Sakdiyah Ma'ruf

Sakdiyah Ma'ruf is an Indonesian stand-up comedian. She is known for addressing Islamic extremism in Indonesia within her comedic routines. She was born into a family of Hadrami-Arabic descent in Pekalongan, Central Java. She has described the community in which she was raised as being preoccupied with its Arab identity. Despite their conservatism, Ma'ruf's parents allowed her to be exposed to Western pop culture, and she taught herself English by watching sitcoms like The Cosby Show, Roseanne, Seinfeld and Full House. When, in 2009, she watched a DVD of Robin Williams' Live on Broadway several times, she was set on pursuing comedy.

Ma'ruf received a bachelor's degree in English from Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta in 2009; her dissertation was about stand-up comedy. As of November 2014, she was completing her master's degree at UGM. Since around 2009, Ma'ruf has worked full-time as a professional interpreter and translator, and in her spare time she performs comedy. She has appeared on a private television channel, performed at local venues in Jakarta, and taken part in a stage show with fellow comedians. During some of her TV appearances, producers asked her to censor her own jokes, telling her she was "too conceptual, theoretical, laden with message."

Hans David Tampubolon wrote in The Jakarta Post in November 2014 that Ma'ruf had started what could be considered a revolution and had raised eyebrows with her stage appearances. Among her influences she has cited Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Margaret Cho, Roseanne, Ellen, Kathy Griffin, Robin Williams, Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, and Jerry Seinfeld, and her favorite comic is Louis C.K. Ma'ruf was awarded the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at the Oslo Freedom Forum in May 2015. In 2018, she was recognized with the BBC 100 Women award for her use of comedy to soften Islamic extremism and lessen violence against women.