Zakat and Protestant Diakonia in Indonesia: A Comparative Study of Religious Welfare, Institutional Difference, and Interfaith Social Cooperation

This article compares zakat as an obligatory Islamic almsgiving institution with diakonia as a Protestant Christian social practice in Indonesia. The unit of comparison is therefore not “Islam versus Christianity” as comprehensive theological systems, nor "zakat versus Christian tithing, but two religious welfare institutions examined through four dimensions: theological rationale, institutional organization, resource mechanism, and social function. The study employs qualitative comparative textual analysis of Qur’anic and biblical sources, contemporary theological scholarship, peer-reviewed studies of Islamic philanthropy and diaconal practice, and documented Indonesian cases. The revised analysis identifies a limited but analytically useful functional correspondence: both institutions translate religiously grounded obligations toward vulnerable people into organized forms of social support, yet they differ substantially in juridical status, eligibility, funding logic, and institutional accountability. The concept of divine stewardship is retained as a comparative heuristic rather than treated as an identical doctrine. Evidence from Indonesian interfaith initiatives further indicates that cooperation in humanitarian and civic action is possible without theological convergence, although the literature does not support claims that such cooperation is universally transformative. The article contributes a more symmetrical comparative framework that distinguishes convergence, non-equivalence, and practical complementarity.