Religious Moderation in Islamic Education: An Epistemological Framework of Wasatiyyah
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15575/jaqfi.v11i2.58712Keywords:
Religious Moderation, philosophy of education, Islamic Education, Wasatiyyah, Systematic Literature ReviewAbstract
: Rising socio-religious polarization has placed Islamic education under scrutiny as either a resource for peace or a site of ideological conservatism. Although religious moderation (wasatiyyah) has become a national priority in Indonesia, its conceptual and pedagogical mapping remains fragmented, and it is rarely examined as a question of Islamic epistemology rather than of policy. This study reads moderation philosophically, treating wasatiyyah as a principle of knowledge, and synthesizes contemporary scholarship into an integrative conceptual framework for Islamic education. Through a conceptual and analytical reading of contemporary scholarship on religious moderation and Islamic education, the study develops a triadic account in which effective moderation emerges from three linked dimensions: a substantive curriculum grounded in critical hermeneutics, an authentic teacher agency that moves from authoritarian instruction toward dialogic mediation, and a permeable school ecosystem that includes digital literacy. Read this way, moderation is an epistemic competency, a trained capacity for cognitive flexibility and post-conventional moral reasoning. The framework offers a theoretical route for reforming Islamic education toward inclusive pluralism and intellectual maturity, and it specifies the empirical validation that this reform now requires
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