Muslim Wonder House

(malay edition below)

This mosque situated in Finsbury Park (When I say Finsbury Park, people go like -.-? But when I say 'its close to the Arsenal stadium', they go like owh okay :D) looks like a run down shop house more than a spiritual house. But I wouldn't trade it for a 100 beautiful mosques in Malaysia. It's called the Muslim Welfare House but we malaysians used to call it Mewah (Muslim Welfare House -> MWH -> MeWaH).

Because it is so awesome. Look at the advertisements on their electronic noticeboard, they have:

1) Quran & Arabic class for kids (okay)
2) Housing advice for house-related problems (woah)
3) Training classes for those wanting to work in construction (woahhh)
4) Karate classes! (sugoiiiiiii!!!!)

Even Jackie Chan would be proud of this mosque.

And I know they also have classes to train teachers, and local businessmen would use the mosque to hold their meetings. AND the mosque is packed to the brim during Maghrib prayers.

Skeptics (disguised as intellectuals) would point out that 'muslims in britain lack the formal institutions, thus necessitating the use of the mosque as an all-encompassing avenue for resolving daily situations unlike in Malaysia where our institutions are more decentralised'. Still, it is rare to find a mosque offering karate classes, and we can definitely do more to position our mosques as the center of community life. So think about it please ;)

***

Masjid yang terletak di kawasan Finsbury Park ini (dekat dengan stadium Arsenal. Kalau cakap dengan orang Malaysia kena bagi rujukan stadium bola) nampak macam rumah kedai, bukan rumah ibadat. Tapi masjid ini lebih saya cintai daripada 100 masjid yang cantik di Malaysia. Namanya Muslim Welfare House (Rumah Kebajikan Islam) tapi kami pelajar malaysia panggil masjid ni Mewah (Muslim Welfare House -> MWH -> MeWaH. Malas nak sebut panjang lah tu)

Masjid ni sangat mantap. Tengok papan bulletin dia:
1) Kelas quran dan bahasa Arab untuk kanak-kanak (okay)
2) Sesi nasihat perumahan (pergh)
3) Latihan untuk bakal buruh pembinaan (perghhh)
4) Kelas karate (すごい!!!!!)

Jackie Chan mesti bangga dengan masjid ni. Saya dah lama dah bangga.

Setahu saya ada juga kelas latihan untuk bakal guru, dan peniaga tempatan akan buat mesyuarat mereka di bilik mesyuarat masjid. Kalau pergi waktu Maghrib, masyaallah, penuhnya sampai terpaksa buka bilik belakang.

Orang-orang skeptis akan berkata 'memanglah semua guna masjid. Kat sini kita ada pusat giatmara, Institut Latihan Perguruan, dewan sukan, dll' Ya, mungkin betul, tapi bukan semua masjid di UK ni yang tawarkan macam-macam program pembangunan masyarakat. Dan saya yakin masjid di Malaysia boleh buat lebih daripada menawarkan ustaz untuk kuliah subuh dan maghrib. Fikir-fikirkan dan selamat beramal ;)

Master Oogway's School

(Malay version below. Disclaimer: the Malay version is not a translation and I did not intend it to be so. Both languages have a different mode of thinking and different ways of conveying, and it is the meaning that I intend to convey, not the exact words)

Yesterday I had the good fortune of visiting my university for the first time. The first time I heard about it was, I think, during my undergraduate days. We had an Islamic Society dinner and some guys from SOAS were there as well.

I looked it up later and was quite intrigued. There's just something about the word 'oriental' that adds mystique to any word paired with it. Like how 'Oriental cuisine' conjures up an image of steaming tom yum made with a hundred different spices served in a 14th century Ming dynasty porcelain bowl (with dragons on the bowl, of course). Or how 'Oriental wisdom' brings to mind Master Oogway from Kungfu Panda. 

Anyways, why did I choose to come here? You know, people try to rationalise a lot of their decisions as if they came about as a result of deliberate thought when actually, it was just a 'wow' or 'let's do it!' moment. I may spin stories about how my fridge is value-for-money, energy efficient, bla bla bla, while the actual 'wow' was the cool metallic silver exterior that made it look like it could be an Autobot in secret. And only then do we find good reasons to justify buying an Autobot.

I guess it was the same with this university. School of Oriental and African Studies brings to mind the kind of school that Indiana Jones would have gone to before embarking on his quest to find oriental and african treasures. It brings to mind professors speaking 10 different Asian languages and wearing kain pelikat (jokes aside, there is a Russian professor at this institution whose specialization is medieval Malay manuscripts. He can read old Jawi, which makes him more literate than 99.9% of Malaysians!)

And the good reasons kept coming in. Their page in Wikipedia had this bit of history: 'The school immediately became integral in training British administrators, colonial officials and spies for overseas postings across the British Empire.' Cool. Any school that trained an army of James Bonds gets my vote. And apparently Pendeta Zaaba and Syed Naquib al-Attas studied here too, so I hope real Oogways here could impart just a tiny bit of that wisdom to this unripe soul.

***

Sekolah Master Oogway

Semalam saya bertuah dapat melihat universiti saya buat kali pertama. Saya mula-mula dengar nama U ini masa zaman mahasiswa; ada makan malam Islamic Society dan adalah beberapa orang dari SOAS yang makan sekali.

Kemudian saya kaji sedikit tentang tempat ini. Saya tertarik. 'Oriental & african' membayangkan orang-orang seperti Snouck Hurgronje, orientalis yang belajar bahasa orang kita, benar-benar masuk dalam budaya kita untuk mengambil hati dan mengubah cara fikir kita. 'Oriental' memberi bayangan sekumpulan pendeta ala-ala Master Oogway dalam Kungfu Panda, memberi kata-kata hikmah dan pedoman.

Kenapa saya memilih untuk datang sini? Kita selalu memberi alasan panjang lebar untuk mewajarkan tindakan kita, padahal yang sebenarnya kita hanya ikut rasa hati. Contoh: peti sejuk saya memang jimat tenaga dan sangat tebat haba. Tapi saya cenderung nak beli mula-mula dulu sebab warnanya 'metallic' seperti seekor Transformers. Bila mahu ada seribu jalan, bila tak mahu ada seribu alasan. Betul sangat kata-kata tu.

Samalah halnya dengan memilih universiti. School of Oriental and African Studies bunyinya macam sekolah yang melatih Indiana Jones sebelum beliau mengembara mencari harta karun. Bunyinya seperti ada Profesor yang reti bertutur bahasa-bahasa nusantara dan memakai kain pelikat (ada seorang Profesor Rusia di universiti ini, bidang pengkhususannya ialah manuskrip melayu lama. Perghh! Jangankan Jawi lama, Jawi masa SPM pun kita merangkak-rangkak).

Hati saya udah terpaut. Kemudian saya buat lagi pembacaan, apa lagi alasan-alasan baik untuk saya datang ke sini. Dalam wikipedia tertulis sejarahnya secara ringkas: 'Sekolah ini menjadi sangat penting (semasa zaman penjajahan) dalam melatih pegawai-pegawai kerajaan British, pegawai kolonial dan para mata-mata' (saya bukan SB tuan-tuan).

Kalau sekolah ini boleh melatih mata-mata sehingga fasih bahasa & budaya tempatan, saya nak tahu apa rahsia pendidikan tempat ini sehingga begitu ramai orang berkebolehan yang keluar darinya. Ilmuan Islam yang hebat seperti Pendeta Zaaba dan Syed Naquib al-Attas pun pernah belajar di sini, jadi saya rasa ini satu tempat yang baik untuk membuka minda yang kecil ini.

Nusantara Bonds

Ukhuwah Nusantara
(english translation below)

Di airport Heathrow ni, saya rasa saya seorang saja yang bawa bekal nasi impit, sambal bali & ikan bilis. Dengan tak malunya saya pun buka dan makan depan kedai marks & spencer. Orang sebelah saya yang mukanya kemelayuan pun tanya

'where are you from?'
'malaysia'
'oh, no wonder you're eating rendang'

Itulah permulaan perkenalan saya dengan sahabat dari Brunei ini. Rupa-rupanya beliau pun penerima biasiswa Chevening + bekerja dengan kerajaan (Pejabat PM) + berkahwin dan ada anak berumur 8 bulan. Allahuakbar, banyak yang serupa. Takdir yang menakjubkan.

Dalam borak-borak kami yang singkat, saya tanya apa perancangan selepas belajar nanti, nak masuk politik ke. Dia kata 'Di Brunei tiada politik'. Menteri-menteri dipilih dari golongan yang berkelayakan, disaring oleh sebuah jawatankuasa dan diluluskan oleh Sultan.

Dalam bidang yang saya akan belajar nanti (political economy) ini satu kes yang menarik. Brunei bukan negara demokrasi, tapi HDInya (human development index) mencapai 0.856, lebih tinggi dari Malaysia (0.779). Betulkah demokrasi itu prasyarat untuk pembangunan negara? Kenapa Brunei secara umumnya maju menggunakan sistem monarki manakala Malaysia pula agak-agak maju dengan monarki berperlembagaan, dan Singapura pula tak ada raja langsung dan sangat maju.

Ini soalan-soalan yang menarik dan insyaallah akan saya gali dalam setahun datang. Buat masa ini, saya gembira kerana terjalinnya hubungan bilateral (dua hala) dalam masa 10 minit disaksikan nasi impit.

***

Nusantara Bonds

I might be the only one in Heathrow Airport eating a packed breakfast of nasi impit (compressed rice) and sambal (which, being a flammable object, thankfully escaped confiscation by the airport authorities). But it was due to this delectable dish that the guy sitting next to me asked

'where are you from?'
'malaysia'
'oh, no wonder you're eating rendang'

You see? No one can rightfully call themselves a citizen of the nusantara if they could not identify rendang from a mile away. As it turned out, he was also a Chevening scholar, worked in the Bruneian PM's office (which surprised me as I didn't know that Brunei had a PM, until he said that the PM was the Sultan. Teehee) AND he was married with a 8-month old boy. Masyaallah, the wonders of destiny.

In our short chit chat I asked him his plans for the future. I asked if he was planning to go into politics. His response: 'In Brunei there are no politics'. Ministers are chosen based on merit, assessed by a nominating committee and approved by the sultan (If Trump heard this he'd be applying to become the Sultan of Brunei tomorrow). But things are working well so no one's making a big fuss out of it.

In the field that I am going to study (political economy) this is a really interesting case. Brunei is not a democracy but its HDI is 0.856, higher than Malaysia's (0.779). Is democracy really a prerequisite for development? Why is Brunei much well-off with a monarchic system, Malaysia reasonably so with a constitutional monarchy and Singapore very much well-off with no king at all?

These are interesting questions which I hope to understand (understanding is hard enough, let alone answering) in the next one year. For now, I'm just ecstatic in this bilateral relationship forged over food. How very nusantaran.