A ROCK STAR WOULD BE the last person one might expect to address a major defense policy conference. Yet the National Homeland Defense Foundation Symposium, held on October 3 in Colorado Springs, welcomed such a guest: thirty-four-year-old Ahmad Dhani.

Dhani is nothing short of a superstar in his native Indonesia, where he performs to sold-out crowds with his band Dewa 19, and where his music has defined a generation of young Indonesians. Frequently compared to U2 frontman Bono, Dhani and his band's music took a political turn two years ago. Since dictator Suharto was ousted from power in 1998, the country has been engaged in a high-stakes "culture war": Islamic political movements have been able to operate more freely, and extremist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Defenders Front have been pushing for the adoption of sharia law. Indonesia has been plagued by major terror attacks in Jakarta and Bali, and by religious and communal violence, such as clashes between Muslims and Christians in early 1999. Dhani and his group, like many urbanites, were alarmed by these developments. They decided to use their music to respond to the hateful ideology that has been seducing so many Indonesian youths.

One of the largest groups responsible for the escalation of violence in 1999 was Laskar Jihad ("Warriors of Jihad"), a violent militia that was led by Jafar Umar Thalib, a veteran of the Afghan jihad who claims to have met Osama bin Laden. When a fight between a Christian bus driver and a Muslim passenger who refused to pay his fare escalated into communal violence on the Maluku Islands in January 1999, Thalib's militia shipped thousands of fighters into the region by boat to "wage jihad." The conflict lasted three years; an estimated 10,000 people perished on the island of Ambon alone, and around half a million Indonesians were driven from their homes. For its central role in the crisis, Laskar Jihad became, according to former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid and American philanthropist C. Holland Taylor, "a symbol and a byword for the suffering inflicted upon that region." So it is fitting that, in turning toward political involvement, Dhani referenced the radical group in the title of Dewa's November 2004 album. It was called Laskar Cinta, Warriors of Love.

The Laskar Cinta album was designed to provide Indonesian youth with a choice between joining the army of jihad and joining Dhani's army of love. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies and became fodder for the Islamic Defenders Front, the most vocal radical group in Indonesia today, which accused Dhani of being an apostate and a Zionist agent. These attacks seem to have backfired, however. Nick Grace, a Washington, D.C.-based Indonesian-language political commentator, said that the attacks on Dhani and a lawsuit that accused him of defaming Islam only served to make him more prominent. Dhani's message was juxtaposed with that of the radical groups on entertainment and celebrity gossip television programs.

This year, Dhani followed his 2004 effort with a new album, Republik Cinta ("Republic of Love"). One of the new songs on the album is called Laskar Cinta. Although some listeners may be confused that the song bears the same name as Dewa's previous album, Dhani told the Indonesian edition of Rolling Stone that this isn't an uncommon practice. He proudly noted that his favorite band, Queen, also did this.

Laskar Cinta is an innovative song, designed as a "musical fatwa" against extremism. The lyrics reflect Dhani's Sufi faith: they are inspired by the Qur'an and ahadith (the sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad) with the intention of rebutting the hateful ideology that inspires Islamic terror. There is even an annotated version of the song online that makes the theological inspiration behind the verses explicit. And it has found an audience: Laskar Cinta became the No. 1 song in Indonesia shortly after its release, while its music video reached the top spot on MTV Asia's popular Indonesian- and Malay-language Ampuh program.