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 […]
Tag Archives: muslim
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 […]
Bup Kudus
A religious controversy came and went here in Sarawak before I even heard about it. The Bup Kudus, the translation of the Holy Bible into the Iban language, was banned two weeks ago, and dis-banned today. The Sarawak Tribune I picked up was so information-poor, I could not discern from the article why they banned […]
Najd
I’m vibing again off of Ideofact’s last post, where he mentions the particular Arabian region of Najd, the homeland of Ibn Abdul Wahhab. It reminded me of an article I read a while back at Masud Ahmed Khan’s excellent website. Written by Karim Fenari, it describes the narrations of the Holy Prophet regarding that region: […]
Wahhabism: Ideology of Discontent
Radio Free Europe has a very interesting article by Robert Bruce Ware on the repudiation of wahhabism in Daghestan, the province neighboring Chechnya. The article shows that muslims in Daghestan are content to remain part of the Russian Federation, despite what bad blood may remain from the past, since they are free to practice their […]
Chechnya
Chechnya is back in the news with the hostage-taking crisis in Moscow. Chechnya falls off the front page so fast, it’s hard to remember what exactly has been going on there all this time. Alt.Muslim featured the crisis on their front page, with a number of good links. Bill Allison of Ideofact.com [who I’ve been […]
The Importance of Qasidah
There are so many beautiful habits and customs that have become commonplace in countries where Islam has existed for centuries, like reciting salawat after Adhan or joining the du’a of the Imam after salat, that have not yet permeated the muslim community here. Most palpably lacking is the invoking of praise on the Propet, peace […]