Singapore’s Arab Street
We have finally gotten around to exploring this part of Singapore; it’s where the old Malaysian rulers of Singapore used to live, next to the Sultan Mosque, below:
There’s a network of streets with traditional shop houses on them (very long houses about half a block deep, that are/were shops or warehouses on the first floor and living quarters upstairs), and they sell tons of fabrics – silks, Indian prints, headscarves, batiks – some to tourists, but most to the muslim women who need long-sleeved dresses and skirts to wear. And there are smoke shops, where people sit around smoking hookahs! The hookah smoke smells nice, like pipe tobacco, not like cigarettes, which tend to smell like burning trash. There are also very good middle eastern restaurants, including Lebanese and Egyptian, some cafes selling hot sweet mint tea in silver pots, a Turkish imports shop, and a really wonderful perfume shop, run apparently by a man and his two sons (tall and short, both smiling and sweet), who know all about combining essential oils to get interesting smells. (Yes, I’ve spent a bit of time in there.)
In addition to being the historic home of the muslim Malay rulers of Singapore, this area was also the home of islamic scholarship in the area, and the transportation hub for Asian muslims making the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. They would make their ways to Singapore from Indonesia and Malaysia, settle their affairs, and pack onto ships for Mecca (before flights became available and affordable). Some people made a nice business of organizing Hajj trips, and could advertise their services as “licensed pilgrim brokers.”
But not all Muslims who came to Singapore for the Hajj proceeded to Mecca. Plenty of them stayed in the area around the Mosque, and were dubbed “Haji Singapura” – pilgrims to Singapore.
And at the end of the street farthest from the mosque, there’s the Halal Swedish Bistro!
I don’t know what that means, whether your Swedish meatballs are certified pork-free or whether the smoked reindeer was properly bled before being smoked, but there you are. I ask you, where besides Singapore will you find a halal Swedish cafe?