Honey is a blessed food, mentioned in the Quran and praised often by Nabi Muhammad (saws) for its healing properties. Not to mention, it tastes great too! My mother keeps bees on her farm, and the raw honey she produces has such a fantastic flavor. Whenever my family visits, I beg then to bring along […]
Category Archives: Featured
Doa Taubat
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 […]
Datuk Hakim Keramat
By Abu Muhammad English Translation and Photography by Bin Gregory Productions Datuk Hakim Keramat, or the Miraculous Judge, was the title given to a religous scholar of Sarawak well known for his miracles and mystic knowledge. His real name was Abang Haji Abdul Rahman bin Abang Haji Brahim. He was born in Kuching, Sarawak and […]
G(r)owing Bananas
I couldn’t wait for the rock wall and grading project to be done to start planting up the yard. I decided to grow some bananas along the jungle edge. Six months later, I’ve already harvested my first banana crop, and I’ve got banana trees towering 15 feet tall, swaying in the breeze. The varieties of […]
Grub’s Ready
In Sarawak, if someone invites you to come get some grub, be careful. They may be intending to serve you these lovely morsels. What you are looking at is a beetle larva that feeds exclusively on sago trees. They are about the size of your finger, though they may shrink a bit when fried up. […]
Madrasah al-Kamaliyya
My in-laws are from a small isolated village mostly preoccupied with growing coconuts. It has only between 50-60 homes, two small stores selling basic necessities like sugar, rice and fermented shrimp paste, a primary school …and three mosques. One of them is Madrasah al-Kamaliyya, a surau lying about 150 meters from my mother-in-law’s house. Madrasah […]
Catching up
I’ve been neglecting my website of late. Two entries in 2 months? I won’t be winning any blogging awards that way. Well, in fact I did manage to split the win for Macvaysia‘s Best Malaysian Weblog by a Mat Salleh Award. (Mat Salleh?) That could only be because it wouldn’t be fair for the more […]
Strange Fruit pt. 5: Jackfruit
In Michigan, where I’m from, we have large fruit; watermelons and pumpkins for example can reach great size. Sensibly, these fruits grow on trailing vines, right on the ground. But imagine a fruit that size that grows suspended from a tree! Aiee! Maybe it’s called Jackfruit because it will jack you up if it lands […]