Between Norm and Practice: Religious Moderation as a Living Expression of Islamic Law in Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

The discourse on religious moderation has attained growing centrality within contemporary Islamic legal scholarship, particularly as societies across the Muslim world contend with escalating tensions between religious expression, radicalism, and the demands of pluralistic governance. This study investigates the phenomenon of religious moderation as a living manifestation of Islamic law within the contrasting juridical and constitutional environments of Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, employing maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (the higher objectives of Islamic law) as the primary analytical lens. A qualitative methodology is adopted, combining the systematic analysis of policy instruments and Islamic legal literature in the Indonesian context with in-depth interview-based fieldwork involving religious scholars and legal academics in Brunei Darussalam. The findings reveal that religious moderation operates not merely as an abstract ethical disposition but as a concrete normative and institutional mechanism embedded in social, legal, and policy spheres. In Indonesia, it functions as a public legal ethic that mediates between Islamic values and the demands of a pluralistic national legal order, while in Brunei Darussalam it assumes the character of an institutional principle governing the gradual and proportional application of formal Islamic law. This study advances the scholarly conversation by proposing a comparative framework that reconceptualises religious moderation as living Islamic law—a dynamic bridge between normative jurisprudential theory and institutional practice—and by articulating a maqāṣid-grounded analytical model that ensures Islamic law remains contextually relevant, normatively balanced, and oriented toward the welfare of the public.