Pendidikan Islam dan Pergeseran Orientasi: Studi Kasus Alumni Al-Azhar [Islamic Education and the Shift in Orientation: A Case Study of Al-Azhar Alumni]

Abstract

An Indonesian translation of the study by Egyptian sociologist Mona Abaza on Indonesian students and alumni of Al-Azhar University, Cairo, with a foreword by Azyumardi Azra. Abaza traces the long history of intellectual relations between the Nusantara and Egypt from the Jawi community of the nineteenth century, through the influence of the reform movement of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, to the waves of students after independence. Based on interviews and field research in Cairo and Indonesia, the book maps the social backgrounds of the students, their learning experiences within Al-Azhar's traditional educational system, and the roles of the alumni after their return home in the IAIN (State Institutes of Islamic Studies), pesantren, the religious bureaucracy, and Islamic organisations. Abaza also compares the orientation of Middle Eastern alumni with that of Western-educated Muslim scholars, and shows the shift in the orientation of Indonesian Islamic education from Cairo to Western universities since the era of Mukti Ali and Harun Nasution. This study is an important reference on networks of ulama, the transmission of knowledge, and the formation of Indonesia's Muslim intellectual elite.