Bin Gregory Productions

Doa Taubat

Al-'Iktiraf — Al-I'tiraf, courtesy of Anak Alam, who advises that ' for the first star *, the correct lyrics is: *wa dhanbi zaa-idun kaifah timaali*; for the second star *, change it to: *fa in taghfir fa anta lidhaaka ahlun*'

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 associated with the Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah. Madrasah Aljunied is a famous madrasah, having produced many notable scholars over the course of its nearly one hundred years, including the present Mufti of Sarawak, if I’m not wrong. It is now absorbed into the national education system, so the national curriculum is taught together with the religious sciences. You can learn more about how Singapore has absorbed the madrasah schools into their national model here at MUIS.

You can download the Doa Taubat from their website, along with several other songs. There are video recordings available on YouTube as well. According to their site, they have a new album called “Hijrah” available in stores. Unfortunately, googling around did not readily turn up a merchant site. Anyone who knows where to get a copy of the album can let me know in the comments.

The group’s recording of the Doa Taubat can be found all over, but the website of the group itself I couldn’t find after half an hour of searching. It’s puzzling too, because I found it once before a few months ago. A recording of the Doa Taubat is available to download on the site, but since I can’t locate it, I’m putting my copy here for download. It’s very nice; you should listen. I’ll take it down and link to theirs as soon as I locate their site again or some kind soul sends me the link.

The song is in Arabic and Malay, so I decided to do a rough English translation which you can find below. It’s not an exact translation: I tried to keep to the flow of the original so it could conceivably be sung in the same tune, but that meant I had to play loose with the meaning. Here it is; comments welcome as always.

Arabic:
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

Malay:

tuhanku aku tidak layak / untuk syurga mu

tetapi aku tidak pula sanggup menanggung / siksa neraka mu

dari itu kurnia kan lah / ampunan kepada ku / ampun kan lah dosa ku

sesungguhnya / engkaulah penggampun / dosa dosa besar

English:

Oh my Lord I know I don’t deserve / your heaven

And yet your blazing wrath / I could never defend

So Lord rain down upon / this lowly soul / your forgiveness

Lord you and you alone / forgive and wash away / the most greivous sins

Update

Anak Alam has graciously provided the full dua, which includes two more stanzas, in Arabic and Malay. A translation of the second two stanzas would be something like:

My sins are countless as the sands on the shore /
Accept my repentance, O Lord of Majesty/
For my life grows shorter with each day/
While my sins increase with each passing moment

O my Lord, Your sinful servant approaches You/
Continuously sinning while steadfastly beseeching You/
If You forgive, You are most capable of doing so/
And if You forsake me, then to whom else can I turn…

Collapse Preparedness

The transition from the USSR to the republic of Russia was a catastrophic event for the people who lived through it. The eventual (imminent?) collapse of the US will be much much worse, warns Dmitry Orlov. The USA has a Collapse Gap. Orlov realizes

that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the United States collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who wanted more or less the same things â€“ things like technological progress, economic growth, full employment, and world domination â€“ but they disagreed about the methods. And they obtained similar results â€“ each had a good run, intimidated the whole planet, and kept the other scared. Each eventually went bankrupt.

Valuable lessons on what to expect and how to prepare follow. Read it yourself, but the condensed advice is this: Live on the margins of society.

One encouraging sign that Americans are picking up the skills they will need to survive: haggling at the mall.

Stunning Election Results in Malaysia

The ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, lost four more states to the opposition, for a total of five, and fell to below two-thirds in the national parliament for the first time in the country’s fifty years of existence. As an outsider, I don’t have a stake in the outcome either way. I can only applaud the country for having a political environment that sustains such lively contests, with over a dozen distinct parties to represent their interests: UMNO, MCA, MIC, PBB, SUPP, PPP, PKR, PAS, DAP and numerous others. At the state level, there are politicians representing constituencies of as few as 10,000 people. At that level, the public can feel they have true access and representation, or if they don’t, they can vote in someone who will provide it. By contrast, the enormous USA somehow can only support two parties, and I am not alone in feeling that neither party represents my interests. As with so many aspects of Malaysian life, this diversity is a tremendous asset. Thus I was very impressed to read our Prime Minister Pak Lah, for whom the results were a serious setback, declare the outcome an expression of how democracy is supposed to work and for all parties to accept the results.

The number of factors at work in the outcome is huge and I wouldn’t presume to speak on all of them. Freedom of the press, though, or lack thereof, was an unmistakeable issue in the opposition wins. Mainstream newspapers, tv and radio stations are so docile and self-censoring that they are nearly useless. This gave internet news outlets extra relevance for anyone trying to figure out what is really going on. Sites like Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today, both excellent news sources in their own right, may benefit from an aura of celebrity and subversiveness that they really only acquire by virtue of the stifling media situation in the country. Sympathy for those and the many other bloggers who go online to speak out was clearly evident in the election outcome. Four opposition winners were bloggers, including Jeff Ooi, who I’ve linked to in the past about press freedom, won a national seat in Penang for DAP, and Nik Nazmi, who has been on my blogroll for years and won a state seat in Selangor. Congratulations to them both, may they serve the country well.

The press repeating government press releases not only drove people to get information online and gave extra prominence to web-based papers and bloggers; it also appears to have blinded the ruling coalition to dissatisfaction within the country. With only their own newspapers to read, where everything is always rosy, they began to believe their own hype and consequently were shocked by the outcome. Hopefully these results will help the governing coalition to see the benefit of a free press to all segments of society, even or especially to those in power.

The big question now is what the opposition can accomplish in the states they hold. One reason the opposition hadn’t been too successful up till now is that the two big opposition parties pulled in opposite directions. DAP is a left-leaning secular democratic party with a strong ethnic chinese base, PAS is an Islamic party with an exclusively malay base. The big difference in this election is the emergence of PKR, the People’s Justice Party, under Anwar Ibrahim as a truly multi-ethnic issues-driven party. PKR is positioned to be the go-between between PAS and DAP. PKR could find itself enjoying a lot of clout as a dealmaker in the new coalitions. Even if the opposition is unable to address hot issues like the status of Islam or bumiputera privilege for lack of common ground, practical changes on issues like transparency, corruption, and freedom of the press would surely be welcome first steps.

I haven’t had much to say on Malaysian politics over the years, and don’t intend to change now. As a guest in this country, I’m happy to let Malaysians thrash it out themselves. But if you are interested in keeping abreast of political happenings here, start here: Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, The Other Malaysia.

Frangipanis

The earliest plants I have any memory of are my neighbor’s mulberry tree, and the frangipani in our front courtyard. The courtyard was of cement or maybe stone except for where the tree grew, against the high wall. What I remember most clearly is how the flowers looked after they had fallen from the tree and littered the courtyard floor. Being closer to the ground back then – I was only four or five – I would pick them up and examine them. The frangipani is a simple flower, just five fleshy white petals with a yellow heart, but the sight of a small tree covered in them with the halo of flowers around it on the ground is a memorable sight. Perhaps because our neighborhood, like all of New Delhi, was so dusty and dry and brown, the tree stood out that much more in my mind.

Whatever the reason, meeting the frangipani when I began visiting Malaysia was like meeting an old friend. The frangipani, or Plumeria, isn’t so exceptional in Malaysia, which has dramatic flowering plants in abundance, but it is widely planted. Called kemboja here, the frangipani has a niche as a cemetery tree amongst the Malays. The white flowers and gray-white bark complement the plain white and gray gravestone materials commonly used here.

Around the new year holiday (Roman, not Chinese), I took my family out to a small vest-pocket park decorated with a stand of grand old frangipanis. The park design has the frangipanis spaced in such way that the whole park is blanketed with frangipani flowers when they drop from the trees. It is just lovely, albeit in a subdued kind of way. Most of my children were more interested in the slides, but my daughter KakAndak, who is two and a half now, spent most of her time picking up and playing with the flowers. I placed a few behind her ears as she graciously paused for a photo. She decided to return the favor.

Here are the rest of the Frangipani Park photos.

I have to thank Sister Aaminah for giving me an excuse to start writing a bit again, which I haven’t done in nearly two months. She went and tagged me for a book meme. Believe it or not, I have yet to do one of those meme things in all these years of blogging! Until now, that is. So the book I’ve most recently finished is Snow by Orhan Pamuk. All I’d heard of Pamuk from the Muslim Rumor Network thus far had been some general dismissals for being un-Islamic, but you know, between him winning the Nobel Prize and the limited book selection here in Kuching, I thought I’d give him a read or two. The first book of his I picked up was My Name Is Red. That book explores the philosophies behind Islamic and Western art forms in a way that was very thought provoking for me. As murder-mystery, which was the official plot, it was kind of slow, but as art, history and philosophy it was entertaining enough for me to pick up a second book, Snow. Snow was similar in the sense that the ostensible plot never really picks up speed and loses interest by the end, but you begin to realize the whole thing is just a vehicle to present ruminations on politics and religion and art and so on. Again, those ruminations are pretty engaging and gave me plenty to chew on. I wish I had marked passages as I went, and I hereby resolve to do that with the very next book I read, but in the meantime, that segues well into the format of the meme from Aaminah, which is to read the three sentences following the fifth sentence on page 123. To proceed:

“… When a girl has accepted the headscarf as the Word of God and the symbol of faith, it’s very difficult for her to take it off. Hande spent days locked up inside her house trying to ‘concentrate’.” [said Kadife]

Like everyone else in the room, Ka was cowering with embarrassment at this deeply disturbing story, but when his arm brushed against Ipek’s arm, a wave of happiness spread through him. As Turgut Bey jumped from channel to channel, Ka tried to find more happiness by pressing his arm against Ipek’s. …

The story is about this Ka, a journalist who goes to a remote town to find out why a number of hijab-wearing girls have committed suicide. Now, before you start thinking the book is a lot of tedious generalizations or judgements about how muslims dress, the opposite is true. The book never answers why definitively, and most suggestions put forth are shown to be shallow or incomplete. It is everybody’s various fretting responses to the mystery that are being examined. Moreover, Pamuk, as he did with My Name is Red, inserts a novel disclaimer at the end of the book, where one of the villagers tells the visitor who records the story in book:

“If you write a book set in [their town] and put me in it, I’d like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us. No one could understand us from so far away.”

I found that remarkable. After immersing you in his ideas for hundreds of pages, he’s pulling you back out and saying,”look, it’s just a story, think about, chew on it, and take it or leave it”. I think that is both honest and humble.

Last but not least, have you checked out Stuff White People Like? It might be handy to look over if you think you might be dealing with some White People in the near future.

The Border Town of Sirikin

Sarawak and Sabah share a long land border with Indonesia that runs mostly through remote areas of rugged mountains and deep forests. From Kuching though, there are several easy border crossings within an hour or two’s drive. I recently had cause to head down to one of them, to the small village of Sirikin just on the Malaysian side of the border, about an hour from here. There, Indonesian traders take advantage of the easy crossing and the proximity to Kuching to set up a small but bustling market on the weekends. They hawk every imaginable thing that they can turn a profit on, from vegetables to handicrafts to grey market brand name jeans and perfumes, marble carved houseware, hats and bags, all displayed on rickety wooden stalls under corrugated tin roofs or plastic tarps.

Locals flock there for the bargains, and even West Malaysians on package tours will show up. A friend of mine remarked it’s a bit like cruising down to Tijuana for cheap thrlls. Being a Detroiter, I was more likely to cruise to Windsor, which isn’t at all the same, but you get the idea. Maybe on account of its ephemeral nature, what with all the hawkers swarming across the border only to vanish by Monday, it has a slightly lawless feel. On previous trips, I was even offered turtle eggs on the sly, unfortunate since the turtle in question is a protected species. I didn’t see any sign of that this time though, and even saw a harried-looking trade enforcement officer walking down the line, book and pen in hand for ticketing infractions. The standard Malaysian pasar malam is already a wild, raucus thing, but this is more so. The hawkers have a leaner, hungrier look to them, none of the prices are marked, and they take the haggling much more seriously. For example, you can’t bargain in a loud voice where other customers might hear. The shopkeepers resent that and are unlikely to go down to their best price. You have to take them aside and haggle softly.

Some of the products that are worth the long drive are the silver sunnah rings with semi-precious stones of every shape and size. The rings themselves are generally poor to average quality, but the stones are gorgeous. People will often buy the stones here and bring them back to town to have them reset. The woven rattan mats are another big draw, and they do a brisk business. My enterprising mother-in-law was able to cover the cost of her plane ticket by buying three mats in Sirikin and reselling them to acquaintances back in West Malaysia at a tidy margin.

[And then we came across the following scene, which I present as a dramatic reenactment:]

But my friends, the single most important reason you must come down to Sirikin is for the Leech Oil. That’s right folks! Where else can you get pure, fresh squeezed leech oil, from the choicest hand-fed mountain leeches? These are no ordinary, garden-variety padi leeches. They are not even like unto the jungle leeches that I become well acquainted with on my trip to Mulu National Park many years ago. No, these leeches are humongous. But that’s not all! These special leeches hold within them important medicinal properties. They will cure what ails you. Specifically, they can bring life to that which is dead, if you know what I mean.
Since it is just us gentlemen here, gather around a bit closer so I can explain more clearly. Take a look at this scientific diagram. There is science involved here, folks. Have a look at this snazzy display.
Now, don’t be shy, I’m not telling you this for your sake, but perhaps a friend of yours might benefit. You explain to your friend, you simply take the oil and apply it to the intended portion of your anatomy in the following manner, and the result will be visible immediately.

That’s not all these leeches can do. They can also be applied therapeutically live and direct. I told you this is a bit of a cowboy town, and we have here a real live cowboy who has elected to experience the effects of leech therapy himself. The leeches are applied to key points on the body, similar to the Prophetic practice of cupping, where they draw out bad blood and toxins from the body.
What advantage is there in using leeches rather than cups? Step right up, try for yourself and see. To the young man who asked about purchasing the live leeches themselves, kindly step to the back and discuss with me quietly and I’ll be happy to give you a very good deal.

[Thus ends our dramatic reenactment. Anyone interested in purchasing Sirikin leech oil may contact me via email. Absolute discretion and excellent prices gauranteed.]

[Flickr Set of two trips to Sirikin]

Ailanthus Spotting – Detroit

Professional photographer Marcus Manley proves once again that you can’t photograph urban decay in Detroit without showcasing our favorite tree, Ailanthus altissima, in this lovely b&w winter shot: As the buildings tumble down, the trees grow up.
Continue reading “Ailanthus Spotting – Detroit”

Haul of Imam Abdullah al-Haddad

Every year, all over the world, muslims in the spiritual lineage of the great saint Imam Abdullah al-Haddad gather together to celebrate his life and remember his great wisdom. He is most fondly remembered in the parts of the world that have benefited from the dawah of the scholars and saints of Hadhramaut: Yemen, the Swahili Coast, the muslim parts of the Indian coast and the Malay Archipelago, the Nusantara. In the Nusantara, as elsewhere, the hadhrami da’is did not only preach, but stayed, intermarried and naturalized. All the major population centers of the archipelago have people who can trace their lineage back to Hadhramaut. Some have retained family titles like al-Haddad and al-Sagoff, while elsewhere, like in Kuching, the descendants carry an honorific as part of their given name, such as Wan.

And where their descendants have not reached, their knowledge and piety has. Blessed practices such as recitation of Mawlid Barzanji were propagated and encouraged by such people until it has saturated the religious experience of the region. An undeniable testimony to their influence is that the entirety of the Malay people follow shafi’i fiqh even though hanafi madhab was also represented in the region through Indian and maybe even Chinese sources during the Islamization of the region. [I have a pet theory that shafii fiqh had a major advantage spreading here due to shafii lenience on shellfish, an indispensable part of the local diet. But that is another story.]

This evening we gathered in the home of Tuan Haji Saleh at maghrib time. His living room had been cleared out and spread with carpets to accommodate us all, and a smoldering incense censer wafted perfumed smoke through the room. Following maghrib prayers, we recited Ya Sin, gifting its reward to the soul of Imam al-Haddad. The Ratib al-Haddad followed, a litany of supplications culled by the late Imam from the Quran and Hadith that is read daily by people across the region. After Isha’ prayers, Cikgu Asry read a Malay translation of a sermon given by the late Imam. Our ustaz then began to sing “Ya Tawwab”, a beautiful poem I had heard many times before. Little did I know it was originally composed by Imam Abdullah al-Haddad. Our guest of honor, Habib Sayyid Mustafa al-Haddad, a direct descendant of the Imam, then recited the Arabic couplets again and translated and explained them to our congregation in Malay. Finally, we concluded the evening by reciting from the Mawlid Barzanji and reciting salawat on Our Master the Seal of Messengers Muhammad, peace be upon him.

No gathering would be complete without a meal, particularly in Malaysia. We had worked up a good appetite by then and handily disposed of the lamb that had been slaughtered and cooked up that afternoon by a few of the brothers.

[I’ve sprinkled photos in here from previous gatherings this year – 12 Rabiul Awwal and 1 Shawwal. View all these photos and more of the Ba’alawi congregation in Kuching.]

I took a few short clips of the event:

Ya Tawwab, Tub Alayna

[A full audio version of the poem is available courtesy of Naqshbandi.org. ]

Sallallahu ala Muhammad

Ailanthus The Official Plant of Hip Hop

Submitted by Manny

I have always been fascinated by the Ailanthus tree since I was a kid growing up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a rough inner city section of Boston. I used to crush the leaves in my hands and smell its intoxicating aroma. I used to daydream about possible medicinal and or industrial uses for it. Perhaps deep in its chemical makeup there may be a cure for cancer and we would never know because of its notoriety.

The tree shares the same struggle as do the people it shares its environment with. The plant is ignored, maligned and seen as an ugly, overpopulating scourge to be eliminated by the dominant American society. It is referred to as Ghetto Palm and considered a weed. (see http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/05/ghetto-palms-in-hedge.html)

Despite the odds, the plant thrives against whatever is thrown at it where others die off. The Chinese call it the Tree of Heaven and the Europeans highly regard the plant so much so they plant it in their prized botanical gardens. (see http://books.google.com/books?id=J_0CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=ailantus&source=web&ots=PRWq7IimJa&sig=PxurNVYhO47T5mWoztedhK67hn4) It is in this same vain that the most highly regarded and cherished aspects of American culture by the Europeans and the Chinese arise out of the peoples of inner city America: Hip Hop. Another man’s trash is another man’s gold.

Ailanthus should be the official shrub of the Hip Hop movement. It should be emblazoned on the hoodies, jackets, sneakers of rappers as a symbol of the common roots its shares with this mighty and noble plant.

[Thanks, Manny! Are you a fan of this tree? Send your thoughts, clippings and pictures of Ailanthus, the Ghetto Palm, the Tree of Heaven, to me and I will feature them here on the website. – bingregory]