Religious Moderation and National Commitment at Sukorejo Pesantren, Indonesia: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

Religious moderation is widely promoted in Indonesian Islamic education, yet less is known about how institutional values become meaningful in the everyday lives of pesantren communities. This study examines how religious moderation and national commitment are institutionalized, experienced, and interpreted at Salafiyah Syafi’iyah Sukorejo Pesantren, East Java. Using a qualitative single-case study with a phenomenological orientation, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with 11 purposively selected participants, field observations, and institutional documents. Data were analyzed through iterative thematic comparison across participant accounts, observed practices, and documentary evidence, with Berger and Luckmann’s social construction perspective used as a sensitizing framework at the interpretive stage. The findings identify four analytically related dimensions: institutional foundations, educational mediation, communal experience and habituation, and subjective civic-moral orientation. Religious moderation was embedded in institutional philosophy, curriculum, leadership, dialogical pedagogy, bahtsul masail, exemplary conduct, residential routines, civic activities, and social service. Participating santri interpreted these recurring experiences in terms of respect for difference, social responsibility, service, and national commitment compatible with Islamic moral identity. The study highlights the importance of educational culture and communal experience in moderation education and cautions against reducing moderation to formal curricular content or symbolic nationalism. Its originality lies in a case-based model that conceptualizes relationships among institutional, pedagogical, communal, and experiential dimensions without treating them as a fixed causal sequence.