An Indelible Imprint_ Yemeni Culture Pervades in Malaysia

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Posted on November 12, 2010 - by mira

An indelible imprint: Yemeni culture pervadesin Malaysia

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An indelible imprint: Yemeni culture pervades in ... http://www.mirabaz.com/wordpress/articles/an-in

of 11 Thursday, 11 August, 2011 09:32



By Mira Baz and Celia ZeilbergerPublished in Yemen Today

(Photos by Mira Baz and PJW)

Traveling through Kuala Lumpur and Penang in Malaysia, it can be tempting fora visitor to ask locals, “Where is your family originally from?”

Malaysia’s multiethnic nature entices visitors to ask the question.

“Can you guess?” Hussein, the cab driver, replies, not expecting an accurateguess.

“You look Yemeni.” He does.

He smiles, a bit taken aback. “My grandfather migrated from Yemen,” he says. A long conversation about Yemen and his family ensues as the car rolls downKuala Lumpur’s busy roads shaded with towering ancient trees. In his twenties,Hussein speaks little Arabic and has never been to Yemen, like many youngMalaysians of Yemeni and (usually) Hadrami descent.

Yemeni culture in the Malaysian melting pot

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2 of 11 Thursday, 11 August, 2011 09:32



Malaysia is a true melting pot – citizens of Indian, Chinese, Thai and Arabdescent all call themselves Malaysian. Officials at the Malaysian embassy stressthat though cultural plurality is encouraged, Malaysian identity takesprecedence. “While individuals may take pride in being of Yemeni descent, tous, they are all just Malaysian.” Cultural differences are celebrated, but theyare just considered a subset of the greater Malaysian identity.

This cultural inclusiveness is quite remarkable in a region known for culturaluniformity. Indeed, there are public holidays commemorating the religious andcultural festivals of each individual ethnic group. Meander around almost any of Malaysia’s cities, and you will come across different neighborhoods such asLittle India and Chinatown, where individuals celebrate their unique culturesand customs. At Malaysia’s ubiquitous hawker centers, food vendors sellingChinese, Filipino, Japanese, Thai, Malaysian and Arab cuisine compete side byside for the ringitts of locals and tourists.

While Yemenis may not have as visible a presence as some groups in Malaysia,they have nonetheless had a lasting impact on the country.

A number of Malaysians whose families have lived in the country forgenerations trace their lineage back to Hadramaut. In addition, hundreds of Yemenis now work in Malaysia, thousands more study at Malaysian universities,and many more come as tourists each year. Because Malaysia is one of the onlycountries that does not require Yemenis to have visas to enter, and because it isa beautiful country that is both exotic and comfortingly familiar to those from Yemen, Yemenis swarm to Malaysia. Malaysians regard these tourists withaffection. One cab driver, Hong, says he looks forward to the Eids every year,

because they are “peak Arab season.”

Years of Yemenis coming to Malaysia for both short and long stays has left anindelible imprint on Malaysian culture. Arabic restaurants dot the sidewalks of the buzzing Bukit Bintang area, and not far from here is a prominent signpointing the way to one of the city’s two Hadramaut restaurants. At one of theserestaurants, a young Yemeni waiter receives customers. He is a more recentimmigrant, like countless young Yemenis who arrive every year seeking jobs oran education in this rapidly developing country. They follow in the footsteps (orship tracks, if you like) of generations of Yemenis who have made the

centuries-old journey across the Indian Ocean.

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The manager of one of the Hadramaut restaurants, Yaser Faisal Noman,emigrated from Ibb seven years ago. He says that Yemeni expatriates, many of whom are students studying in Kuala Lumpur, love coming to his restaurant “toeat the food they grew up with.” Bilal Nader, the owner of the other Hadramautrestaurant and another relatively recent immigrant from Taiz, seconds Noman’saccount, and adds that born and bred Malaysians of Yemeni descent also enjoyeating these traditional foods. “The Yemenis hold on to their traditions, and theMalaysians of Yemeni descent come here in droves to eat our delicious salta andfahsa,” he boasts.

The Yemeni cultural presence in Malaysia is not confined to salta and fahsa,

though. At the Islamic Museum, Yemeni influence is evident in Malaysianhandicrafts, from jambiyas to qamariya-inspired window fittings. In Penang, thefamous Lebuh Acheh Mosque on Acheen Street attracts swarms of tourists. Themosque was established in 1801 by a prominent Achinese merchant of Hadramidescent, as a center for his fellow Hadramis. Many of these Hadramis lived, andstill live today, on Acheen Street, in specially-erected houses near the mosque.The street became a hub of Arab and Yemeni culture. Shops selling MiddleEastern spices and traditional handicrafts shops flourished. The street becameparticularly packed during the season before the Hajj, when pilgrims wouldflock to the historical street to prepare for the pilgrimage to Mecca.

A distinct history

Yemenis, particularly from Hadramaut, have had a long history of contact withSoutheast Asia, dating back to the pre-Islamic and early Islamic spice traderoutes from Southern Arabia. But the most reliably documented settlements of Hadramis in Asia start from the thirteenth century, growing in numbers in more

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recent centuries.

“We can trace back their large wave of immigration to Southeast Asia to the17th, 18th and 19th century,” says Dr. Ahmed Abushouk, Professor of History atthe International Islamic University Malaysia. “After the opening of the SuezCanal [in 1869], their number increased radically in different parts of Southeast

Asia, and particularly in Indonesia. Singapore also became one of the mostimportant commercial centers in the 19th and 20th centuries, and its strategicposition facilitated the Hadramis’ mobility between their homeland [Yemen] andthe diaspora community in Southeast Asia.”

The Hadrami migrants were merchants and traders who worked mainly inshipping and shipbuilding, but also became Islamic missionaries and politiciansin their newly adopted homelands. According to a paper by William GervaseClarence-Smith, shipping dominated the Hadramis’ entrepreneurial activitiesand they nearly dominated the shipping industry. In the 18th century, forinstance, they made up only 2% of sea captains but owned larger ships andcrossed longer distances than all the competition, outranked only by the DutchEast Indies Company.

Their success stories in Asia attracted more immigration from Yemen, and by

the 1930s, Dr. Abushouk says, up to a third of the population of Hadramaut, oraround 100,000 Hadramis, were living in Asia and Southeast Asia. The majorityof them maintained ties with their homeland and sent back remittances whichbecame the backbone of the Hadrami economy. The money not only supportedtheir families back home but also funded various projects such as buildingmosques and schools and buying lands.

“Yemeni Hadramis by nature are very good traders,” says Dr. Abushouk, “and

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they have a very wide network in the Indian Ocean, mainly due to trade.Besides that, some of them are very active religious scholars. They succeeded inthis context because the Hadrami Sayyids claim their descent from the Prophet,and this gave them a better chance to integrate into the Southeast Asiancommunities and to intermarry with indigenous religious and political elites.”

Such family names as al-Attas, al-Saqqaf, al-Junayd, al-Bar and Bawazir becameprominent and well-respected in the Malay Archipelago, holding leadingscholarly, commercial and political positions. Of the many notable public figuresare Syed Hamid bin Jaafar al-Bar, a former Malaysian government minister, andthe House of Jamalullail (or Jamal al-Layl), the ruling family of the Malaysianstate of Perlis since the 18th century.

The Hadrami Sayyids (or Syeds) trace their lineage to the Prophet through hisdaughter Fatima and her husband Ali ibn Abi Talib via his son, Hussein. A descendant of Hussein who had migrated to Hadramaut from Iraq is consideredthe ancestor of the Sayyids. They would later become known as the Ba-Alawitribe and would spread the Sufi order known as Tariqa Alawiyya.

“[They] played a major role in the Islamization of East Africa, Southern India,and the Malay-Indonesia Archipelago,” writes Dr. Syed Farid Alatas, AssociateProfessor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. “Many authorsstress the fact that Islam was brought to the region by traders from Arabia,Persia, India and China.”

In Malaysia today, their impact can still be felt, at the restaurants sellingsizzling salta, the shops selling crafts, and the mosques and houses standing as

testaments to this community’s rich history.

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Tagged with: Hadramis in Malaysia • Yemeni culture in Malaysia • Yemenihistory in MalaysiaThis entry was posted on Friday, November 12th, 2010 at 8:32 am and is filedunder Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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