From Puritanism to Cosmopolitanism: Tracing the Intellectual Transformation in Muhammadiyah Thought

Abstract

This article systematically reviews how scholarship published up to 2020 has interpreted the intellectual transformation of Muhammadiyah from a movement commonly categorized as puritan-modernist toward an increasingly progressive and cosmopolitan Islamic orientation. Using a qualitative systematic literature review and thematic synthesis, it analyzes 19 scholarly works and three official or institutionally attributable Muhammadiyah texts. The synthesis identifies five themes: the culturally embedded character of early reformism; the consolidation of puritanism and institutional rationalization; the reopening of cultural and civic engagement; the articulation of progressive and cosmopolitan Islam; and the continuing limits of theological and organizational pluralization. The findings show that the transformation was neither linear nor a replacement of purification by pluralism. Purificatory commitments to tawhid, the Qur'an and Sunnah, and tajrid remained an enduring doctrinal core. What changed was the movement's intellectual repertoire: modern education, disciplined organization, cultural da‘wa, democratic citizenship, Pancasila, interfaith cooperation, humanitarian service, and global solidarity increasingly became legitimate fields of Islamic action. Cosmopolitanism is strongest in Muhammadiyah's educational, social, national, and humanitarian discourse, while doctrinal boundary-making and conservative currents persist. The article proposes a layered model in which a purificatory core supports rational-modernist infrastructure, cultural-civic negotiation, and a cosmopolitan-humanitarian horizon. This model explains Muhammadiyah's transformation as cumulative, contested, and institutionally mediated rather than as a simple ideological conversion.