Integrating Islamic Values and Indonesian National Identity: Saifuddin Zuhri’s Framework for Religious Moderation Education

Abstract

The rise of religious intolerance and ideological polarization in Indonesia has generated an urgent need for a robust conceptual foundation for religious moderation education. Existing approaches often face public misperceptions, including accusations of secularization or depoliticization of Islamic identity. This study addresses this epistemic challenge by reconstructing the nationalist-religious paradigm of KH. Saifuddin Zuhri whose thought integrates Islamic ethics, Indonesian identity, and national commitment. Using a qualitative historical-philosophical method, this research analyzes primary sources such as Berangkat dari Pesantren, political documents, and ministry archives, complemented by secondary literature on religious moderation and Islamic education. Value hermeneutics, discourse analysis, and constructive model building were employed to synthesize Zuhri’s ideas into the MoNaREF (Moderation-Based National-Religious Educational Framework). The findings show that Zuhri’s intellectual construction rests on three pillars, religion as public ethics, religious nationalism, and the integration of religion and the state, which together form a coherent basis for religious moderation. The MoNaREF model operationalizes these pillars into value, pedagogical, and social dimensions, offering a contextually grounded yet globally relevant framework for strengthening religious moderation in contemporary Indonesian Islamic education.