NAHDLATUL ULAMA’S CULTURAL DA’WAH STRATEGY IN BUILDING RELIGIOUS HARMONY IN JEPARA REGENCY: RITUALIZED BRIDGING IN A POST-CONFLICT SETTING

Purpose: This study analyses how Nahdlatul Ulama’s (NU) cultural da’wah strategy and the role of religious leaders build religious harmony in Jepara Regency, Central Java, a post-conflict area that experienced religiously charged unrest in 1998 and a church-construction dispute lasting nearly two decades. Design/methodology/approach: An embedded single-case qualitative design was applied across three sub-districts. Data were gathered through participatory observation (April and June 2025), semi-structured interviews with nine informants, including two non-Muslim religious leaders, and documentation. They were analysed through open, axial and selective coding and triangulated by method, source and investigator. Findings: Cultural da’wah (tahlilan, maulidan, syawalan, sedekah laut) dominates, supported structurally by the Forum for Religious Harmony (FKUB) and grounded in tawassuth, tawazun, tasamuh and amar makruf nahi mungkar. Religious leaders act simultaneously as guardians of social norms, channels of communication and mediators of disputes. Routine rituals that consolidate bonding social capital within NU are opened to non-Muslim neighbours and thereby generate bridging social capital, a mechanism termed ritualized bridging. Research limitations/implications: Informants come predominantly from the NU community, non-Muslim voices derive from one village, and textually oriented Muslim groups were not studied; intra-Muslim “invisible conflict” lies beyond the mechanism’s reach. Practical implications: Religious moderation programmes can optimize existing socio-religious infrastructure, such as FKUB capacity and mediation training for young religious leaders, rather than importing new interventions. Originality/value: The study integrates da’wah strategy, social capital and role theory, and specifies a micro-mechanism through which post-conflict harmony emerges from consciously managed everyday practice. Keywords: cultural da’wah strategy, religious harmony, Nahdlatul Ulama, religious leaders, social capital