Malaysian People - the Malays
|
|
Malaysians are comprised of the Malays, Chinese, Indians
and other ethnic groups. Archaeologically it was found
that some of the earlier population came from Africa across
the ocean over 40,000 years ago and coalesced with the
indigenous people. Other studies indicated the anchesters
could also have come from the northern geographies. Further
analysis also showed that the Malaysia Peninsula was the
passage way for many ethnic groups traversing Asia, Malay
Archipelago, and Australia where land bridges once existed.
Today the Malays made up the majority with 62% of the
population. The Chinese had about 24% of the population
though the proportion surged to 50% in the Kuala Lumpur area.
The Indian had 8% while the indigenous people Orang Asli
covered 7% of the population across Malaysia.
Islam is the official religion in Malaysia. About 60% of the populations are Muslims. As defined by the Malaysian constitution, all Malays are Muslims. Any non-Muslim marrying a Muslim will become a Muslim and so will their children. |
|
|
|
Malay attireI met this gentleman who worked at the bank wearing a full traditional Islamic outfit with pride and national identity. The attire could be worn with the shirt tucked inside or outside of the pants but both forms were acceptable. |
|
|
|
Headscarf / TudungThis young woman working in the hotel gift shop
was wearing a head scarf which started my
curiosity in search of the cultural reasons.
Tudung is the Muslim word meaning headscarf. They come in many colors, forms and shapes. In my opinion, they are worn more like a fashion. But tudung is worn to cover or shield a woman's head and body for religious reason but can extend to intangible like modesty, privacy, morality, etc.
|
|
|
|
PrayingLarge business office usually sets aside praying rooms
surau for employees with Islamic faith, one is
for the men and the other women. Daily an official prayer
schedule is published in the newspaper based on the position
of the sun and other celestial movements. For example, the
prayer times on the day when this webpage was published were
5:52AM, 1:17PM, 4:26PM, 7:21PM, and 8:31PM. The prayer time
changes every day and differs from city to city in accordance
to the latitude and longitude.
The schedule can be found on the newspaper, the internet, the
radio or even on loud speakers in some street corners. Five
times each day the Muslim are to pray. If they are in their
moving vehicles, they should pull over and pray. It is not
acceptable for a Muslim to miss a prayer though they can make
it up under special circumstances.
After obtaining the permission, I entered
the men's prayer room. The women's prayer room
was off limit to me. The first section was a
cleansing area where the men must first remove
their shoes and socks to clean their feet thoroughly.
Some would even clean their upper body, neck and head,
etc before entering the main section of the prayer
room. The placement of the mats on the floor are
all pointing to the direction of Mecca, the Holy
City. The direction is along the Great Circle path
and is unique from prayer location to prayer location.
If you are curious to find the direction of
Mecca while flying in a commercial airliner but without
a Muslim qibla compass, click
this article.
If you are taking a Virgin Galactic or a SpaceX
flight in space and want to find the direction of Mecca, click
this article.
Here was an audio recorded in one of the daily "call to prayer" (Adhan) outdoor broadcasts. Click the button below to hear a 2-minute Adhan to get a feel of the ambience. Note that the audio was recorded off the street with a lot of road noise. The prayer broadcasts were everyday events starting as early as 5AM, five times a day. This was a 5PM recording.
|
|
|
|
Malay customWhen a Islamic teenage girl reaches 14, she is to put on a headscarf/tudung to cover her hair. For a non-Islamic woman to marry an Islamic man, she will be automatically converted to Islamic faith by law. Her husband will then decide whether she will need to cover her hair with a scarf/tudung. |
|
|
|
Similarly for a non-Islamic man to marry an Islamic woman, he will be converted to Islamic faith automatically. In the Kuala Lumpur area, there are social acceptance or flexibilities that you don't have to declare yourself to be a Muslim in public and thus a woman can get by not having had to wear a headscarf/tudung. However in other Malaysia states the rules are quite strict and wearing a headscarf/tudung is enforced. |
|
|
|
In larger cities like Kuala Lumpur, cross race marriages by the Malays with other ethnic groups are on the rise and no longer discouraged. One of the reasons is that the Malays believe marrying someone from the outside may change their gene pool. There is also a trend to marry someone from a foreign country so there is an opportunity to move to a new land. All these of course are subject to the individual. |
|
|
|
笞刑處罰 12 strokes of a cane on your bottomAfter seeing the above picture, some of you may be
letting your imagination run wild and wondering
about the next move? ....
DON'T!!
It is important to note that there are very
strict social and legal guidelines in Malaysia about
'messing around'. Things are not as free flowing as
you may think or want. If you are unlucky enough
to be caught "being too close to the proximity" of a
faithful Muslim, you may get a penalty of 12 strokes
of a cane on your bottom. After that you definitely
will have a lot of explaining to do to your partner
or your doctor about the blossoms on your bottom.
It's going to be a pain in the ass for a long time. :-)
Check out the article below about flirting
with Muslims or even holding hands. I was hoping that
these rules are for the fundamentalists and they would
be more relaxed in larger cities like Kuala Lumpur?
Dream On!! But I don't want to find out :-)
Islamic lawyers want ban to cover non-Muslims caught flirting with faithfulReutersupdated 9:38 a.m. ET April 3, 2008 KUALA LUMPUR - Islamic lawyers meeting in Malaysia want an existing ban on unwed Muslim couples from cuddling or holding hands to be extended to non-Muslims caught flirting with the faithful, a local newspaper said on Thursday. Experts in sharia law, which currently applies only to Malaysia's majority Muslims, proposed at a seminar that there should be a civil law to deal with non-Muslims found committing the Islamic crime of khalwat, or close proximity, with a Muslim. "The Muslims can be sentenced in sharia courts and the non-Muslim partners can probably be sentenced in the civil courts, to be fair to both parties," a senior Malaysian sharia-court judge told the Star newspaper. Mohd Asri Abdullah, a sharia appeal-court judge, was quoted as saying the proposal would be forwarded to the Malaysia's chief lawyer, the attorney-general, for government consideration. The seminar also proposed penalties be increased for Muslims found guilty of khalwat, prostitution, gambling and consuming alcohol, to a maximum fine of $314 or five years' jail or 12 strokes of a cane for lower-court offences. Malaysia runs parallel sharia and civil legal systems, with sharia courts dealing only with Muslims and mainly in family disputes or in matters such as khalwat or apostasy. It employs religious police to ensure Muslim compliance with Koranic laws. They sometimes patrol parks looking for young unwed couples holding hands, raid nightclubs to catch Muslims drinking alcohol and ensure Muslims observe the fasting month of Ramadan. Some Muslims feel it is not fair to be punished for moral crimes that non-Muslims can freely commit. But non-Muslims, who make up around 40 percent of Malaysia's population of 26 million, strongly resist attempts to impose standards of Muslim morality on them, even if these attempts are sometimes mistaken. In 2006, Islamic officials mistakenly raided the apartment of a married American couple, both Christians, on suspicion of khalwat. The government later apologized to the duo. Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23935236/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSN Privacy . Legal © 2008 MSNBC.com |
|