Lineage and early life Syafiq Riza bin Hasan bin Abdul Qadir bin Salim bin Zaid Basalamah was born in
Jember on 15 December 1977. He recounted that his great-grandfather, Salim bin Zaid Basalamah, migrated from Yemen to the Dutch East Indies before the 1900s. The ship carrying Salim docked at
Teluk Bayur Port in
Padang. In Padang, Salim married a
Minangkabau woman and worked at the port while also teaching the Quran. Salim bin Zaid Basalamah died and was buried in Padang, but the exact location of his grave is no longer known. After Salim's death, his children moved to
Batavia (now
Jakarta). According to Syafiq's father, Syafiq's grandfather and his grandfather's siblings still spoke
Minangkabau, as evidenced by the use of the term "ammi" (Indonesian: uncle) in Padang.
Education Syafiq studied at the
Al-Irsyad Al-Islamiyyah Islamic Boarding School in
Bondowoso. He graduated from the
madrasah tsanawiyah (Islamic junior high school) in 1993 and the
madrasah aliyah (Islamic senior high school) at that boarding school in 1996. Upon graduation, he pursued an associate degree program at the
LIPIA for one year in Jakarta and graduated in 1998. After graduating from LIPIA, Syafiq was accepted into the
Islamic University of Madinah. He first completed a Language Program (''Syu'batul Lughah'') at the university, finishing in 1999. He then earned his bachelor's degree in 2003, his master's degree in 2007, and his doctoral degree in 2013, all from the Department of Da'wah at the Faculty of Da'wah and Usuluddeen of the Islamic University of Madinah, graduating with honors (
cum laude).
Academia career ,
Pekanbaru, 2015 According to the Higher Education Database of the
Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (PDDikti Kemdikbudristek), Syafiq worked as an active permanent lecturer in the
Ahwal Al-Syakhsiyah (family law) study program at the in Jember since 2016. He teaches several courses, including methods of da'wah, Islamic ethics,
prophetic biography (
sirah nabawiyah), and others.
Controversy , in 2015. In a clip from a sermon uploaded by Yufid.TV on YouTube in 2016, Syafiq urged people to pray for their leaders because it was meritorious and to avoid criticizing and disparaging them. However, in 2018, several unofficial accounts re-uploaded the video with the title changed to "#
2019GantiPresiden?? [Do Not Criticize the Government] ▪ [Ustadz Syafiq Reza Basalamah]." The video with the politicized title was used by supporters of the incumbent presidential candidate,
Joko Widodo, to counter
Prabowo Subianto. However, during Ramadhan 1442 Hijri or 2021, Kristia Budiyarto (Dede), an Independent Commissioner of
Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia (Pelni) and a staunch supporter of Joko Widodo, canceled Syfiq's lecture. Previously, Syafiq was invited by the Islamic Spiritual Body (Bakis) of Pelni to deliver the sermon. The cancellation was done unilaterally without the permission of the board of directors. Dede's reason for canceling the lecture was because Syafiq, along with other preachers such as ,
Khalid Basalamah, Rizal Yuliar Putrananda, and Subhan Bawazier, were accused of being radical preachers. == Works ==