"Thanks to this intensive silaturahmi, not only did Gus Dur keep in touch with so many real people and their actual problems around the country, or bring great charismatic clerics such as Abdullah Faqih of Langitan to national attention, but he also gave due recognition and introduced local leaders of remote villages previously unknown, people like Shaikh Mas’ud of Cilacap — a collector of rare books written by classical Indonesian Muslim scholars."

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