Major shifts in social order, politics, the economy, science, and technology demand that universities transform deliberately. Faculties of Sharia and Law (FSH) at state Islamic universities (PTKIN) also need to respond by realigning their scholarly paradigms, curricula, research, and faculty capacity, so that they remain relevant to the legal issues emerging in society and to developments in legal systems, norms, and practices amid global transformation.

This idea emerged at the National Seminar “Reorienting FSH in an Era of Global Transformation,” organized by the Forum of Deans of Faculties of Sharia and Law at PTKIN across Indonesia, with FSH UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta as host, on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, at the Convention Hall of UIN Sunan Kalijaga. The seminar featured constitutional law expert Prof. Jimly Asshiddiqie and Muslim intellectual Prof. Amin Abdullah as keynote speakers.

Prof. Jimly Asshiddiqie said the changes taking place today are fundamental in scale. These shifts in the social, political, and economic order, he said, will continue to unfold through the middle of the 21st century and bring increasingly visible competition among civilizations.

He noted that the development of artificial intelligence has even surpassed information and communication technology (ICT) in its influence on many areas of life. This means universities cannot simply wait for change to happen naturally.

“If we do not change, we will be left behind. Like it or not, we must transform deliberately, through accelerated evolution,” he said.

Prof. Jimly said this transformation must reach education, including learning content and curricula. Lecturers also need to transform so that they can play roles that technology cannot easily replace.

Global change, he continued, needs to be read alongside shifts in the world's demographics. In the coming decades, the working-age population of Muslim societies will make up an important share of the world's population. The challenge is not merely one of numbers, but of how that demographic potential can be converted into human quality.

In the context of Islamic education, the author of 84 books urged universities to pursue a reintegration of knowledge. He likened ayatullah (the signs of God in revelation) and sunatullah (the laws of God in nature) to two sources for reading reality that should not be separated.

"Ayatullah with all its branches produces religious knowledge, and sunatullah with all its branches produces general knowledge. So do not distance ayatullah from sunatullah," he said.

This reintegration, Prof. Jimly continued, is important because the future of the nation and of humanity is facing serious change. Islamic universities should not only deepen Islamic studies but also strengthen their command of science and technology and build broader intellectual dialogue.

"The future of PTKIN education is expected to help improve the quality of our citizens. The spirit of Islamic studies must deepen, but we must not forget intellectual dialogue so that we do not fall into extremism," he said.

Meanwhile, Prof. Amin Abdullah, an academic who twice served as Rector of UIN Sunan Kalijaga, highlighted the importance of ensuring that the idea of integration-interconnection is truly present in academic practice, particularly in Faculties of Sharia and Law. In his view, the institutional transformation from IAIN to UIN must be followed by real scholarly transformation, not stop at a change of name, structure, or institutional symbols.

He stressed that this change must be visible in faculty capacity, the character of research, curricula, and the quality of alumni.

"Deans, it is in your hands whether reintegration will happen or not. Reorientation, integration-interconnection, and global transformation must become reality," he said.

According to Prof. Amin, scholarly reorientation is an important step for PTKIN FSH to strengthen the quality and relevance of legal education. He pointed to four aspects that need attention: curriculum arrangement and the management of dual burdens, strengthening of literature and methods, improvement of research quality and faculty capacity, and alignment of studies with developments in the national judiciary.

On literature, Prof. Amin saw a need to renew sources and methods of study. Legal scholarship cannot simply repeat old texts, but must bring doctrinal and empirical approaches together to read contemporary legal problems.

He also encouraged stronger use of the case method so that students and academics become accustomed to reading law through concrete cases, including developments in modern judicial practice.

“It is important to move from jargon to concrete reality. It must be at the forefront as the epistemological compass of the Faculties of Sharia and Law,” he said.

As the originator of integration-interconnection, he stressed that it should also be reflected in courses. Integration is not achieved simply by placing law and sharia programs in one faculty without mature epistemological dialogue. He cited the development of hybrid and contextual courses such as the sociology of usul al-fiqh, gender analysis in Islamic family law, and bioethics and Islamic law.

This approach, according to Prof. Amin, needs to bring together the bayani, irfani, and burhani dimensions. The burhani approach allows law to be read critically on the basis of reality, while the irfani brings ethical and humanistic sensitivity to reading legal problems.

For this reason, he urged FSH to change their perspective in studying law. Legal scholarship, he said, should give more room to the experiences and perspectives of victims, rather than viewing issues only from the standpoint of norms or regulations.

In Prof. Amin's view, the success of FSH reorientation can ultimately be seen in concrete indicators. These include curriculum and syllabus designs that show epistemological integration, the character of faculty research and publications, and the ability to produce policy papers (academic drafts) and public policy recommendations.

He encouraged PTKIN FSH to produce research that examines structural justice, imbalances in power relations, and citizens' constitutional rights. At the same time, FSH can broaden their contribution by drafting academic papers, annotating court decisions, and even filing amicus curiae briefs to support the formation and development of national law.

The same note was struck by Director of Islamic Higher Education (Diktis) Prof. Sahiron, who emphasized that integration-interconnection requires dialogue across disciplines. The Islamic sciences and the general sciences need to connect with and enrich each other's perspectives in understanding society's problems. Such dialogue is a necessity if scholarly development is to meet increasingly complex challenges.

The ideas of the three speakers show that FSH reorientation is not merely an agenda of adapting to the times. More fundamentally, it is directed at rebuilding the position of FSH as a space for developing knowledge that brings together Islamic tradition, scientific advances, legal realities, and societal needs.

The PTKIN FSH Deans Forum at UIN Sunan Kalijaga serves as a space to connect these ideas with institutional agendas at universities. From this forum, scholarly reorientation is expected to go beyond discourse and be translated into curricula, research, strengthened academic capacity, and real contributions to the development of law and public policy. (humassk)