bingregory

There and Back Again

I’ve returned from my vacation to the US. I couldn’t get any critical distance from which to write or observe while I was there; I was too busy enjoying being back. I did manage to take a lot of pictures though. You can view them in this Flickr set, America 2007. The most pleasurable aspect […]

Malaysia: Muslim or Islamic?

Ali Eteraz mused recently that the key to making Islam compatible with Mosque/State separation in Muslim countries is to declare Islam as the official religion, while retaining a lawmaking process that is not subject to theological review. Great idea! That’s precisely the arrangement that exists in Malaysia. The government is predicated on a secular platform […]

KakCik

I was blessed with the birth of my sixth child this past Thursday the 12th of July. She is a girl, my fifth; she gets the family title KakCik, sixth-born daughter. She was born safe and sound after less than an hour of labour. She and her mother are home and well. SR is enjoying […]

Rough Neighborhood

My wife woke with a start just after 5, a few minutes before subuh prayer. The glow of her cell phone cum time piece was still on her face when she heard a loud sickening snap, crunch and pop coming from the backyard. Shortly, the chickens started squawking at DefCon 3 levels. That wasn’t enough […]

Counting Chickens

Our flock of chickens had been cruelly bereft of it’s younger generation when last I wrote. Rooster and hen were the only survivors of cat attacks that carried off five promising young chicks. The two parents seemed to get over it and took to roaming about my yard, scattering mulch as they dug little holes […]

Islamic Universities in Indonesia

A window into the intellectual evolution of Islamic higher education in Indonesia: an interview with the rector of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Prof. Amin Abdullah by Prof. Farish Noor of The Other Malaysia.

…what is happening in places like UIN SUKA: You have pious Muslim students who are practicing Muslims who nonetheless can actually read the Quran and Hadith using the methodology of discourse analysis; who can write papers about inter-textual interpretations

Amman, Jordan

Have a look at a terrific set of black & white portraits from the streets of Amman, Jordan, taken by a Malaysian photographer. In other news, this past Friday was the 10th anniversary of my marriage, walhamdulillah. I wouldn’t change a thing, but 5 (and a half) kids, 4.5 circumnavigations of the planet and 8 […]

Mawlid Barzanji

12 Rabi’ul Awwal has come and gone again. In the past, I’ve written about a famous book of poetry about the birth of Prophet Muhammad (s) called Mawlid Daiba’i. Actually the Mawlid poetry more widely read in Malaysia is Mawlid Barzanji, named after its composer, Imam Zayn al-`Abidin Ja`far ibn Hasan al-Barzanji (d. 1177) (r). […]