Institutionalizing Al-Ma'un: The Historical Development of Muhammadiyah's Amal Usaha in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32506/1f2ke176Keywords:
Muhammadiyah, amal usaha, al-Ma'un, Islamic philanthropy, institutional developmentAbstract
This article examines the historical development of Muhammadiyah's amal usaha, the institutions through which the movement translates Islamic commitments into education, health care, social welfare, philanthropy, and selected economic activities. Rather than treating amal usaha as a static inventory of assets, the study analyzes it as an evolving institutional form. Using qualitative historical-institutional document analysis, it reconstructs five phases from Ahmad Dahlan's early school and the Penolong Kesengsaraan Oemoem to the professionalized networks visible by 2021. The findings show that amal usaha developed through the interaction of al-Ma'un theology, associational discipline, waqf and philanthropy, state regulation, professional expertise, and decentralized replication. Its principal innovation was to convert episodic charity into durable public-service organizations able to outlive charismatic founders and operate across religious and regional boundaries. Expansion, however, generated tensions between service and financial sustainability, voluntarism and professional employment, central ownership and local autonomy, and ideological formation and managerial specialization. Muhammadiyah's institutional durability rests not on scale alone, but on its capacity to reconnect professional administration with the movement's theological and social purposes.
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