Negosiasi Tradisi dan Digitalisasi: Transformasi Otoritas dan Pemikiran Hukum Islam di Pesantren

Slamet Arofik (Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Darussalam Nganjuk)
Muhammad Muhaimin (UIN Syekh Wasil Kediri)

Indonesian Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Vol 6 No 4 (2025): Indonesian Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences , December

The development of digital technology has brought significant changes to the production, distribution, and authorization of religious knowledge, including the formation of Islamic legal thought within pesantren (Islamic boarding schools). As Islamic educational institutions rooted in the turath tradition and the scholarly authority of kiai (religious scholars), pesantren face the challenge of maintaining the continuity of their intellectual traditions while responding to the dynamics of digital society. This study aims to analyze the negotiation between pesantren scholarly traditions and digitalization, particularly in the transformation of religious authority and the formation of Islamic legal thought. It employs a qualitative approach through library research, using social change theory as its analytical framework. The data are examined through content analysis of literature on pesantren, religious authority, Islamic legal thought, and social change resulting from digital technological developments. The findings indicate that digitalization not only changes the medium through which Islamic knowledge is transmitted but also influences the formation of authority, access to legal sources, and the ways in which society understands contemporary fiqh issues. Digital media expands access to religious fatwas and information but may also lead to the fragmentation of religious authority, the oversimplification of legal reasoning, and competition between pesantren scholarly authority and online sources of religious knowledge. In this context, pesantren are not simply confronted with a choice between preserving tradition and embracing technology. Rather, they engage in a process of negotiation involving the selection, adaptation, and reinterpretation of scholarly practices. This study argues that the sustainability of pesantren authority depends on their ability to integrate digital literacy with methodological rigor in interpreting turath and formulating Islamic law. Therefore, digitalization should be understood as an arena of social change that requires pesantren to preserve the continuity of their intellectual traditions while developing scholarly responses relevant to contemporary issues.