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 […]
Yearly Archives: 2003
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mongols again
I’m seeing mongol references everywhere this week for some reason. Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad, a British scholar, picks up on the Mongol sack of Baghdad and draws some interesting conclusions with regard to the current Iraq crisis, in a BBC radio broadcast last month.
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: […]