Maintaining Distinction, Nurturing Heritage: UIN Jakarta and the Spirit of the Ciputat School Amidst PTKIN Transformation

By: Murodi, Arief Subhan, and Study Rizal LK*

The government is once again moving forward in the institutional transformation process of Islamic religious higher education. Through the Ministry of State Secretariat, eight of the eleven State Islamic Religious Higher Education Institutions (PTKIN), previously State Islamic Institutes (IAIN), have officially received Presidential Regulations legalizing their change of form into State Islamic Universities (UIN). This momentum is marked by the release from the Directorate of Islamic Religious Higher Education (Diktis) of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, implying high hopes that UINs will not merely change in structure, but also in the quality of their contribution to the nation.

The Deputy Minister of State Secretariat delivered a strong message: after becoming UINs, PTKINs must produce graduates capable of driving Indonesia forward—in strategic issues such as food, energy, downstream industries, and digital technology. Meanwhile, Minister of Religious Affairs Prof. Nasaruddin Umar underscored that PTKINs must not lose their moral distinction as academic institutions rooted in Islamic values.

These statements undoubtedly provoke deep reflection, especially for UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta—an institution that has undergone the transformation from IAIN to UIN for more than two decades. Herein lies the importance of re-reading UIN Jakarta's position in the context of scholarship and intellectual history. For, more than just an institution, UIN Jakarta is the intellectual home for what many refer to as the Ciputat School (Mazhab Ciputat).

This school is not a formal institution, but rather a network of progressive thought that grew from the intellectual pulse of the campus, discussion forums, and the works of its thinkers. It is rooted in Harun Nasution's Islamic renewal, absorbs the spirit of rationality and inclusivity from Nurcholish Madjid, and then developed into a laboratory of ideas daring to break through the boundaries of academic disciplines. In this landscape, UIN Jakarta is not merely a campus, but a field of dialectics between text and context, between Islam and the socio-political reality of Indonesia.

But the question now is: after more than twenty years of bearing the name UIN, to what extent is this distinction still alive and nourished?

The transformation from IAIN to UIN was essentially a big step to affirm that Islamic knowledge does not exist in a vacuum. Prof. Azyumardi Azra, as the last rector of IAIN and the first rector of UIN, was a central figure in this transition. He believed that the separation between religious sciences and general sciences was a colonial legacy no longer relevant in the modern era. Islam, in his view, must be present as a force for enlightenment capable of dialoguing with science, technology, economics, and humanities.

Azyumardi did not just dream of integrating knowledge, but concretely realized it through the opening of new faculties, such as Psychology, Science and Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences—further developed with the establishment of the Faculty of Economics and Business, and the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. UIN Jakarta became a national and even global pioneer in presenting an image of Islam that is not anti-modernity, but rather makes it a space for the expansion of the prophetic mission: conveying the message with a relevant and liberating approach.

This is where the legacy of the Ciputat School finds its relevance again. Its spirit is the courage to think critically within the framework of faith. It rejects fundamentalism but also does not dissolve into relativism. It affirms that being a Muslim scholar means being a free human being, thinking with common sense and acting with ethics.

Thus, when the government emphasizes the importance of UIN graduates' distinction in answering the nation's challenges, UIN Jakarta should embrace it not as a burden, but with historical awareness. We once had a strong foundation for it—an integrative vision that not only produces faithful graduates but also those who are intellectually and socially capable.

Now the challenge is not just the curriculum or nomenclature, but how the spirit of renewal remains alive. Do classrooms still offer freedom of thought? Do faculty and student research still voice allegiance to social justice? Is UIN still the birthplace of insightful critiques of communal and national problems?

If not, then all that remains is a great name and nostalgia.

Institutional transformation is indeed important. But even more important is the transformation of thinking. Because the true distinction of a university lies not only in its form and diplomas, but in the moral and intellectual courage to continually ask and answer the problems of the times. And this is where the Ciputat School—which grew in the heart of UIN Jakarta—must continue to be voiced, not as a slogan, but as a compass for scholarly and humanitarian direction.

*** The authors are "Trio MAS" Lecturers at the Faculty of Da'wah and Communication Sciences, UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta.