One fine Saturday morning AbangChu wakes me with the news that Winnie was stuck in a tree. The coconut tree. Oyen had been chasing her around the yard and up up up she went. Now, it is a minor miracle that when God gave the tropics coconuts, He gave it bamboo too. A length of bamboo, a bucket and a ball of twine and I had an improvised rescue apparatus. Winnie was unimpressed with an empty bucket so:
An old friend dropped by for Raya. After the usual pleasantries he disclosed his purpose: a side quest to Pulau Lakei, the final resting place of the fabled Datuk Hajji Ibrahim. Of course I said yes. Pulau Lakei! The lone island at the far tip of Bako peninsula. Reaching Bako National Park requires a boat ride from Kampung Bako; Pulau Lakei is half again as far as the park base camp. Pulau Lakei! We gathered under the dome of Masjid Jamek the next day and set off together.
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Bakau, the Malay word for Mangrove, is where the small fishing village and enormous national park get their names. A variety of bakau species grow naturally along the coasts and river mouths of the area. One is used for pilings in building houses, a decent choice as long as the pilings are submerged below the water table. When the water table inevitably drops with development, bakau rots in the dry soil leading to serious structural problems in homes thus affected. Ask me how I know.
Bakau swamps also provide a number of ecosystem services to the area, like flood control, erosion protection and breeding ground for seafood like prawns. Species other than the house-piling variety are protected by law and so it was reassuring to see stands of them growing here and there as our boat pulled out of Kampung Bako and made its way to the bay. Before long, the chiseled cliffs of Bako National Park were rising up on our right.
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The bay was calm. Within an hour we had wrapped around the outer edge of the bay, left the Park ferry boats behind and come upon a small island with a tall bluff to the seaward side. The bluff tapered down to the lee side where a well-weathered fishing boat anchored off shore marked the approach to a small beach. A decrepit set of wooden cabins, charred pier and collapsed signboard testified to a lack of visitors. The owner of the fishing boat was ashore resting and hailed us, but he hadn’t been off the beach and couldn’t tell us what to expect. Steep flights of overgrown stairs lead up the bluff. Up we went, stepping over the missing or spongy treads on the way.
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There it was: The Maqam of Datuk Hajji Ibrahim, the hermit of Lakei.
Legend has it that Hajji Ibrahim was a local of the area who lived around 300 years ago. He was drawn to worship of Allah and so he withdrew to the island of Lakei for suluk, or seclusion from the world. There he lived, drawing sustenance from land and sea and fresh water from the river that flowed on the island. Yes, despite the small size of the island, it has a river that flows fresh year-round, and collects in a series of seven rocky pools on its way to the shore. The first and largest pool is known as Kolam Salamun, after the verse in Surah Ya Sin (Q36:58):
“Peace! A word from the Lord Most Merciful.”
Although it may not look it, the water was clear, fresh and tasty. The red-brown color comes from tannins leached out of the leaves that fall in the stream and is harmless. There at the head of the pool are a series of inscriptions said to have been carved into the rock by the very finger of Hajji Ibrahim, for along with his piety he is also said to have been blessed with tremendous strength. What he inscribed is perhaps more mysterious than how: the same theme repeated several times, in jawi, more a glyph or charm than a simple word or sentence. Some see “wapaq”. I see a long “HU” with smaller HU’s crossing it at a right angle, HU being a holy name of Allah describing His unknowable essence. The stream washes over the inscriptions before falling into the pool. In times gone by, local people would come to the pool to collect water for spiritual benefit or healing purposes.
Hu
Hajji Ibrahim was also said to have built a great boat himself out of wood on the island, perhaps on top of the cliffs, felling the trees with his great strength, fashioning them into useable timbers, and then sailing that boat alone across the high seas to Mecca to perform his Hajj. And Allah alone knows the truth of it.
The maqam was dilapidated but the yellow cloth, the Malay color of royalty, was fresh and clean. The head and foot of the grave were marked with cylinders of tree trunks rather than stone, wrapped in yellow cloth as well. After sweeping out the space, our party was just able to squeeze in and we took a moment to read Ya Sin for the soul buried there, for whatever the truth of the stories told about him today, he was surely one of God’s creatures and an ancestor of the people of the area who to this day preserve the faith upon which he lived and died.
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Having paid our respects, we cast about the area. The leader of our party recalled a path to a lookout from years before but the trailhead was nowhere to be found. A fire had swept over the island some years ago, killing the nibong palms but stimulating the growth of great woody ferns that now choked our way. At last I found a set of flagstones leading in the general direction. Luckily one our party had thought to bring a parang, and so it fell to me to hack our way through the undergrowth. The effort was worth it! The trail emerged at the cliffs we had seen on our approach. We looked out over the South China Sea, across the bay to Mount Santubong resplendent in profile, and down the sheer face to the surf breaking on the rocks below.
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A fork in the trail led to another ferny thicket, but time was not on our side. Leaving that for the next time, we returned to the beach for a saltwater wudu. After offering up our asr prayers we left Datuk Hajji Ibrahim and the Isle of Lakei in the golden light of the late afternoon.
Four days after moving into my home in Kuching, I met my first biawak, lounging on my front porch. Over the last 12 years, they have been a constant presence, stalking kittens and slaughtering chickens from the littlest chicks to the largest hens. (Well, perhaps not so large: I’ve been raising ayam katik.)
Not without resistance!
I have given chase, struck blows, saved lives. On one terrible occasion I could not prevent a biawak from clipping a chick’s leg clean off, but I denied it the meal. I would scare them off but I couldn’t keep them away. Before long I’d see one sunning himself by the biawak superhighway – a.k.a. the [tooltip text=”monsoon drain” trigger=”hover”]longkang[/tooltip].
But this time! This time, victory was mine. The day was won when the biawak took a wrong turn through the gate. It’s head got through but it’s legs were stuck. Pinned there, I was able to deliver the blow. Several blows. More blows than I could possibly have imagined. They are miniature dragons is what they are and my cangkul just could not cut through the tough scaly hide. I had to bludgeon it to death, sadly.
I’m no hunter. I took no pleasure in the kill. But after feeding it a steady supply of chicken all these years I did feel justified.
I tried finding a buyer for the meat but no luck. Instead I buried it near my new ketapang. With bio-biawak fertilizer the tree has been growing very well since.
After all that effort, you would hope to achieve a deterrent effect on the remaining biawak population. I spotted another one in the yard not three days later.
*my son making loud rustling noises out in the yard* Wife: "Apa bunyi tu? Biawak ke?" Me: No lah, boy awak.
Residential buildings in Kuching have a very different look in general compared to Michigan. Everything here is built from slabs and columns of poured cement instead of timber framing, and townhouses and duplexes (AKA terraces and semi-D’s) predominate over single family homes (AKA detached or “bungalows”). But over the last ten years, there have been dramatic changes in the style and appearance of the new housing stock toward a more Modern look, all the more noticeable since the city is booming and new developments are going in left and right. It is most obvious in the roof lines, with the old vaulted hipped roofs and concrete tile replaced by flat or single-pitch roofs with metal decking. Below, in no particular order, are the results of my unofficial Windshield Survey of Modern Kuching Architecture, based on whatever jumped out and caught my eye as I motor around town. Kuching people, clue me in on any noteworthy homes I’ve missed!
Behind the Boulevard
Jalan Kempas 2
Jalan Kempas: the most stylish street in Kuching?
Off Jalan Song
Modern Gated Community
Modern Polyclinic
Petrajaya Modern 2
Petrajaya Modern
Jalan Urat Mata
Cool Vines
Jalan Urat Mata
Jalan Urat Mata
Large developments in full swing
kind of an American style garage
UPDATE:
So I had a flash of panic as it occurred to me that maybe Michigan has also trended toward modern-y homes since I’ve been gone and as usual I’m way back behind the trend. I needn’t have worried:
Often listed as one of the best introductory books on Islam for the seeker, I’m probably approaching Gai Eaton’s Islam and the Destiny of Man 20 years too late, but I wanted to read it before I recommend it to anyone. There was plenty to enjoy. The book is split into three parts, beginning with a civilizational overview of Islam and the Christian West, coming into its own in the middle third with the life and times of Prophet Muhammad, and hitting an emotional high point with the Caliphate of Sayyidina Umar. One story is too great not to share. He relates an argument between Umar and his General Amr ibn al-As. Umar had confiscated for the Baitul Mal half the wealth Amr had gained from conquering Egypt. Amr
complained of the ‘evil age’ in which an honorable man could be so ill treated. Umar replied, “Were it not for this age which you hate you would now be kneeling in the courtyard of your house at the feet of a goat whose abundance of milk would please you or its scarcity dismay you.”
May Allah bless Sayyidina Umar!
The sequence of topics and their treatment is charmingly idiosyncratic, with surprising points of reference, and unique metaphors and similes piled high: the Shariah functioning as a great shoal of fish for us minnows; the Sunnah as a trellis and Man as a climbing shrub. It builds to great effect, and at the end I marvelled at this wonderful man who found his home in Islam.
Islam and the Destiny of Man is a classic, and was a rare and important book when it was published in 1985. Well into the 90’s, introductory books in English for the new or prospective Western muslim were often limited to titles like “Vhat Islam Is?”, published in Lahore with the best of intentions. Reading the book today it is easier to pick out flaws. In particular, the author asserts a binary of a traditional existence that was harmonious and God-centered as opposed to the present corrupted secular modernity commencing somewhere around the Enlightenment (see King of the Castle for a lot more of this). That commitment sometimes manifests as a kind of reverse orientalism, conjuring a static, unchanging golden Islamic past that then must be defended with strenuous apologetics; and sees nothing of value in the constant godless upheavals of the present, as in the image of young Muslims being corrupted by Western higher education (“passport Muslims”, he sighs). I’m sympathetic to and see a lot of religious support for the idea of human spiritual decline from the point of Revelation to the End of Time, but the line graph of that would be a pretty messy seven-dimensional spiral chute and not a simple linear function from the Good Ole Days Plateau to the Trench of the Horrid Present. Strategies for adapting as a muslim to the challenges of the modern or post-modern age are needed much more right now than harkening back to the way things were before humanity left the farm, moved to the city and went to colllege.
Written 35 years after the author embraced Islam, the book is in some part a record of a convert situating himself within the faith. The dialog with Christianity throughout the book is fascinating, and I got a strong sense of how his Christian origins have lingered with him, if only as doubts to have overcome or questions to have answered. The thorough grounding in Christian theology and the tenderness and grace in highlighting similarities and differences between the faiths are great strengths of the book. The sensitivity and respect he shows the Christian outlook is a great example to other converts in how to come to grips with their origins. Who we were is part of who we are, and being comfortable in yourself means coming to terms with that. Only with our muslim children will that background attenuate or transform or dissappear, and for that reason I am so curious to hear and read the voices of the children of our celebrated convert scholars, convert imams and convert da’ees, may I live long enough to do so.
Islam and the Destiny of Man is available for borrowing at the Islamic Information Centre lending library in Kuching. Contact Ms Dayang Dahlia at 082-418562 for details.
