What NU Needs Today: A Return to Maslahat
In the tradition of fiqh siyasah that lives within Nahdlatul Ulama, a very fundamental principle is known: tasarruf al-imam ’ala al-ra’iyyah manuthun bi al-maslahah, meaning every leader’s policy must be based on the welfare of the people. This principle actually speaks not only about power, but also about the essence of leadership. An organisation, no matter how large, ultimately gains legitimacy not because of the breadth of its structure or the number of its activities, but because of its ability to bring benefit to everyone it serves.
Interestingly, the same spirit also develops in modern management thought. Using slightly different language, classical thinkers such as Michael Porter, Peter Drucker, and Theodore Levitt reached a similar conclusion: a superior organisation is not one that merely possesses vast resources, but one that is able to transform all its resources into value truly felt by society.
Perhaps it is here that we can see a common thread between the intellectual heritage of pesantren and modern management science. The NU tradition calls it maslahah. Modern management calls it value. Both remind us that an organisation does not live for itself.
The question then is how this idea is translated in the context of today’s Nahdlatul Ulama. Looking at the current situation and landscape of Indonesia, I see this idea as highly relevant and contextual for Nahdlatul Ulama.
For more than a century, NU has successfully built extraordinary social capital. Hundreds of millions of members spread across Indonesia (57.2% of Indonesian Muslims identify as NU members, Alvara 2025), thousands of pesantren, schools, madrasahs, universities, hospitals, zakat and waqf institutions, cooperatives, autonomous bodies, and a management network down to the village level represent a strength that very few other organisations possess. All of these are massive assets built through long, cross-generational work.
With such ‘jumbo’ social capital, NU no longer faces the challenge of how to increase institutional assets. The far more important challenge is how to ensure all these assets move towards the same goal: improving the quality of life for Nahdliyin members.
Michael Porter, in his 1996 work ‘What is Strategy’, explained that organisational excellence is not born from the number of units owned, but from ‘fit’—the integration between functions so that each part strengthens the others. An organisation that has many institutions but runs them separately will lose its leverage. Conversely, an organisation that can unite its strengths will produce a far greater impact than if each element moved independently.
This lesson feels very relevant for NU. Pesantren, schools, universities, hospitals, LAZISNU, waqf bodies, cooperatives, Muslimat NU, Fatayat NU, GP Ansor, Banser, IPNU, IPPNU, and various other institutions are not merely a collection of institutions. They are a chain of services that should be interconnected.
A Nahdliyin child who receives a scholarship should also receive academic mentoring, access to quality higher education, skills training, professional networks, and eventually the opportunity to serve the community. A micro-entrepreneur who obtains financing should also receive business training, marketing assistance, access to digital technology, and business networks. Zakat, infaq, sadaqah, and waqf funds should not stop as temporary aid, but become a pathway to build family economic independence and expand educational opportunities.
When all institutions move in a single rhythm, the organisation does not just become large. The organisation becomes effective.
However, integration alone is not enough. Peter Drucker once reminded us in his book ‘The Practice of Management’ (1954) that an organisation must not become trapped in itself. An organisation’s existence is always determined by the benefits it provides to society. A healthy organisation is not the one busiest managing its internal structure, but the one that continuously understands the needs of the people it serves.
This view invites us to see the changes taking place among Nahdliyin members. The problems they face today are different from those of two or three decades ago. Parents do not only hope their children become pious individuals, but also that they obtain quality higher education and decent jobs. Young people need not only cadre training spaces, but also skills relevant to a job market now influenced by artificial intelligence, automation, and the digital economy. Small business owners face increasingly competitive market challenges. At the same time, society still needs soothing religious guidance that can also answer the problems of modern life.
Because of this, NU’s services must also evolve to follow the changing needs of its members. It is not the values that change, but the way those values are brought into daily life.
The consequence of this change is quite clear. NU’s biggest investment in its second century is no longer primarily physical development, but human development. Wider access to higher education, scholarship movements, strengthening vocational education, mastery of digital technology, the emergence of professional cadres, and the regeneration of ulama are long-term investments that will determine the quality of NU’s service in the future.
Human development in the NU context, of course, does not only speak of professionals or skilled workers. NU also bears the responsibility of maintaining the continuity of religious authority.