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Haidar Bagir

About Mizan Group: Mizan Group has published around twenty thousand books from diverse genres, including novels and children’s books. However, from the outset Mizan is primarily known in for its role championing pluralism and shaping moderate and progressive Islamic thought in Indonesia. Mizan has published books written by Islamic thinkers from various school of thoughts to promote inter-religious dialog as well as by scholars from other religions. Mizan Group is a signatory of the Corporate Pledge on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Global Business & Interfaith Peace SILVER Medalist

Haidar Bagir, President Director of the Mizan Group, contributes to interfaith understanding and peace in Indonesia in multiple ways: publishing books championing pluralism; supporting Charter for Compassion; funding Yasmin Foundation, a Salvation Army-like charity; advising on peace education; and leading the Compassionate Islam Movement, which galvanizes and mobilizes moderate Muslims in the face of the threat of increasing radicalism in the country.

Acceptance Speech

“I feel humbled to be granted this prestigious award, seeing that I have yet to fully harness my capacity as a CEO in contributing to the promotion of interfaith understanding in the religious environment that I live in. Despite having founded several philanthropic organizations such as Compassionate Action Indonesia, Compassionate Islam Movement, Amal Khayr Yasmin Charitable foundation, and continuously working to spread peace education among the youth, I feel there is a lot more to be done, especially in synergizing with local and international organizations with similar mission, as well as the government. My heartfelt thanks to Global Business and Peace Award for galvanizing my spirit further, thus enabling me to work harder and smarter in making a difference in the world, however modest.” (See all medalists here).

Bio

Haidar Bagir was born on February 20, 1957. Having obtained his undergraduate degree from the Department of Industrial Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology, he went on to receive his Master’s degree from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, and his doctoral degree from the Department of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia (with one year research in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University, Bloomington). In 1982, he founded Mizan, which soon grew to become one of the biggest publishing groups in Indonesia, and has served as its President Director ever since. Mizan is particularly known to be one of the most prominent publishers on progressive and tolerant Islam, as well as for its titles that champion interreligious and intra-religious dialog. It has also won several awards, both nationally and internationally, for its movie productions. Bagir has received of several grants from U.S. institutions, including three kinds of Fulbright awards. He has taught Islam in the University of Sciences in Temple, Philadelphia as the visiting Misher Professor of Humanities in 2005. Bagir teaches at the Islamic College for Advanced Studies (ICAS) in Jakarta, is the chairman of the Lazuardi Hayati Foundation (an umbrella organization of a network of pre-K to K-12 schools in several cities across Indonesia), Founder of YASMIN (a foundation for philanthropic works on community education and health in Jakarta), and chairman of IIMaN Center for the Development of Positive Sufism. He has also been included in the list of The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, for eight consecutive years (2009 to 2017), issued by the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University and the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Amman, Jordan.

More Detail

Haidar Bagir is President Director of Mizan Group. As a key Indonesian publisher, Mizan is known in for its role championing pluralism and shaping moderate and progressive Islamic thought in Indonesia including support for the Compassionate Islam Movement, which galvanizes and mobilizes moderate Muslims in the face of the threat of increasing radicalism in the country. Haider Bagir’s contributions to interfaith understanding and peace fall along five lines: (1) Mizan Publika (Mizan Group) Mizan Group has published around twenty thousand books from diverse genres, including novels and children’s books. However, from the outset Mizan is primarily known in for its role championing pluralism and shaping moderate and progressive Islamic thought in Indonesia. Mizan has published books written by Islamic thinkers from various school of thoughts to promote inter-religious dialog as well as by scholars from other religions. (2) Gerakan Islam Cinta Financially supported by Mizan Group, Bagir led more than forty Indonesian Muslim scholars to declare support for Gerakan Islam Cinta (Compassionate Islam Movement) with the sole objective to galvanize and mobilize moderate Muslims in the face of the threat of increasing radicalism and intolerance in Indonesia. GIC has launched several movies to promote compassionate Islam, public campaigns and festivals in several cities across Indonesia. (3) Yasmin Foundation Yasmin, a foundation for philanthropic works on community education and health, is a social enterprise wing of Mizan Group. Its salvation army-like used stores help finance activities such as free primary health care, clinics for children with special needs, as well as a schools for the underprivileged. It has also trained more than thirty thousand madrasah (Islamic) teachers across Indonesia. (4) Charter for Compassion For the last 3 years Haidar Bagir has been active as a member of Charter for Compassion (founded by Karen Armstrong) and running its Indonesian Chapter to promote and reinforce compassionate values throughout Indonesian society. Currently, there have been seven cities in Indonesia which have signed up as compassionate cities. (5) Peace Generation Haidar Bagir also serves as an advisor to Peace Generation Indonesia, an organization focussed on peace education and peace related initiatives. Peace Generation, for the past 10 years, has been teaching peace to 5000 teachers throughout Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines reaching more than 35000 students.

Nominated by:

  • Putut Widjanarko, Ph.D.
  • Vice President
  • Mizan Group