| Yawning
Bread. October 2006
From oil lamps to LEDs by Dean Johari
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Muslims worldwide believe that Ramadhan marks the very first Quranic verse
that Prophet Muhammad received from the Archangel Gabriel. Theological
tradition asserts that one of the odd numbered nights in the last ten days
of Ramadhan was the night the Word was revealed, i.e. 21st, 23rd, 25th,
27th or 29th. The appointed night is termed in the Quran as Laylat-al Qadr
(The Night of Power/Fate). Muslims believe that God instructs the faithful
to seek out the blessings of this appointed night, where worshipping God
on this night carries more merits than worshipping for 1,000 months.
Against this backdrop of religious belief, it is not uncommon for Muslim folk during the earlier kampong (village) days in the Malay Archipelago to infuse folk practise or beliefs onto Islam. They believe that the angels will descend upon Earth in greater numbers and bring with them the providence of Laylat-al Qadr from God to the faithful. The Malays termed the time-period of these angels' descent as "Malam Tujuh Lekor" or loosely translated as "the last seven nights lag". To welcome the angels' descent upon the face of this Earth, the kampong folk would light oil lamps around their houses, especially on the last seven days of Ramadhan [1].
Hence, from the humble oil lamps, Muslims in the Malay Archipelago (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei) have largely made the blinking lights a mandatory item that must be put up during Ramadhan. And hey...it's festive, it's colourful, you get to compete with your next door neigbours on who has the most ornate light-up, and the kids love it too!
I should know, I was once a kid who'd never stop bugging my dad to put up the blinking lights even as we were only into the first day of Ramadhan. And now they have this new technology called LED lights (3,000 hours of light-up capability without blowing a bulb, and it does not emit heat at all). I bought 2 strands of these blue coloured LED lights in Geylang Serai, and promptly Blu-Tacked it up along my living room and bedroom window. They're glowing cool and blue even as I am writing you this e-mail. There've been times when I'd purposely walk down to Holland Village (where I live) after breaking fast, just to watch from the road my blue LED lights glowing around my apartment's windows. It's something I'd do as a kid...and I'm still at it come every Ramadhan. I hope that was enough information
to satisfy your query. I asked my late grandmother the same question that
you posed when I was 11 years old. I'm glad that at 30, I still remember
the answer.
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Footnotes
Addenda None
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From
this kampong practice of burning oil lamps, with electricity making
inroads, households found it easier to install light bulbs around their
homes. Soon, these light bulbs became colourful, and before we could learn
how to replace blown light bulbs, the famous Christmassy blinking lights
captured people's minds and imagination when it made its debut in this
region. Very soon, kampong houses were lined with colourful
blinking lights (replete with a centralised control to determine blinking
mode, e.g. chasing, twinkling, still, fade, etc.).
