Teaching religions in Indonesian Islamic higher education: From Comparative Religion to Religious Studies

Abstract

This article focuses on how the study of Comparative Religion conducted in Indonesian Islamic higher institutions, i.e. on both UIN Yogyakarta and Jakarta since the beginning of the New Order (1960s) to Reform era (2014). The focus of the study was on models/approaches and main issues. In general, for more than half a century, the comparative study of religion is not been done for academic purposes an sich. Just within the new last decade that theoretical studies of Comparative Religion began developed. Another important thing that the study of Comparative Religion in Indonesia, although mostly referring to the methodological sources of the West and the Middle East, but it has always been associated with religious and cultural context of Indonesia. Therefore, the study on both UIN Yogyakarta and Jakarta always deliver courses on religions that live in Indonesia alongside with Indonesian contemporary issues. In the reform era, though still using Comparative Religion's term, but it looks religious studies such as used in the West. Thus, its "form" or "clothes" is Comparative Religion but it is religious studies.