CORN, coconuts, wild grass and shrubs. In a small area known as Bojong village, Malangbong, West Java, it does not look like there was ever a pesantren, an Islamic boarding school. Yet, it was here, in the distant past, that Kartosoewirjo established the Suffah Institute, a pesantren which taught religion, politics and military science.

Malangbong was where Kartosoewirjo first studied about Islam. His teachers were his father-in-law, Ajengan Ar