Abdul Somad

Abdul Somad Batubara is an Indonesian preacher and hadith scholar, born in Silo Lama, Asahan, North Sumatra, on 18 May 1977. He taught hadith studies for a decade at the Sultan Syarif Kasim II State Islamic University (UIN Suska) in Riau before resigning to preach full-time, and rose through YouTube and social media to become one of Indonesia's most-listened-to preachers, known for a humorous delivery. ^{1 2}

Somad was born in Silo Lama on 18 May 1977, the son of Bakhtiar and Rohana. On his mother's side he descends from Shaykh Abdurrahman, nicknamed Tuan Syekh Silau Laut I, a Sufi scholar of the Shattari order born in Rao, of Minangkabau descent. He was schooled in Qur'an-memorisation institutions: Al-Washliyah primary school in Kisaran (to 1990), Mu'allimin madrasa in Medan (1993), a year at Pesantren Darularafah in Deliserdang, and Nurul Falah madrasa in Indragiri Hulu (1996), followed by two years of Arabic study at IAIN Sultan Syarif Kasim in Riau. ²

In 1998 he won one of 100 Egyptian government scholarships to Al-Azhar University, completing his licence degree in three years and ten months in mid-2002. After two semesters at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, he took a Moroccan scholarship to the Dar al-Hadith al-Hasaniyyah institute in Rabat, earning its advanced diploma (D.E.S.A.) at the end of 2006. He took his PhD at Omdurman Islamic University in Sudan in 2019, with a thesis on the narrators of the Muwatta' and the two Sahih collections whom al-Nasa'i weakened. He served as a visiting professor at the Faculty of Usuluddin of Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali in Brunei for 2020–2022 and again for 2023–2024. ²

After his master's he worked in 2007 as a translator for Islamic publishers in Jakarta, then lectured at a private college in Riau, and in 2009 became a permanent lecturer in hadith studies at UIN Suska's Faculty of Ushuluddin. He resigned in 2019 after ten years, citing his preaching commitments and inability to attend campus daily. ²

His prominence came primarily through YouTube and social media during Indonesia's rapid internet growth; his official channel has more than five million subscribers and his Instagram millions of followers, and he is known for humour in delivering dawah. He carries the title Datuk Seri Ulama Setia Negara. ^{1 2}

Somad has held offices in the Persatuan Tarbiyah Islamiyah (PERTI), including chairman of its Riau fatwa council (2022–2027), and served as deputy chairman of Al Washliyah's fatwa council (2021–2026); in 2025 he became director of PERTI's national education body (LP3N). He heads the Hajjah Rohana education foundations in North Sumatra and Riau and supervises the Nurul Azhar pesantren in Pekanbaru. ²

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum. In an October 2017 sermon video he said Muslims who buy at Starbucks coffee shops would go to hell because of the company's pro-LGBT policies; the video went viral in March 2018, with many mocking him for using platforms with similar policies. In 2019 he was reported to police over a sermon denouncing the crucifix, in which he said a Muslim dying in a hospital with crucifixes would be sent to hell because the crucifix contains an "infidel jinn". ¹

In another sermon he rejected the term "suicide bombing" for Palestinian attackers, insisting such operations be called Harokah Istisyhadiyah (martyrdom operations) and citing a precedent from the Battle of Uhud. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs cited this stance and his comments denigrating other faiths when it denied him entry on 16 May 2022, calling his preachings "extremist and segregationist"; he had previously been refused entry to East Timor, Switzerland, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany. He responded in a video that Singapore "actually belongs to the Malays" and said he would not give up trying to visit. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic he preached that the virus was a "soldier of Allah" sent to protect Uyghur Muslims; after the pandemic reached Indonesia he revised his position, holding that Muslims who die of it are martyrs and that his earlier claim was only one of many interpretations. ^{1 2}

His popular question-and-answer books include 37 Masalah Populer, 99 Tanya Jawab Seputar Shalat, 33 Tanya Jawab Seputar Qurban and 77 Tanya Jawab Seputar Shalat; he co-authored Metode Takhrij Hadits (2013) on hadith-source verification and has translated many Arabic works on marriage, family and ethics into Indonesian. ²

His YouTube channel had about 5.09 million subscribers in the Indonesian article's channel box (updated 19 August 2026) and about 5.12 million by vidIQ's count (2 November 2026); his Instagram account had 9.5 million followers in the English article (28 October 2024). These are dated platform figures reported by the sources, not facts verified by the museum. ^{1 2}

• English Wikipedia, "Abdul Somad", as read on 4 November 2026. ¹
• Indonesian Wikipedia, "Abdul Somad", as read on 4 November 2026. ²