The groups include the Indonesian Ulema Council and Muhammadiyah, the country's second largest Islamic organisation.
He heads the Muhammadiyah, a 28-million-strong conservative Muslim organization focusing on social and educational activities.
They have teamed up with Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organisation, with some 30m members.
Its basic beliefs about Islam are not very different to Muhammadiyah's, with a couple of major exceptions.
Today Muhammadiyah has schools across the country and more than 100 universities or institutes of higher education.
Both Singapore and Japan distributed part of their emergency assistance last year through mass Muslim organizations Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama.
One other nationally known figure has declared presidential ambitions: Amien Rais, former leader of the 28-million-strong, urban-based Muslim organization Muhammadiyah.
Dahlan founded Muhammadiyah in 1912, when most Indonesian Muslims were illiterate.
In this week's poll, supporters of the Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's two biggest Muslim organisations, plumped for many different candidates of varying degrees of piety.
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The symbolic message was important: that the traditional and the modernist strains of Indonesian Islam, represented by the NU and the Muhammadiyah respectively, could rise above their historical frictions and create an effective coalition.
In the run-up to the October presidential election, Wahid, then head of the Nahdlatul Ulama mass Muslim organization (which claims 30 million members), visited Rais at the latter's office at Muhammadiyah (another mass Muslim group).
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