When Singapore authorities commenced post-9/11 security operations against terrorist organisations, several Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) members fled Singapore and went into hiding in neighbouring countries to evade arrest. In JI circles, the action of fleeing to another country is known as hijrah. A further examination of the concept of hijrah as practised by JI pioneer generation would be instructive.

Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir were JI pioneers who continued the struggle of the Darul Islam (DI) movement to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia. They opposed the idea of a secular state and refused to accept Suharto’s “Pancasila only” policy because it was deemed “the work of human and meaningless compared to the Quran”.

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