over 542 branches across the country. Ahmadiyya history in Indonesia began since the missionary activity during the 1920s established the movement in Tapaktuan, Aceh. Both Shia and Ahmadi Muslims have been facing increasing intolerance and persecutions by reactionary and radical Islamic groups. Organizations In Indonesia, civil society organizations have historically held distinct and significant weight within the Muslim society. These various institutions have contributed greatly to both the intellectual discourse and public sphere for the culmination of new thoughts and sources for communal movements. 60% of 200 million Indonesian Muslims identify either as Nahdlatul Ulama or Muhammadiyah, making these organizations a 'steel frame' of Indonesian civil society. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest traditionalist organization, focuses on many of the activities such as social, religious and education and indirectly operates a majority of the country's Islamic boarding schools. Claiming 40 to 60 million followers, NU is Indonesia's largest organization and perhaps the world's largest Islamic group. Founded in 1926, NU has a nationwide presence but remains strongest in rural Java. It follows the ideology of Ahle Sunnah wal Jamaah with Sufism of Imam Ghazali and Junaid Bagdadi. Many NU followers give great deference to the views, interpretations, and instructions of senior NU religious figures, alternatively called Kyais or Ulama. The organization has long advocated religious moderation and communal harmony. On the political level, NU, the progressive Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims (Masyumi), and two other parties were forcibly streamlined into a single Islamic political party in 1973—the United Development Party (PPP). Such cleavages may have weakened NU as an organized political entity, as demonstrated by the NU withdrawal from active political competition, but as a popular religious force, NU showed signs of good health and a capacity to frame national debates. The leading national modernist social organization, Muhammadiyah, has branches throughout the country and approximately 29 million followers. Founded in 1912, Muhammadiyah runs mosques, prayer houses, clinics, orphanages, poorhouses, schools, public libraries, and universities. On February 9, Muhammadiyah's central board and provincial chiefs agreed to endorse a former Muhammadiyah chairman's presidential campaign. This marked the organization's first formal foray into partisan politics and generated controversy among members. Some smaller Islamic organizations cover a broad range of Islamic doctrinal orientations. At one end of the ideological spectrum lies the controversial Islam Liberal Network (JIL), which aims to promote a pluralist and more liberal interpretation of Islamic thinking. Equally controversial are groups at