Muhammadiyah

Muhammadiyah (محمدية); officially Muhammadiyah Society (Persyarikatan Muhammadiyah) is a major Islamic non-governmental organization in Indonesia. The organization was founded in 1912 by Ahmad Dahlan in the city of Yogyakarta as a reformist socioreligious movement, advocating ijtihad - individual interpretation of Qur'an and Sunnah, as opposed to Taqlid - conformity to the traditional interpretations propounded by the ulama. Since its establishment, Muhammadiyah has adopted a reformist platform mixing religious and secular education, primarily as a way to promote the upward mobility of Muslims toward a 'modern' community and to purify Indonesian Islam of local syncretic practices. It continues to support local culture and promote religious tolerance in Indonesia, while a few of its higher education institutions are attended mostly by non-Muslims, especially in East Nusa Tenggara and Papua provinces. The group also runs a large chain of charity hospitals, and operated 128 universities as of the late 1990s. At the time of Dahlan's death in 1923, the organization reported a membership of 2,622 men and 724 women, mostly residents of Yogyakarta. Numbers grew steadily — 10,000 in 1928, 17,000 in 1929, and 24,000 in 1931. By the 1930s, moreover, it had begun to establish branches beyond Java, the main center of population, throughout Indonesia, and today it is said to be the second largest Islamic organization in Indonesia (behind Nahdlatul Ulama) with 29 million members in 2008. The membership is largely urban and middle class in composition. Although Muhammadiyah leaders and members are often actively involved in shaping the politics in Indonesia, Muhammadiyah is not a political party. It has devoted itself to social and educational activities. On November 18, 1912, Ahmad Dahlan— a court official of the kraton of the Yogyakarta Sultanate and an educated Muslim scholar from Mecca—established Muhammadiyah in Yogyakarta. There were a number of motives behind the establishment of this movement.

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