“Sultans of Spice”: Kampong Glam Tour, Part II

As a follow up to the posting yesterday, here is part two of the Kampong Glam walking tour. After seeing some of the more interesting shopping areas, we headed to a mosque at the end of Bussorah St. I valued the tour because Geraldine has a relationship with the caretakers it made it much easier to gain access and find out more about the history of the Mosque. I believe this is the first mosque I’ve ever visited.
Why “Sultans of Spice?” Well, the Walking Tour Company trademarked it as such because it aptly explains what was going on at the time. In 1824 Sultan Hussain Shah, former ruler of Temasek (later named Singapore), proposed building a mosque within the royal palace grounds. Sir Stamford Raffles (of the East India Company) said he would donate $3000. Why would Raffles donate money? Essentially, the native people got caught in between a battle for control of the spice trade – after many “letter wars” the Dutch got most of, what was at the time, southern Asia and the British got Singapore and some northern territories. Throughout these “disputes” the locals were able to get a mosque built, but the Royals lost a lot power. At the time, this Mosque was modeled after those in Indonesia (pagoda-tiered roof). In 1924 the decision had been made to rebuild to what is standing now.

Masjid Sultan is the largest mosque in Singapore. It accommodates 5,000 people in mass prayer. Men pray in the main area and women pray in a separate area in the balcony or the area on the main floor separated by a pulled curtain (for those women who cannot go upstairs). Geraldine noted that the reason for the separation is to help maintain “focus” on their prayers. Hmmmm… They pray 5 times a day and this mosque (not all in S’pore) rings a bell to call for prayer. The washing area in the picture below is for the symbolic washing away of sins but also to provide an area to physically cleanse yourself before entering the mosque. We did not have to wash as we were not allowed on the carpeted area of the Mosque but we had to remove our shoes and cover our upper arms and have our legs covered to our ankles. They provided some robes but accepted my pants that didn’t go quite to my ankles – so, they were quite moderate for visitors.

The architecture of the mosque is quite elaborate and speaks to the Arab backing of the build although it’s quite multicultural because the black band you see just below the largest “dome” is made up of the bottoms of soya sauce bottles. Interestingly enough, by deed of trust, the Mosque is directed by a board of Trustees: twelve members representing six ethnic groups: Malays, Bugis, Javanese, Arabs, Tamil and Northern Indians.