Many people try to understand religion through cyberspace, scholar says

Jakarta, NU Online
 Professor of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Azyumardi Azra suggested that the Ministry of Religious Affairs conduct training for ustaz to strengthen moderation in religion. He said that the Ministry could involve ustaz in Nahdlatul Ulama or Muhammadiyah, Republika news portal reported.

In addition, he said, the Ministry could also certify ustaz. According to him, the certification has actually been done internally in NU and Muhammadiyah, but not systematically.

Nowadays many people tried to understand religion by using cyberspace, so that the religious understanding obtained tends to be radical. Therefore, according to him, the Ministry must coordinate with religious organizations to counter these radical understandings.

"It must coordinate with the leaders of the mass organizations and the clerics, so that they can counter the discourse circulating in cyberspace," said Azyumardi after becoming a speaker at the National Working Meeting of the Ministry of Religious Affairs at Shangri La Hotel, in Central Jakarta, recently.

According to him, the contra discourse that must be carried out by the Ministry and Islamic organizations was to spread the moderation in Islam, which is not the right and left extremes. (Masdar)