Simon Soon
A 1859 letter was sent to the acting secretary of the Governor in Singapore by the Chief Engineer of the Straits Settlements regarding fire safety concerns of a building structure adjoining a Penang mosque.
In the letter the building structure is identified as an Ashura-Khaneh/Khana that was used by the ‘troops or others’ as a ‘place of worship’ during the ‘Muharram festival’. The Chief Engineer of the Straits Settlements then questions the peculiarity of British Government and military policy stipulating it did not pay for repairs to religious structures in India but did so in the Straits Settlements and Penang.
Straits Settlements Records, W31, 1859: 354.
The property is part of Shaik Nathersah Waqf, which includes the Ashrakan, a small cemetery and a kramat. . Shaik NAthersah alias Shaik Nather Sahib died in 1845. His descendant Shaik Sathuck Ally Shah Meah, gave a deposition that 'Shaik Nathersah's waqf in Chua Street' consisted of 'a building which is used every year to celebrate the name of Imam Hassan Hussain, Kenduri and read the Koran (and) a building for the poor who go there, a sort of rest-house for strangers and way-farers'. He also added that the waqf provided for an annual feast on the 13th Muharram and other Muharram celebrations.
Hand Book, 1932, p. 22-3, 35.
The Malay Realist. Undated. 'Postbag: The Origin of Boria' Newspaper cutout of an article that is thought to have appeared in The Straits Echo in 1970s, recorded an oral tradition that was communicated by Haji Fathil Basheer, handed down from his grandfather Shaik Omar Basheer and his father Zachariah Basheer. Haji Fathil notes, ;The birth place [of Boria] was at a city mukim (now defunct) called Asrakan, in the heart of the city itself, now known as Masjid Road, opposite the junction ofRope Walk and Chulia Street, Penang... At the place then known as Asrakan, these Shaiah Muslims erected a mosque-like edifice, in about 1842' The bilding was called 'Asrakhanah, from which the name Asrakan had been derived'.
Khoo Salma Nasution. 2004. 'Asrakan, burial ground and kramat, Jalan Mesjid, Chulia Street' Penang Heritage Trust, April- June, 12.
