Selective Isomorphism: How Indonesia's Pesantren Recognition Regime Codifies Salafiyah Curriculum Adaptation

Abstract

Indonesia's Law No. 18 of 2019 on Pesantren is usually read as the moment the state recognized the traditional (salafiyah) Islamic boarding school. We argue that the law did less to create a new pattern of curriculum adaptation than to codify, extend and begin to administer one that salafiyah pesantren had already built. A qualitative multiple-case evidence synthesis combines three strands: a secondary analysis of the authors' 2023 fieldwork at Riyadlul Mubtadiin Islamic Boarding School in Tuban, whose shift from "pure salaf" to "semi-salaf" began in 2017; a thematic synthesis of ten published studies (2019–2026) covering fourteen further pesantren and the Ma'had Aly sector, split into salafiyah and contrast cases; and a document analysis of regulatory instruments from 2014 to 2025 and ministry enrolment statistics. Three findings emerge. First, the price of recognition, namely general subjects, is old. What changed after 2019 is its locus. The kitab programme itself became recognizable, with certification run by pesantren and standards set largely by kiai and nyai through the Majelis Masyayikh, which we call endogenous coercion. Second, salafiyah cases cluster in the middle of Oliver's typology (compromise, avoidance and rare defiance), while acquiescence and manipulation appear only among contrast cases. Third, conformity is selective. Pesantren couple state templates to the curricular periphery, translate school forms so that they carry pesantren content, and buffer a core defined in advance from the tradition and the law. That core is buffered but not frozen, and administration may yet move its boundary.