As I’m sure is universal among muslim communities, Ramadan represents the high water mark of religious devotion, the time when the greatest number of people turn up for daily prayers. That’s followed by a Eid crash, when numbers plummet back down to, or even below, average levels, as everyone becomes distracted with the holidays. In […]
Category Archives: Nusantara
Learning from Chickens
Shortly after Hari Raya Eid al-Fitr, I was given a lovely gift in the form of a rooster, hen, and four small chicks. The chickens are a small variety known locally as ayam katik. Although smaller and more tame, these chickens are not related to our modern poultry or egg laying machines, but are bred […]
Learning from immigrants
Me and Omar and some other folks were flogging a horse to death over at Umar Lee’s website on the topic of immigrant muslim culture in the US. We managed to agree that [American] muslims should be accepted as authentic Muslims without having to turn away from our cultural heritage, and there is plenty in […]
Masjid Negeri Sarawak
You’d be forgiven for thinking these pictures were taken in Central Asia somewhere, but they are from the Sarawak State Mosque in Kuching. I was on holiday for the first Friday after Eid, so I took the chance to visit the masjid with my son and nephew. As you can see, it has a very […]
Mysteries of the Coconut: Ketupat
A ubiquitous icon of the Ramadan season is Ketupat. Ketupat is to Hari Raya what candy canes and tinsel are to Christmas: innocuous, non-religious cultural symbols that are inextricably linked to the holiday. Images of ketupat are plastered on greeting cards, banners, cut-shots between TV programs, and so on. Decorative ketupats made of ribbon are […]
Hari Raya 06
Selamat hari raya, Eid Mubarak to all, fashionably late as usual. Hari Raya was last week, but I’m still just getting over all the festivities. Eid in Malaysia is hugely different from Eid back home. Back home, it would be morning prayers followed by donuts outside the mosque, dinner with friends in the evening and […]
Haze
What’s a rainforest minus the rain? We’ve been finding out over here. It’s been over two weeks without a drop of rain, and things are as dry as a bone. The dry season here in Sarawak corresponds with a change in winds which bring our weather in from the south and west. Because of the […]
Masjid India, Kuching
Masjid India is perhaps the oldest standing masjid in Kuching, though the nearby Masjid Bahagian is built on a hill top that held an older structure. Masjid India is so named because the small Kuching Indian community requested the land to build the mosque from the first White Rajah, James Brooke, in the late 1800’s. […]