ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Dialectical Relations of Modernity and Tradition B. Modern Structural transcendental Approach Muhammadiyah was established on November 18th 1912 by KH Ahmad Dahlan. Muhammadiyah is a modern Islamic movement in the ways of the Islam modernists of 19th century such as Jamaluddin al-Afghani (1838-1897), Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), Rasyid Ridla (1856-1935).

Modernists claimed that this movement was the continuation of the “ salaf ”[^4] movement from Ibn Taimiyah and his follower Qoyyim al-Jauziyah (1292-1350) and then continued by Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab (1703-1787) who tried to open the gate of ijtihad [^5] (Kamal, 1994: 6-7). However we should analysis further these statements of salaf and ijtihad and confront them to historical facts.

Muhammadiyah used salaf to justify its spirit to open the gate of ijtihad (religious reformation) and to offend those who were accused to be the supporters of taqlid (following tradition) and the later then organized themselves into Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). However NU also claimed its rights of salaf because it followed the true Islam as interpreted Muhammad the Prophet’s followers of His era, the next generation, and the following generation.

In 1924 the dispute over salaf was settled in the conference of Al-Islam in Surabaya. Both agreed that salaf is only to those who live up to the third century of Hijrah, out of them do not belong to salaf (Hadar, 1998: 52). It implied that Muhammad denied that it follows Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab’s movement in Saudi Arabia, although both have the same characteristics as stated above by Kamal, Muhammadiyah intellectualist. Muhammadiyah and Abduh are also different in some respects.

They have different orientation in reforming Islamic society. Muhammadiyah tended to follow Muhammad Abdul Wahab’s purification movement than of Abduh’s modernization. It meant that Muhammadiyah emphasized on the belief aspect of Islam, meanwhile Abduh called for ijtihad in muamalah (social aspect of Islam) such as in politic, education, and sciences and technology.

As results, Muhammadiyah’s reformation faced the great opposition from the traditionalist group which then joined in NU in 1926 so that the movement was not able to progress smoothly, especially in the rural area (Haidar, 1998: 50). Muhammadiyah tried to modernize Islamic thinking in Indonesia by adopting the structural approach of modern ideas originated from the West.