Patrick Comerford
Kuching is an interesting city when it comes to cultural diversity and religious pluralism. We have moved back into the flat on Upper China Street, but we are within sight of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and are woken each morning with the mixed sound of cathedral bells, the call to prayer from the neighbouring mosques and a variety of sounds from the local Chinese Taoist temples.
Kuching’s sights include the ‘floating mosque’ on the Waterfront and the banks of the Sarawak River. Kuching’s ‘floating mosque’ attracts many tourists in the evening, when the golden lights of the sunset flood the majestic architecture of the building.
The Masjid India Bandar Kuching, with a capacity of 1,600 people, was to replace the Masjid India, across the street, which was close to 200 years old and almost hidden in a narrow alley behind the spice stalls on Gambier Street and the boutique clothes shops on India Street.
The original Masjid Bandar Kuching or Masjid India (Indian Mosque) was the oldest and only Indian mosque in Sarawak. Discreet but distinctive archways between the shopfronts and stalls on Gambier Street and India Street lead into the old wooden mosque and the alleyways that link the two streets.
It was the oldest and only Indian mosque in Kuching, but is so well hidden in the laneways and alleyways that few outsiders notice the original building until it is pointed out to them by local people.
The Masjid India, also known as the Masjid Tambi, to some local people was first built in 1834 as a simple hut on vacant by Indian traders who had migrated from south India, mainly Tamil Nadu and who needed a place to worship. Its walls and roof were made of nipah palms, and soon after it was established, the traders gathered enough funds to turn the hut into a surau in 1856.
The Indian Muslim Community bought a piece of land from the Brooke administration in 1871. The first early building was replaced by a modest structure built of belian (ironwood) and became an oasis of peace and cooling shade in the heart of Kuching’s busy commercial life.
Belian wood planks replaced the nipah palms walls in 1876, the floor was cemented later, and the mosque covered an area of 16,004 sq ft.
The name was changed to Masjid Bandar Kuching in the 1960s, but it was still known locally known as Masjid India and sometimes Masjid Tambi.
Malay Muslims also came to the mosque to pray and rest, when they would berth their sampans by the Sarawak River, near the Gambir Street wet market.
On Fridays, the congregation could swell to about 1,500, and on other days, up to 400 people would gather for prayers. The first Islamic religious school in Sarawak, the Madrasah Islamiah, was founded in the mosque in the 1940s.
The mosque was maintained by rent from 23 neighbouring shops. They were owned mainly by Indian Muslims who sold groceries, spices, cloth and books, but there were Chinese shopkeepers too. These were family-run businesses, handed down through the generations.
The old mosque had no minaret, and for over half a century he time for prayers was marked by the sounding of a drum, known locally as the bedok.
The name was changed to Masjid Bandar Kuching in 1960. By then, the building had become an important heritage site.
The new Masjid India Kuching or ‘floating mosque’ was built on the opposite side of Gambier Street, on the Waterfront, at a cost of RM21 million. It was officially opened on 1 March 2019, has a capacity for 1,600 people at prayer, and extends majestically out onto the Sarawak River.
The ‘floating mosque’ combines modern and Moorish architecture, incorporating the use of marble, ceramics, mosaic works and bomanite paving. Although it is known as the ‘floating mosque’, it is actually built on stilts, and it is only at high tide that it has the appearance of floating on the water.
But the old mosque continued to be known as Masjid Bandar Kuching too and for some years continued to be used as a religious school and to provide religious education programmes.
After the new mosque was built, the old mosque was faced with demolition. But the local business community and local Muslims signed a petition and the plan was abandoned.
The 190-year-old original Masjid Bandar Kuching looks empty and abandoned today, hidden in the narrow lanes and alleyways, awaits a transformation programme that would return it to its former splendour. There are proposals to revamp the wooden building, turning it into a tourist attraction with an historical library, and giving it a continuing role in religious education.
Malaysia has at least four other ‘floating mosques’: the Tengku Tengah Zaharah Mosque, the first floating mosque in Malaysia, was built in 1993-1995 in Kuala Ibai Lagoon, near Kuala Terengganu; the Putra Mosque is an imposing pink granite mosque built in Putrajaya in 1999; the Kota Kinabalu City Mosque (2000) in the city of Kota Kinabalu in Sabah; and the Penang Floating Mosque or Tanjong Bungah Floating Mosque (2005) in the city of George Town in Penang.
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