MEET INDONESIA’S ‘NIGHTCLUB’ PREACHER
Muslim preacher creates safe space for workers in entertainment industry to worship
MIFTA’IM An’am Maulana Habiburrohman is not your typical Muslim preacher.
Instead of a skull cap, he wears a Javanese head dress over his 1980s-style mullet. His sermons are delivered in nightclubs instead of mosques.
With an eye on rising intolerance of “vice” in the world’s largest Muslimmajority country, Habiburrohman said he upheld the right of worship for people who felt unwelcome in their community mosque because they work in clubs and bars.
“I rarely talk about heaven or hell because I believe they already know about that,” said the 37year-old preacher who also goes by the name Gus Miftah.
“There are job demands and life demands that push them to do these jobs to survive,” he said before delivering a sermon to a group of mostly female employees at the Boshe VVIP karaoke bar and dance club in Bali.
“I have no right to judge them... so I’m here to help them never forget their god,” he said.
Gus Miftah also operates an Islamic boarding school in Yogyakarta, his hometown in Java.
Conservative groups there say his preaching in clubs and red-light districts is an insult to the Muslim religion.
Hardline Islamic groups have stepped up raids on bars and clubs in recent years, and have targeted sex workers and members of the LGBT community who work in entertainment zones.
Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims, and sizable Buddhist, Christian and other religious minorities, but conservative and hardline interpretations of Islam have fanned fears that the officially secular nation is becoming less tolerant.
Last year, Jakarta’s ex-governor, an ethnic Chinese Christian, was tried and jailed for blasphemy after Muslim groups accused him of insulting Islam when he mentioned the Quran in a speech.
In August, an ethnic Chinese Buddhist woman who complained that a mosque’s calls to prayer were too loud was jailed for 18 months after hardline groups accused her of blasphemy.
Indonesia’s Muslim clerics council was not available for comment. Indonesian media have quoted council members as saying Gus Miftah should follow established “rules and methods to conduct sermons”.
Yudith Stevanni, a manager at the Boshe VVIP club, said she disagreed with those who said the club was not an appropriate site for religious teaching.
“In my opinion, it is just a venue. The lessons can be conducted anywhere,” she said.
Club workers who listened to Gus Miftah’s 90-minute sermon said they appreciated his humour and informal style.
“Even though we work here, we still have religion and we want to do good,” said a 27-year-old female employee.