[3] Since its establishment, Muhammadiyah has adopted a reformist platform mixing religious and secular education,[4] primarily as a way to promote the upward mobility of Muslims toward a 'modern' community and to purify Indonesian Islam of local syncretic practices.

[4] It continues to support local culture and promote religious tolerance in Indonesia, while a few of its higher education institutions are attended mostly by non-Muslims, especially in East Nusa Tenggara and Papua provinces.

[10] In establishing schools, Muhammadiyah received significant help from the Budi Utomo, an important nationalist movement in Indonesia in the first half of the twentieth century, which provided teachers.

[12] After Abdul Karim Amrullah introduced the organisation to the Minangkabau people, a dynamic Muslim community, Muhammadiyah developed rapidly.

[13] During the 1965-66 political turbulence and violence, Muhammadiyah declared that the extermination of the Communist Party of Indonesia constituted Holy War, a view endorsed by other Islamic groups.

Muhammadiyah follows the Athari school of Sunni Islam, accepting only taking naqli (scripturalist) and rejecting all aqli (rationalist) tendencies.

It emphasizes the authority of the Qur'an and the Hadiths as supreme Islamic law that serves as the legitimate basis of the interpretation of religious belief and practices.

The main focus of the Muhammadiyah movement is to heighten people's sense of moral responsibility, purifying their faith to true Islam.

Theologically, Muhammadiyyah adheres to doctrines of Salafiyya; calling for directly returning to the Qur'an and Sunnah and the understanding of the Imams of the Salaf (early generations), including the eponyms of the four Sunni Madh'habs (legal schools).

[16][17][18] Muhammadiyah strongly opposes syncretism, where Islam had coalesced with animism (spirit worship) and with Hindu-Buddhist elements that were spread among communities from the pre-Islamic period.

As of 2006, the organization was said to have "veered sharply toward a more conservative brand of Islam" under the leadership of Din Syamsuddin the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council.

[19] However, some factions of Muhammadiyyah tend to espouse the modernist movement of Muhammad Abduh rather than the Salafi doctrines of Rashīd Rîdá; which has been described as "rigid and conservative".