Religious Moderation as Social Praxis: Religion as a Need in the Lived Experience of Pesantren (Islamic Boarding School)

Anas Mushthofa (Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim, Malang)
Muhammad Zainuddin (Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim, Malang)
Ahmad Izzuddin (Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim, Malang)

Jurnal Indonesia Studi Moderasi Beragama
Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026): JISMB, Volume 3, Issue 2 (2026): June-September Period

Background: Discourse on religious moderation is frequently understood normatively and regulatively through top down policy programs that risk becoming detached from the actual experiences of believers. Objective: This study aims to analyze how perceiving religion as a human need contributes to the formation of religious moderation as a social praxis within the pesantren environment. Methods: This study employs a reflective qualitative method grounded in an insider position, with data collected through continuous observation, interviews, and literature study. Results: The findings reveal that religious moderation is experienced as a social praxis emerging from everyday religious experience (lived religion). Moderation values are manifested through the moral leadership of scholars (kiai), persuasive language, and prudent institutional role boundaries to maintain social harmony. Although effective in dampening open conflicts, this strategy of self restraint leaves boundaries in addressing structural problems. Conclusion: This study concludes that religious moderation is a dynamic and contextual social process rather than a completed normative indicator.  Originality/Value: This study provides theoretical and epistemological novelty in the field of sociology of religion and Islamic boarding school anthropology by revealing how perceiving religion as an existential human need fosters religious moderation as an organic social praxis through the moral leadership of kiai, persuasive discourse, and prudent institutional boundary maintenance regarding social harmony within the context of the daily lived experiences of pesantren communities, which has received limited scholarly attention due to the prevalence of top down, normative, and regulatory policy perspectives. These findings reconstruct religious moderation from static compliance metrics into a dynamic, negotiated social process while serving as a strategic reference in lived religion policy evaluation, localized conflict containment, and the design of grounded, community driven harmony initiatives.