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."