Location
Visa / Costs / Permits
Religious
General
_____ Q) Where are you located exactly?
A) Please click here for google placemark.
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_____ Q) How do I reach you?
A) From Jakarta to Manado by several Airlines (most recommended is Batavia Air). From there it is about 6 hours by car to the valley, which we can send to you to the airport (approx. 50 Euro).
If you want to save a bit, go to Kotamobagu first, then via Molibagu another 17 km direction Gorontalo. There is public transport from Gorontalo right to our place (anything which goes to Molibagu).
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_____ Q) How far are you from the next hospital / doctor, school, shops etc?
A) Next health care center (they call it Puskesmas) is 17 km away, the next hospital 90 km. In addition there are is mobile health care services on certain days in the month. Worse things should be treated in Manado, where there is a quite good hospital. Elemantary school and secondary school about 3 km, but we will try to set up our own educational system, which is not too difficult in Indonesia as laws are not strict and teachers cheap. There are markets in the next villages once a week, and the bigger shops 17 km away. Bank / ATM machine 90 km. Police Station 17 km. Internet is still a bit of a problem but we will set up satellite broadband in the valley soon insyaAllah.
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_____ Q) How is the climate?
A) Al-hamdulillah, it is not too hot, especially not at night time. One normally will need a thin blanket. But it is raining a lot from April until mid of August, so bring a good rain coat!
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_____ Q) Is there a lot of Malaria or other diseases?
A) Al-hamdulillah, there are sometimes Malaria cases, but rarely, and in the valley we have a constant wind, so it is never very hot and we have only a few mosquitoes. Also other serious diseases like dengue are rare.
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_____ Q) Are there other dangers like earthquakes, tsunamis, pirates, armed disputes etc.?
A) You have earthquakes all around the place in Indonesia, but insyaAllah it will not hit us. A tsunami is much more unlikely, as we are 1.5 km away from the coast in a valley behind a hill. No pirates or armed disputes, but one day there might be clashes between Christians and Muslims a bit further from here.
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_____ Q) Is there dangerous wildlife?
A) In the forest there are pythons. But to meet one is very unlikely. Sometimes they descend, as can be seen on the picture below where one caught one of our goats. This was the first time people can remember it happened in our valley but in other valleys it happens more often. The snakes, like most wildlife, will try to avoid humans and only attack if one gets in their way. There are no other life-threatenting animals.
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_____ Q) What kind of visa can I get?
A) If you come from an European country you get normally two months visit visa if you get it at the embassy or one month visa on arrival. The visa on arrival costs US$ 25 and can be extended for another month at the immigration. If you have a sponsor here in Indonesia, you can get up to 6 months, but will have to renew it after two months every month.
Further information can be obtained at www.okusi.net:
Work Permit & Resident Visa Package (KITAS/IMTA) - US$814
Work or reside in Indonesia legally , without immigration problems.
Fee includes: Manpower Approval - RPTKA (if required), Manpower Dept Recommendation.
Working Visa & Work Permit - KITAS, IMTA, Foreign Workers Report.
Other Permits - POA, SKPPS, STMD, STM, SKLD, etc.
Note that the above fee does not include the compulsory US$1,200 "Skills & Development Fund" levy payable to the Dept. of Manpower, should this be necessary. Family members of the holder of the working permit do not have to pay this levy.
If you do not have a sponsor, Okusi Associates can arrange one for you with an additional payment of US$904, subject to our appraisal and approval.
(Okusi Associates provides special discount rates for governments, corporates and international aid organizations who require multiple visas to be processed simultaneously. Please contact us for further information.)
Single Exit Re-entry Permit - US$97
Multiple Exit Re-entry Permit (6 months) - US$141
Multiple Exit Re-entry Permit (12 months) - US$256
Exit Permit Only - US$142
Police Travel Permit - US$81
Terms: Full payment in advance. Money-back guarantee.
To make it short: One needs about US$ 3500 to get a residence and work permit for oneself and the family which can be prolonged every year for about half the costs.
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_____ Q) How much money do I need?
A) That depends very much on your own needs. You can buy some land for 1000 Euro already, build a simple hut for 1000 Euro, get a motorbike for 1000 Euro and calculate, that you will need approx. 100 Euro for living a month and even slightly more for the visa extensions.
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_____ Q) How to generate the income?
A) Normally one has to invest. It is realistic to expect about 10% to 15% return annually but of course much depending on personal skills. There are trustworthy local brothers here who can help build up something together for example:
- Muslim restaurant in Molibagu
- fish farm
- chicken farm
- goat rearing
- truck for building materials
- building houses
- supermarkt
We are a new region to which at the moment many resources flow, besides others government support to develop this region. As side effect many people move here for whom infrastructure must be built.
We will also need a shop which hopefully can operate on a "Dinar- & Dirham basis", so that one can already buy riba-free! We can obtain Dinar, Dirham and Daniq at Wakala. There is also the possibility to produce handycraft for export like bows or wooden toys.
Best option might be nonetheless to set up a business one can manage over the internet like translation works: www.freelancers.com. No big investments needed and can be done from anywhere. Even if one can generate only 300 Euro a month, this is more than sufficient here!
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_____ Q) How much would it cost to establish a lifelong residence at this muslim village?
A) Rizk is in the hands of Allah, and to say you need so and so much money would somehow be even irreligious. All I can say is:
And whoever puts his trust in Allah, then He will suffice him.
At-Talaaq 3
It is a promise of Allah, who never breaks His promise!
But to give a picture of the safest investment known to me:
I own 80 coconut palm trees, which give 6000 coconuts a year, each one I sell for 400 Rupiah. So I get from every tree around 30,000 Rp profit per year. If I calculate that I need 3,000,000 Rp a month, then I would need to buy 1200 trees to get this money. One tree, if one has the time to wait until a villager wants to sell because of wedding, sending his child to university or other reasons, then the price for such kind of trees would be approx. 200,000 Rp
per tree. 1200 trees x 200,000 is 240,000,000 Rp which is approx. US$ 24,000. If I calculate further US$ 6000 for a simple house and land, US$ 1300 for a motorbike, for initial living etc. etc., we reach nearly US$ 40,000 for our "retirement" (a sum I never had at once). Any investments in business with a higher turnover are of course also with a higher risk.
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_____ Q) How much do horses, sheep, goats and chicken cost?
A) Horse from 1000 Euro (riding horse, the ones for 'bendis' are of course cheaper); cow around 350 Euro; sheep would have get imported from Java; female goat around 30 Euro, big male goat nearly 100 Euro; chicken two Euro. TOP
_____ Q) Do I need a permit for the house?
A) You will need a permit and therefore a drawing of the house for the wood. You may use 5 m3 of wood (of course this will most probably not enough).
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_____ Q) May women without Muhrim partake?
A) This is a difficult question und we are not scholars! We are aware that there exist different opinions about that even within a school of jurisprudence! In principle a journey longer than a day and a night is forbidden for a woman without Muhrim. The criteria is safety, e.g. the personal situation. If one believes that it is more save to move from a non-islamic environment to the village, please, we allow this, especially converts who do not have a Muslim Muhrim. We will try our best to make the situation here as safe as possible! Should we be wrong with this decision, we ask for Allahs forgivessness and that He saves us from fitnah!
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_____ Q) Did you get the order to do the project from a muslim leader or straight from the prophetic hadith?
A) No, I did not get any order! It is for me a very logical conclusion backed by several ahadith like stated on the website. However, I admit that these ahadith do speak more about isolating oneself rather than creating a Muslim village. Two years after I had already the plan for the village I heard about Sheik Imran Hosein (www.imranhosein.org), who shares many points of mine. Not all of his thoughts can be realized at this location here, e.g. basing the economy of the village on biological farming. But the general idea and ideal are more or less the same.
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Q) If you got the order from the prophetic hadith, then how did you weigh that against other rulings and possibilities?
A) Even if I should be wrong about my expectations of the future, then it is still a project I would support! Creating a surrounding where one can live in harmony with Allah's creation in a religious atmosphere where our children get an Islamic spirit rather than a "globalized" one is certainly praiseworthy. But if anybody has a different point of view and thinks it is more beneficial to stay in the common society than he should do so! Anyway, he would have only very weak points of criticism against such a project!
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Q) Who are you?
A) So far we are:
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Habib (born 1966 in Aachen, Germany), his wife Latifah (born in Manado, Indonesia) and their son Ryan (born 2005 in Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia).
- A good brother from Singapore, whose name should not be published yet.
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Four cats (Molto, Nur, Nori, Neru); Ameerah, a six year old mare; seven goats; thirteen chicken and Merlin, the Anoa!
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Q) May I ask you to look for some suitable land for me for buying?
A) Please come for a visit first and see if the project itself meets your expectations. If it does and we see we fit together, we will surely help you in finding the right property insyaAllah if you prefer this to renting a place in the valley itself.
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_____ Q) How can I prepare myself and what can I do prior to staying in the valley?
A) Get yourself fit, strenghten your iman and look for useful information and skills like learning about permaculture, cattle breeding, horses, hunting and so on. And try to recruite good people for the project.
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Q) Why do you not build the village in Germany?
A) Too cold, too expensive, but most importantly, Germany is much more controlled (e.g. how setting up our own educational system in Germany?) and the fitnah of the Dajjal will be much more severe (www.tauhid.net/antichrist-eng.html).
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Q) How many hours do you think we would be busy with work on the fields, maintenance etc.?
A) You can work all day long, but you can also give the work to a local and pay him 2.50 Euro a day! Certainly we have to work in order to keep us fit and to know how to do it all ourselves in case we have an emergency. But my ideal is not to become an Indonesian farmer, but hope to be able to spend some time also on ibadah, learning, riding, shooting and others...
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Q) Do you accept donations?
A) Yes, we welcome donations for the following:
- Building of the mosque inside the valley.
- Supporting children in the surrounding villages (education).
- Funds for new converts, in Islam interested people and mothers with children to facilitate their stay.
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