<![CDATA[This study examines how the educational backgrounds of Middle Eastern alumni shape their approaches to moderate Islamic dakwah in South Sumatra, Indonesia. Despite their strategic religious authority, Middle Eastern alumni remain contested actors: they may function as agents of moderate Islam or as carriers of exclusive transnational views. Existing studies tend to focus on a single institution or on the institutional role of pesantren, leaving the variation in alumni educational backgrounds underexplored as a linking variable for dakwah practice. Using a qualitative phenomenological approach, this study involved twelve alumni from Al-Azhar Egypt, the Islamic University of Madinah, and Sudan, twelve congregants, and observation at twelve dakwah sites. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, and were analysed using data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. The study identifies three ideal types: wasatiyah-academic-cultural-dialogic, dalil-tarjih-educative-adaptive, and shariah-humanistic-pedagogical-contextual. These types converge on knowledge-based, dialogic, and culturally contextual dakwah, in which religious moderation operates as an epistemic procedure and social ethic rather than an identity label. Challenges are layered: social, ideological, digital, institutional, and internal. The study concludes that educational background typology functions as a linking variable that localizes transnational scholarly capital into moderate Islamic dakwah, with implications for wasatiyah education, alumni development, and digital dakwah literacy.]]>
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