JAKARTA, Indonesia, — Abdullah Gymnastiar, this nation's most popular Islamic preacher, possesses the boyish good looks and eternal smile that send Indonesian women scrambling for invitations to join his television audience. Men come, too.
Everyone sits on mats on the studio floor, though the preacher is perched a little higher, on a cushion, dressed in a crisp white jacket and perfectly pressed sarong that play well to the cameras.
He is taping six back-to-back shows, which will reach into living rooms, beauty shops and sidewalk cafes in this hyperactive city of 13 million people, where he is best known. Unlike religious leaders who recite repetitious Koranic verses, Mr. Gymnastiar, 40 years old and known as Gym (with a hard G), offers chirpy practical advice. He is up front about the personal issues on the soap operas that his program competes with.
"Should a woman have sex in the office?" asks one woman. Mixing English and Indonesian words for a flirtatious effect, he replies, "A good sexy woman doesn't show off to others, just to her husband."
For those who say Indonesians wear their religion lightly and are profoundly moderate in their practice of Islam, the emergence of Mr. Gymnastiar in the last several years is proof enough.
He attracts overflowing crowds to the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta, the largest in Southeast Asia. President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who runs the world's most populous Islamic country but whose Islamic credentials are sometimes questioned, has invited him to appear alongside her at big outdoor events. Earlier this month, the American Embassy included him in a small group of Islamic leaders — all of them moderate, but most of them older — to meet Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, during his visit here.
In his sermons and television programs, Mr. Gymnastiar often uses the word adil, meaning fair. It is, he says, the essence of Islam.
"In Christianity the significant word is love," he said. "But in Islam it is fair. Because if we are not fair, we hurt someone. If we make war, we have to be fair with our enemy."
He tried, he said, to get this concept across to Secretary Powell. Most important, he said in an interview afterward, he tried to explain why the United States is mistrusted in the Islamic world.
"I said: `You don't look fair. I feel so sad that America looks too powerful,' " Mr. Gymnastiar said he told the secretary. He then drove the point home, he said, with the Middle East: "Why is it that Israel takes Palestinian land, and why is that the U.S. always helps this?"
At the same time, he said, he tried to reassure Secretary Powell: "I said we don't hate America. I just said America is unjust, unfair. If Bush has a fair ideal, every country is going to love America. But as Muslims we feel we are treated unjustly, unequally."
Mr. Gymnastiar's appeal among Indonesia's young and the middle class appears to lie in a combination of his modernity, his background as the son of a soldier and his interest in business. In the country's precarious economic environment, where an unruly democracy is unfolding after three decades of dictatorship, his homilies inspire hope and confidence.
"Success is how we can improve ourselves all our life," he said during a taping. "Don't think success is only money, a beautiful wife and a good job — but how we can improve ourselves to the end of our life."
At his base in Bandung, a city in West Java, he charges $100 for three-day motivational seminars on how to succeed. A local supermarket, a radio station and a variety of home industries opened by his organization are supposed to illustrate to the participants how to do better in their own businesses.
Always mindful of the reach of his television audience, Mr. Gymnastiar had a waterfall built in the backyard of his modest home there, so the cameras could film him for special segments in front of an attractive backdrop.
Every Monday he gathers his senior staff of eight men, all under 40, on his veranda to plan the week's commercial activities.
His latest venture is "Al Quran Selular," a telephone service that allows subscribers to call daily to listen to their favorite texts from the Koran, recited in his deep voice. For several years, he has run charter flights to Mecca.
"I like his knowledge," said Imaniza, 38, a fashion designer of what she called Muslim clothes. She had listened to his tapes and read his books at home before coming to the seminars. "He's not extreme. I've learned about entrepreneurship and human resources from him."
With the exception of constantly upbraiding Indonesian leaders for being corrupt, Mr. Gymnastiar keeps politics out of his sermons. But, recently, he expressed harsh sentiments about the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, at the Istiqlal mosque. Afterward, a close friend and financial backer, Palgunadi Selyawan, a retired auto executive, said he scolded his protégé for letting go of his emotions.
But Mr. Gymnastiar is not afraid to say he has yet to see enough proof that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. "There has to be to be a visible trial," he said.
In a measure of the suspicions about the United States in Indonesia, he said he was reluctant to accept an invitation to travel to the United States. He was scheduled to go to Los Angeles just before Sept. 11. But now, a visit could send the wrong signal. He said, "I don't want to appear as someone groveling."
In short, he said, his followers would not approve.