YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Dec. 27, 2025 — In a quiet auditorium in Yogyakarta, Indonesia is testing a question with implications far beyond the campus walls: how should Islamic higher education evolve to remain credible, globally engaged, and socially consequential in an era of political polarization and environmental strain?

That question framed an external assessment this weekend at UIN Sunan Kalijaga, one of Indonesia’s leading Islamic universities, where senior academics evaluated the postgraduate program in Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies — a flagship initiative tied closely to the country’s higher-education and religious policy agenda.

Two external assessors took part in the review: Ahmad Tholabi from UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta and As’aril Muhajir from UIN Sayyid Ali Rahmatullah Tulungagung. University officials said the process was designed not merely as an accreditation requirement but as part of a continuous quality assurance mechanism intended to align Islamic scholarship with public accountability and global academic standards.

The program was established through an Indonesia–Canada cooperation initiative supported by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, reflecting a broader state effort to reposition Islamic universities as producers of interdisciplinary knowledge rather than guardians of doctrinal study alone. Its curriculum integrates Islamic thought with social sciences and policy analysis, a model officials say is meant to respond to contemporary governance and social challenges.

International partnerships have reinforced that ambition. The program maintains double-degree arrangements with the University of Edinburgh and SOAS University of London, building on earlier exchange programs that sent students to Canada. University leaders describe these ties as part of a strategy to embed Indonesian Islamic scholarship within global academic networks — and, by extension, within global policy conversations.

Domestic institutions have also treated the program as strategically significant. Indonesia’s National Zakat Agency, BAZNAS, has partnered with UIN Sunan Kalijaga to train specialists in Islamic philanthropy, supporting dozens of postgraduate students whose research focuses on zakat governance, institutional accountability, and contemporary charitable practices.

For Indonesian policymakers, the assessment underscores a wider recalibration. As Islamic higher education expands across Southeast Asia’s largest Muslim-majority nation, programs like Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies are increasingly viewed as instruments of soft power — testing whether religious scholarship can be both intellectually rigorous and responsive to the demands of public policy, social cohesion, and global engagement.