An Islamic reality TV show that made its contestants counsel promiscuous teenagers and bury corpses has named a 26-year-old mosque prayer leader as Malaysia’s top role model for young Muslims.
Producers voiced hopes of launching similar versions of Imam Muda (Young Leader) in other Muslim-majority countries after the Malaysian show’s first season became the most-watched programme on pay-television network Astro’s Islamic channel.
Muhammad Asyraf Ridzuan beat a 27-year-old Islamic schoolteacher who studied at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University to win the competition in an event broadcast nationwide from an auditorium packed with spectators.
The 10-episode show sought to find a young man whose religious devotion could inspire other Malaysian Muslims of his generation, through weekly tests of contestants’ religious knowledge and social skills.
The boyish-looking Muhammad Asyraf’s victory earned him prizes that mixed the spiritual – a new job as prayer leader at a top Kuala Lumpur mosque and an all-expenses-paid pilgrimage to Mecca – with the secular, including a car, iPhone, laptop and 20,000 ringgit ($8650) in cash.
Muhammad Asyraf said, “I want to be a prayer leader who is friendly to youths, cool and relaxed.”
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