Darulfunun Institute

Institute for Development, Research and Initiatives (IDRIS)

Category: Research Article

  • The Thought of Sheikh Nawawi Al-Bantani in the 19th Century: His Contribution to Islamic Family Law Thought in Indonesia

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    The Islamic Legal Thought of Shaykh Nawawi al-Bantani in the Nineteenth Century and Its Contribution to the Tradition of Islamic Family Law in Indonesia. This study examines the Islamic legal thought of Shaykh Nawawi al-Bantani in the nineteenth century and its contribution to the tradition of Islamic family law in Indonesia. It is based on the assumption that Indonesian Islamic family law did not emerge in a vacuum, but was shaped through a long process of transmission involving Shafi‘i jurisprudence, the pesantren tradition, classical Islamic texts known as kitab kuning, local culture, and the codification of law within the modern state system. This research employs a qualitative method based on library research, using historical-normative and socio-intellectual approaches. The primary sources of this study are the works of Shaykh Nawawi al-Bantani related to family law, particularly ‘Uqud al-Lujjain, Nihayat al-Zain, and Qut al-?abib al-Gharib. These sources are supported by journal articles, academic books, the Marriage Law, the Compilation of Islamic Law, and other relevant contemporary regulations. The data are analyzed through descriptive analysis and a contextual-hermeneutical approach in order to examine the construction of Nawawi’s thought in relation to the social context of the nineteenth century and the development of Islamic family law in Indonesia. The findings indicate that Nawawi’s thought on family law is deeply rooted in the Shafi‘i school of law and positions the family as a moral-religious institution. Marriage is understood as a contract that entails responsibility, protection, education, and the preservation of family honor. However, the construction of husband-wife relations in his thought also reflects hierarchical and patriarchal features, as the husband is positioned as the leader of the family, while the wife is placed within a framework of obedience. Nevertheless, Nawawi’s thought also contains a protective dimension, particularly through its emphasis on the husband’s obligation to provide maintenance, guidance, education, and kind treatment toward his wife. This study concludes that Nawawi not only produced legal texts, but also contributed to the formation of the habitus of Islamic family law in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago through pesantren and kitab kuning traditions. His thought remains relevant when read critically and contextually through the perspectives of maq??id al-shar?‘ah, human rights, gender equality, and the contemporary needs of Muslim family law in Indonesia.

  • Optimizing Cash Waqf Investment through Asset Diversification and Nazhir Capacity Building: A Case Study of the Muhammadiyah Cash Waqf Board in West Sumatra

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    Aims: This study aims to analyze the optimization of waqf investment at Badan Wakaf Uang Muhammadiyah (BWUM) West Sumatra by focusing on waqf asset diversification, investment management, risk control, and the utilization of investment returns for community welfare. Method: This research employs a qualitative approach using an ex-post facto method. Data were collected through interviews and documentation related to waqf investment management at BWUM West Sumatra. The data were analyzed descriptively to examine the practices of investment development, supervision, reporting, risk management, and distribution of waqf benefits. Results: The findings indicate that BWUM West Sumatra has developed waqf funds through Islamic financial institutions and productive business activities, including UD Berkah. However, several investments have been discontinued due to considerations of efficiency and sustainability. Waqf investment management is supported by supervision, financial reporting, reserve fund establishment, and the distribution of investment benefits to social, educational, and healthcare sectors. These findings demonstrate that waqf investment optimization requires a balance between asset development, risk control, professional nazhir management, transparency, and the orientation toward public welfare. Conclusion/Novelty/Implications: The novelty of this study lies in its integrated analysis of waqf investment optimization by linking asset diversification, investment management, risk control, and the utilization of investment returns within the context of BWUM West Sumatra. The findings imply that strengthening nazhir professionalism, investment governance, transparency, and risk management is essential to ensure the sustainability and productivity of waqf assets. Future efforts should emphasize broader asset diversification, more strategic investment planning, and the development of productive waqf models that generate sustainable socio-economic benefits for the community.

  • Digital Transformation in Financial Accounting: A Systematic Literature Review Using the PRISMA Approach

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    Aim: This study aims to analyze the development of digital transformation in financial accounting, identify dominant technologies and research themes, and explore research gaps in the field of digital transformation in financial accounting. Method: This study employs a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 framework. The data consist of scientific articles obtained from Scopus, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Emerald Insight, Google Scholar, and other scholarly sources. A total of 18 articles published between 2017 and 2026 met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed using content analysis with a thematic analysis approach. Results: The findings indicate that blockchain is the most dominant technology in the transformation of financial accounting due to its contribution to transparency, accountability, financial reporting quality, and fraud mitigation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation also play important roles in improving the efficiency of accounting and auditing processes and supporting data-driven decision-making. However, existing research remains largely dominated by conceptual and literature-based studies, while empirical research examining the implementation of digital technologies in accounting practices remains relatively limited. Conclusion/Novelty/Implications: The novelty of this study lies in systematically mapping dominant technologies and research themes while identifying empirical research gaps. The findings imply that future research should integrate technology, governance, regulation, cybersecurity, and human resource competencies to support effective and sustainable digital transformation in financial accounting.

  • Integrating Waqf, Islamic Microfinance and Entrepreneurship: A Hybrid Financing Framework for Financially Excluded MSMEs

    » WAQF Business Review

    Aim: This study aims to develop a hybrid financing framework that integrates Waqf, Islamic microfinance and entrepreneurship to support financial inclusion, enterprise development and sustainability among financially excluded MSMEs. Methodology: The study adopts a qualitative, conceptual and analytical research design based on a critical review and thematic synthesis of classical and contemporary literature on Waqf, Islamic social finance, Islamic microfinance, entrepreneurship, financial inclusion and MSME development. Relevant literature was analysed to identify financing constraints, institutional complementarities and entrepreneurial support mechanisms. The resulting relationships were synthesised into an integrated hybrid financing framework. Findings: The analysis indicates that Waqf can potentially function as a foundational social-finance layer within a hybrid financing ecosystem, while Islamic microfinance can provide complementary working and growth capital. Entrepreneurship development—including training, mentoring, financial literacy, digital capability, business incubation and market linkage—can connect financing provision with productive enterprise development. The proposed framework consists of five interrelated dimensions: Waqf capital mobilisation, Islamic microfinance provision, entrepreneurial capability development, institutional and market integration, and enterprise sustainability and social impact. The framework further suggests that partnerships among Waqf institutions, Islamic financial institutions, universities, government agencies, private-sector actors and community organisations can strengthen institutional coordination and expand access to productive finance. Conclusion: Integrating Waqf, Islamic microfinance and entrepreneurship provides a potentially coherent pathway for addressing multiple dimensions of MSME financial exclusion. Rather than treating financing as an isolated intervention, the proposed framework combines sustainable social capital, Shariah-compliant finance and entrepreneurial capability development within a single institutional architecture. However, the framework remains conceptual and has not been empirically validated. Future studies should test its applicability, effectiveness and scalability across different MSME and socioeconomic contexts.

  • The Dynamics of Underage Marriage: An Empirical Socio-Legal Study at the Religious Affairs Office of Simo, Boyolali, Indonesia

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    Underage marriage remains a persistent socio-legal challenge in Indonesia despite the establishment of nineteen as the statutory minimum marriage age. This study examines the implementation of underage marriage at the Religious Affairs Office (KUA) of Simo, Boyolali, analyses its driving factors and consequences, and evaluates the institutional role of the KUA in addressing the practice. Employing a normative-empirical socio-legal approach, the study integrates statutory analysis with field evidence obtained through semi-structured interviews, observation, and institutional documentation. The findings demonstrate that underage marriage occurs through two principal pathways: court-authorised marriage dispensation followed by formal registration and religious marriage conducted prior to, or outside, the formal registration process. The practice is driven by the interaction of economic hardship, educational discontinuity, cultural expectations, premarital relationships and pregnancy, partial religious understandings, and individual preference. Its consequences include disrupted education, economic insecurity, psychological immaturity, reproductive-health vulnerability, and marital instability. Although the KUA effectively performs legal gatekeeping through age verification, registration control, premarital guidance, and institutional coordination, its preventive capacity remains limited where social practices precede or bypass formal legal procedures. These findings imply that underage-marriage prevention requires an integrated intervention involving legal institutions, schools, health services, village authorities, religious leaders, and families. The study contributes original empirical evidence by locating the regulatory-practice gap at the local institutional level and by demonstrating the relevance of integrating socio-legal analysis with a maqasid al-shariah-oriented child-protection framework.

  • Digital Transformation in Islamic Economics: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Research Directions

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    Aims: This study aims to analyze the opportunities, challenges, and future research directions in the digital transformation of the Islamic economy, including the use of Islamic fintech, digital banking, blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and other financial technologies. Method: This research employs a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method following PRISMA guidelines. The identification process yielded 3,546 articles, which were then screened and assessed for eligibility, ultimately producing 18 articles as the final sample for thematic analysis. Results: The results show that digital transformation offers opportunities such as increased efficiency, easier transactions, transparency, product and service innovation, and expanded Sharia financial inclusion. However, its implementation still faces several challenges, particularly regulations, Shariah compliance, cybersecurity, data protection, digital literacy, and infrastructure gaps. The study also demonstrates that maqashid al-shariah principles are important as a foundation in guiding technology development so that it is not only focused on economic efficiency but also brings benefits, justice, and sustainability. Conclusion/Novelty/Implications: The novelty of this research lies in its comprehensive mapping of digital transformation dimensions in the Islamic economy through an integrated SLR approach. The implications emphasize the need for regulatory harmonization, strengthening Shariah governance, and developing operational models for AI and blockchain applications. Future research should be directed towards empirical studies on AI, blockchain, CBDC, smart contracts, digital zakat and waqf, as well as developing Shariah governance models that are adaptive to technological advancements.

  • Exploitation of Public Figures’ Faces by AI Platforms as a Form of Unjust Enrichment: A Juridical Study within the Indonesian Legal System

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    The commodification of public figures’ faces within generative AI ecosystems raises a question Indonesian law has yet to answer: who holds entitlement to the economic value extracted from a person’s likeness when platforms replicate and monetize it without meaningful consent. That gap frames an inquiry into the legal status of a public figure’s face as an economic asset, whether AI platforms’ use of it amounts to unjust enrichment, and how accountability should attach to the platforms involved. Through normative legal research grounded in the Copyright Law, the Electronic Information and Transactions Law, the Personal Data Protection Law, and Article 1365 of the Civil Code, the analysis asks how far systematic and teleological interpretation can reach an exploitation unfolding algorithmically rather than through conventional appropriation. A public figure’s face, the study finds, has shifted from a marker of identity into an intangible asset sustaining platform valuation, while existing legal regimes remain fragmented rather than complementary: copyright refuses to treat a face as a protectable work, and data protection law leans toward privacy rather than economic interest. That misalignment lets the four elements of unjust enrichment, enrichment, loss, causation, and absence of legal basis, be satisfied, and opens the possibility of qualifying the conduct as unlawful under Article 1365. The study proposes a layered accountability model of profit restitution, compensation, dataset transparency, and explicit consent, its novelty lying in positioning unjust enrichment as a distributive-justice framework for generative AI’s exploitation of identity, a terrain Indonesian legal scholarship has scarcely addressed.

  • Effect of MUI Fatwa on Environmentally Friendly Carbon Value Investment

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    Climate change and increased carbon emissions demand the development of investment instruments that are not only oriented towards economic profits, but also pay attention to environmental sustainability and social welfare. The fatwa of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) on climate change control law provides a normative-religious foundation that places environmental protection, emission reduction, prevention of ecological damage, and human responsibility as a caliph as an important part of economic activities. This study aims to analyze the impact of the MUI Fatwa on carbon value investment from the perspective of sharia economic law and maq??id al-syar?’ah Jasser Auda. The research uses a juridical-normative method with a legislative, conceptual, and maq??id al-syar?’ah approach. The data was analyzed qualitatively through a study of the MUI fatwa, regulation of carbon economic values, and sharia economic and environmental law literature. The results of the study show that the MUI Fatwa has the potential to strengthen the ethical-religious legitimacy of carbon value investment through the principles of benefit, damage prevention (dar’u al-maf?sid), ecological responsibility, and sustainability. In the perspective of Jasser Auda’s maq??id system , carbon value investment can be directed towards achieving holistic, multidimensional, and sustainable benefits through the protection of lives, property, generations, and the environment. Thus, the MUI Fatwa has the potential to form a green investment orientation while strengthening the synergy between sharia principles, environmental protection, and sustainable economic development.

  • Constructing Civil Society in Surah Al-Baqarah: A Comparative Study of Tafsir al-Basith and Fi Zhilal al-Qur’an

    » AL-IMAM: Journal on Islamic Studies, Civilization and Learning Societies

    This study analyses the construction of civil society in Surah Al-Baqarah by comparing al-W??id?’s Tafs?r al-Bas?? and Sayyid Qutb’s F? ?il?l al-Qur’?n. It also identifies their convergences and divergences, the factors shaping their interpretations, and the relevance of the resulting framework to contemporary Muslim society. The study employs qualitative library research, comparative Qur’anic interpretation (muq?ran), and thematic grouping. The primary data comprise the two exegetes’ interpretations of verses in Surah Al-Baqarah related to social formation; the analysis proceeds through thematic classification, description, comparison, synthesis, and contextualisation. The findings identify seven clusters of principles: faith as the foundation, the mandate of stewardship, the civilisational critique of the Children of Israel, monotheism-based leadership, communal identity, social and legal regulation, and socio-economic solidarity and justice. Al-W??id? foregrounds normative and linguistic precision, whereas Sayyid Qutb emphasises social formation and civilisational transformation. The study’s originality lies in synthesising these two interpretive orientations into a model of civil society that combines normative certainty with transformative capacity. This framework is relevant to strengthening Muslim identity, social cohesion, accountable governance, justice, and collective welfare in contemporary contexts.

  • From Khilafah to Climate Action: Islamic Environmental Ethics and the Role of Mosques and Islamic Institutions in Sustainable Development in Northern Nigeria

    » WAQF Business Review

    Aim: This study examines the potential of Islamic environmental ethics to promote climate action and sustainable development in Northern Nigeria, with particular attention to the roles of mosques and Islamic institutions. Although Islamic teachings provide extensive principles concerning khilāfah (stewardship), amānah (trust), mīzān (balance), iṣlāḥ (reform), and the prohibition of fasād (environmental corruption), these principles remain insufficiently translated into systematic institutional environmental practices. The study therefore explores how Islamic institutions can transform environmental teachings into practical mechanisms for climate awareness, environmental conservation, and community-based sustainable development. Methodology: The study adopts a qualitative integrative literature review and conceptual synthesis. Relevant Qur’anic and Hadith texts, classical Islamic scholarship on environmental ethics and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah, contemporary literature on Islam and environmental sustainability, and studies on climate change and sustainable development in Nigeria are critically analysed. Thematic analysis is used to identify Islamic environmental principles, institutional opportunities, implementation challenges, and pathways for translating religious teachings into practical climate action. Results: The findings indicate that mosques and Islamic institutions possess significant but underutilised potential to function as centres of environmental education, ethical mobilisation, community awareness, sustainable resource management, tree planting, waste reduction, water conservation, and climate-resilient livelihoods. However, limited environmental training among religious leaders, weak institutional coordination, inadequate funding, low environmental awareness, and the limited integration of ecological themes into Islamic education constrain this potential. Conclusions/Novelty: The study proposes an Islamic Environmental Stewardship and Climate Action Framework (IESCAF) linking khilāfah, amānah, mīzān, iṣlāḥ, and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah with practical institutional climate interventions. The framework reconceptualises mosques and Islamic institutions as active agents of environmental stewardship and sustainable development rather than merely sites of worship and religious instruction, thereby offering a distinctive Islamic contribution to climate governance in Northern Nigeria.