Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest traditionalist organisation, focuses on many of the activities such as social, religious and education and indirectly operates a majority of the country's Islamic boarding schools. Claiming 40 to 60 million followers, NU is the country's largest organisation and perhaps the world's largest Islamic group. Founded in 1926, NU has a nationwide presence but remains strongest in rural Java. It follows the ideology of Ahle Sunnah wal Jamaah with Sufism of Imam Ghazali and Junaid Bagdadi. Many NU followers give great deference to the views, interpretations, and instructions of senior NU religious figures, alternately called "Kyais" or "Ulama." The organisation has long advocated religious moderation and communal harmony. On the political level, NU, the progressive Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims (Masyumi), and two other parties were forcibly streamlined into a single Islamic political party in 1973 — the United Development Party (PPP). Such cleavages may have weakened NU as an organised political entity, as demonstrated by the NU withdrawal from active political competition, but as a popular religious force NU showed signs of good health and a capacity to frame national debates.