Abdullah Gymnastiar

Early life Gymnastiar was born as one of four children, and he had worked from the ground up such as selling newspapers and driving public transportation to self-finance while attending the after schooling in electrical engineering before turning into an entrepreneur. His ability to appear in public was also honed as a debater at his university.

At the peak, he had a substantial number of followers, with several political parties nominating him as vice-president nominee and this scored approval rating of 91%. His media enterprise had regular audience of more than 80 million people. He stated that this polygamy was done as an emergency exit, yet it was mocked and faced the extensive protest by the public and his fans, among them quoting Gymnastiar's past statement of not advocating for polygamy. In the same month, the study program by Gymnastiar began to be deserted by visitors, and the two-story mosque was only partially filled. In May 2007, due to decreasing visitors at Pondok Pesantren Da'arut Tauhiid, the pesantren began to reduce its employees. Visits shrunk to 70 percent which affected operational costs, thus as many as 300 employees with casual employment and a total of about 40 percent of employees were laid off.

In December 2010, Gymnastiar's first wife sued for divorce in the religious court. The divorce request was then officially granted in June 2011. In March 2012, the media reported that Gymnastiar reconciled with a reception at the home of his former first wife in the Sariwangi area of Bandung. In this event, Muhsin, the parents of Teh Nini who became his guardian after asking for permission from the religious court, also submitted the mandatory payment (mahr) of Rp. 5 million.