REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Vice President Jusuf Kalla has stated that it is not easy for the government to certify preachers (khatibs) who perform Friday prayer sermon since mosques in Indonesia were built by the public and not by the state. "Mosques in Indonesia were built and are being managed by the public. Propagation of Islam is something that falls in the domain of the community, so it is not easy to regulate these," he said here on Friday.

He was responding to Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin's proposal to certify khatibs in the country. Kalla, who is also the chief of the Indonesian Mosque Council (DMI), said only mosques in three countries in the world -- Indonesia, India and Pakistan -- were built by the public.

Mosques in other countries, such as Malaysia, Turkey and Middle Eastern nations, were built by their governments, he added. "In Malaysia, Friday prayer sermons are a centralized activity as imams in the country are government employees," he informed. 

Indonesia currently has about one million mosques, with the number of imams and khatibs reaching an estimated 5 million, he revealed. "Admittedly, it is not easy. However, the important thing is that we must see the level of their knowledge," he pointed out.

One of the DMI's programs is to come up with a Masjidku (My Mosques) application to classify khatibs on the basis of their knowledge and understanding so that the public can choose khatibs on that basis, he noted.

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