Indonesia’s Ah Beng Chinese Moslem Preacher


Fascinating account of Koko Liem, Indonesia’s homegrown Islamic evangelist with a penchant for Ah Beng-esque costumes and promotion, and Anton Medan, a former thug turned Muslim convert.

Do Malaysians have such equivalents, Unspun wonders.

clipped from www.indonesiamatters.com

Koko Liem vs Anton Medan

Jul 18th, 2010, in News & Issues, by Patung

Chinese celebrity preacher Koko Liem hits the big time; brawler Anton Medan unhappy.

In “Chinese Preachers Bridge Indonesia’s Ethnic Gap” in the New York Times [1] Jakarta based Chinese Muslim tele-evangelist and Islamic themed text-messaging service entrepreneur “Koko Liem” is profiled and described as being a trailblazer in breaking down stereotypes that Islam and Chinese don’t go together.

Koko Liem, posing

Liem Hai Thai/Muhammad Utsman Anshori aka Koko Liem is said to have converted to Islam from Buddhism as a teenager in North Sumatra, and says his role now is to teach the universality of Islam:

If a Chinese person becomes a Muslim, and he understands the religion, even to the point of being a cleric like me people are more awed and moved:

He’s just a Chinese, who wasn’t a Muslim before. Now he is one, and his religion is greater than ours. He can lecture on religion, he can memorize the Koran, what can we do?

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3 thoughts on “Indonesia’s Ah Beng Chinese Moslem Preacher

Add yours

  1. many Muslims in Thailand as well, some of them very colorful dressers. I like it, the diversity is what makes the world interesting.

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