Felix Siauw

Felix Yanwar Siauw is a Chinese-Indonesian writer and preacher, born in Palembang, South Sumatra, on 31 January 1984 into a Catholic family. He converted to Islam in 2002 as a university student and went on to become a widely read religious author for Indonesian youth and a preacher associated with Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, whose lectures and books on hijab, the caliphate and Islamic history circulate widely. ¹

Felix Siauw was born in Palembang on 31 January 1984 to a Chinese Catholic family, attended Catholic schools, and as a teenager leaned toward atheism and disliked religion, according to the article. In 2002, while studying at Bogor Agricultural University, he met an activist of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, with whom he began discussions about questions of existence; he converted to Islam the same year. After graduating he worked as a marketing manager at a company, then left the job to preach and write full-time. ¹

Siauw has written many books aimed at young readers, among the best known Beyond the Inspiration (2011), Muhammad al-Fatih 1453 (2012), which sold widely, Khilafah Remake (2015), Yuk Berhijab! (Let's Wear Hijab!, 2015) addressed to young Muslim women, the Ghazi historical-fiction series, and How to Master Your Habits. He is also associated with the YukNgaji youth dawah community. ¹

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum. In September 2015 Siauw criticised women's selfies taken with unrelated men as cheap and shameful, provoking a counter-campaign under the hashtag #Selfie4Siauw, in which activists posted their own selfies in defiance. In May 2017 a university event of his in Malang was shut down amid protests over his Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia links, months before the government dissolved the organisation. ¹

His Instagram account had 5.4 million followers in a 2024 journal table, and his YouTube channel 2.04 million subscribers (September 2026), by the platform figures recorded in the sources — dated figures, not facts verified by the museum. ¹

• English Wikipedia, "Felix Siauw", as read on 4 November 2026. ¹