Between Al-Azhar and the UIN: Paradigms of Reform in Egyptian and Indonesian Islamic Higher Education

Abstract

The landscape of Islamic higher education in the twenty-first century is marked by a persistent tension between tradition and modernity. Institutions across the Muslim world face the challenge of preserving the sanctity of ʿulūm al-dīn (religious sciences) while engaging with the demands of global knowledge economies and secular academic standards. This study examines two emblematic responses to that tension: Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, the millennium-old bastion of Sunni orthodoxy, and Indonesia’s State Islamic University (UIN) system, a contemporary experiment in integrating Islamic and modern sciences. Using a qualitative comparative policy analysis, the research draws on legal documents, institutional statutes, curricula, and reform reports, complemented by secondary literature on Islamic educational reform. Comparatively, Al-Azhar’s paradigm safeguards authority through continuity, while UIN’s cultivates innovation through pluralism. Both confront similar pressures, globalization, market demands, and the politics of religious legitimacy, but respond in divergent ways. The analysis suggests that reform in Islamic higher education is not a uniform process but a spectrum of paradigms shaped by each nation’s political ethos and epistemological vision. For Al-Azhar, the challenge ahead is to reclaim autonomy without severing tradition; for the UINs, it is to deepen integration beyond structure to methodology. Ultimately, the study argues that the future of Islamic higher education lies not in convergence toward a single model, but in sustaining a plurality of reform trajectories where faith and modernity continue to negotiate their fragile, creative coexistence.