City of Barking Dogs

In the city of Detroit, dogs may outnumber people. Packs of wild dogs roam and reproduce in the empty areas of the city. The block I grew up on had a dog or two in every yard except ours. I didn’t hold anything against dogs as a kid, except for the incessant barking. The dogs belonging to our neighbors on either side never stopped barking at me even though they saw me every day for years. Whenever I would get close enough to the privacy fence to be smelled, on the one side, or just showed myself in the back yard on the other, the dogs would bark and bark. And that would set off a barking chain reaction down the block, as one dog after another joined in. I always assumed that barking and the irresistable urge to nuzzle your crotch was an inborn, irremovable part of dogness.

As I learned about Islam, this became all the more off-putting, since dogs are considered ritually unclean*. Being touched by the tongue or nose of a dog requires serious effort to purify. And the barking of dogs is said to keep away angels, according to prophetic hadith.

It has been a pleasant surprise these last few months here in our new neighborhood. Our chinese neighbors are quite fond of dogs; about one house in three keeps them. And there are plenty of wandering wild dogs here too, just like home. But they don’t bark! And they don’t approach people! And they never try to sniff you! They are dogs who know their place. It is truly a wonderful thing.

All this of course is just to say Hello and Thank you to The Talking Dog, who has been kind enough to throw a bone to Bin Gregory Productions. Talking Dog blogs about current events from a left-leaning perspective. There’s an annotated blogroll a mile long that I’ll have to peruse. Welcome, make yourself at home, just don’t pee on the couch.

*In three of the four madhabs, or schools of law. If I’m not wrong, dogs are pure in Maliki fiqh.

Paleface

In Indonesia, I’m told,  bule is a common nickname for foreigners. That’s not really in use over here that I can tell (maybe it is, just not to my face). What I get called most often is orang putih, white man. It’s not the least bit derogatory, and I don’t mind being referred to that way. I never cared much for “Caucasian” as an ethnic designation anyway. What I find funny is when it is used as a synonym for English, as when a shopkeeper will turn to his helper when I come in and say, “you go help him, I don’t speak white man“. It makes me ticklish every time I hear it used that way.

But my favorite term for foreigner is Mat Salih [or Salleh]. It’s slightly derogatory, since it could mean stranger or weirdo depending on who’s hurling it. What I like about it is the Mat. Muhammad is an extremely common first name, so much so that most people go by their middle names instead. Some people will even have an abbreviated form on their birth certificates, like Muhd. Arif bin Muhd. Azhari. With all these Muhammads floating around, it makes sense that a nickname would arise: Mat, short for Muhammad, from strong emphasis on the last syllable. Mat is used like John or Jack, a generic name, as in John Q. Public or John Doe. So you have Mat Dispatch, a comic book character delivery boy; or Mat Smart (that rhymes), a nerd; Mat Kool, a cartoon gorilla in ice cream advertisements; and Mat Salih. Lots of guys have silly nicknames starting with Mat too, like Mat Gun, who went to military school or Mat Panjang, a tall kid. If you know any more Mat- nicknames, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Old Sister Bird

The Malaysian language, Bahasa Malaysia, has contributed a small but interesting number of words to English. I’d like to start an occasional series on them, starting with the Cockatoo. Now, many of you may first think of an irritating pop band, but that’d be the Cocteau Twins. The Cockatoo is a parrot-like bird found here in the archipelago. It’s name here is Burung Kakak Tua, which means Old Sister Bird, and it is the subject of one of my favorite Malay nursery rhymes.

Burung Kakak Tua
Hinggap di Jendela
Nenek sudah tua
Giginya tinggal dua
Le-chum, Le-chum, Le-chum hoo la laa
Le-chum, Le-chum, Le-chum hoo la laa
Le-chum, Le-chum, Le-chum hoo la laaaaa
Burung Kakak Tu-aaaa!

Which I translate as

Old Sister Bird
Perched on the window sill
Grandma is now quite old
Of her teeth, only two remain
Le-chum, Le-chum, Le-chum hoo la laa
Le-chum, Le-chum, Le-chum hoo la laa
Le-chum, Le-chum, Le-chum hoo la laaaaa
Old Sis-ter Birrrrd!

Of course, I’d love to sing it for you, but I’m restricted by the medium. And, uh, by the fact that I can’t carry a tune. But there you have it, the Cockatoo.

Jew Huggers

Check out this new online magazine, the Muslim WakeUp. I stumbled across it thanks to AltMuslim, with whom it shares some contributors. It’s a riot. Far and away the best thing in it is the Hug-a-Jew column, where MWU staff interview and hug noteworthy Jews. I also liked the article The Islaam of Double Vowels just to find out somebody else finds that comical. There is a certain segment of we muslims that insists on the most ridiculous system of transliteration, especially for Arabic long vowels. Thus we wind up with Aboo instead of Abu, Islaam instead of Islam and so on. Google for it, there’s even Islaaam out there (I should confess I do prefer salaam to salam, don’t ask me why). And of course that pedantic habit does correlate well with a certain other distressing theological tendency that is often discussed on these pages…

Sultans of the South China Sea

Anak_Alam has been busy, quietly posting some excellent articles to his site. He has a summary history of the spread of Islam through the Malay Archipelago that is a fascinating read. He also casually dropped an essay and a half on the Sultanates of the region in my comments section, which really ought to be highlighted. And he left a link to some more information on the Muslim history of the Phillipines, which is a tragic story all around. Manilla=Amanullah? Who knew…
Jazakallah Khayran, Anak_Alam!

Malaysian Nasheed

[UPDATE: I have gone on to translate a fair number of Malaysian nasheeds and pop tunes.  You can browse them with the nasheed and nasyid tags, check out the language category, or do a site search for things like lyrics.]

I just can’t keep up with the number of new music groups singing nasheed here in Malaysia. There must be at least a dozen groups that have debuted since the last time I was here. Raihan, Rabbani and Hijjaz continue to penetrate western Islamic goods catalogues. For those of us non-malays the biggest obstacle to appreciating the music is the original material in Malay language. So I was happy to find Nasheed World, a website dedicated to translating Nasheed lyrics into English. There’s plenty there to explore, but from a quick look, I’d say the quality of translation is good. Here’s their translation from the very beautiful track

“Odei Anak” by Raihan on the Syukur album:

Dear child do you understand
How fearful it is for the pregnant mother?
Dear child do you know
How painful it was for your mother to give birth to you?
Dear child do you know
How difficult it was for your mother to bear you?
Dear child do you know
How painful it is to give birth to you?
However, your birth entertains the heart
Cared and pampered for everyday
Irregular sleeping hours at night
But it does not matter because you are loved
Days have passed
As you have grown
A mother is getting older
However, still sacrificing to make a living
So you would have a better futureNow you are an adult and your mother has passed away
Time has passed as if it is calling out to you
Have you given her your love?
Have all her good deeds been repaid?
Paradise lies at her feet…Only good children
Can give their love
Only good children
Can pray for your afterlife

That site led me to Nasyid Online, which has a good selection of songs available to listen. Sepohon Kayu is a good one. It lets you get a feel for the instrumentation and melodies that a lot of the nasheed share; lots of gamelon-type percussion and clear harmonies.

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:

Among the best-known of these hadiths is the relation of Imam al-Bukhari in which Ibn Umar said: ‘The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) mentioned: “O Allah, give us baraka in our Syria, O Allah, give us baraka in our Yemen.” They said: “And in our Najd?” and he said: “O Allah, give us baraka in our Syria, O Allah, give us baraka in our Yemen.” They said: “And in our Najd?” and I believe that he said the third time: “In that place are earthquakes, and seditions, and in that place shall rise the devil’s horn [qarn al-shaytan].”’This hadith is clearly unpalatable to the Najdites themselves, some of whom to this day strive to persuade Muslims from more reputable districts that the hadith does not mean what it clearly says.

The article continues on describing the numerous hadiths about Najd and about the tribe of Tamim, from which Ibn Abdul Wahhab descends:

An attribute recurrently ascribed to the Tamimites in the hadith literature is that of misplaced zeal. When they finally enter Islam, they are associated with a fanatical form of piety that demands simple and rigid adherence, rather than understanding; and which frequently defies the established authorities of the religion. Imam Muslim records a narration from Abdallah ibn Shaqiq which runs: ‘Ibn Abbas once preached to us after the asr prayer, until the sun set and the stars appeared, and people began to say: “The prayer! The prayer!” A man of the Banu Tamim came up to him and said, constantly and insistently: “The prayer! The prayer!” And Ibn Abbas replied: “Are you teaching me the sunna, you wretch?”’ (Muslim, Salat al-Musafirin, 6.)

Ouch! The rest of the article is also very good, as are the other articles by Fenari and others in that section. I would particularly recommend The Wahhabi Who Loved Beauty.