On Wednesday, February 22, 2023, the History Department of Universitas Gadjah Mada held its first departmental discussion event. The speaker of the discussion was Dr. Ahmad Athoillah with a research entitled “The Role of Sayid Saqqaf Al-Jufri and Modern Islamic Education in Arab Society in Kedu in the Early 20th Century.”
This research focuses on the roles and interactions of Sayid Saqqaf Al-Jufri in developing the modernization of Islamic education in the Kedu region in the early 20th century through the Al-Iman school that was established in Magelang. The results of this study show that Sayid Saqqaf was one of the Hadrami Arab Islamic education reformers who built a trans-local network of Islamic education modernism which was supported by Hadrami Arab kinship, Muslim intellectuals, and trade activities. Some of the themes explored during the discussion were the Islamic education systems in the early 20th century and the development of Islamic modernism during the same period.