Negotiating Embodied Piety: Gender-Responsive Fiqh Pedagogy and Religious Character Formation in Indonesian Pesantren

Abstrak

Character education has gained global prominence, yet the specific mechanisms through which gender-responsive religious instruction shapes moral dispositions in Islamic residential schools remain under-theorized. This qualitative instrumental case study examines the concept, implementation, and implications of women’s jurisprudence (fiqh al-nisa) learning for religious character formation among female students at Pondok Pesantren Muhammadiyah Tahfidzul Qur’an Srumbung, Indonesia. The study collected data through three months of participatory observation, semi-structured interviews with eighteen participants, and institutional documentation, then analyzed them using the interactive model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña. Drawing on Glock and Stark’s religiosity framework, Lickona’s character formation model, and Mahmood’s theory of embodied piety, the study finds that women’s fiqh learning—centered on Fiqhus Sunnah Lin Nisa and implemented through integrated classroom instruction and dormitory-based guidance—contributes to strengthened belief, enhanced worship discipline, improved religious knowledge, deepened spiritual experience, and cultivated prosocial behavior. However, internalization is uneven: some students comply strategically, knowledge gains vary, and resistance reveals that moral formation is negotiated rather than mechanically transmitted. The study extends the Glock–Stark framework by integrating embodied piety theory to explain how fiqh knowledge becomes moral disposition, and it advances theorization of gender-responsive Islamic pedagogy by demonstrating that effectiveness depends on pedagogical orientations that invite questioning and support student agency. These findings offer empirical grounding for curriculum developers and policymakers seeking to strengthen character education through gender-responsive religious instruction.