Breaking News

The office of the Islamic Assembly of North America was finally raided by the FBI last Wednesday Feb. 26th. Terrible adab though it may be to rejoice at another’s misfortune, I can barely contain the glee I’m feeling after hearing the news. Regular readers may remember that I’ve blogged about the IANA before. Based right in my home town as they are, I’ve had far too many opportunities over the years to get to know their membership. I’ve been close enough to some of them to smell their rotten, betel-nut flavoured breath. IANA members have shook their fist in my face, questioned the dignity of my wife, and relentlessly slandered my master. Readers not familiar with them may be satisfied simply to know that they published a fatwa explicitly describing and justifying the crashing of airplanes into buildings as a legitimate jihad tactic THREE MONTHS BEFORE September 11th. I really can’t imagine a group of people I would rather have ill befall. I can only wonder what took the FBI so long.

Having vented my spleen, I should step back and state that the only indictments so far have been for visa fraud and bad checks, and the closest the’ve come to IANA is a funder, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, and an ex-director, Bassem Khafagi (who is also reported as being active with CAIR). We’ll see what follows from the raid. The three articles from the Ann Arbor News have some really priceless quotes in them, such as Rick from the business next door saying,

“They’ve never bothered anybody, as far as I know, and they were always courteous,” he said. “If they’re doing anything illegal they’re definitely doing it on the sly.”

That’s too cliched for words: Quiet, Kept to himself, Never really bothered anybody. Who would have thought he’d have bodies in the freezer? And then there’s:

Nazih Hassan, president of the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor, described IANA as an “apolitical” organization that focuses on publishing the works of Islamic scholars and translating books from Arabic to English.
…
Hassan said he was shocked to hear about Wednesday’s raids. He said he was concerned for IANA employees, many of whom are involved with the local Muslim community.

“The people who work there, we know them, and they are very decent people,” he said.

Well, yes he knows them. If I’m not wrong, IANA members have sat on the executive board, da’wah committee and board of trustees of the mosque, at least. Apolitical? Readers can go their website and make up their own minds about that. Thanks very much to F.L for the links.

The Ann Arbor News coverage:
[1]
[2]
[3]

[Update: For the record, Khafagi appears to be the community affairs director of the national office of CAIR. That’s no small affiliation.]

Tajsim through the ages

Thanks to Bill Allison of Ideofact again for actually reading the books I only just like to talk about. He is digesting Stephen Schwartz’s “The Two Faces of Islam” and has put a few things together regarding Ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb. Reading his posts on the Mongol invasions put things in a historical perspective I wasn’t fully aware of. Those wanting to delve more into what Islamic scholars have said regarding Ibn Taymiyya could start here at Living Traditions. It is a synopsis of Ibn Taymiyya’s life and career put together by Dr. GF Haddad. It is aimed at a muslim audience, but should be accessible to those interested in the topic, if you can get past the cumbersome transliteration. While ibn Taymiyya’s xenophobia that Bill talks about is certainly loathesome, his theological corruptions, in particular, his anthropomorphism or tajsim, are what led him to spend years in prison for heresy. More theological material from a Sunni perspective on anthropomorphism, as originated by Ibn Taymiyya and revived by Ibn Abdul Wahhab, are available here.

Of local interest, there’s also a translation of the anthropomorphism article into Malay and also a different refutation in Malay by Mohamad Ghouse Khan Surattee. I can’t really read it myself, what with only a 100-word vocabulary mostly centering around staying well-fed, but there it is.

Food Update

My adik biras, or younger brother-in-law, flew into Kuching for a day on business. That makes him the first relative to see my daughter, which is fitting, since I was the first relative to see his daughter who was born just last month when we were in Kuala Lumpur. Anyway, he took those of us not in confinement out to eat at a fancy seafood restaurant, and guess what they had there? You remember those creepy sea-cucumber-y things I saw in the market last week? They’re not bad in a curry sauce. I’d say they taste a bit like clams.

KakYang


KakYang entered the world on 20 February 2003, making me a father for the third time. She opened her eyes wide and stared right at me as I called the Iqama in her ears. Now she and Ibu are recuperating at home. Here in Malaysia it is customary for the mother to remain confined in the home for forty days. During that time, the bidan kampung, or village midwife, visits the mother every day and administers a whole regimen of therapeutic baths, massage, and dozens of different herbal treatments to the mother, and washes and checks the baby. There’s also a strict diet, and a special cloth wrap around the trunk of the body. The exact treatment, and especially the diet, seems to vary a bit from region to region, but the essential elements are the same. Skeptical? I’m no doctor, but I’ll tell you what convinced me. When my first daughter was born, one of my aunties-in-law wanted to come to visit. She took the bus to the junction three miles down, walked up the road in the blistering heat, strolled into our living room and squatted down on her haunches to have a look at the baby. She’s in her sixties, rail-thin, fit, and radiant, and is the mother of 12 children. Whatever that woman has been doing is good enough for my wife.

The Waters of the Sungai Maong

Two weeks ago, the Maong River jumped its banks and swallowed my entire neighborhood. We were not alone. The Kuching District received its worst flood in 40 years.

The Great Kuching Flood

It had been raining daily leading up to the Chinese New Year. But the day after that, it really began to pour. I learned later that 2000mm of rain had fallen in 24hrs further inland. The canals and drains all began to fill and spill over their banks. But then curiously, at mid-day, the rising water slowed and even receded a bit

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But that week was a very high King Tide, and so to prevent the ocean water from backing up the Sarawak River estuary, the locks on the Sarawak, the Barrage, were sealed at 3pm. Now all the rainwater had nowhere to go. As evening fell, the waters rose all around us, even though the rain was only drizzling. By midnight, the water was an inch or two below my front gate. My neighbors at the end of the block had their lights on. I could see that their front verandas had flooded.

flood_pan

The next morning the rain had stopped. The flood was between two and three feet deep all over. No one from our neighborhood could get to work. Of course, all of Kuching was not flooded like this. I live in a low-lying area near a tributary to the Sarawak River. Downtown Kuching did not flood. But many traditional kampungs along the rivers and streams, and new developments like ours were inundated. Thousands were evacuated from their homes around the Kuching regional district. Inland, in the hillier regions, there was even a landslide that claimed a life. All in all, it was the worst flood to hit Kuching since 1963.

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Later in the day, I could see a relief boat pass by where our main street used to be. There is a kampung within walking distance of us, on the other side of the river. They were completely flooded, not even able to wade through the floodwaters. Luckily, the people there still keep small boats and rafts as a precaution.

Down the block from our house is a pocket park with a playscape, swings and a sunken amphitheatre. I doubt the amphitheatre was designed as a detention basin, but it certainly served as one that day. It made a nice little pool for the kids. Iwan is in the middle, sporting his favorite Detroit Tigers shirt.

Welcome to Literature Villa, Venice on the Equator. Did I mention that we found this house through the internet back in the States? Now I know why the rent was so cheap!

Wireless Dial-up

I have finally, finally established an internet connection from home. I’ll spare you the sordid details, but the end result is I’m using a Fixed Wireless Terminal as a telephone. It’s a glorified cell phone really; large and boxy enough to be non-portable. But it can connect to Telekom Malaysia at 115kbps. Not too shabby.

Fried Green Tomatoes?

We were walking through the night market last night when, amid all the other fruits and vegetables, I saw a guy hawking from the back of his van what appeared to be big green-beans, chopped and marinated. Pickled green-beans, I thought; just like Dad makes. I few steps closer and I see that those are not beans protruding from the end of the pods: they’re moving. Get ’em while they’re fresh, the guy says. It was some kind of sea-cucumber, A fleshy pale worm housed in a rigid green tube. SR had never seen it before either. How is it cooked, she asks. Oh, you can saute them, cook them in soy sauce, stir-fry, any way you like, the guy says. Now, I’ve got a pretty strong stomach, and I consider myself an adventurous eater. I’ve had roasted sheep’s head, boiled cowhide, raw fish, squid, you name it. But this I had to pass on. Maybe if we had it served to us first…

Taski

Before the First Day of KindergartenMy son just finished his first month of school. It’s a nice little Islamic preschool with about thirty other kids. The curriculum is fairly light, as you would imagine for a bunch of 4-6 year-olds. But they manage to teach abc’s, prayer instruction, aliph ba ta’s, and so on, in between snacks, play breaks and naps. In the afternoon there’s an optional tahfiz Quran class that we also signed him up for. He really likes it, though the day is long for him. All the children wear a little uniform. The day before his first day at school he tried it on; he was so proud.