Historically, it seems that Wahid Hasyim’s thoughts emerged in Indonesian circumstances where there was a polarization between government schools, established by Dutch colonial, which was concerned to produce skilful employees for the colonial government and the pesantren education which tend to preserve Islamic teaching and avoiding secular subjects such as science, foreign languages, including social sciences that were considered as a part of the colonial system. Unsurprisingly, there were many Muslim clerics, particularly from the NU circle, who considered Hasyim’s ideas unsuitable with pesantren’s values.