by saying the move is way to avoid a repeat of the earlier violence, when thousands of Muslims burned down the sect members’ homes.
The Ahmadiyah families are living in the Transito refugee shelter in Mataram.
Read original post here: Wahhabi Mosque Destroyed In Lombok
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