Reconstructing the Conceptual Framework of Waqf-Pesantren Governance under a Legal Entity: A Synthesis of the Literature toward Institutional Sustainability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51278/bce.v6i3.2759Keywords:
Productive Waqf, Pesantren Legal Entity, Institutional Sustainability, Islamic Education Governance, Integrative ReviewAbstract
The economic survival of pesantren in Indonesia, if one looks at it carefully, is today no longer determined so much by how big the endowment that they are holding, but rather it is determined by the institutional form which is being used to govern those productive waqf assets. Even so, the scholarship that discusses waqf and the scholarship that discusses the legal personality of pesantren, which was given new strength by Law No. 18 of 2019, until now still tend to be developed along their own separate tracks, so that the institutional logic that should be connecting the two of them remains in a condition that is not yet examined deeply. This article tries to fill in that empty space through an integrative literature review, where the peer-reviewed studies, the regulatory instruments, and also the governance scholarship that have been published within the last five years are being synthesised together. The analysis here is not merely cataloguing the findings that are already existing, but rather it interrogates in what way the management of productive waqf and the legal form that is chosen by a pesantren are together giving shape to the capacity of that institution to endure. From the synthesis, there are three themes that are intersecting and that appear as the decisive ones, namely: the alignment between the professionalism of the nazhir and a legal entity that is recognised, then the accountability mechanisms that give legitimacy to productive waqf in front of the stakeholders and also the regulators, and lastly the governance arrangements which are translating the returns of the asset into institutional continuity. By drawing all of these threads so that they become one, the article is reconstructing a conceptual framework which is positioning the pesantren that is legally incorporated as the structural anchor through which productive waqf is contributing to sustainability, and this is being mediated by transparent governance. The framework that is offered here gives the researchers a foundation that can be tested for the empirical inquiry afterwards, and at the same time it gives the administrators of pesantren a reasoned basis so that they are able to align the endowment strategy with the legal-institutional design. The discussion in the closing part is outlining the conceptual boundaries of the framework and is proposing an agenda for the validation that is based on the field.
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