Comparative Analysis of the Muhammadiyah and Salafi-Wahhabi Da'wah Movement

Muhammadiyah is an Islamic organization that has a very comprehensive organizational structure. It is called comprehensive because Muhammadiyah does not only deal with theological issues, but Muhammadiyah also focuses on social-community issues, especially education, health and social welfare simultaneously. This is what makes Muhammadiyah a very unique movement, because Muhammadiyah is characterized by a movement to purify religious teachings (tajrid) in religious belief (Aqidah and Worship) which is combined with the principles and spirit of renewal (tajdid) in the world affairs. Recently, many people have the view that Muhammadiyah is another form of one of the purification movements that was born in the land of Hijaz, Salafi-Wahhabi. This conclusion is only based on several points of view between Muhammadiyah and Salafi-Wahhabi in several partial issues. The focus of the study in this paper is the comparison between Muhammadiyah and Salafi-Wahhabi. The argument in this paper is that Muhammadiyah and Salafi-Wahhabi are two very different typologies of Islamic movements. This is at least shown by five selective themes that are compared between the two, namely aspects of worldview (aqidah), ethos (ethics), religious views and epistemology of religious thought (manhaj), as well as their responses, especially to the issues of pluralism and gender.