One last thing about names here is the “bin”. Bin is Arabic for “son of”. Binti is “daughter of”. Although it does not appear on the birth cert itself, it is inserted between the first and last names of muslims, or more accurately, between the child’s name and the father’s name. (So in case you […]
Tag Archives: malay
Baby Toes
When a baby puts her toes in her mouth, it means she’s asking for another baby, and pregnancy is right around the corner.
Catching Up
There’s been some great posts among the websites I regularly read as well as some noteworthy stuff elsewhere as well. Here’s a quick round-up for you: Thebit discusses in his very learned way an essay about the genre of Islamic apologetics that produce evidences from the Quran for modern scientific discoveries. The logic behind the […]
Kuching in History
I picked up a great little book, a 50-year-old report done by two peninsular Malays as an undergraduate honors project. The reprinting, produced by UNIMAS, is titled “Life in the Malay Kampongs of Kuching, Fifty Years Ago”. It’s a real gem. The students were geographers, and so payed special attention to the landscape of the […]
Accommodations
I just got back from a lovely holiday at the Santubong Family Resort. It was my first real excursion out of Kuching since I got here. We took the chance to go, since Monday and Tuesday were State holidays in honor of Gawai Day. Gawai Day is the biggest holiday of the year for the […]
Mawlid Parade
12 Rabi’ul Awwal, the day our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saws) was born, is a national holiday in Malaysia as it is in every muslim country on earth except one. In the city of Kuching, Sarawak, to where I had just moved from America, there was to be a large parade that morning as there is […]
Rabi’ al-Awwal
We are now in the first week of the blessed month of Rabi’ al-Awwal, the month that Allah Almighty sent the Beloved, Our Master Muhammad , the Best of Creation, the Seal of the Prophets. His birth, or Mawlid, is celebrated on the 12th of Rabi’ al-Awwal, and is an official holiday in every muslim […]
Bali
The recent bombing in Bali is terribly unsettling, coming as it does a few months before my departure for Malaysia. As horrific as it is, though, it doesn’t change my plans, and I don’t think it will be a “first step” on the road to something more terrible, God willing. Eric Boehlert of Salon.com has […]