Yahya Zainul Ma'arif

Yahya Zainul Ma'arif Jamzuri, known as Buya Yahya, is an Indonesian preacher and scholar born in Blitar, East Java, on 10 August 1973. He was formed in Ba'alawi-run schools — eight years at the Darullughah Wadda'wah pesantren in Bangil, then nine years of fiqh study in Hadramaut, Yemen — and founded the Al-Bahjah educational and dawah foundation and its pesantren in Cirebon, West Java. He has written a practical-fiqh series and several books of fatwa-style answers. ¹

Yahya Zainul Ma'arif was born in the city of Blitar on 10 August 1973 — 16 Rajab 1393 by the article's own conversion — the youngest of ten children of Mochammad Syadzili (died 2013) and Hj. Tipah. "Jamzuri" in his name refers to his grandfather K.H. Ma'arif, and "Zainul Ma'arif" was given by his eldest brother in his grandfather's honour. After primary and middle school in Blitar, he entered the Darullughah Wadda'wah pesantren in Bangil, Pasuruan, in 1990 and completed all eight of its years under its founder, Habib Hasan Baharun. ¹

He then travelled to Tarim in Hadramaut, Yemen, where he studied fiqh for nine years and took his bachelor's and master's degrees at Al-Ahgaff University. His Yemeni teachers included Habib Muhammad ibn Abdillah al-Haddar, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ali al-Khatib, the Hadramaut muftis Shaykh Ali Salim Bukayyir and Shaykh Muhammad Ali, Shaykh Fadal Ba Fadal, and Habib Abdullah Baharun, the rector of Al-Ahgaff. ¹

He began preaching at eighteen while still a student of Habib Hasan Baharun. In 2005 he preached in Sydney, Australia, under Habib Hasan's direction. In 2006 he began preaching in Cirebon with a weekly study circle at the At-Taqwa Mosque on Friday nights, and founded the LPD Al-Bahjah — the Al-Bahjah Islamic dawah development institution — and the Pondok Pesantren Al-Bahjah; the pesantren was officially inaugurated on 10 January 2010 in the presence of K.H. Abdullah Syafi'i. ¹

Buya Yahya runs Al-Bahjah TV and the local station RadioQu (1530 AM) in Cirebon, whose programmes air in several Indonesian cities, and he also teaches at UIN Syekh Nurjati Cirebon according to the article's infobox. His books include the Silsilah Fiqih Praktis (Practical Fiqh Series) — on prayer, zakat and fasting, marriage, hajj and umrah, transactions, funerals and jihad — and answer-books such as Buya Yahya Menjawab (Buya Yahya Answers), Buya Yahya Menjawab Aqidah 50 and Buya Yahya Menjawab 4 Imam Madzhab, besides Menguak Tabir Al Quran (Unveiling the Qur'an). ¹

Buya Yahya married Khurotul Aiyun in 2008 and has two daughters, according to the article. ¹

His channel, carried on YouTube by Al-Bahjah TV, had about 6.03 million subscribers in the article's channel box (November 2026) — a dated platform figure, not a fact verified by the museum. ¹

• Indonesian Wikipedia, "Buya Yahya", as read on 4 November 2026. ¹