Tashwirul Afkar

Investasi Pendidikan dalam Bingkai Keagamaan: NU Scholarship Sebagai Model Filantropi Berbasis Pengembangan Sumber Daya Manusia di Indonesia

2026-08-23T12:10:32+00:00

The allocation of zakat, infaq, and sadaqah (ZIS) funds to the education sector is increasingly vital as a strategic, long-term philanthropic financing model. This conceptual article examines the NU Scholarship (NUS)—a collaboration between LAKPESDAM PBNU and BAZNAS RI initiated in 2023—as an emerging model that integrates social investment logic into productive zakat management in Indonesia. Employing a literature review and qualitative document analysis of official programme documents, verified news reports, regulations, and national statistical data, this article investigates how NUS frames zakat funds within public discourse, its institutional design elements aligned with social investment principles, and its conceptual implications for educational philanthropy in Indonesia. The analysis is guided by three complementary theoretical lenses: social investment theory as the primary framework, Maqashid Sharia as a normative comparison, and philanthropic intermediary theory as a structural complement. The findings reveal that NUS frames zakat funds across three discursive registers—religious, developmental, and diplomatic—and exhibits design elements consistent with social investment principles, such as tiered targeting through diversified scholarship schemes and its function as an educational philanthropy hub, while leaving room for development in long-term impact evaluation mechanisms. This article offers a potential conceptual framework for studying social investment-based Islamic educational philanthropy in Indonesia, while acknowledging the limitations of a single-case design (N=1) and emic data sources.

Membaca Al-Qur’an melalui Kunūz al-Raḥmān

2026-08-23T09:27:26+00:00

Resensi ini membahas Kunūz al-Raḥmān fī Durūs al-Qur’ān: Hidāyāt Qur’āniyyah wa Taujīhāt Rabbāniyyah li Binā’ al-Insān wa Iṣlāḥ al-‘Umrān karya KH. Muhammad Afifuddin Dimyati Ramli, sebuah karya tafsir kontemporer yang berupaya menghimpun dan menyistematisasi pelajaran-pelajaran Al-Qur’an yang tersebar dalam berbagai literatur tafsir. Konsep durūs al-Qur’ān dalam kitab ini mencakup dalālah al-āyāt, faidah, irsyādāt, isyārāt, mafāhīm, hukum, dan maqāṣid yang diarahkan pada kemaslahatan manusia dalam kehidupan individual maupun sosial. Penyajiannya mengikuti urutan mushaf dan menampilkan pokok-pokok pelajaran setiap ayat secara ringkas dan sistematis. Salah satu kekuatan kitab ini terletak pada kemampuannya merangkum khazanah tafsir lintas generasi sekaligus menghadirkan relevansi sosial-kemasyarakatan dari ayat-ayat Al-Qur’an. Namun, konsistensi pola penyajian berdasarkan halaman mushaf juga menimbulkan ketidakseimbangan dalam porsi penjelasan, terutama pada bagian yang memuat ayat dalam jumlah banyak. Terlepas dari keterbatasan tersebut, Kunūz al-Raḥmān menawarkan model penyajian tafsir yang praktis dan sistematis serta mempertemukan kekayaan tradisi tafsir klasik dan kontemporer dengan kebutuhan pembaca dalam memahami petunjuk dan pelajaran Al-Qur’an.

Menavigasi Abad Kedua NU: Membaca Pemikiran Gus Yahya tentang Pesantren dan Perubahan

2026-08-23T09:55:42+00:00

Resensi ini mengulas buku Menavigasi Perubahan NU dan Pesantren: Syarah Pemikiran Gus Yahya, sebuah antologi yang menghadirkan pembacaan atas gagasan Yahya Cholil Staquf mengenai arah perubahan Nahdlatul Ulama dan pesantren dalam memasuki abad kedua NU. Buku ini menggunakan pola matan dan syarah, dengan gagasan Gus Yahya ditempatkan sebagai pokok pemikiran yang kemudian dijelaskan, dikembangkan, dan dikontekstualisasikan oleh sepuluh penulis dari beragam latar keilmuan. Pembahasan mencakup visi peradaban, digitalisasi organisasi, kaderisasi, penguatan sumber daya manusia, tata kelola NU, politik anggaran pesantren, pembaruan bahtsul masail, rekognisi dan transformasi pesantren, peran NU di tingkat global, serta pencegahan kekerasan di lingkungan pesantren. Keragaman perspektif tersebut menunjukkan bahwa transformasi NU tidak hanya bertumpu pada pembenahan kelembagaan, tetapi juga menuntut penguatan nilai, kapasitas organisasi, keberpihakan terhadap kelompok rentan, dan kemampuan merespons perubahan sosial. Buku ini pada akhirnya menawarkan peta pemikiran mengenai tantangan dan arah konsolidasi NU serta pesantren dalam menjaga kesinambungan tradisi sekaligus beradaptasi dengan tuntutan zaman.

Faith-Based Social Innovation from the Global South: Repositioning Nahdlatul Ulama as a Global Social Innovation Hub in Polycentric Global Governance

2026-08-02T04:38:41+00:00

This article develops the Global South Social Innovation Hub (GSSIH) framework to explain how large faith-based organizations (FBOs) can move beyond service delivery and become scale-bridging infrastructures for social innovation in polycentric global governance. The study addresses a persistent gap between social innovation scholarship, which remains strongly shaped by Global North institutional experiences, and FBO research, which has more often emphasized welfare provision, advocacy, or diplomacy than recurrent innovation capability. Methodologically, the article uses a conceptual research design combining a purposive integrative review, institutional analysis, and theory synthesis. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is treated as an illustrative institutional case rather than as an empirically validated global innovation hub. The synthesis produces three findings. First, institutional legitimacy and a differentiated organizational ecosystem provide the social and organizational foundations for experimentation, but only when authority is coupled with accountability and cross-unit coordination. Second, local knowledge production and transnational networks create a mechanism for codifying, translating, and circulating contextually grounded solutions across settings. Third, knowledge diplomacy can convert circulated knowledge into broader normative influence only when external engagement remains reciprocal, evidence-based, and connected to internal learning. These findings are integrated into a four-stage cycle - embedding, generating, circulating, and legitimating - and operationalized through six testable propositions. The article's originality lies in repositioning Global South FBOs as potential knowledge and innovation infrastructures while specifying the institutional conditions and failure modes that distinguish genuine hub capability from organizational scale, symbolic internationalization, or elite-centered diplomacy. The framework offers a comparative agenda for future empirical research and a diagnostic tool for organizations seeking to strengthen socially embedded innovation capacity

NU, Agama-Agama, dan Telikungan Zionisme Global: Kesadaran Geopolitik sebagai Kewajiban Aswaja

2026-08-03T07:13:14+00:00

This article examines the position of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in the geopolitical struggle over narratives of Palestine, Islamophobia, and global Zionism. Taking as its point of departure the late Gus Im’s warning about the “entanglement of global capitalism,” the article argues that global Zionism operates not only through military power, state diplomacy, pro-Israel lobbying, and Western support, but also through the colonization of religious narratives. Islam is constructed as a threat; solidarity with Palestine is suspected as extremism; criticism of Israel is equated with antisemitism; and religious moderation is redirected into a soft—indeed silent—posture in the face of colonialism and genocide. The article examines the post-Cold War securitization of Islam, hasbara, the normalization of violence in Gaza and Lebanon, the demonization of Iran, Christian Zionism, Sunni-Shi‘a sectarianization, and the internalization of epistemic Islamophobia within Muslim communities themselves. Its central argument is that NU must reclaim Aswaja as an ethic of justice, geopolitical consciousness, anticolonial responsibility, and defense of the mustad‘afin—not as a brand of moderation that is safe for an unequal global order. Aswaja rahmatan lil ’alamin must be distinguished from imperial moderation: the former defends victims, while the latter normalizes settler colonialism, apartheid, blockade, and genocide. The article also argues that defending Palestine is not a departure from NU’s history, but a continuation of the geopolitical instinct of its founding scholars, who since 1938 had already made Palestine part of Islamic, communal, and anticolonial consciousness.

Menjadi Nahdliyin di Media Sosial: Vernakularisasi Identitas dalam @Nugarislucu

2026-08-22T11:41:23+00:00

Social media have expanded the production of religious identity beyond institutional communication into representational practices undertaken by informal actors. This study aims to analyse how the humour account @NUgarislucu vernacularises Nahdliyin identity through conversational language, the social world of pesantren, communal rituals, village life, and humour. The study employs qualitative content analysis of an initial corpus of 1,040 posts published by @NUgarislucu on the X platform, with coding focused on everyday language, the social world of pesantren, and Nahdliyin habitus. A limited multimodal analysis is also applied to posts whose meanings depend on images or videos. The findings identify three main mechanisms. First, Javanese, informal Indonesian, code-switching, familiar forms of address, and wordplay translate NU identity into the register of everyday communication. Second, representations of kiai, gus, santri, pondok, sarongs, kopiah, tahlilan, berkat, and village life situate Nahdliyin identity within recognisable social, material, and ritual settings. Third, representations of simplicity, gratitude, togetherness, courtesy, and humour construct a particular Nahdliyin habitus as portrayed by the account. These findings demonstrate that digital religious identity can be formed and sustained through lived cultural experience, rather than solely through the reproduction of doctrine, formal affiliation, and organisational communication. The originality of this study lies in its use of a vernacularisation perspective to explain how Nahdliyin identity is selected, repackaged, and circulated by an informal humour account through everyday language, symbols, practices, and affect. In this study, @NUgarislucu is understood as a producer of digital representations rather than as the official voice of PBNU or of Nahdliyin as a whole.

Studi Kasus Institusional Transformasi Sistem Kaderisasi Nahdlatul Ulama Pada Masa Khidmat 2022–2027: Kaderisasi Sebagai Mesin Organisasi Hingga Semester I 2026

2026-07-27T04:11:17+00:00

This study examines the transformation of Nahdlatul Ulama’s (NU) cadre-development system during the PBNU 2022–2027 service period through the first semester of 2026, focusing on the shift from relatively episodic training toward an organizational development system linking cadre education, standardization, data governance, assignment, and leadership succession. The study employs a qualitative institutional case-study design. Data consist of PBNU organizational documents from 2022–2026 and a supporting interview with Amir Ma’ruf conducted on 16 June 2026. The material was analyzed through thematic content analysis while distinguishing policy design, implementation, preliminary organizational outcomes, and broader impact claims. The findings reveal three major transformations. First, PD-PKPNU, PMKNU, and AKN-NU, together with regulatory and facilitator standardization, constitute a tiered cadre-development architecture connecting ideological formation with progressively greater leadership responsibilities. Second, SiskaderNU strengthens the transition toward data-supported cadre governance and creates possibilities for post-training evaluation and competency–role matching. Third, the orientation of cadre development is beginning to shift from training volume toward organizational activation, assignment, services to members, and leadership succession, although implementation remains constrained by uneven regional leadership, incomplete meritocratic placement, cross-system integration challenges, assistance needs in weaker regions, and the need for a Generation Z pathway. Practically, the findings indicate the importance of strengthening competency-based assignments and data-driven outcome evaluation. The study’s originality lies in proposing an analytical model of “cadre development as an organizational engine” linking tiered education, competence, cadre data, assignment, organizational activation, member services, and leadership regeneration.

Modal Sosial dalam Penguatan Civil Society: Peran Lakpesdam NU di Kuningan dan Mataram

2026-08-13T07:35:29+00:00

This study examines the role of civil society organizations—Lakpesdam PCNU Kuningan and Lakpesdam PCNU Mataram—in fostering inclusive policies through the theoretical frameworks of social capital and community empowerment. Utilizing a qualitative comparative case study design with advocacy processes and civil society–community–state relations as the units of analysis, research data were drawn from a systematic selection of 18 primary corpus documents (Peduli program narrative reports, Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) documents, System of Verification (SoV) attachments, regional regulations, and secondary literature). The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis with a combined deductive-inductive approach to identify the formation of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking) in dismantling structural barriers faced by the Ahmadiyya community in Kuningan and Mataram. The findings identify three primary mechanisms underlying civil society effectiveness: (1) the mobilization of relational trust networks across religious, political, and bureaucratic actors; (2) strategic reframing of social exclusion as a citizenship rights issue rather than a theological debate; and (3) the cultivation of community self-reliance through participatory processes. This research contributes to civil society literature by demonstrating that social capital embedded within faith-based organizations can serve as a transformative resource for inclusive governance. Policy recommendations emphasize the institutionalization of civil society–state partnerships as a fundamental pillar for inclusive development strategies in Indonesia.