Stagnant Textualism and Epistemological Crisis: Revisiting Hadith Scholarship in Indonesia’s Islamic Universities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14421/qh.v27i1.6727Keywords:
Hadith Studies, Islamic epistemology, Textualism, Indonesia, al-JābirīAbstract
This study explores the epistemological orientation of hadith studies in Indonesia following a decade of institutional expansion across five major State Islamic Universities. Based on 1,272 undergraduate theses (2018–2025) and official curricula, the research employs qualitative content analysis to examine five dimensions—object of study, sources, problem orientation, methodology, and epistemic direction—interpreted through al-Jābirī’s tripartite framework (bayānī, ʿirfānī, and burhānī). The findings indicate a structural dominance of bayānī textualism, with matn-focused research comprising 53%, living hadith accounting for 21%, and isnād studies remaining marginal. Classical methods prevail at approximately 60%, while modern and hybrid approaches appear inconsistently, and curricular structures reinforce this conservatism by allocating up to 93% of instructional hours to riwāyah-oriented courses. Although UIN Yogyakarta and Jakarta exhibit partial integration of rational-critical approaches, most institutions maintain normative and thematic orientations. The study concludes that institutional growth has resulted in selective adaptation rather than paradigmatic transformation and recommends embedding rational-critical reasoning, interdisciplinary methods, and socially grounded research within core curricula to enable a shift from textual reproduction toward context-sensitive interpretation.
References
Adriansyah NZ. “Pola Kajian Hadis Akademik di Perguruan Tinggi Keagamaan Islam Negeri (PTKIN) di Indonesia (Studi Skripsi Mahasiswa Tafsir Hadis UIN Palembang, UIN Pekanbaru, dan UIN Padang)”. Jurnal Ilmu Agama, no. 2 (2019): 177-195. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19109/jia.v19i2.2907
Ali, Muhammad. “Dari Kajian Naskah kepada Living Qur’an dan Living Hadis: Pengantar Metodologi Penelitian Kontemporer al-Qur’an dan Hadis”. The annual seminar paper on Quran and Hadith Academic Society (QUHAS) Study of Mapping the Quran and Hadith in Indonesia on December 3, 2015. Tangerang Selatan: Graduate School of UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, 2015.
______________. Islam and Colonialism: Becoming Modern in Indonesia and Malaya. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
Altbatch, Philip G. and Viswanathan Selvaratnam. From Dependence to Autonomy; The Development of Asian Universities. Dodrecht: Springer Science & Business Media, 1989.
Azra, Azyumardi. “Kecenderungan Kajian Islam di Indonesia Studi Tentang Disertasi Doktor Program Pascasarjana IAIN Jakarta”. Balai Penelitian dan Pengabdian pada Masyarakat IAIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, 1997.
_______________. Islam Substantif: Agar Umat Tidak Kehilangan Identitas. Bandung: Mizan, 2000.
Brown, Daniel W. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought. trans. Charles Kurzman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1966.
Brown, Jonathan A.C. Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy. London: Oneworld, 2014.
___________________. Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World. Oxford: One World, 2009.
Casey, Zachary A. A Pedagogy of Anticapitalist Antiracism: Whiteness, Neoliberalism and Resistance in Education. State University of New York Press, 2016.
Darmalaksana, Wahyudin. “Pemetaan Penelitian Hadis: Analisis Skripsi UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung”. Riwayah Jurnal Studi Hadis 6, no. 2 (2020): 191-210. DOI: 10.21043/riwayah.v6i2.7752
El Shamsy, Ahmed. Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Shaped the Canon. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019.
Fatkhi, Rifqi Muhammad. Popularitas Tafsir Hadis Indonesia di UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Tangerang Selatan: HIPIUS, 2012.
Federspiel, Howard M. Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals of the 20th Century. Singapore: ISEAS, 2007.
Feener, R. Michael. Muslim Legal Thought in Modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Firdausy, Hilmy, Rifqi Muhammad Fatkhi, Fuad Thohari, “Baḥr al Madhī and the Establishment Momentum of Ḥadīth Studies in Nusantara in the 20th Century.” Ilmu Ushuluddin 9, no. 1 (Juli 2022); 15-48. https://doi.org/10.15408/iu.v9i1.20953
Giroux, Henry A. Pedagogy of Resistance; Againts Manufactured Ignorance. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.
Gleave, Robert. Islamic Education in the Classical Era. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
Al-Jābirī, Muḥammad ʿĀbid. Takwīn al-‘Aql al-‘Arabī. Beirut: al-Markaz al-Ṡaqāfī al-‘Arabī, 1986.
________________. “Isykāliyyāt al-Aṣālah wa al-Mu’āṣarah fi al-Fikr al-Arabī al-Hadīṡ al-Mu’āṣir: Ṣirā’ Ṭabaqī am Musykil Ṡaqāfi?”, Isykāliyyāt al-Fikr al-Arabī al-Mu’āṣir. Beirut: Markaz Dirāsāt al-Wiḥdah al-Arabiyyah, 1990.
________________. Naḥnu wa al-Turāṡ; Qira’āt Mu’āṣirah fī Turāṡinā al-Falsafī. Beirut: Markaz al-Ṡaqāfī al-‘Arabī, 1993.
Marhumah, Iffah Khoiriyatul Muyyassaroh, and Rosalia Sciortino. “Negotiating Living Hadith in Public Spaces: The Case of Salafi Muslimah Religious Study Groups in Yogyakarta”. Jurnal Studi Ilmu-ilmu Al-Qur’an dan Hadis 26, no. 1 (March 4, 2025): 131–158. Accessed December 5, 2025. https://ejournal.uin-suka.ac.id/ushuluddin/alquran/article/view/5715.
Mignolo, Walter D. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
Moosa, Ebrahim. What Is a Madrasa? Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2015.
Motzki, Harald. The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
Nadjib, Ala’i, Hilmy Firdausy, & Khaerul Umam. “Hadith in Digital Space: An Initial Mapping.” Ilmu Ushuluddin 11, no. 2 (Desember 2024); 249-287. https://doi.org/10.15408/iu.v11i2.46250.
Nurhidayah. Meretas Kesarjanaan Hadis di Indonesia. Unpublished thesis, UIN Jakarta, 2016.
Rahman, Fazlur. Wacana Studi Hadis Kontemporer. Yogyakarta: Tiara Wacana, 2002.
Surat Keputusan Direktur Jenderal Pendidikan Islam No. 3389 Tahun 2013 tentang Penamaan Perguruan Tinggi Agama Islam, Fakultas, dan Jurusan pada Perguruan Tinggi Agama Islam.
Suryadilaga, Alfatih. “Profil Prodi Ilmu Hadis di Era Globalisasi Teknologi Informasi”. Proceedings of the Hadith Studies Forum. UIN Sunan Kalijaga, 2017.
Wahid, Ramli Abdul and Dedi Masri. “Perkembangan Terkini Studi Hadis di Indonesia”. Miqat Jurnal Ilmu-Ilmu Keislaman 20, no. 2 (2018): 1–16. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30821/miqot.v42i2.572
Wani, Njoki Nathani and Kimberly L. Todd (Ed.). Decolonial Pedagogy: Eximining Sites of Resistance, Resurgence and Renewal. Springer Internasional Publishing, 2018.
Zayd, Nashr Ḥamīd Abū. Tekstualitas al-Qur’an; Kritik terhadap Ulumul Qur’an. trans. Khairon Nahdliyyin. Yogyakarta: LKiS, 2000.
____________________. Reformation of Islamic Thought. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
Zulfikri. “Orientalisme Hadis Peta Kajian Hadis Orientalis.” Tajdid XVI/2 (2013): 205.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Rifqi Muhammad Fatkhi Rifqi, Hilmy Firdausy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Publishing your paper with Jurnal Studi Ilmu-ilmu al-Qur'an dan Hadis means that the author or authors retain the copyright in the paper. Jurnal Studi Ilmu-ilmu al-Qur'an dan Hadis uses license CC-BY-NC-ND or an equivalent license as the optimal license for the publication, distribution, use, and reuse of scholarly works. This license permits anyone to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. If you remix, translate, transform or build upon the material you may use it for private use only and not for distribution. Jurnal Studi Ilmu-ilmu al-Qur'an dan Hadis granted an exclusive non-commercial reuse license by the author(s), but the author(s) are able to put the paper onto a website, distribute it to colleagues, give it to students, use it in your thesis, etc, so long as the use is not directed at a commercial advantage or toward private monetary gain. The author(s) can reuse the figures and tables and other information contained in their paper published by Jurnal Studi Ilmu-ilmu al-Qur'an dan Hadis in future papers or work without having to ask anyone for permission, provided that the figures, tables, or other information that is included in the new paper or work properly references the published paper as the source of the figures, tables or other information, and the new paper or work is not direct at a private monetary gain or commercial advantage.
Jurnal Studi Ilmu-ilmu al-Qur'an dan Hadis journal Open Acces articles are distrubuted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Article can be read, copy and redistribute the material ini any medium or format under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
