University of Muhammadiyah Aceh
Indonesia · Asia
About
Muhammadiyah (Muḥammadiyyah, lit. 'followers of Muhammad'), officially the Muhammadiyah Society (Indonesian: Persyarikatan Muhammadiyah) is a major Islamic non-governmental organization in Indonesia. The organization was founded in 1912 by Ahmad Dahlan in the city of Yogyakarta as a reformist socioreligious movement, advocating ijtihad—individual interpretation of Qur'an and sunnah, as opposed to taqlid—conformity to the traditional interpretations propounded by the ulama. Since its establishment, Muhammadiyah has adopted a reformist platform mixing religious and secular education, primarily as a way to promote the upward mobility of Muslims toward a "modern" community and to purify Indonesian Islam of local syncretic practices. It continues to support local culture and promote religious tolerance in Indonesia, while a few of its higher education institutions are attended mostly by non-Muslims, especially in East Nusa Tenggara and Papua provinces. The group also runs a large chain of charity hospitals, and operated 128 universities as of the late 1990s. At the time of Dahlan's death in 1923, the organization reported a membership of 2,622 men and 724 women, mostly residents of Yogyakarta. Membership grew steadily—10,000 in 1928, 17,000 in 1929, and 24,000 in 1931. By the 1930s, moreover, it had begun to establish branches beyond Java, the main center
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