Surau Journal of Islamic Studies

Economic Statecraft and Strategic Hedging: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis of Qatar’s Housing Investment in Indonesia

Ilham Dary Athallah — 2026-07-10

This study examines Qatar’s investment in Indonesia’s one million homes program (2024–2026) through the lens of classical realism to reveal the strategic calculations underlying development cooperation between Gulf states and Southeast Asia. Against the backdrop of Indonesia’s acute housing deficit and Qatar’s surplus capital, this research addresses a gap in understanding how power dynamics and national interest shape South-South development finance. Employing a qualitative explanatory single-case design with process tracing and document analysis, this study systematically examines official documents, media reports, and think-tank analyses from December 2024 to March 2026. The findings demonstrate that Qatar’s investment serves as economic statecraft to project geopolitical influence and compensate for military limitations, while Indonesia leverages foreign capital as a self-help mechanism to address domestic stability threats and preserve strategic autonomy through partnership diversification. The study concludes that even apparently altruistic development partnerships are fundamentally shaped by power calculations and interest-balancing. This research contributes a realist account of Gulf-Asia relations and introduces the concept of “balance-of-partnership diversification” as a framework for understanding how middle powers maintain autonomy in an anarchic international system. The findings offer policy guidance for managing the strategic dimensions of development finance, emphasizing the importance of diversified partnerships and delivery credibility.

Constitutive Duality: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Arab-Islamic NGO Philanthropy in Senegal

Alassane Sow — 2026-07-11

This study examines the constitutive duality of Arab-Islamic NGO philanthropy in Senegal, where the same actions simultaneously fill public service gaps and reshape religious authority. While over 500 such organizations operate in Senegal, building mosques, schools, and wells, their impacts remain undertheorized beyond binary categories of aid versus interference. A multi-sited ethnographic case study was conducted over six months across Dakar, Touba, Kaolack, and Matam, employing semi-structured interviews with five key informants, participant observation, documentary analysis, and Social Network Analysis. The findings reveal that the same mosque built with Gulf funding is simultaneously framed as charity (by NGOs), regulation (by the state), ideological competition (by Sufi brotherhoods), and social mobility opportunity (by youth). Using Bourdieu’s field theory, the study argues that this constitutive duality is a structural feature of Senegal’s religious field in transition from doxa to heterodoxy, where colliding habitus and unequal capital produce multiple, simultaneous meanings. The study concludes that transnational Islamic philanthropy cannot be reduced to binary categories. It must be understood as a complex process where welfare and authority, complementarity and competition, cooperation and transformation are produced simultaneously. This reframing has significant policy implications, requiring nuanced regulation that distinguishes humanitarian aid from religious authority formation.

Who Speaks for Islam? Artificial Intelligence, Fatwa, and Religious Authority in Bangladesh

Jobeda Khanom — 2026-07-19

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has begun to exert a profound influence on religious knowledge production and dissemination within Muslim societies, raising urgent questions about authority, authenticity, and accountability. This article examines the implications of artificial intelligence for fatwa issuance and religious authority in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country where traditional Islamic scholarship increasingly intersects with digital technologies. As AI-powered systems generate instant responses to religious questions, the boundaries between scholarly interpretation and algorithmic output become blurred, challenging long-established epistemological foundations of Islamic jurisprudence. Drawing on a qualitative and conceptual analysis of scholarly literature published over the past decade, this study explores whether artificial intelligence can legitimately participate in the process of fatwa issuance or whether its role must remain limited to technical assistance. The analysis reveals that while artificial intelligence can enhance access to Islamic knowledge and support scholarly research, it lacks moral agency, contextual sensitivity, and accountability, which are essential for authoritative fatwa issuance. The article argues that unregulated reliance on AI risks fragmenting religious authority and misleading lay Muslims, particularly in digitally saturated environments such as Bangladesh. It concludes that Islamic religious authority must remain rooted in human scholarship, with artificial intelligence functioning strictly as a supplementary tool under institutional and ethical supervision.

Paralogism in Abul Ala Mawdudi's Khilafat wa Mulukiyat: A Critical Analysis of Taqi Usmani's Refutation

Atif Suhail Siddiqui — 2026-07-19

This study critically examines the presence of paralogism in Abul Ala Mawdudi’s Khilafat wa Mulukiyat through an analysis of Taqi Usmani’s systematic refutation. While Khilafat wa Mulukiyat has significantly influenced modern Islamic political thought, its historiographical methodology remains highly contested among Sunni scholars, particularly regarding its interpretation of the early caliphate and the Companions of the Prophet. Employing a qualitative textual analysis, this study compares Mawdudi’s historical arguments with classical Islamic sources and Usmani’s methodological critique. The analysis identifies recurring forms of paralogism, including selective use of historical evidence, omission of contradictory reports, conflation of legitimate ijtihad with bid’ah, and contextual misinterpretation of key narrations concerning Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan. These argumentative patterns are contrasted with Usmani’s emphasis on source verification, the methodological principles of al-jarh wa al-ta’dil, and the ethical norms governing Islamic historiography. The study argues that the debate extends beyond historical disagreement to competing epistemological approaches for evaluating Islamic history and religious authority. It contributes to contemporary scholarship by demonstrating how methodological rigor and critical source evaluation remain essential for interpreting contested narratives within Islamic intellectual history.

Family Resilience in Context: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Infidelity in Nigerian Military Families

Abdulrazaq O. Kilani — 2026-07-19

Marital infidelity within military families remains an underexplored issue in non-Western contexts despite its implications for family wellbeing and organizational resilience. This study develops a context-sensitive conceptual understanding of the psychological, social, and institutional consequences of infidelity among Nigerian military families through an integrative review of interdisciplinary literature. The thematic synthesis suggests that infidelity extends beyond a private marital issue to become a multidimensional phenomenon shaped by military occupational demands, collectivist family structures, religious values, and institutional support systems. Psychological distress, family instability, community stigma, and organizational barriers emerge as interconnected dimensions influencing both family resilience and military effectiveness. By integrating Walsh’s Family Resilience Theory, Social Exchange Theory, and the Maq??id al-Shar??ahframework, this study proposes a culturally grounded conceptual model that explains how resilience is constructed through interactions among psychological adaptation, kinship networks, faith-based coping, and institutional responses. The review contributes to military family scholarship by extending resilience theory beyond predominantly Western perspectives while informing culturally responsive family welfare policies in military settings.