Prophet Muhammad’s birth was commemorated last wednesday night throughout the muslim world. The tiny corner of it that I inhabit was no exception. Surau Darul Rahman held an evening of learning and celebration. I feel extremely fortunate to live two blocks from our neighborhood surau. A surau is a prayer hall just like a […]
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Malay Contributions to English, pt.6: The Gong Show
While wandering around the Jalan Masjid India area last December during my sisters’ brief visit, we stumbled on a live performance in a small plaza. The show was of traditional Malay song and dance. There was a large squad of men sitting crosslegged, some with drums, some clapping, some singing lead, some chorus. The dancers […]
Shaykh as-Sayyid Muhammad Alawi Al-Maliki
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji`oon. To Allah we belong and unto Him do we return. [dropcap]T[/dropcap]oday a great scholar of Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jama`ah, Shaykh as-Sayyid Muhammad Alawi Al-Maliki Al-Hasani passed on to the afterlife. Janazah will be held for him after Salaat al-Isha prayer tonight at Masjid Al-Haraam, Makkah. He was one of the […]
Money from Heaven
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.
Mawlid Parade
12 Rabi’ul Awwal, the day our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saws) was born, is a national holiday in Malaysia as it is in every muslim country on earth except one. In the city of Kuching, Sarawak, to where I had just moved from America, there was to be a large parade that morning as there is […]
Wahhabis in Kurdish Iraq Wahhabism
Wahhabis in Kurdish Iraq Wahhabism is so strong in the US because there’s very little shared memory of what traditional Islam should be. So we’re happy to hold hands with everybody in the interests of Muslim unity. But the article above shows how Wahhabism stands out in stark contrast to the lived Islam of the […]
So John Walker Lindh got
So John Walker Lindh got twenty years. I’ve been fiercely ambivalent about him since his story broke: John, my evil twin brother. There’s a part of me that just wants to feel sympathy for a dumb kid who got in way over his head. When someone makes a mistake, it is good adab to make […]
I’m not a reader of
I’m not a reader of poetry. But this poem was presented to me at my wedding by my grade-school teacher, Rob Huchingson, now dearly departed. I have treasured it ever since. If all you’ve ever smelled is cologne or that thin alcohol-laced stuff they sell to ladies at Marshall Fields, you can hardly appreciate the […]