Category: Singapuraku

#Haul-loween: Behind The Traditions Of Haul

# Haul-loween – Behind the Traditions of Haul

History of Halloween

Saints

The Roman Catholics typically celebrate the anniversaries of their saints. Saints who have been officially recognised by the Church are people who are considered purified or holy and is therefore believed to be in Heaven.

According to their beliefs, the worship of saints is a show of devotion so that they can be asked to intercede or pray for those still on earth.

Calendar of Saints

Early Christians commemorated the day of the death of their Saints by having an annual feast. The number of recognized Saints increased until eventually every day of the year had at least one saint who was commemorated.

To deal with this increase, some dates were moved while others were completely removed from the calendar. These Feast Days were also ranked in order of importance of the respective Saints where some commemorative feasts became obligatory while others remained optional.

All-Saints’ Day

With the huge deluge of Saints, a day was selected to commemorate all the Saints (the remainders who were not afforded a day to call their own) in a single swoop. This day was named All-Saints’ Day and falls on the 1st of November.

All-Saints’ Day was also known as All Hallows’ Day (“Hallow” means “Saint”) and is considered a Holy Day of Obligation for the Roman Catholics.

Halloween

The term Halloween was derived from “Hallows’ Eve” which is the eve of All Saints’ Day (All Hallows’ Day).

The celebration was basically adopted from Pagan rituals called “Festival of the Dead” when it is believed that the border between this world and the other world becomes passable to spirits of the dead.

Haul Commemorations in Islam

Similarly, there has never been remembrances of death anniversaries (haul) in Islam. If there were, the death anniversaries of Prophet Muhammad & his Companions would have been of utmost importance.

However, following in the footsteps of the Shi’ites who commemorate the death anniversary of Hussayn among others, many amongst Sufis have adopted the Pagan ritual to commemorate the death anniversaries of their own revered shaykhs whom they glorify and consider infallible.

May Allah give us His Taufeeq and Hidayah so that we may be among those who seek knowledge to ascertain the truth.

#haul #pagan

Channel Telegram – https://telegram.me/islamIQsg
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/IslamIQsg

Source: Islamic Sg

November 1, 2016
Faisal Tehrani: Sasterawan Melayu Berperanan Pulihkan Kerencaman Cara Fikir Masyarakat

Para sasterawan Melayu berperanan memulihkan kerencaman cara fikir masyarakat menerusi karya mereka.

Pandangan itu disuarakan oleh penulis prolifik dari Malaysia Dr Faizal Musa atau lebih dikenali sebagai Dr Faisal Tehrani. Menurut beliau, kebanjiran jalur fikir yang sama akan menjejas kehidupan beragama umat Islam.

Dr Faisal diundang untuk menyampaikan satu ceramah anjuran The Arts House dan Pusat Pengajian Melayu NUS baru-baru ini.

Edisi Cita Seni kali ini menampilkan penulis yang sudah menghasilkan 24 novel sepanjang dua dekad kerjayanya.

INGIN TEROKA KEPELBAGAIAN PEMIKIRAN ISLAM

Namun namanya juga sering dikaitkan dengan kontroversi. Beberapa novel Dr Faisal Tehrani diharamkan di Malaysia kerana dianggap mengandungi unsur-unsur penyebaran ajaran Syiah.

Bagaimanapun Dr Faisal menegaskan tujuannya adalah untuk meneroka kepelbagaian pemikiran Islam sebagai cara mengatasi masalah masyarakat.

“Terdapat pemikir-pemikir yang terdahulu seperti Syed Naquib al Attas, Profesor Burhanudin al Helmy – mereka semua cuba melakukan percambahan atau persenyawaan di antara pelbagai cara fikir, mazhab dan sebagainya untuk membantu menyelesaikan masalah masyarakat kerana itu yang sebenarnya perlu dilakukan oleh ahli falsafah juga seniman ataupun pelukis. Tetapi itu dilihat sebagai sesuatu yang mengancam,” kata Dr Faisal.

TEKAD PERJUANG HAK GOLONGAN TERPINGGIR

Dr Faisal berkata langkah untuk mengharamkan novel-novelnya menguatkan tekad beliau untuk memperjuangkan hak golongan terpinggir.

Selain mengetengahkan tema-tema agama dan penentangan, karyanya juga menyentuh isu sosial dan keadilan. Misalnya, novel beliau berjudul “Bagaimana Anyss Naik ke Langit?” menyorot tentang jenayah rogol terhadap wanita kaum Penan di Sarawak.

Dr Faisal kini berada di Singapura sebagai penulis undangan NUS-NAC.

Source: http://berita.mediacorp.sg

November 1, 2016
Ang Swee Chai: The Christian In Me Brought Me Closer To Palestine

KUALA LUMPUR: Until sometime in 1982, a Malaysian woman living in exile in London with her Singaporean husband was all but oblivious to the Palestinian plight.

Penang-born Dr Ang Swee Chai, like many non-Muslims, could not relate to the suffering of the Palestinians owing to the highly charged religious sentiments of their supporters. She grew up supporting Israel.

“My church celebrated when Israel won the Six Day War,” Ang told FMT, referring to the 1967 war that Israel won against Arab forces.

The petite orthopaedic surgeon was in Kuala Lumpur to attend the launching of a new edition of her memoir of the events of September 1982 in Lebanon.

From Beirut to Jerusalem is her eyewitness account as a young volunteer during the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Lebanon. The killings, blamed on a pro-Israeli Lebanese Christian army, was condemned as an act of genocide by the United Nations General Assembly in December that year.

Ang began to question her beliefs after watching news reports on British television of Israelis flushing out the Palestine Liberation Organisation from Lebanon, sparing neither civilians nor hospitals.

“The Christian in me knew this was wrong,” she said. “God’s commandment to us is to love, not to kill.”

Ang is now 67. Five years ago, she lost her husband, Francis Khoo, a devout Catholic whom she married in 1977 and whose political activism in Singapore made him a target of the Internal Security Act.

Following their marriage, Ang was also sought by Singapore authorities, who hoped to use her to lure back her husband who by then had sought refuge in the United Kingdom.

But Ang managed to reunite with him. For the next three decades, both lived in exile in London.

To Lebanon

In 1982, moved by the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, Ang responded to appeals for international aid. She left for Beirut, thinking she would volunteer for only a few weeks.

But the extent of the death and destruction she saw shocked her. She ended up in a refugee camp and soon learnt first-hand the plight of the Palestinians and how they had been driven from their homes by the Israeli army.

“They have a country, and homes they cannot go back to. They are not terrorists. They are kind, loving and generous people,” she said of the Palestinians, with whom she maintains close ties until today.

Her life changed when, three weeks into her volunteer work, the Sabra and Shatillah massacre took place.

“Every dead body was found with a Palestinian refugee card,” she said. “That’s when it hit me that they were the victims of terror.

“I realised that my church got it wrong, the press got it wrong and that justice had not been done and that the truth was not being told.

“Some 3,000 people were killed in three days. I remember standing over dead bodies. I asked for God’s forgiveness for being prejudiced and blind, and for taking sides without understanding the side of the victims.”

It was at this point, she said, that she sought repentance and vowed to offer herself to helping Palestinians for the rest of her life.

When the British government wanted to repatriate British aid workers, she refused to go back.

Ang founded Medical Aid for Palestinians with a committed group of friends. In 1987 she was awarded Palestine’s highest civilian award, the Star of Palestine, for her service to the people of Palestine.

For all the inhumanity she witnessed, Ang said the indomitable spirit of the Palestinians was what gave her hope.

“Bombs cannot destroy their spirit,” she said. “When they lose their homes, they build and rebuild time and again.

“Their children see so much – death, mass graves, destruction. Yet, they are unafraid. This gives me hope to continue serving the people of Palestine.”

—
Article was first published in Free Malaysia Today. Republished with permission.

Source: http://theindependent.sg

November 1, 2016
Remember When Malays Served In The Air Force?

One of my younger cousins got enlisted today and shared his photo on our family wadsapp group. This spurred a flurry of picture uploads from my elder uncles during their time in National Service. One served in the air force, some in the infantry. They speak with so much pride defending Singapore during the Indonesian Konfrontasi.

They really look the part. Worth the share.

Source: Dzar Ismail

November 1, 2016
Damanhuri Abas: I Protest Benjamin Netanyahu’s Planned Visit To Singapore

I read with great consternation that Singapore will be hosting the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu as a state guest.

The Israeli PM is directly responsible for the current continued oppression of the Palestinian people through its illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as stated by numerous UN resolutions which Israel continuously ignores with the shameful backing of the US government. Its occupying forces conducts numerous crimes against Palestinian civilians and its forces have conducted many agressions in occupied Palestinian territories that are culpable to war crimes, as recent as the last Gaza incursion in 2014 that claims thousands of Palestinian lives through excessive use of powerful bombs on densely populated Palestinian residential areas.

The Singapore government may seem to think that it is acceptable to host the Israeli PM afterall the Israelis are the pioneering country that provided military assistance in terms of training and guidance to the Singapore Armed Forces when Singapore first setup its nascent military defence unit after independence.

It serves as no great solace to know that we had relied on Israeli military advice and guidance in the formation of our Armed Forces. This is especially so as a Malay/Muslim Singaporean who has felt direct discrimination towards his race in the Singapore Armed Forces.

This discrimination has most probably arisen from the advice and guidance of the Israeli military consultants who may have sowed distrust towards the Malay/Muslim citizens serving the Singapore Armed Forces likely rationalized and justified by their own experience and paranoia towards the Palestinan people (and the Arabs too) that they have kept under siege for 60 years encounting with no end to hostility nor nearing any peaceful settlement to the last remaining illegal occupation to exist on God’s earth.

Such inhumane treatment that the Israelis imposed upon the Palestian people in the occupied territories has resulted in extreme distrust between them and the Palestinians and overtime have led to a toxic unsustainable relationship based on fears and suspicion with no end in sight.

Likewise, a toxic relationship too may have emerged in our own land caused by our own policies for the last 50 years that blankets the entire Malay/Muslim population as suspicious and not to be fully trusted to be given full access to all military positions, especially so-called ‘sensitive areas’ in the Singapore Armed Forces. This unjustified and unproven fears that have shaped and colored policies preventing Malay/Muslim citizens full meritocratic access to all possible ranks and files in the military must end immediately.

Only when this happens will the process of correction and rapprochement begin to eradicate the poisoned perceptions that have developed overtime by the majority towards Malay/Muslim trustworthiness in and beyond the Military into other aspects of society. This disriminatory policy must stop for the sake of fairness, justice and a true harmonious multi-racial/multi-religious Singapore that we intend to build for this nation.

For all the above reasons, as a Malay/Muslim Singaporean I protest the coming of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu to my country. He is also an alleged war criminal.

I forward below an email from our very own Dr Ang Swee Chai from Medical Aid for Palestinian, a London based NGO, in support of my involvement in previous protest effort against the brutal acts of the Israeli government towards the Palestinian people that the invited Isreali PM is currently heading.

—— Forwarded message ———-
From: SWEE ANG <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:08 AM
Subject: In support of your work
To: “[email protected]” <[email protected]>
Cc: AimeeShalan <[email protected]>, stevenjames <[email protected]>

Dear Damanhuri Abas and FMSA,

Thank you for emailing me so that I can support what you and the Fellowship of Muslim Students Association are doing. As you know a ceasefire is in place after 150 Gazans were killed and nearly a thousand injured. As you know Gaza is half the size of Singapore and home to 1.7 million people, 80% of them refugees from the rest of Palestine. They were forced out from the rest of Palestine in 1948 and took refuge in Gaza. Since 2007 Gaza’s people are under constant military blockade. All her borders with Israel are sealed by the military and none can move in or out, except through Rafah which until recently was also closed by President Mubarak. The sea of Gaza is manned by Israeli warships and no one from Gaza can wander beyond 3 nautical miles. The targetting of fishing boats and killing and injury of fishermen by warships firing at them even with the 3 nautical miles are all too often.

Even before this recent assault, military helicopters regularly fly into Gaza and kill and injure civilians. When you hear the word targets mentioned by the BBC and the Western Press, you do not hear the cries of the mothers who lost their babies, who are sometimes just called collateral damage. The skies of Gaza are patrolled by drones and the whole of Gaza is under surveillance and drone attacks are frequent.

Electricity is scarce, many of the 21,000 homes and buildings destroyed from Cast Lead four years ago not rebuilt since there is also a blockade on building materials. The schools destroyed during Cast Lead are also not rebuilt and children are now crammed into whatever school buildings which are still functional. Many people are still living in tents or in temporary buildings. Unemployment is high since factories and workshops cannot function and even if they function the military siege makes it impossible to export their goods and import raw materials. It is the same with agriculture produce – all forms of trade is made impossible by the blockade. Hospitals are starved of medical supplies.

Water is also a problem in Gaza since Israel has dug deep wells and siphoned off the natural water from Gaza. The water from Gaza now is heavily polluted and contains high nitrates and unfit for washing and drinking.

You can find more facts from various sources including from the website of Medical Aid for Palestinians and Palestine Solidarity Campaign – I have only given you a very sketchy description.

So when F16s bomb Gaza the last 9 days, hitting hundreds of “targets” daily, those of us who know Gaza well can only cry out in shock and anger against this atrocity and injustice. Yet many of us are astonished by the courage of people in Gaza in resisting the assault. The ceasefire is agreed on mainly because Israel knows it cannot beat down Gaza despite pounding it incessantly with bombs. They had planned a land invasion but did not go through with it not because they are humane, but because they know they cannot win and do not have the stomach to go through with it. Hilary Clinton got to turn round from her visit to Burma to fly Cairo to support a truce called by the new Egyptian Government.

Your supporters need to know the following:

Israel is the sixth largest military power in the world. In 2009 it has –

200-300 nuclear warheads
300 F16s
60 military helicopters
60 warships
3650 tanks
Plus daily military aid of eight million dollars from the USA ( as opposed to non-military aid) and the huge support of the Western Press and governments.

Palestine has none of the above. Gaza has home made rockets.

But Palestine has truth on her side. Despite the killing and the suppression of truth, people from all over the world are beginning to find out. And I hope your meeting will help others understand what is going on. Up to 1982, I was the victim of lies against the Palestinians until I went out to work in Sabra and Shatilla. By God’s grace I have seen the truth and may this never depart from me.

I hope one day your Association will have the chance to visit Gaza and West Bank, and meet the people there. But until then take it from me that it is a great honour to be able to support them. For me it is a personal privilege that Medical Aid for Palestinians have been able to be partners to the humanitarian Palestinian institutions in Gaza, West Bank and in Lebanon. I hope your institution will be the same.

Best wishes
Dr Ang Swee Chai.
22 November 2012

Source: Damanhuri Abas

November 1, 2016