Singapore mosques wire up for the times
Singapore mosques wire up for the times
By Amy Tan
SINGAPORE (Reuters): Every Friday, tens of thousands of Muslim
men crowd into Singapore's 70 mosques to hear an identical sermon
that had been distributed over the Internet earlier in the week.
The unorthodox way the sermon is delivered reflects how the
city state's central Islamic body has adapted to technology and a
new style of mosque management.
"We're moving in tandem with what the community wants. They're
more vocal, more educated, more demanding. They want better
services -- fast," Zakaria Buang, a spokesman for the Islamic
Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS), told Reuters.
"If we don't do something about it, we will be irrelevant."
MUIS, the state body responsible for Muslim affairs and
mosques in Singapore, stands at the helm of a 372,000-strong
Muslim community made up of mainly ethnic Malays representing
about 15 percent of the population.
While there is no government requirement for Singapore mosques
to preach identical sermons, MUIS is tasked with crafting the
weekly message.
Created in 1968 as a government statutory body, MUIS
computerized its operations in 1996.
E-mail became the channel of choice as more mosques installed
computers and hooked up to the MUIS wide area network. MUIS is
now working on setting up local computer networks within each
mosque.
The Friday sermon is also available on the MUIS website at
http://www.muis.gov.sg.
Since 1996, the organization has spent about S$2 million
(US$1.16 million) a year on computerization -- a figure that
accounted for almost a third of its budget in 1999.
On average, Singapore's statutory bodies and ministries spend
about five percent of their operating budgets on technology.
The MUIS efforts have accompanied changes in the way the 70
mosques are run.
Five years ago, mosques were managed by MUIS-appointed
volunteer committees made up mainly of retirees with little
tertiary education. But today, around a quarter of the more than
800 committee members are well educated and under the age of 40.
Management skills have become essential as congregations grew
and budgets ran into the millions of dollars -- a far cry from
the small neighborhood mosques common less than a decade ago.
"Many of them are getting full-time staff...because they've
realized that being a million-dollar asset, you can't effectively
develop it with part-time commitment," said Mohd Nazirin Abu
Bakar, the MUIS mosque development manager.
MUIS, which is predominantly self-funded with just 10 percent
of its income coming from the government, created two mosque
chief executive posts this year.
One of the new MCEs, Ab Mutalif bin Hashim, typifies the
changes. The 40-year-old gave up his job as a production
supervisor with computer giant Hewlett-Packard to head two large
mosques.
"They created this post to give focus to the mosque," Mutalif
said. "The mosque's main function is for praying. But other than
praying, you need people to do administration."
MUIS is looking to appoint more mosque chief executives. The
top-level managers will be instrumental in keeping the mosques
economically healthy, as each is mostly dependent on donations
from its congregation.
"If you're active and have good leaders and good programs, the
community around you will support you -- which is evident to many
mosques," Zakaria said.
With religious leaders freed up to concentrate on Islamic
teachings, the chief executives will be responsible for concepts
such as cuber cafes and computer classes to keep mosque
activities current and generate new funding.
"The bulk of our income comes from donations. But I do not
think it will last forever because of a lot of competition,"
Mutalif said. "We need to be self sufficient in times to come."