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.
Chinese celebrity preacher Koko Liem hits the big time; brawler Anton Medan unhappy.
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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. |
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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some people forgot about the fact that the Wali Songo(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wali_Sanga) some of them were Chinese or had Chinese ancestry. I wouldnt be surprised at all if the early traders were the Chinese and they were the ones responsible for introducing Islam to SE Asia.
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pleace correct ”moslem” must be muslim
moslem that mean wine house
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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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