Articulating Progressive Islam In Indonesia: Daily Spiritual Practices Among Muhammadijyah Community Members In Bajeng

Abstract

This article explores how the grassroots spiritual practices of Muhammadiyah communities in Bajeng, South Sulawesi, serve as mechanisms for articulating and sustaining the ideology of Progressive Islam (Progressive Islam). Employing an interpretive ethnographic approach, the study investigates four primary modes of spiritual engagement: local branch pengajian, tarjih-based study circles, institutional religious gatherings within Muhammadiyah schools, and inter-branch communal events. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and documentation, and analyzed using theoretical frameworks from Talal Asad (discursive tradition), Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (social construction of reality), and Anthony Giddens (structuration theory). The findings reveal that these spiritual practices are deeply embedded in the everyday religious life of the community, functioning not only as sites of religious education but also as fields of ideological negotiation and identity formation. Local actors actively interpret and recontextualize Islamic teachings through rational discourse, symbolic rituals, and institutional norms. These grassroots efforts form a dynamic system that reproduces Muhammadiyah’s core values—rationality, social ethics, and monotheism—within a context-sensitive framework. By illustrating how ideology is embodied and enacted through community-based spirituality, this study offers a grounded contribution to the understanding of religious reform movements in Indonesia and their capacity to adapt, evolve, and remain socially relevant in a pluralistic society.