Transformation of Islamic Education in the Digital Era: A Harmonization of Islamic Law and Indonesian Positive Law

Abstract

 Islamic education in Indonesia is governed by a dual architecture in which general education law and religious education regulation meet imperfectly, and that architecture is now absorbing digital delivery. Learning management systems, recorded instruction, and online certification have entered madrasah, pesantren, and religious higher education faster than the rules that govern recognition, quality, and the protection of learners. This study examines how digitalisation alters the legal conditions of Islamic education in Indonesia, identifies the resulting disharmony between Islamic legal principles and positive law, and formulates an agenda for harmonization. The research is normative juridical and doctrinal, using statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches, supported by classical doctrine on the transmission of knowledge and by maqasid reasoning as an internal normative standard. Digitalisation acts on three layers: administration, delivery, and certification of learning. Indonesian law has regulated administration substantially, delivery only through general standards, and certification in a manner that does not distinguish between mediated and unmediated instruction. The classical apparatus of transmission, resting on the connected chain and on the teacher’s authorisation, supplies criteria for that distinction that positive law has not used. The codification of education legislation now before the legislature is the appropriate vehicle for correcting this. Harmonization requires standards for digital religious instruction, an explicit rule on the recognition of digitally acquired qualifications, and the extension of learner protection and data obligations to religious education institutions.