One famous prayer of repentance, or dua taubat, could be roughly transliterated as follow: Ilahi lestu lil-firdawsi a’la wa la akhwa ala nar il-jaheemi Allah fa habli tawbata wa-ghfir dhunubi fa innaka ghaafiru dhanb il-adzimi This doa has been put to song, together with a lovely malay translation, by Junied, a nasheed group from Singapore […]
Author Archives: bingregory
Collapse Preparedness
The transition from the USSR to the republic of Russia was a catastrophic event for the people who lived through it. The eventual (imminent?) collapse of the US will be much much worse, warns Dmitry Orlov. The USA has a Collapse Gap. Orlov realizes that some people will react rather badly to having their country […]
Stunning Election Results in Malaysia
The ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, lost four more states to the opposition, for a total of five, and fell to below two-thirds in the national parliament for the first time in the country’s fifty years of existence. As an outsider, I don’t have a stake in the outcome either way. I can only applaud the […]
Frangipanis
The earliest plants I have any memory of are my neighbor’s mulberry tree, and the frangipani in our front courtyard. The courtyard was of cement or maybe stone except for where the tree grew, against the high wall. What I remember most clearly is how the flowers looked after they had fallen from the tree […]
The Border Town of Sirikin
Sarawak and Sabah share a long land border with Indonesia that runs mostly through remote areas of rugged mountains and deep forests. From Kuching though, there are several easy border crossings within an hour or two’s drive. I recently had cause to head down to one of them, to the small village of Sirikin just […]
Ailanthus Spotting – Detroit
Professional photographer Marcus Manley proves once again that you can’t photograph urban decay in Detroit without showcasing our favorite tree, Ailanthus altissima, in this lovely b&w winter shot: As the buildings tumble down, the trees grow up.
Haul of Imam Abdullah al-Haddad
Every year, all over the world, muslims in the spiritual lineage of the great saint Imam Abdullah al-Haddad gather together to celebrate his life and remember his great wisdom. He is most fondly remembered in the parts of the world that have benefited from the dawah of the scholars and saints of Hadhramaut: Yemen, the […]
Ailanthus The Official Plant of Hip Hop
Submitted by Manny I have always been fascinated by the Ailanthus tree since I was a kid growing up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a rough inner city section of Boston. I used to crush the leaves in my hands and smell its intoxicating aroma. I used to daydream about possible medicinal and or industrial uses for […]