There is an annual celebration at the Golden Sands Resort – Arabian Night – when gorgeous tents are spread across the sand. Snake charmers and belly dancers entertain guests, who munch on baba ganoush and falafel, and smoke from a communal shiska water pipe. Quite a few of the guests this year were from the Gulf, and I expect they were amused at this attempt at re-creating their home customs. It’s often assumed that the influx of visitors from the Middle East is a recent phenomenon, while the story of Arabic migration actually has deep roots in the region.

THE TRADERS
Even before the adoption of Islam around the 15th century, Arab traders came to this area, leaving tantalising hints of their presence in coins and other artefacts (view these at the Bujang Valley Museum, Kedah) which they used as barter for the wares that were brought from China and ports further east. These exotic goods were then transported by Arab ships and caravans to the markets of Damascus and Aleppo, where the Europeans paid high prices for them. The Arabs also had a major role in developing the lucrative spice trade, although they had to invent a fabulous mythology about where the spice came from and how hard it was to acquire in order to keep the secret of its true origins and thus maintain their monopoly.

Later on, quite a few well-to-do Arabs settled in the various sultanates of Malaya, setting up trading businesses as well spreading the message of Islam to the local rulers, and often intermarrying with them. Even today, the royal House of Perlis is a family of Arabic descent. Many of the early “expats” in Penang and Singapore were from the southern part of Arabia – the Hadhramaut in what is modern Yemen. They were migrants from a harsh desert climate and also refugees from the Wahhabis, one of the most puritanical sects of Islam. Working as merchants, entrepreneurs, and teachers in Malaya, they nevertheless maintained a close relationship with their homeland, often returning there to retire.

PENANG PRESENCE
Penang’s earliest Arabic community came rather less directly from Arabia – through Aceh in Sumatra, where Arab merchants had previously settled. Today’s Lebuh Aceh (known then Acheen Street) in George Town was the centre of this community. One of the most notable new migrants was Tengku Syed Hussain, who moved to Penang from Aceh in 1792. As well as establishing himself as a merchant and owning a house worth 6,000 Spanish dollars (putting him in the league of the super wealthy), he also built the Malay Mosque in Aceh Street. Its peaceful surroundings and eclectic architecture (with North Indian, Chinese, and Egyptian features) make it a delightful place to visit. Although the interior is off limits to non-Muslims, the courtyard contains some of the earliest urban dwellings of the Muslim community in Penang. Some are half timbered, giving them a rustic feel, and more than one of them is in a state of magnificent disrepair, if not actual ruin. The family mausoleum of Syed Hussain, who died in 1826, is within the grounds.

The area around Aceh Street became known as the “Second Jeddah” as pilgrims from all over the region would gather here to wait for their ship to Jeddah to perform the Haj (a pilgrimage every adult male Muslim must make at least once in a lifetime). Pilgrims would stay in one of the many boarding houses or sleep in the mosque itself while their papers were being processed. In the 1820s, a wealthy Arab merchant named Sayyid Ahmad Al Sagoff bought two steamers to transport pilgrims across the Indian Ocean. (The Al Sagoff family, of course, played an important part in the development of Singapore.) The practice of going on Haj by boat only stopped in the 1970s when air transport became the preferred mode of travel. Nowadays, Aceh Street is quiet and has become very clean and gentrified, giving little clue of its busy, vibrant past.

In more recent years, Malaysia has become a destination of choice for many from the Middle East who wish to study at a postgraduate level. They tend to congregate around USM (Universiti Sains Malaysia) rather than George Town. The burqa-clad tourists from the Arab world come to Penang in the summer months, in what is known as “the Arab season,” and probably few of them realise exactly how close or how long lasting the connections between their homeland and the country they are visiting really are.

This article was written by Frances Wilks for The Expat magazine.
Source: The Expat September 2012

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