Paradigma Integrasi-Interkoneksi Amin Abdullah: Konstruksi Epistemologis dan Relevansinya bagi Pendidikan Tinggi Islam

Abstract

This article examines the integration-interconnection paradigm of Amin Abdullah as an epistemological framework for Islamic higher education in Indonesia. Employing qualitative library research with a philosophical-historical approach, the study reads Abdullah’s primary works alongside secondary literature, using Kuhn’s notion of paradigm and al-Jabiri’s typology of epistemic systems (bayani, burhani, irfani) as its two analytical lenses. The findings show that, first, the paradigm emerged from a specific intellectual trajectory and from a diagnosis of dichotomy as an epistemological problem. Second, the typology of epistemic systems and the three hadlarah (hadlarah al-nash, al-‘ilm, and al-falsafah) are related but not identical: the former classifies ways of knowing, the latter classifies traditions of knowledge, and each hadlarah is multi-epistemic. Third, the paradigm accepts plural criteria of truth operating in different domains, yet it lacks a decision rule for competing claims on the same question. Fourth, chronology and the diversity of integration models show that the paradigm cannot be treated as the basis of the national IAIN–UIN transformation; it is better understood as an influential model developed at UIN Sunan Kalijaga. The article contributes epistemic indicators for assessing the paradigm and a conceptual framework for operationalizing it in Islamic higher education outside Java, illustrated through Aceh, which requires further empirical testing.