Sitting in an office deep inside the Istiqlal Mosque complex in the center of Jakarta, Komaruddin Rachmat looks like a man of peace. Yet two weeks ago the soft-spoken activist armed 30,000 rough-hewn Muslim vigilantes to intimidate students protesting for democracy. As the muezzin's call to prayer echoes down the marble corridors of Southeast Asia's largest mosque, Komaruddin dispassionately contends that Muslims had to turn out to support the presidency of B.J. Habibie--seen as sympathetic to Islam--and that the students were being controlled by Catholics and Marxists.

Behind Komaruddin's gentle manner lies a deep-seated confidence that his time has come--and a determination to take whatever measures necessary to make Indonesia a more thoroughly Muslim country. Komaruddin is chairman of FURKON, an umbrella organization of 24 Muslim groups. He says he visited Habibie in early November and told the President these groups would "protect" the coming parliament session from the expected student protests. Living up to his word, he bused "volunteers" (many said they were paid about $2.50 a day) into Jakarta the week of the meeting. The vigilantes--known in Indonesian as pam swakarsa, or security volunteers--were given bamboo sticks and white headbands inscribed with Arabic characters and sent around the city in open-bed trucks to taunt the students. Twelve people died in clashes on the last day of the session. They include four of Komaruddin's men, beaten to death by residents of Jakarta's Cawang and Bendungan neighborhoods who resented the vigilantes' heavy-handed tactics. The deaths don't seem to faze Komaruddin much. "This is a good opportunity for Muslims in Indonesia now," he says. "We don't want to lose this chance."

As Indonesia staggers in search of a new political model after 32 years of Suharto's dictatorship, Muslim groups sense a political opportunity. And that is starting to worry many secular Indonesians. With elections tentatively set for next June, some fear the intervening period will see more outbreaks of violence as political groups become polarized and resort to intimidation rather than dialogue. The battle lines are being drawn. "This is not a moral movement," says Ahmad Sumargono, vice chairman of the Indonesian Committee for World Muslim Solidarity, referring to Habibie's opponents. "It is a political power struggle. Non-Muslims are afraid they will be marginalized by an election." Counters Frans Seda, a Catholic economist who served as a finance minister under both Sukarno and Suharto. "We have been trapped into this. To be against Habibie now is to be against Muslims."

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R E L A T E D S T O R I E S : INDONESIA ON EDGE TIME Daily: Street battles erupt along religious lines in Jakarta, leaving six dead and the military powerless to stop the carnage FALLING APART AT THE SEEMS As legislators meet to draft new election laws, students and troops clash in the worst street violence since Suharto's fall. The country's political future hangs in the balance