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Home   /   Islam
Hold Fast

Hold Fast

January 17, 2013
by bingregory
Islam

To God was his call, and those who hold fast to him hold fast to a rope that shall never break. Baginda mengajak umat ke…

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New Facility for Ma'had Tahfiz

New Facility for Ma’had Tahfiz

September 6, 2012
by bingregory
Islam, Journal

At the beginning of this year, my daughter Kak Andak started first grade at a new religious school. It’s a private school operated by the…

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A sincere contribution

Commercialization of Sacred Space

April 19, 2012
by bingregory
Islam, Nusantara

The masjid is a sacred place, a house of God, and among the ways that sacredness is respected is by refraining from idle talk while…

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Lakbakabar

Lakbakabar

November 3, 2011
by bingregory
Islam, Journal

Two-Year-Old Future Muezzin in Action

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Azzam Al-Britani will f*** you up

Just for Me (and you) Media

November 9, 2010
by bingregory
Islam

What a pleasure it is to come across a book or a song or a movie that feels like it was made expressly with you…

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Convocation Day

Convocation Day

November 8, 2010
by bingregory
Islam, Nusantara

November means the end of the school year, and once again I have a child successfully completing her academic career and ready to move on…

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Muslim Garb

Muslim Garb

October 22, 2010
by bingregory
Islam

“But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are tastefully accoutered in raiment seamlessly blending East…

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Mujahid fi Sabilillah Matt Savino bin James al-Michigani

Muslim Convert Saves Michigan from Christian Terrorism

April 2, 2010
by bingregory
Islam

Michigan, my home state, has a reputation for nurturing right-wing anti-government terrorists. The largest act of domestic terrorism prior to 9/11 was the Oklahoma City…

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Datuk Haji Abdul Kadir Hassan

Datuk Haji Abdul Kadir Hassan

March 8, 2010
by bingregory
Islam, Nusantara

By Abu Muhammad of Bahrus Shofah *** English Translation by Bin Gregory Productions *** Datuk Haji Abdul Kadir bin Hassan, may Allah have mercy on…

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Brass Crescent Awards

Brass Crescent Awards

November 29, 2009
by bingregory
Briefly, Islam

Eid Mubarak, Selamat Hari Raya Korban! The 6th Annual Brass Crescent Awards have been announced. Congratulations to all the winners. If you haven’t subscribed yet…

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The Sixth Annual Brass Crescent Awards are open for voting.

Hidup Segan Mati Tak Mau

November 18, 2009
by bingregory
Islam

At first, you do it every day, sometimes even twice a day. As time goes by, it is less and less frequent until after many…

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Surau Al-Hidayah is the pale blue building in the center

Hidden Mosques

June 15, 2009
by bingregory
Islam, Nusantara

The azan can be heard all around Kuching from the suraus in most every neighborhood. Sometimes it takes a bit of work to find where…

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Ephemera

  • A Short History of Malaysia # -
    ShortHistoryMalaysia by Virginia Matheson Hooker.
    Straightforward introduction to Malaysian history; key individuals, important dates, broadest themes. It feels comparable in depth to what I remember of high school US History class. A good preparation for further reading, I hope.

     Goodreads Link

  • The Jungle is Neutral: Review # -

    TJIN_ChapmanThe Jungle is Neutral, by F. Spencer Chapman

    The memoir of a British lieutenant in WWII Malaya who conducts guerilla warfare against the Japanese. It’s not a very gripping story. All the successful guerrilla work takes place in the first quarter of the book, and from there on it is one long anticlimax of malaria, dysentery and thrashing through the jungle. Managing not to die in the jungle for a few years is a pretty good feat for a foreigner but he’s surrounded by locals who do it with less effort, and he doesn’t have much interesting to say about it beyond the bare facts. His major accomplishment between all the not succumbing to illness is training up the Malayan Communist Party cadres in tactics. The book ends with the war so I’m left wondering to what degree the post-war MCP insurgency against the British was more effective because of the good lieutenant’s training.

    I’ve been trying to read more books about Malaysia. It hasn’t been easy. There are surprisingly few of them, at least what shows up on Amazon. Of those that I’ve found, very few have anything to say about Malays. Anthony Burgess’s Malayan Trilogy novels didn’t have one sympathetic Malay character. Likewise TJIN: there isn’t a single named Malay in the whole book. What ‘s a good book about Malaysia I should read next? Any genre welcome.

  • The Road to Mecca: Review # -

    The Road to MeccaThe Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad

    Asad lived an amazing life which he describes beautifully. Meetings with future kings of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran before their ascension, espionage into Fascist-controlled Libya and British Iraq: Asad covered a lot of ground. He nests his recollections like the 1001 Nights, one scene inside the other, going further back in time with each one. Yet the book seemed so dated. Asad (1900-1992) was a man of the 20th century, and his Modern rationalist outlook, his Islamist politics and his extreme attachment to the House of Saud feel like relics of a previous age here in the Post-modern, Post-binLaden 21st.  The Road to Mecca was a fascinating historical document but not particularly inspirational to this reader.



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