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A small island lies to the south of Singapore’s mainland. Once family homes, peeling holiday lodges face the white beaches, peeking out of a forest that threatens to swallow them up. Fading trail signs describe the island’s thick flora, fauna and animals and trace its history as a holding site for quarantined patients. Today, beachgoers…
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my childhood home stands where it always has. but with each return, i find it to be less and less mine. my shoulders have grown, splitting the seams of shirts that used to swallow me in their folds. my room has been filled with things I have never seen before. my cupboard overflows with someone…
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like most important things, i only knew to miss the azaan when i could no longer hear it outside a masjid’s gates. where i grew up, the days revolved around the ever-changing times to pray. the day often began before the sun rose, with the name of God being crooned from crackling bullhorns strung up…
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Forty days have passed since the anniversary of his martyrdom on 10th of Muharram. Mourning is often observed for 40 days after a death, and none is mourned like Imam Hussain ع. 40 days ago, as tearful scholars ascended pulpits to recount Aba Abdillah’s final moments, a thought occurred to me. A common thread throughout…
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Rows and rows of motorcycles sit idle. Men spill out from under a bright blue dome, lining the road and grass patches under the noonday sun. Across the road, seated on plastic tarps that shimmer in the heat, little more than the salawat can be heard from the mosque’s muted speakers. The sermon is a faint…
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i carry with me a kafan. dyed with the saffron prayers of Kumayl, wrapped in it fragments of Karbala’s holy soil, the garments of my final journey sit neatly folded in the back of my cupboard. i know not who will dress me in them. is it the women who will wash me? will the…
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Maqam Habib Noh’s rounded dome once looked out over the waters lapping at the coastline of Singapore’s old financial district. Today, land reclamation has pushed the sea farther and farther away and today the shore is nowhere to be seen. The surrounding landscape is unrecognisable as the port district of yesteryear. Shiny new road signs…
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Ya Abbas, Rivers of sweetened water and milk flow as your blood once did. Your tears fall from our eyes, millions of arms holding aloft the flag you gave your arms for. The lonely seek its shade, for none are alone in your embrace. Tonight the glowing moon of the Hashemites is eclipsed once more…
