20 Australian students first time visiting the Mosque | Mosque Tour

Please remove your shoe first. Please remove your shoe. Please remove your shoe. Make yourself easy. First time everybody? First time in Penang I guess. First time in Penang. And first time to the mosque? First time to the mosque as well? My name is Dean. Dean. If you've forgotten Don. Ding Dong. Ding. But my full name is Kamarudin. So it might be difficult for you to pronounce it, so make it Dean. Very universal. Come, come, come. We stand here. We are special guests. So welcome to the mosque called Kapitan Kaling mosque. Why this word Kaling? This is origin from India. 250 years back. And this mosque is about 225 years old. When the British came over, they brought the Chinese, the Indian and also they brought the Indian Muslims. So we settled down here, Manchester's, and they will build this mosque and it was very small. It was until here. Then later, after 50, 100 years later, it expanded. Expanded until here. And you see like a pigeon hole. There where they put the lamp. So in Penang, we have about 224 mosques. 224. And each mosque have their own design and architecture based on the culture of the people. And this you can see the architecture more to Indian, Mongol, Chinese, Indo-Pakistan architecture if you see this. If you go to New Delhi, India, you can see mosques like this. Because they're the Indian origin. And beside the history, 224 years, and the different architecture, but all the mosques in the world, they have the same pictures inside. This is the direction facing Mecca. See this is the direction. And men, women, children come to the mosque. And when we pray, we face towards Mecca. And what you see, what you can observe, you don't see any pictures or any images to say that is God. Then to whom we pray, we still pray to God. And the direction is towards Mecca, the black Kaaba. Have you seen the black Kaaba? That was built by Adam, the first man, Adam. And later, magnified and make it complete was Prophet Abraham. And later Prophet Muhammad continue it. And Muslims, in their lifetime, they will go to Mecca for their pilgrimage, pilgrimage in Mecca. So what do you see? Very simple, no chairs, no tables. What is this carpet for? This carpet for not to fly. When we pray, you see, if you remember the movie Aladdin, the lamb, there's a carpet. So I thought you might be thinking we can fly to Australia. Now, this carpet, when we pray, we pray side by side, for standing purpose, comfort purpose, for the leg. There's no fire, there's no music, very quiet, very simple. Men, women come to the mosque. We pray at the same time. We do all the same postures and actions, but we pray separately. So like this mosque we have on the right-hand side. Certain mosques, they are upstairs. That's the division. Come, let me show you something else. Let's look like a swimming pool. Don't jump. Okay. Come, come. See the inner part. Since this is an old mosque, this is very unique. You have a pool of water, look like a swimming pool, don't jump please. But it's a place where we perform our, what you call, physical cleanliness before we enter prayer. Muslim men, women, and children, before we perform our prayer, before we recite our Quran in Arabic, we will take what you call, ablution. What do we do? This is a normal tap water, it's not a holy water. We don't have anything holy here. It's a normal water. We wash certain part of our body. We start with Bismillah in the name of Allah. We wash our hand, and we rinse our mouth three times, our nose, our face three times, our hand, we begin from the right to the elbow three times, left three times, and the head could be once or twice, and the ear once, and the feet, right and left, above ankle three times. In English, we call it ablution. So Muslims, before we enter the prayer, we clean our certain part of the body five times a day. If you're a Christian, and I will say this is a minor baptism. Why minor baptism? The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he says, when you perfected your ablution, your minor sins were dropped together, your minor sins. We have minor and major. In university, you do minor and major. So we have sins, those are minor, dropped together. Beside the hygiene, beside the cleanliness, also the spiritual part, cleanse your minor sin. And after cleaning ourselves, we will come here, over in here, come, follow me. Hafiz, we will, men and women, after washing, we come here, we face towards Mecca, and where we now will perform our prayer. And the first is standing position. This is the standing position, very important position. All the Muslims in the world, whether they are from China, from Japan, in this position, they will read their prayer in Arabic. Today, Muslims, about 1.8 billion Muslims, including in Australia, in this position, we will recite something from the glorious Qur'an in Arabic, which I will share with you later. The second position he goes, the bowing position, not the Japanese bow, not this, where you can put a cup of glass here. So in this position, he prays God. Come back. In this position, he prays God, by saying, glorify to You the Most Majestic. And after that, he will fall on his face. And in this position, he prays God, glorify to You the Most High. So this is how Muslim men and women pray, standing, bowing, prostrating, and five times prayer, I will tell you how many circles that he has to do the bowing, I will tell. Right? Come this way, please. Okay. All right. This way, please. Come, come. What's your name? Asher. All right. Your good name? Ben. Ben. Easy, easy. Ben. Okay. Are you all with me? Friends, are you all with me? Right, good, beautiful. See, this is the glorious Qur'an in the Arabic text. And I'm in myself, origin. And today, my mother tongue is English. You know why my mother tongue is English? According to the American psychologist, I write in English, I read English, and I dream in English. That makes my mother tongue as English today, according to American psychologist. Right? Now, this Qur'an have 114 chapters. This Qur'an have 114 chapters, 6236 verses, 6236 verses. Today, Muslims are about 1.7 billion. Almost 90% of the Muslim world can read the Qur'an in Arabic, even they may not understand. And you will be surprised. We have 20 million Muslims, from the age of three to the age of 85 years old, boy or girl, male or female, Chinese Muslim or Japanese Muslim, have memorized the entire book. We have 20 million. I doubt anybody have memorized their Lonely Planet to Malaysia. You know the Lonely Planet? Even your psychology book also, you have not memorized it. But we have 20 million Muslims have memorized it. That's a fact. Why? Because the Qur'an has been recited in the prayer. And the Qur'an revealed to a man called Muhammad, 600 years after Jesus Christ, peace be upon them. So this Qur'an came to him in the period of 23 years. It hasn't came as a book. I give you one example. There's a woman went to complain to the Prophet Muhammad about the husband. And the husband was doing something not right. She went to complain to the Prophet and the Prophet was silenced. He was not giving an answer to her and she keep on pestering him until the revelation came. Chapter 58 of this Qur'an revealed because of her and emancipated her from the husband. Okay, example. And this is most important. We call it, remember when we are standing just now, we're going to pray in Arabic. And this is the several verses that we recite in our prayer. And it's a compulsory for all Muslim men and women, children, when it comes to prayer, these are the seven verses we recite in Arabic. Have you heard any recitation in Arabic before Qur'an? Have you? Have you? Have you heard? Never heard before. So I'm going to share with you this beautiful moment of yours. I'm going to read it to you. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. I'm reading. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he said, when you read the Qur'an, read it melodiously. How? Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. All praise to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Arrahmanirrahim. He's the most merciful and most gracious. Maliki yawmiddeen. He's the master of the Day of Judgment. Iyyaka na'budu wa iyyaka nasta'een. To you we worship and to you we seek for help. Ikhdinas siraban mustaqeem. Show us the straight path. Siraban ladheena an'amta alayhim ghayri almaghdubi ameen. Amen. Show us the straight path, the path that you bestow your favour upon. Not the path will earn your anger and madness straight. Ameen. Seven verses. This is where we perform our prayer. Let go that way. One more. Surely you have heard this. You see the minaret. Since you, how many, I think you've spent a lot of time in Penang. Have you heard somebody shouting? Yeah? Shouting, especially in the morning. They are actually not shouting, they are calling. My Jewish brethren, they have the tram, the horn to call for prayer. My Christian brethren, they have the bell. But the Muslims, in the time of Prophet Muhammad, they were deciding how to call for prayer, since we pray five times a day, so much. So that was God inspired to a companion of the Prophet, the call. And the call is in Arabic. If you go to Istanbul for a holiday, you will be seeing, you'll be hearing a lot. Who's been to Istanbul before? Have you been to Istanbul? Don't miss Istanbul, one of the most romantic city in the world. I'm going to bring my wife there again for second animal. So you will be beautiful architecture in Istanbul. So the call is in Arabic, whether from Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, up to Alaska, the call is Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. Remember the call? It's not same like I'm reading the Quran. It says Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. He repeated twice. We bear witness. There's no God worthy of worship except Allah. And we bear witness, Prophet Muhammad is a messenger of God. Come and pray. Come and pray. And he continues. Come and gain success. What success? Nobody at the door with 50 pounds. But the success of the heart. And Muslim believe by remembering God, the heart finds happiness. And the call finished by Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. There's no God worthy of worship except the one true creator, Allah. This is what you will be hearing. And now you got the meaning now. At least you got the little meaning. And when you heard this, you know the meaning now. Okay, shall we? So far so good. All right. Yes, very short. Life is easy. Right. You will see a very unique timetable. Come this way. I will not date my wife 132. I will say 130. This is the five times prayer. Muslims when they reach the age of puberty 1314 years old, they have to pray five times a day and the first prayer starts 622 in the morning. But January is a bit late. If you come somewhere August, you're already 550. So it changes according to the rotation of the sun. The first morning prayer 622 the second prayer 132. The tea time 454 sunset exactly in planning and 727 and the last prayer 840. Each prayer takes us only five to six minutes. Each prayer takes us only five to six minutes. Very much encouraged to be in the mosque so that you meet others. But if you cannot make it at home in your office, but today Friday 132 all Muslims will be gathering. Come this way. We come back to the starting point. So come come your special guests come. We are in the final section of the tour. So 132 all Muslims will be gathering and about 2000 people in this mosque about 2000 people will listen to a sermon from the pulpit. A learned man among us will give the sermon. We don't have priests, we don't have monks, we don't have holy people. We have only scholars and scholars, we can obey them, we can disobey them. But these scholars will give a sermon and the sermon contains of invitation. It invites us towards righteousness, piety. It talks about purpose of life, life after death. It talks about current issue. And today 132 I'm going to give a sermon in one of the mosques and the title of my sermon, the love of Allah. That's what I do. So this is how the function of the pulpit. You see this wooden thing here, beautiful wooden thing. It's where we hold this to give the sermon. If you remember Moses with his, what do you call this? His stick. So that's now correct, right. So this is all about what you see from the beginning to the pool of water, how Muslim pray, the recitation of the Quran and also the azan and the timetable and the pulpit. Now it's your time to question. This is your golden opportunity to ask me questions. First hand information, not from ABC, not from BBC, not from CNN. You have any question, you may disagree with me, go ahead. Spend five minutes of your time. Yes. Which legal tradition in Sunni Islam is the one followed here? You see, when it comes to Muslim belief, our reference is the Quran and the tradition of the Prophet, the Hadith. But we have school of thought. In Malaysia and Nusantara, the school of thought is from Imam Shafi'i. And yet Imam Shafi'i, we have to refer to the Quran and the tradition of the Prophet. There's slight interpretation different with the other scholars. I'll give you an example. Imam Shafi'i says, if you touch a woman, invalid your, your ablution. Another scholar say, if you touch the woman, will not invalid your ablution. Right? So that's the difference. But fundamentally, the concept of God, the concept of salvation, we are all together the same. Hope I've answered the question properly. Any other question that you have? Yes, please. Sorry, you said that it's encouraged to come to the mosque, but if you can't get elsewhere, so do you just do like the ablution elsewhere, like take a shower? Yes. Beautiful question. I fly to Tasmania recently for my daughter's graduation in Tasmania. So I have at least two time of the prayer. Right. So I just go to the toilet. I just do simple rapping. No, no, simple, simple, simple one. And I sit on the chair, I facing the captain, I perform my prayer. So we can, if you can't stand, you can pray while sitting. If you're very sick, you even can pray by lying. Right, by lying. If the end part, if you still cannot do anything, your eye blink. You can still do the prayer. So in Islam, there's no excuse you cannot pray. You can pray, standing, sitting, lying, or the worst, the blinking of the eye. And the next Friday, they say, meaning, I come from God, I return back to God. So but that's very flexible. Not only that, not only that, if you're traveling, if you're traveling, you can combine the two prayers. You can combine the afternoon and the tea time prayer. And you can combine the sunset prayer and the night prayer. You can combine. But the morning prayer, you cannot combine because it's two. See, normally God make is. Normally God make is. That's a good question. Any more questions? Yes, sir. Yes, we do silently. We sit and we whisper. That's it. At night, the loud prayer is in the morning and at night. When you're in the mosque, it's loud. But in your public, and you are recommended to, just whisper. Even you don't whisper, God knows your prayer. Right. Hope answer the question. Right, please. Just saying about traveling, I'm just wondering how you figure out when to do the prayers if you're in the A&D? Modern technology. Modern technology, modern Samsung, iPhone, they're helping us. But normally it's easy. You see the movement of the sun, the dark and, you know, morning. I have that problem in going to Tasmania, difference of four hours. I'm asking the captain to help me. You tell me, please, when is the time comes in? The captain are very helpful. So they will say it's a prayer time, another half an hour. Modern technology. Right. Any other question, please? It was serving a lot of the Indian community for merchants. Where in India did they tend to come from? Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, all over. All right. The prophet is asking where were these Indian Muslims coming from? The first answer is the Indian Muslim coming from Tamil Nadu, Madras, Madurai, Trichy. They come from this part of the world. But there's no such thing. There's a mosque only for the Indian to pray. No, we have the Malays coming, the Chinese coming. He's a Chinese, he's a Malay. I'm an Indian origin. So it's a multiracial. But it's because of the place and the tradition, they call it Kaling. If you go further that one mosque, you say Malay mosque, namesake Malay mosque. If you come back another two kilometres, you will see a Bengali mosque, the bungalow from Punjab. But it's all name. But inside, congregation, multiracial. Right. Any other tough question you may have that you feel very to ask me? Yes, please. For the man or woman? Okay. In Islam, when it talks about covering, like you're covering. And my sister, she's a Chinese Muslim. She's covering. And my sister is also covering from USM. Right. The covering does not apply for the woman, it's applied for the man as well. For the man, the entire, from the navel to the knee must be closed in the public. Our sisters in the public, their entire body except the face and the hand. But when they're at home with the rightful person, they are free. Right. The only reason for men and women in dressing is for the sake of modesty. That's it. Modesty. The Quran says so. And second answer to your question. Islam is not a ritual religion. Islam is a way of life. It talks about dressing. It talks about ethics. It talks about food. It talks about social relationship. It talks about international relationship. It talks about relationship with parents. It talks about relationship with non Muslim. It talks about banking. And of course, it talks about managing the country, free from corruption, free from nepotism, free from nationalism, which is extreme nationalism. So it talks about fairness. It talks about justice. That's the answer to your question. So Islam is a code of life, way of life, not a ritual religion. That's a good one. Any other question before you leave? Before you leave, I want to offer you a special tea, which you cannot get in Australia. Only Penang. If you drink this tea, you have visited Penang. If you have not drink this tea, you have not visited Penang. Unfortunately. Shall we have tea? Come. Lovely. She likes it now. What's your name? Where's your origin?