A Muslim Living in Kyoto

My initial worries about living in Kyoto for longer than a tourist’s stay (standard 3D 2N) were set aside as I found out during the first week of my stay here. Mr John Bush, the senior administration manager at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, (who is distantly related to the famous presidents), took me to the Kyoto Muslim Association and the Islamic Cultural Centre which is only about 50 metres away from KPUM.

The association was established in 1987 as a Kyoto University’s student organization and has developed into an Islamic centre with a prayer hall. The Friday prayers are also performed here and is currently protected under the Japanese law of religious corporations.

Kyoto had been Japan’s capital until 1869 when Emperor Meiji moved to Tokyo. To this date it still is a cultural and religious capital of Japan. This is evident by the scattering Buddhist temples, Christian churches, and religious Buddhist and Christian schools in this prestigious traditional capital city.

All the major roads in traditional Kyoto run either horizontally (from east to west) and vertically (north to south), in a very precise manner, it is very easy to find directions and locations. As this very direction-blind writer soon found out, much to her delight! To find the qiblat, which is roughly the direction of Makkah, you simply look at any major horizontal or vertically street and just face westward and slightly to the right. Simple, isn’t it? This is clearly documented in the “Muslim/Muslima Guide book for Living in Kyoto 2009-2010”. What do I have to say, they really are sticklers for rules, order and guidebooks!
There are short of 300 Muslims living in Kyoto, mostly are expatriates and foreigners studying at many universities or working as post-docs or professionals here. There are probably about 40 Japanese Muslims scattered in the city of Kyoto and the nearby areas.

Kyoto Muslim Association organizes activities like the weekly Friday prayers, where the Khatibs and Imam are rotated among the jemaahs. The Eid prayers are often held at a bigger venues i.e Kyoto International Community House or Kyoto Education and Culture Centre. The Iftar Party and Islamic Food Festivals were also held in the past. They also serve as an Islamic library, opens a small convenient shop which stocks halal frozen meats and canned foods. Other services include the shahada ceremony, marriage ceremony ad certificate, Hajj and Adha services.

I had the opportunity to perform my Eid prayers on 26 November 2009 together with about 200 Muslim brothers and sisters at the Kyoto International Community House. I took a subway from Kyoto Station up north and changed at Karasuma Oike for Keage station. I was stopped in Japanese by a middle aged gentleman as I was about to board the train. I could understand the word “Keage” from his mounth and I assumed he must be asking about the direction the train going, so I answered “hait” which I thought would suffice, but he carried on the conversation in more Nihongo than I could master, I had to apologize in English that I didn’t understand much of what he said.

His face showed relief, and he said “Oh good, my Japanese is also not so good”. Then he asked whether I was going to Keage, and I said yes, I was going to attend the Eid prayers. And so did he. When he saw a tudung-clad lady, he naturally assumed I was going the same way he did. He has been to the International Community House many times to attend the prayers but he has forgotten the way, blaming it on his old age. I introduced myself and found to my surprise he was not Japanese, but a senior academic Egyptian at Doshisha University. As we got down and out of the subway station, we were joined by many other Muslims.

We walked past the majestic Westin Miyako Hotel, in the crisp cold autumn morning to the Hall. We were greeted by Elif-san, who is the association’s manager ad instructed to go straight up to the Hall since the takbir and tahmid would soon begin. As I was settling down with my sajadah and telekung, I met Fatimah and her daughter who were also one-month old Kyoto residents, who hailed from Kuala Lumpur. Her husband was on a sabbatical research leave and they have actually lived 12 years earlier in Okinawa.

Unfortunately we were only among the 5 Malaysians who were there. I understand many other Muslim Malaysian students were not attending since it was a working Friday. Most of the jemaah were Indonesians, Arabic, Indian or Pakistani, based on the smattering of foreign languages I heard around me. The takbir and prayers were led by an Arabic Imam and the khutbah was delivered in English and doa in Japanese. After the prayers there were trays of pot luck dishes which were Arabic delicacies contributed by the gracious jemaah. My stomach was growling in hunger since I did not have any breakfast before coming and I was clearly missing my customary nasi himpit, rendang and kuah kacang on that Raya morning!

Professor Samir, my new Egyptian friend introduced me to a young Japanese gentleman who was also a university student named Hasan Nakamura, who I found out had just said his shahadah a day earlier. Masha Allah!

Professor Samir is a lecturer in Arabic and Cultural studies and his main interest is on theology. He later told me that he has been in Japan for 5 years and has taken a second wife, a local woman. He asked me over to his house at Shijo (the Fourth avenue) later to sample some Arabic and Japanese food. He made his own cheese!

Food is a subject of major concern to all Muslims, especially in Kyoto since halal restaurant is practically non-existent. Traditional Japanese did not consume much meat, as they were mostly Buddhists. However post-war era and modernization have turned their style of living to embracing the western culture of eating meat and pork, being the cheapest meat is largely used in all dishes.

A lot of food, even the onigiri (rice ball) frequently has pork extracts. Most ingredients are displayed on the packaging, the only problem being a guanjin, one cannot read it since 99.9% it is written in intricate Japanese writing. The guidebook given to me by Elif-san does provide some crash course in the salient words to look for at the labeling i.e pork, beef, chicken, mutton, animal fat extracts, gelatin, liquour, etc.

Now, if you think the stuff is quite simple, you’re dead wrong. The Japanese has three systems of letters. The hiragana, a completely phonetic alphabets which has 50 characters. Another phonetic alphabet is katakana, which has the same sounds as hiragana, but different written forms. Borrowed words from foreign languages are written in katakana. The third system is the Chinese characters, kanji, which are originally pictorial letters and has about 500 basic characters which can be combined to mean different things. It says you could combine kanji characters to make up to 2,000 words!

I’d have to admit practicing religion in this place could be challenging especially when most Japanese have not mingled much with the other ethnic races around them. Most have not traveled outside their society perimeters. Located at the far eastern region, they are almost exclusive to their own. May be out of admiration, they have always assimilated with the United States of America, more than the rest of the world, including their Asian friends. South East Asian geography in itself could be an enigma, what more the variable demography, and the different religious practices or beliefs that are associated with us!

Bakiah: Still learning new words with each new day: “Kyoto-oh, ai shi tek imas” (I love Kyoto).