Manaqib Productions is releasing the Mawlid Barzanji on CD in August, with a booklet of the Arabic verses and English translation. The first chapter is available for preview in mp3 form, via Abdassamad Clarke, who has been involved in the production. Mawlid Barzanji is the most commonly recited mawlid in Malaysia. Copies of it are […]
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Hidden Mosques
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 it is coming from. Taking a shortcut through a secluded neighborhood on my way home late from work, I would often hear the azan called loudly nearby, see old uncles […]
West Malaysia 2008: Cousins, Cousins, Cousins
Thanks to the largesse of the Malaysian government, I was able to bring my family for a one-month vacation at the end of last year. We brought the whole family, and our maid for good measure, and the nine of us went gallavanting from my brother-in-law’s in Tanjong Malim all the way to the Langkawi […]
Mawlid Barzanji
12 Rabi’ul Awwal has come and gone again. In the past, I’ve written about a famous book of poetry about the birth of Prophet Muhammad (s) called Mawlid Daiba’i. Actually the Mawlid poetry more widely read in Malaysia is Mawlid Barzanji, named after its composer, Imam Zayn al-`Abidin Ja`far ibn Hasan al-Barzanji (d. 1177) (r). […]
Datuk Hakim Keramat
By Abu Muhammad English Translation and Photography by Bin Gregory Productions Datuk Hakim Keramat, or the Miraculous Judge, was the title given to a religous scholar of Sarawak well known for his miracles and mystic knowledge. His real name was Abang Haji Abdul Rahman bin Abang Haji Brahim. He was born in Kuching, Sarawak and […]
Journey to Ihsan: looking back
Alhamdulillah, I was able to fly to Singapore to attend the conference Journey to Ihsan last weekend. It was my first time in Singapore, and I came in the hard way, landing in Johor Bahru, then taking a three hour combination of trains and buses before arriving at my hotel, across the street from Dar […]
Arabic Class
After a 12-year hiatus, I’m finally taking formal Arabic lessons again. It meets once a week at night in the “basement” of the ustaz’s house who gave the talk at our surau last week. Not a basement really but a room built on the ground floor, underneath his house on stilts. The last classes I […]
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 […]