MODERNISASI PENDIDIKAN ISLAM DI INDONESIA DALAM PERSPEKTIF SEJARAH SOSIAL

Abstract

The modernization of Islamic education in Indonesia is often narrated as a linear shift from traditional institutions to modern schools. Such a narrative obscures the negotiations through which Muslim communities selected, adapted, and reinterpreted modern forms without abandoning their religious authority and social roots. This article analyzes the modernization of Indonesian Islamic education from the early twentieth century to the digital era through a social-historical perspective. It employs qualitative library research by critically reading historical studies, works of educational thought, peer-reviewed articles, and state regulations. The materials are organized chronologically and analyzed thematically around institutional actors, curriculum, state recognition, epistemological integration, and social mobility. The study finds that modernization proceeded through four interrelated trajectories: curricular rationalization, organizational differentiation, state standardization, and the reintegration of religious and modern sciences. Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulama, pesantren, madrasas, and Islamic higher education followed different but mutually influential paths. State policies expanded recognition and graduate mobility, yet also introduced bureaucratic and market pressures. The article argues that Indonesian Islamic education is best understood as negotiated institutional translation rather than Westernization. Its future relevance depends on rooted modernization that combines normative continuity, epistemic openness, institutional adaptability, social inclusion, and digital ethics in a plural and changing society.