This is a New York Times article on medieval female scholars muhaddithat, and faqihat.

Ijok Sticky

Seeing as how the final days of the Ijok by-election make for an increasingly interesting read, here are selections of the latest multimedia offerings gathered from blogs and alternative newsites:

• Ijok by-election - A dramatic night at Batang Berjuntai - Photos of the police stopping a PKR ceramah
  

• Something you'll never find in Utusan Melayu - an advert placed by a group of villagers from Machap Baru New Village thanking DAP for contesting in Machap [both from Wengsan's blog]
• A video (right click - save link as) of a man verbally abusing a team of medical volunteers. [from jelas.info]
• 'Tv3 ada?" - interview with Khairy Jamaluddin here. Tan Sri Khalid's rebuttal here.
• Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's letter to Ijok voters.
• Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's latest op-ed in harakahdaily.net.
• Tun Dr Mahathir's advice to voters: don't vote BN blindly. Watch the video here.
  
• Tan Sri Khalid telling voters: vote BN. [BERNAMA, naturally]
• Zunar's cartoon of villagers praying to God.
• Amnesty International railing against the PDRM, letter, here. [via bangkit.net]
• Polling day violence pix. [harakahdaily.net]
  
• FINALLY, Barisan Nasional Wins Ijok by 1850 votes with record voter turn-out. Weeks of gloating to follow. Check your local newspaper vendor for the latest. Good night.

from Screenshots. Go read.

mari belajar bahasa perancis

thank me later

more reasons not to rush into marriage (yes I'm talking to you)

Found this on Malaysia Today just now. A forum on women's issues organised by Sisters In Islam, whose panelists comprised of representatives of women's groups and religious scholars, put forth several ideas to 'compel fathers to pay alimony (nafkah)'. These include:

# SETTING UP a child support agency that empowers the authorities to go after fathers who fail to pay up;

# GETTING enforcement agencies, like the Road Transport and Immigration departments, to withhold documents like driving licences or passports of errant fathers; and

# OBTAINING the current address of the men or their workplace so that they can be easily traced.

and IMHO, the one that hits it hardest

# DISALLOWING men from marrying again as long as they have not settled the alimony;

In this regard, I support SIS's initiative.

mintak maaf banyak-banyak lah ye

3 Days of Biryani

This is not a ‘blog dakwah’. My blog is about subjects that interest me, which may include but is certainly not limited to muslim issues and Islam. Even then, I prefer my discourses on Islam to be intellectual and of a sober nature. As such, you’ll find, in this blog, few references to anyone’s personal experiences, their level of iman nor even, Muslims’ the world over all time favourite, “How I Came To Islam” tales.

However, I cannot but state that the past few days as anything else than an iman ‘high’.

There goes my first paragraph.

Describing the first Annual Australian Islamic Conference is difficult. It dealt with real-world issues and concerns, yet at the same time many hearts were touched. Controversies accompanied the conference but its findings stressed gentleness. Even the audience themselves; for a local conference, was overwhelmingly international. Only the biryanis perhaps have an accurate description.

However, this could be its Achilles heel. In its bid to cover as many areas conceivable, the conference could lose its focus. This may not be the case at present, when the Australian Muslim population is only few in number, but when it grows (and since these are muslims we’re speaking of, I would add; exponentially) can the impact the conference had on the delegates be replicated once the technical nature of the varied discussions increase? Or would it become of interest only to academics and dyed-in-the-wool Islamists?

Of course, I may be missing the woods for the trees here. The organizers, Mercy Mission, have after all stated that they do not intend to be a jack of all trades, but instead, a platform to facilitate projects and share resources. A DHL for Muslim organizations ,if you will, which IMHO is a wonderful and novel idea. Administrative efficiency is seldom the forte of Muslim organizations (probably due to their largely voluntary nature), but if through Mercy Mission these organizations can make their ideas work and be implemented widely by providing supply-chain services that are beyond the capacity of the organizations i.e. national advertising, technological know-how, then perhaps that exponential growth may not pose such a problem after all.

My petty concerns aside, I do feel it was a wonderful experience. It was odd initially to see the Melbourne University's Economics and Commerce Building turn into a mini Taman Melewar, but then you realize what you were observing were really the reality of Muslims. Not radical militants, certainly not assimilating apologists, but rather a colourful bunch of families who want, as Shabir Ally puts it, “maximum happiness one earth, and maximum happiness in the hereafter.”

To the speakers, Dr Jamal Badawi, Shabir Ally, Waleed Basyouni, Tawfique Chowdury, and Yvonne Ridley, I thank you for sharing your invaluable knowledge and experience with us. May it be of great benefit to all, and may you be rewarded for your service. To the organizers, I congratulate and thank you for organising a conference of such scale smoothly (albeit delayed) and successfully beating expectations. I pray that next year’s conference be far better, In Sha Allah.

The missionaries' self-serving arguments that the Arabic script is not as well suited for reproducing sounds in the non-Arabic speaking languages, has been swallowed whole by many of the educated Malay and other non-Arab Muslim people.

an excerpt from an interesting brief history of Arabic and the Arabic script.
Did you know Catalan was once written using Arabic script?

The other day, I was teaching a class made up of students
from various faculties. I asked if they could name me one of
their human rights. I was greeted by silence. It is this silence,
which will lay to waste any hope of real development in our
nation.

Dr Azmi Sharom, Assocate Professor, Faculty of Law
Universiti Malaya, on Malaysia's mahasiswas. [PDF]

The Quality of Mercy

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;

excerpt from 'The Merchant of Venice' by William Shakespeare

My stomach churned the moment I heard the two words mentioned : islam hadhari.
The birth of the prophet s.a.w, a significant celebration for muslims the world over, should not have been marred by incidence of petty politicking and shameless puffery of hollow ideologies. However couched in academia and religion (and also millions of the rakyat's money), it is a mere front: it is no more than blatant usage of Islam to gain political capital. And in an environment that the Malaysian government itself has mandated to be free from politics, no less. How much lower can the government go than prey on the virgin minds of students who are not even allowed to gain access to alternative viewpoints, lest they start to think critically. Oh no, that would be baaad.

But since they brought it up, and there was only a question, an answer session, I will state my misgivings regarding the points presented by the speaker (ergo the government's official stand) here:

1. Why can't a person with a degree in an Islamic field of study be considered as capable of leading our country? Actually this line of thought actually explains a lot about the wrongdoings of the current administration, since the Prime Minister has only a degree in islamic studies. However that hardly seems fair doesn't it? So who then has the right to lead our 'great' nation? Political Science degree holders from Oxford? (thus the real purpose of islam hadhari?) Descendants of political dynasties? Aristocrats? Being a constitutional democracy, one would have thought that the role of the leader of our country would belong to the one who possesses the qualities required, be he/she a doctor, ustaz, writer or even a blogger.
2. Apparently, the government now is pursuing a 'double-majors' policy, which is essentially a good idea (like their other essentially good ideas, sekolah wawasan, sekolah bestari,etc.). However would not it be more prudent for the government to concentrate instead on the rotting education system instead of wooly ideals of the "Melayu Islam Glocal Serba Boleh in everything'. Except questioning the government of course. Some food for thought: according to a 2005 statistic , out of 4036 national schools, 736 were without electrical supply, and 1555 without toilets. And that's just in terms of infrastructure. What about the system itself? Unless you get great grades, and As in your report cards, you are not good. So what about the other half of society who don't get into SBPs and get scholarships for university studies, double or no double major? What can they look forward to? A 'rempit' life? Menial pay? A small low-cost flat to last an entire family's history. Why aren't this issues being given prominence? Are they inconsequential to the Hadhari spirit?
3. Why, this being an official government stand, is there an abject silence on the wellbeing of people of other faiths and races? Why is it always Malay, Muslims, Malay, Muslims? Don't just bellow "Islam is a universal religion!", make it real. I don't think the other races are that well off that they don't need the government's help. Unless you come from the "they can just migrate" school of thought, of course. But in the real world, we find that the opposite is true. Take the Indian community for example, 44.9% of Tamil School pupils parents belong to the sub RM 500 pay bracket, and despite the enduring stereotypes of the indian doctor and lawyer, 40% of Indians in Malaysia work in estates. So poverty in the indian community is a very real problem, but we don't hear much of it in the mainstream english and Malay press. So, again, why no hadharic policies here?

To be fair, I must say that the Ayam masak merah and the beef rendang (i think?) was really good. I actually helped myself to a second helping.

The government can do something right after all.

ADDENDUM: Reportedly, in His Royal Highness Yang Dipertuan Agong's maiden Mailidur Rasul address, no mention was made of Islam Hadhari [from Rocky's Bru]