Madrasah al-Kamaliyya
My in-laws are from a small isolated village mostly preoccupied with growing coconuts. It has only between 50-60 homes, two small stores selling basic necessities like sugar, rice and fermented shrimp paste, a primary school …and three mosques. One of them is Madrasah al-Kamaliyya, a surau lying about 150 meters from my mother-in-law’s house.
Madrasah al-Kamaliyya was built in the 1920’s. It is built essentially the same as a traditional Malay house, entirely of timber on stilts, with the prayer area one full floor above the ground. It was not uncommon for homes in those days to be built entirely without nails, as was the home my late father-in-law built. Instead, the posts and beams are assembled using a mortise-and-tenon system, with the beams leveled and tightened in place by wooden wedges. The forests of Malaysia and Indonesia have some of the best timber in the world for building, and the Malays certainly make good use of it.
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- Madrassah al-Kamaliyya
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- Signboard in Jawi
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- Rain-fed Ablution Pool
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- Entrance to Prayer Hall
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- Inside the Surau
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- Wooden drums struck before the azan, in times gone by.
The design of the surau does have some differences with a house. It has two stairways leading to the prayer hall. During a mixed gathering, men and women would use separate entrances. The two flights of stairs are on either side of the ablution pool. The stairs are withdrawn under the building, such that they enter the prayer hall in the middle. This allows women and men to both enter without disturbing each other’s sections. In a home, there would be a single stairway that would enter the living room in the front of the house. If there was a second stairway, it would be to the kitchen, around the side or back.
Unlike Surau Darul Rahman and most other modern suraus, this one was built directly by the villagers of the area without government funds. I don’t really know how this affects the nature of the waqaf; I imagine it is still held by or at least under the oversight of the religious department – maybe someone can inform me. But it is a source of pride for the village that it was built entirely by their fathers’ and grandfathers’ hands.
The village is not as heavily populated now as it was twenty years ago, with many of the young people migrating to the big cities. The bulk of the population now are older couples without children at home (not unlike the American farming heartland). Maybe because of this, the surau is not as actively used as a madrasah as it may once have been, resulting in the library deteriorating sadly.
Another element of the surau that has not aged well are the drums. There is a double-headed goat-hide drum, and an all-wooden drum that is a hollowed out log with a long narrow opening along one side. In the days before amplified speakers, these drums would be struck prior to calling the azan, since their sound would carry farther through the jungle and plantations than the human voice could. The drums at the Masjid Jamek Jawiyyah are still struck even now. The drums of the surau, unfortunately, have become unserviceable. The wooden log has cracked. The uncle I spoke with the day I took these photos said that there’s only one man he knows of who is skilled in making and repairing these drums, and he lives a great distance away. So the drums have been moved to below the stairs until someone is able to have them repaired. They used to hang in the prayer hall.
Madrasah al-Kamaliyya was the first surau I prayed at in Malaysia, and it remains the one most dear to me. I was struck with wonder the first time I prayed there, when, after the salat, the imam and the whole congregation recited an awrad that was virtually identical with the one I had learned from the Tariqat Naqshbandi Haqqani. I was later to learn that many of the elders who founded the community a hundred years ago were followers of Naqshbandi Tariqat, albeit from a different branch. Others held bayats with other orders. The righteous practices that they taught their children have persisted within the surau although they themselves have passed on.
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Br. Zayn: Great informative article with pictures that makes me feel I am there! It would be great to also see how the houses are built at that kampung, and if they are traditionally built, compare them with the traditional Malay houses in various states of the Semenanjung. As you may already be aware of, traditional Malay houses, in terms of the reasons underlying their architectural design, is an interesting topic in itself.
By the way, how do you post small pictures at your blog and link them to a new window that presents the bigger one??? It sure saves a lot of time downloading the main webpage.
Thanks, Israd. The photos of madrasah al-kamaliyya are from Perak. Surau Darul Rahman is here in Sarawak. Yes, the regional differences are interesting. I want to continue to document the various suraus I find myself in. My trouble is I’m shy to take pictures of other people. Buildings and plants are easier…
About the popups: Movable Type has an image wizard that does thumbnails and popups automatically. I don’t know about Blogger. I’ll send you an email with what the code looks like, but it looks like a hassle to do manually.
Br. Zayn: I was interested a while back about traditional Malay houses and how they were built incorporating Islam, climate, and nature as main design and building factors. Here is a website with many great pictures, and also information that you may be interested in:
http://myschoolnet.ppk.kpm.my/pakatan/ictic/sejarah/rumah_tradisional/rumah.htm
Unfortunately it is in Malay!
Br. Zayn, I’ve written a comment but it got lost in the process of posting. I wanted to share this link with you: http://myschoolnet.ppk.kpm.my/pakatan/ictic/sejarah/rumah_tradisional/galeri3.htm#
I hope you find it interesting. I am afraid it is in Malay though.
Sorry, that’s my spam filter at work. It sends comments with urls in them to me for approval before they show up. Thanks for the link. Have you seen the Encyclopedia of Malaysia volume on Architecture? It is very nice, although there are only a few pages dealing with the Malay house. Lots of great illustrations.
klik gambar sebelah kanan di atas.
[...] Despite all that, the masjid is surprisingly pleasant. It is quieter than you would imagine during the day despite the bustle outside. Something about its mystery and age make it very appealing to me. Among the relics not often found in masajid any more is a large drum. As I mentioned elsewhere, such drums where used to draw attention prior to the calling of the adhan, in the days before microphones and loudspeakers. My favorite detail of all is the wudu area. The only unroofed area of the masjid, the middle of the wudu area is filled with potted plants making use of the “gray” wudu water that would otherwise go down the drain wasted, while enlivening the masjid with a bit of green. I would love to see this idea incorporated in other masajid. All in all, the India Street district is perhaps the earliest example of that modern Malaysian innovation, a shopping mall with a built-in prayer area. [...]
Salaam
I imagine all that humidity isn’t good for the books. Even in dry places like Timbuktu, the books are fading into the dust. What’s this about DRUMS in the masjid? I’m liking the sound of that!
Yeah sister – it was utterly common in the old days. Now most masjids have gone to loudspeakers for the Azan so the drum has faded out.
Here’s another masjid I visited that still had their drum on display.
The drum in question
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Photographs from the yearly Muslim Fashion Festival 2007, brought to you by AltMuslimah's Photographic Campaign.
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