From Halaqah to Humanitarian Infrastructure: One Ummah Movement and Youth Da’wah in Bandung, 2016-2023

Abstract

This article reconstructs the transformation of One Ummah Movement from a small youth halaqah at Masjid Baitul Mu’min in Antapani, Bandung, into a legally recognized da’wah and philanthropic institution between 2016 and 2023. It asks how a volunteer community converted religious sociability into durable organizational infrastructure and how successive pressures altered its repertoire. The study applies the historical method of heuristics, external and internal source criticism, interpretation, and historiography. Its evidence consists of the 2018 ministerial decree recognizing Yayasan One Ummah, internal statutes, organizational program records, social-media archives, and activity photographs. The findings identify three phases. From 2016 to 2018, a small organizing core scaled mosque-based study circles through popular preachers, social media, recruitment, and early welfare programs. From 2018 to 2021, legal incorporation, functional specialization, regional outreach, and disaster relief converted public trust into institutional capacity. The COVID-19 crisis then displaced event-centered da’wah but stimulated weekly online teaching, aid for health workers, and the Medis Pelosok Negeri program. From 2021 to 2023, centralized coordination, visually packaged programs, specialized communities, and the We Care We Speak seminar format marked organizational consolidation. The article argues that One Ummah’s durability rested not simply on hijrah discourse or digital branding, but on repeated translations of moral fellowship into legal, bureaucratic, digital, and humanitarian infrastructure.