Institutionalizing Humanitarian Jihad: Muhammadiyah’s Public Ethics and Health Governance Narratives in Indonesia

Abstract

This article examines how Muhammadiyah converts jihad from a general religious vocabulary into an institutional ethic of public health governance. It does not treat jihad primarily as armed struggle or private moral discipline, but as a contested language through which religious commitment is translated into organized care, professional service, scientific authority, and public accountability. Using qualitative comparative narrative analysis, the study compares three clusters of official Muhammadiyah discourse published up to 2023: the foundational narrative of al-Ma’un and Penolong Kesengsaraan Oemoem/Pembina Kesejahteraan Umat (PKO/PKU); the managerial narrative of hospitals and health institutions; and the crisis-governance narrative developed through the Muhammadiyah COVID-19 Command Center (MCCC). The analysis shows a patterned transformation. Foundational narratives moralize suffering and universalize service; institutional narratives proceduralize religious duty through standards, expertise, and organizational discipline; crisis narratives centralize coordination while legitimating biomedical knowledge, vaccination, and collective risk reduction. These narratives are mutually reinforcing but not identical. Professionalization expands institutional capacity while creating tensions involving bureaucratization, financial sustainability, and unequal organizational resources. The article argues that Muhammadiyah’s distinctive contribution lies not merely in describing social service as jihad, but in institutionalizing humanitarian jihad as a repeatable governance practice. This formulation clarifies how a faith-based civil society organization can produce public ethics through infrastructures that operate across religious boundaries while retaining an explicitly Islamic moral grammar.