This paper discusses madrasah pesisiran (madrasah in the north coastal area of Java) in terms of their identities and adapting strategies to the development and the dynamics of globalization era.. There are two most important findings. Firstly, madrasahs pesisiran grow and develop in the dynamics of the culture of the area in such a way that they have unique characteristics and features, which are different and distinctive from other educational institutions. Madrasah pesisiran have four main characteristics: 1) they have the ideology of Ahl al-sunnah wa al-jama’ah (ideological identity); 2) they are based on community trust and participation (social capital identity); 3) they are populist educational institutions (populace identity); and 4) they are institutions whose existence cannot be seperated from their religion leader (kyai) (kyai based identity). Secondly, the adapting strategies done by madrasahs in north Java coastal area can be devided into two forms, i.e. 1) reproduction strategy by which madrasahspeisiran place religious teachings (tafaqquh fi al-din ) as prevention and filter in the against the negative influene of globalization, so the religious teaching becomes the crucial part of madrasahs in the area, 2) innovation adoption strategy in applying education with global perspectives, i.e. the teaching of English, science and technology. The strategies are realizations of the principle of al-muhafazah ’ala qadim al-salih wa al-akhzu bi al-jadid al-aslah (Maintaining the old values are good, and accepting new values better).