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National-scale preacher certification ‘not possible’
Calls have emerged for the screening of Islamic preachers, amid rising concerns about the spread of extremist messages, which have included condemning a mosque for its supposed antireligious design
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span>Calls have emerged for the screening of Islamic preachers, amid rising concerns about the spread of extremist messages, which have included condemning a mosque for its supposed antireligious design.
Fed up with such hate speech, fourth-year law school student Visa Rizkyka Zakaria, 21, said that she had made the case for preacher certification in a college paper in the hopes that more serious efforts would be made to regulate ustad (preachers).
“Ustad are public figures who have a strong influence on people, so we should make sure that they have moderate views and are tolerant while also being free from any political interests,” Visa said on Wednesday.
Visa is not alone. Netizens have voiced similar concerns in response to a string of viral videos of controversial sermons, the latest being of preacher Rahmat Baequni, in which he accused West Java Governor and architect Ridwan Kamil of building a mosque filled with symbols that alluded to the Illuminati and the Antichrist.
“Ustad are teachers, so [just like teachers] they should be certified so the public knows that they meet certain standards, and thus deserve the ustad status. If other jobs require academic credentials, then it should apply all the more to preachers,” said 33-year-old Femmy Basri.
Saiful Umam, a lecturer and former executive director at the Islam Research Center of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN Jakarta), said the country needed to follow Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Saudi Arabia in certifying preachers who appeared in public spaces.
“Just about anyone can become an ustad these days. It’s about time Indonesia set up an independent body to screen preachers,” he told The Jakarta Post.
The idea of screening preachers is in fact not new. Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin mentioned his intention to certify ustad in 2017 after a study conducted by the Association for Islamic Boarding Schools and Community Development found that 41 of the 100 mosques in ministerial offices, state agencies and state-owned corporation complexes in Jakarta had preachers who espoused radical teachings during Friday prayers.
However, the plan was met with backlash from parts of the Islamic community, who suggested that it could potentially suppress freedom of speech.
As a result, the ministry did not proceed with the plan and instead released in 2018 a list of 200 moderate Islamic preachers, promising that more would be announced.
The list acts as a reference for the public and excludes several popular preachers, such as Abdul Somad and Felix Siauw, who often spark debate over their controversial remarks.
Juraidi, an official at the ministry’s Islamic Community Guidance Directorate General, said that certifying preachers would require the government to pay their salaries, as is the case in Malaysia, where preachers are appointed as government workers.
He added that such a scheme would be difficult to implement in Indonesia, as it was a larger country with more than 800,000 mosques spread across the archipelago, meaning it would need up to three times as many preachers to be appointed as government workers.
“It would require a large budget […] For now, we expect Islamic mass organizations to screen their preachers,” Juraidi told the Post, highlighting that there were 89 such organizations operating at the national-level.
In an effort to increase the prevalence of moderate preachers, the ministry and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) conducted their first training and certification program in March for 109 preachers aged between 20 and 40 years old from all provinces across the country.
The training was held over four consecutive days in Depok, West Java, with those who passed the tests being certified by the MUI.
MUI’s head of Islamic preaching Muhammad Cholil Nafis said that certified preachers would fall under the responsibility of the council, noting that those who violated its dakwah (preaching) guidelines would be warned or have their certificates revoked.
“The training and certification program is not a requirement for preachers, as Indonesia has not adopted a certification system. In the end, the public will decide whether to appoint these certified preachers, although we suggest that state offices should at least appoint them,” Cholil said.
Cholil previously said the goal of the program was to train 550 preachers in five batches this year. However. Juraidi said that because of a limited budget, the next batch would be trained next year. The number of preachers likely to be certified through the program pales in comparison to the millions of preachers needed in the country.
However, Cholil said that Indonesia could not be compared to Malaysia.
“Preachers certification isn’t possible in Indonesia because our government does not pay the mubaligh [preachers]. What we can do is improve their quality,” he said.
