Revelation, Reason, and Social Praxis: The Theological Synthesis Underlying Muhammadiyah Modernism

Abstract

This article examines the theological foundations that enabled Muhammadiyah to combine Islamic tradition with reformist modernism without reducing either term to a fixed ideological opposite. Using qualitative historical-theological document analysis, it interprets Muhammadiyah's foundational texts, tarjih methodology, and major historical studies through six categories: tawhid, revelation, ijtihad, social ethics, worldly affairs, and institutional action. The findings show that Muhammadiyah modernism rests on a selective synthesis rather than a wholesale rejection of tradition. Qur'an and Sunnah provide normative authority; inherited jurisprudence supplies intellectual resources but not binding finality; reason and empirical knowledge operate within a reformist hermeneutic; and the theology of al-Ma'un converts faith into organized welfare. This synthesis produced schools, hospitals, philanthropy, women's activism, and civic engagement as theological practices. Yet the same architecture creates tensions between scriptural purification and cultural plurality, centralized standardization and local interpretation, and institutional expansion and substantive social transformation. Muhammadiyah's modernism is therefore best understood as an evolving theological grammar that joins doctrinal discipline, epistemic openness, and public service.