Historical Positivism and Axiological Criticism: A Critique of Qur'anic Reasoning on 20th-Century Indonesian Islamic Historiography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15575/jis.v6i2.55257Keywords:
Axiology, intellectual history, Islamic historiography, Positivism, Quranic reasoningAbstract
The writing of Islamic history (historiography) in Indonesia throughout the 20th century has experienced very rapid methodological progress, but on the other hand, faces serious challenges related to the drought of axiological values. This article aims to conduct a critical analysis of the development of 20th-century Indonesian Islamic historiography using Qur'anic reasoning as an analytical tool. The method used is qualitative with an intellectual history approach and discourse analysis. The results of the study show that the transition from traditional historiography to the academic-scientific tradition, pioneered by figures such as Hoesein Djajadiningrat and Azyumardi Azra, has succeeded in placing the history of Islam in the archipelago in a competitive global scientific standard. However, the dominance of the positivist paradigm in these Muslim works tends to reduce religious phenomena to mere empirical variables separated from transcendental values. Axiological criticism based on Qur'anic reasoning offers a new orientation that views history not only as an objective reconstruction of the past, but also as an instrument of social transformation and a moral message ('ibrah) for the future (li-ghad). This article concludes with the need to synthesize the sophistication of modern methodology with the Islamic worldview to produce a historiography that is not only scientifically accurate but also spiritually meaningful and emancipatory for human civilization.
References
Abdullah, T. (1970). Schools and Politics: The’Kaum Muda’Movement in West Sumatra (1927-1933). Cornell University.
Alfian. (1989). Muhammadiyah The Political Behavior of a Muslim Modernist Movement Organization under Dutch Colonial. Gadjah Mada University Press.
Ali, M. M. (2015). Al Qur’an Terjemah dan Tafsir. Darul Kutubil Islamiyah.
Azra, A. (1994). The Indies Chinese and the Sarekat lslam: AnAccount of the Anti-Chinese Riots in ColonialIndonesia. Studia Islamika, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.15408/sdi.v1i1.865
Badawi, J. A. (2002). Islamic worldview: prime motive for development. Humanomics, 18(3), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb018873
bin Khaldun, M., & Abdurrahman, A.-A. (2011). Mukaddimah Ibnu Khaldun. Pustaka Al Kautsar.
Burhani, A. N. (2018). Pluralism, liberalism, and islamism: religious outlook of muhammadiyah. Studia Islamika, 25(3), 433–470.
Dargie, R. (2009). A History of Britain. Arcturus Publishing.
Dhaouadi, R., & Hatab, A. A. (2013). Dynamic modelling of differential-drive mobile robots using lagrange and newton-euler methodologies: A unified framework. Advances in Robotics & Automation, 2(2), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.4172/2168-9695.1000107
Djajadiningrat, H. (1983). Tinjauan kritis tentang sajarah Banten: sumbangan bagi pengenalan sifat-sifat penulisan sejarah Jawa. In CiNii.
Dozan, W., & Rohimi, R. (2019). LOGIKA PENEMUAN ILMIAH TEORI (POSSITIVISME LOGIS) AUGUST COMTE. Kontemplasi: Jurnal Ilmu-Ilmu Ushuluddin, 7(2), 190–211. https://doi.org/10.21274/kontem.2019.7.2.190-211
Foucault, M. (2002). Archaeology of Knowledge. In routledge classic.
Habermas, J., & Fultner, B. (2003). On the pragmatics of social interaction: Preliminary studies in the theory of communicative action. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2003v28n1a1348
Hakim, L., Arsa, D., Meria, A., & Sandora, L. (2020). Analisis Historiografi Terhadap Pemikiran Azyumardi Azra dalam Jaringan Ulama. Jurnal Lektur Keagamaan, 18(2), 517–546. https://doi.org/10.31291/jlka.v18i2.795
Hasanah, F. (2019). Pengaruh tingkat religiusitas, pengetahuan, kualitas produk dan kualitas pelayanan terhadap preferensi menabung mahasiswa universitas muhammadiyah Palembang pada bank syariah. Balance: Jurnal Akuntansi Dan Bisnis, 4(1), 485–495. https://doi.org/10.32502/jab.v4i1.1815
Holland, T., & Karwa, M. (2015). The Basis of Bias.
Indriyanto, I. (2009). MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH DALAM PENULISAN SEJARAH. Ilmu Budaya.
Kartodirdjo, S. (1982). Pendekatan Ilmu Sosial dalam Metodologi Sejarah. Gramedia.
Kuntowijoyo, D. R. (2005). Pengantar ilmu sejarah. Bentang Pustaka.
Lechte, J. (2007). Fifty key contemporary thinkers: From structuralism to post-humanism. Routledge.
Macdonell, R. A. L., Shapiro, B. E., Chiappa, K. H., Helmers, S. L., Cros, D., Day, B. J., & Shahani, B. T. (1991). Hemispheric threshold differences for motor evoked potentials produced by magnetic coil stimulation. Neurology, 41(9), 1441. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.41.9.1441
Mudhoffir, A. M. (2013). Teori kekuasaan Michel Foucault: Tantangan bagi sosiologi politik. MASYARAKAT: Jurnal Sosiologi, 18(1), 82–107. https://doi.org/10.7454/MJS.v18i1.1253
Noer, D. (1973). The modernist Muslim movement in Indonesia, 1900-1942. (No Title).
O’Donnell, K. E. (1993). The question of belief: Pragmatism and poststructuralism in contemporary composition studies. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Orwell, G. (1944). History is Written by the Winners. Tribune, April, 1–61.
Qutb, S. (1991). The Islamic concept and its characteristics. American Trust Publications Plainfield, IN.
Ridwan, M. K. (2017). TRADISI KRITIK TAFSIR: Diskursus Kritisisme Penafsiran dalam Wacana Qur’anic Studies. Jurnal Theologia, 28(1), 55–74. https://doi.org/10.21580/teo.2017.28.1.1418
Rofiq, M. N. (2018). Peranan filsafat ilmu bagi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan. FALASIFA: Jurnal Studi Keislaman, 9(1), 161–175. https://doi.org/10.36835/falasifa.v9i1.112
Rosenthal, F. (1908). A history of Muslim historiography. Brill Archive.
Santayana, G., & Gouinlock, J. (2015). The Life of Reason, Or the Phases of Human Progress, Reason in Art (Vol. 7). Mit Press.
Suryanegara, A. M. (2017). Api Sejarah 1 (Vol. 1). Surya Dinasti.
Syam, N. (n.d.). Metodologi Kajian Ilmu Dakwah: Analisis Karya Ilmiah pada Fakultas Dakwah dan Komunikasi 1985–2015. https://doi.org/10.15642/jki.2019.9.1.21-35
Zarkasyi, H. F. (2013). Akar Kebudayaan Barat. Kalimah: Jurnal Studi Agama Dan Pemikiran Islam, 11(2), 175–190. https://doi.org/10.21111/klm.v11i2.91.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Moeflich Hasbullah, Asep Saeful Mimbar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).