Mawlid season has come and gone once again and I’ve only now had the chance to put a little something together. This time, I’ve got some fresh video clips, and new this year, an audio recording of our Kuching mawlid recital.
One famous prayer of repentance, or dua taubat, could be roughly transliterated as follow: Ilahi lestu lil-firdawsi a’la wa la akhwa ala nar il-jaheemi Allah fa habli tawbata wa-ghfir dhunubi fa innaka ghaafiru dhanb il-adzimi This doa has been put to song, together with a lovely malay translation, by Junied, a nasheed group from Singapore… More Doa Taubat
or My Bagan Datoh Vacation, Final Installment My five children weren’t the only ones sick over the vacation. The wife was busy vomiting all over the place too. The problem: Penyakit buatan orang. That literally means a man-made illness but refers to a hex or voodoo curse placed on someone. Black magic is alive and… More The Masjids and Musallahs of Jalan Rungkup
If I have one piece of advice for my sister who is in college right now, it is “Don’t Sell Your Books!” I regret selling off my books. I regret that in a general way; I wish I still had every book I once had, if only to have a library that resembles the libraries… More Books Lost and Found
The most common forms of housing for the urban Malaysian middle class are the terrace house and semi-detached house (semi-d for short), which we would call a rowhouse and a duplex respectively in the States. Malaysia is a relatively small country, and land is at a premium. The common rowhouse unit will be built on… More Taking Over the Street
The University of Michigan Graduate School has a project on the web called Building Islam in Detroit: An Interdisciplinary Study of Muslim Institutions & Collective Spaces. The site is not fully developed yet, but it sounds like a great project, with case studies planned for a number of masajid around town including Muath bin Jabal… More Islam in Detroit
I was a guest at the home of an old broke-down dervish in beautiful Sri Lanka, and almost every day he would say to me how he wished he could win the lottery.… More Money from Heaven
The dua brings up to the surface each individual’s relationship to their Lord, and it is for this that the duas of Sayyidina Zayn Al-Abideen (ra) are so special. His duas show us the highest stations of good manners in front of our Lord.… More Sahifat As-Sajadiyya