Bigger and longer Istiqlal festival held in September

JAKARTA (JP): Following the success of the first festival on Islamic culture four years ago, the government plans an even bigger, merrier and longer fiesta this year to expose the cultural richness of Indonesia's main religion.

The Second Istiqlal Festival, to be opened by President Soeharto in September, will go on for two months instead of one month as was the case in 1991, the organizers said yesterday.

As the name suggests, the festival will be held in the vicinity of the Istiqlal grand mosque.

The event is staged by the Istiqlal Festival Foundation, an organization for the development of Islamic teaching and promulgation. The foundation is headed by Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad and business tycoon Ponco Sutowo.

This year's festival also will feature an exhibition of historical manuscripts and a number of competitions.

"We will hold six kinds of cultural and arts competitions," Arief Rahman, chief competition coordinator, told reporters.

There will be competitions on adzan (the call for Islamic prayer) mushaf (the art of writing Koranic scripture); sajadah (Islamic prayer rug) design; the art of calligraphy; scientific writing, and a photo contest.

"The regional selection process started this month," Arif said of the competition's participants, who come from all of Indonesia's 27 provinces.

The festival is intended to provide information on the historical backgrounds of the Islamic culture and arts.

"Who knows, the festival could reveal the oldest prayer rug in the world, including the person or group of persons, who made the rug," he said.

The festival's organizers are hopeful that this year's festival will be as successful as the first one four years ago, which was visited by more than 6.1 million people.

A. Zacky Siradj, secretary of the committee said there will also be participants from other countries. The organizers have sent out invitations to many Asian, Middle East, African and European countries.

Zacky said the festival would cost Rp 10 billion ($4.4 million) to stage. (imn)