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102-677: Sky Kingdom ( Malay : Kerajaan Langit ) was a Malaysian religious commune and sect founded by Ariffin Mohammed, also known as Ayah Pin (Father Pin). The commune, based in Besut , Terengganu , was demolished by the government of Malaysia in August 2005. As of 2006, Ayah Pin was residing in exile in Narathiwat , Thailand, just over the border from Kelantan . Eighteen members of the Sky Kingdom commune remain at

204-525: A cuneiform tablet. He translated it and discovered an hitherto unknown Babylonian version of the story of the great flood. This version gave specific measurements for an unusually large coracle (a type of rounded boat). His discovery lead to the production of a television documentary and a book summarizing the finding. A scale replica of the boat described by the tablet was built and floated in Kerala, India. Searches for Noah's Ark have been made from at least

306-626: A "box" or " chest " to describe the Ark, surah 29:15 of the Quran refers to it as a safina , an ordinary ship; surah 7:64 uses fulk, and surah 54:13 describes the Ark as "a thing of boards and nails". Abd Allah ibn Abbas , a contemporary of Muhammad , wrote that Noah was in doubt as to what shape to make the Ark and that Allah revealed to him that it was to be shaped like a bird's belly and fashioned of teak wood. The medieval scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn Masudi (died 956) wrote that Allah commanded

408-553: A crescent moon icon symbolising people without a religion, including the Orang Asli (indigenous peoples of peninsular Malaysia) and the aforementioned Orang Bunian . Ayah Pin, the leader and founder of Sky Kingdom, was born in 1941 in Beris, Kampung Besar Bachok, Kelantan . In 1953, Ayah Pin became seriously ill and he claimed that an angel had visited him. Twenty years later, the angel returned and Ariffin began his spiritual career. In 1975

510-467: A critic who doubted that the Ark could contain all the animals in the world, argued that Moses, the traditional author of the book of Genesis, had been brought up in Egypt and would therefore have used the larger Egyptian cubit. He also fixed the shape of the Ark as a truncated pyramid , square at its base, and tapering to a square peak one cubit on a side; only in the 12th century did it come to be thought of as

612-644: A descendant of the Proto-Austronesian language , began to break up by at least 2000 BCE, possibly as a result of the southward expansion of Austronesian peoples into Maritime Southeast Asia from the island of Taiwan . The history of the Malay language can be divided into five periods: Old Malay, the Transitional Period, the Classical Malay, Late Modern Malay and Modern Malay. Old Malay is believed to be

714-460: A detailed account of the logistics of the Ark, down to arrangements for the disposal of dung and the circulation of fresh air. The 16th-century geometer Johannes Buteo calculated the Ark's internal dimensions, allowing room for Noah's grinding mills and smokeless ovens, a model widely adopted by other commentators. Irving Finkel , a curator at the British Museum, came into the possession of

816-518: A lingua franca derived from Classical Malay as well as Makassar Malay , which appears to be a mixed language . Malay historical linguists agree on the likelihood of the Malayic homeland being in western Borneo . A form known as Proto-Malayic was spoken in Borneo at least by 1000 BCE, it has been argued to be the ancestral language of all subsequent Malayic languages . Its ancestor, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian ,

918-450: A local flood, which is described in the 1910 edition as part of a "gradual surrender of attempts to square scientific facts with a literal interpretation of the Bible" that resulted in "the ' higher criticism ' and the rise of the modern scientific views as to the origin of species" leading to "scientific comparative mythology" as the frame in which Noah's Ark was interpreted by 1875. In Europe,

1020-555: A mid vowel [e, o] . Orthographic note : both /e/ and /ə/ are written with ⟨e⟩ . Orthographic /e, o/ are relatively rare, so the letter ⟨e⟩ usually represents /ə/ . There are some homographs; for example, perang is used for both /pəraŋ/ "war" and /peraŋ ~ piraŋ/ "blond". (In Indonesia, "blond" may be written perang or pirang .) Some analyses regard /ai, au, oi/ as diphthongs. However, [ai] and [au] can only occur in open syllables, such as cukai ("tax") and pulau ("island"). Words with

1122-675: A new leader—a former police chief inspector in his 30s. The group is suspicious of visitors, and routinely turns out the commune's lights when a car approaches at night so as not to be found. The Sky Kingdom commune was featured in a documentary titled Massacre Survivors: Malaysia's Secret Sect produced by SBS News and distributed by Journeyman Pictures . The documentary's video can be seen on Journeyman's YouTube channel. The documentary later become an internet meme in Malaysia. Malay language Malay ( / m ə ˈ l eɪ / mə- LAY ; Malay: Bahasa Melayu , Jawi : بهاس ملايو )

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1224-434: A phonetic diphthong in a closed syllable, such as baik ("good") and laut ("sea"), are actually two syllables. An alternative analysis therefore treats the phonetic diphthongs [ai] , [au] and [oi] as a sequence of a monophthong plus an approximant: /aj/ , /aw/ and /oj/ respectively. There is a rule of vowel harmony : the non-open vowels /i, e, u, o/ in bisyllabic words must agree in height, so hidung ("nose")

1326-552: A real (though localized) flood event in the Middle East could potentially have inspired the oral and later written narratives; a Persian Gulf flood, or a Black Sea Deluge 7,500 years ago has been proposed as such a historical candidate. The structure of the Ark (and the chronology of the flood) is homologous with the Jewish Temple and with Temple worship. Accordingly, Noah's instructions are given to him by God (Genesis 6:14–16):

1428-477: A rectangular box with a sloping roof. Early Christian artists depicted Noah standing in a small box on the waves, symbolizing God saving the Christian Church in its turbulent early years. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), in his work City of God , demonstrated that the dimensions of the Ark corresponded to the dimensions of the human body, which according to Christian doctrine is the body of Christ and in turn

1530-431: A root word ( affixation ), formation of a compound word (composition), or repetition of words or portions of words ( reduplication ). Nouns and verbs may be basic roots, but frequently they are derived from other words by means of prefixes , suffixes and circumfixes . Malay does not make use of grammatical gender , and there are only a few words that use natural gender; the same word is used for 'he' and 'she' which

1632-432: A special ritual whereby followers would usher Ayah Pin from the main building to a concrete boat in the compound in which he would lie. His followers would then start chanting for him until 5:00 am. After this ritual, a lengthy question-and-answer period would take place, with Ayah Pin seated on a dais facing an audience. Hymns would also be sung during the session. The commune features some structures which are symbolic of

1734-697: A spiritual group was formed in Bagan Lebai Tahir, Butterworth, Penang . Whether Ariffin was the founder is unclear; during this phase he may have been a follower of Hassan Ya'acob (also known as Hassan Anak Rimau), another claimant to divinity. In the mid-1980s, the Sky Kingdom commune was formed on its present site in Besut. Some reports state the Office of Islamic Affairs declared the group to be deviant at this time. In 1995, Sky Kingdom's signature building projects began, in accordance with divine revelation. Two years later,

1836-566: A symbol of the Christ who was expected", stating that the vessel had its door on the east side—the direction from which Christ would appear at the Second Coming —and that the bones of Adam were brought aboard, together with gold, frankincense , and myrrh (the symbols of the Nativity of Christ ). Hippolytus furthermore stated that the Ark floated to and fro in the four directions on the waters, making

1938-530: A word which appears nowhere else in the Bible, but thought to be a loan word from the Akkadian gupru – and divided into qinnim , a word which always refers to birds' nests elsewhere in the Bible, leading some scholars to emend this to qanim , reeds. The finished vessel is to be smeared with koper , meaning pitch or bitumen ; in Hebrew the two words are closely related, kaparta ("smeared") ... bakopper . Bitumen

2040-523: Is Atrahasis , but the meaning is the same. In the Atrahasis version, the flood is a river flood. The version closest to the biblical story of Noah is that of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh . A complete text of Utnapishtim's story is contained on a clay tablet dating from the seventh century BCE, but fragments of the story have been found from as far back as the 19th century BCE. The last known version of

2142-402: Is dia or for 'his' and 'her' which is dia punya . There is no grammatical plural in Malay either; thus orang may mean either 'person' or 'people'. Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they are not marked for tense; tense is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as 'yesterday') or by other tense indicators, such as sudah 'already' and belum 'not yet'. On the other hand, there

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2244-456: Is a complex system of verb affixes to render nuances of meaning and to denote voice or intentional and accidental moods . Malay does not have a grammatical subject in the sense that English does. In intransitive clauses, the noun comes before the verb. When there is both an agent and an object , these are separated by the verb (OVA or AVO), with the difference encoded in the voice of the verb. OVA, commonly but inaccurately called "passive",

2346-430: Is allowed but * hedung is not. Pronunciation Pronunciation Pronunciation Study by Uri Tadmor which was published in 2003 shows that mutation of ⟨a⟩ in final open syllable is an areal feature. Specifically, it is an areal feature of Western Austronesia. Uri Tadmor classify those types into four groups as below. Malay is an agglutinative language , and new words are formed by three methods: attaching affixes onto

2448-557: Is an Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei , Indonesia , Malaysia , and Singapore . It is also spoken in East Timor and parts of Thailand . Altogether, it is spoken by 290 million people (around 260 million in Indonesia alone in its own literary standard named " Indonesian ") across Maritime Southeast Asia . The language is pluricentric and a macrolanguage , i.e., several varieties of it are standardized as

2550-406: Is designated the bahasa persatuan/pemersatu ("unifying language" or lingua franca ) whereas the term "Malay" ( bahasa Melayu ) is domestically restricted to vernacular varieties of Malay indigenous to areas of Central to Southern Sumatra and West Kalimantan . Classical Malay , also called Court Malay, was the literary standard of the pre-colonial Malacca and Johor Sultanates and so

2652-477: Is divided into Bornean and Sumatran Malay; some of the most widely spoken Sumatran Malay dialects are Riau Malay , Langkat , Palembang Malay and Jambi Malay . Minangkabau , Kerinci and Bengkulu are believed to be Sumatran Malay descendants. Meanwhile, the Jakarta dialect (known as Betawi ) also belongs to the western Malay group. The eastern varieties, classified either as dialects or creoles , are spoken in

2754-648: Is forced to rebuild it. In Book 18 of the Right Ginza , a Mandaean text , Noah and his family are saved from the Great Flood because they were able to build an ark or kawila (or kauila , a Mandaic term; it is cognate with Syriac kēʾwilā , which is attested in the Peshitta New Testament, such as Matthew 24 :38 and Luke 17 :27). In contrast to the Jewish tradition, which uses a term that can be translated as

2856-448: Is generally imagined, not amounting to a hundred species of quadrupeds ." It also endorses a supernatural explanation for the flood, stating that "many attempts have been made to account for the deluge by means of natural causes: but these attempts have only tended to discredit philosophy, and to render their authors ridiculous". The 1860 edition attempts to solve the problem of the Ark being unable to house all animal types by suggesting

2958-560: Is identified by tradition with a hill near the town of Jazirat ibn Umar on the east bank of the Tigris in the province of Mosul in northern Iraq, and Masudi says that the spot could be seen in his time. The Baháʼí Faith regards the Ark and the Flood as symbolic. In Baháʼí belief, only Noah's followers were spiritually alive, preserved in the "ark" of his teachings, as others were spiritually dead. The Baháʼí scripture Kitáb-i-Íqán endorses

3060-474: Is more likely option as "koper" is thought to be a loanword from the Akkadian " kupru ", meaning bitumen. For well over a century, scholars have said that the Bible's story of Noah's Ark is based on older Mesopotamian models. Because all these flood stories deal with events that allegedly happened at the dawn of history, they give the impression that the myths themselves must come from very primitive origins, but

3162-527: Is nearly identical to the Babylonian word for an oblong boat ( ṭubbû ), especially given that "v" and "b" are the same letter in Hebrew: bet (ב). However, the causes for God or the gods sending the flood differ in the various stories. In the Hebrew myth, the flood inflicts God's judgment on wicked humanity. The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh gives no reasons, and the flood appears the result of divine caprice. In

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3264-623: Is not a tonal language . The consonants of Malaysian and also Indonesian are shown below. Non-native consonants that only occur in borrowed words, principally from Arabic, Dutch and English, are shown in brackets. Orthographic note : The sounds are represented orthographically by their symbols as above, except: Loans from Arabic : Malay originally had four vowels, but in many dialects today, including Standard Malay, it has six, with /i/ split into /i, e/ and /u/ split into /u, o/ . Many words are commonly pronounced variably, with either [i, u] or [e, o] , and relatively few words require

3366-554: Is not readily intelligible with the standard language , and the same is true with some lects on the Malay Peninsula such as Kedah Malay . However, both Brunei and Kedah are quite close. Malay is now written using the Latin script , known as Rumi in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore or Latin in Indonesia, although an Arabic script called Arab Melayu or Jawi also exists. Latin script

3468-591: Is official in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Malay uses Hindu-Arabic numerals . Rumi (Latin) and Jawi are co-official in Brunei only. Names of institutions and organisations have to use Jawi and Rumi (Latin) scripts. Jawi is used fully in schools, especially the religious school, sekolah agama , which is compulsory during the afternoon for Muslim students aged from around 6–7 up to 12–14. Efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi in Malaysia, and students taking Malay language examinations in Malaysia have

3570-515: Is similar to Kelantanese Malay, but the language has no official status or recognition. Owing to earlier contact with the Philippines , Malay words—such as dalam hati (sympathy), luwalhati (glory), tengah hari (midday), sedap (delicious)—have evolved and been integrated into Tagalog and other Philippine languages . By contrast, Indonesian has successfully become the lingua franca for its disparate islands and ethnic groups, in part because

3672-619: Is the basic and most common word order. The Malay language has many words borrowed from Arabic (in particular religious terms), Sanskrit , Tamil , certain Sinitic languages , Persian (due to historical status of Malay Archipelago as a trading hub), and more recently, Portuguese , Dutch and English (in particular many scientific and technological terms). There is a group of closely related languages spoken by Malays and related peoples across Brunei , Indonesia , Malaysia , Singapore , Southern Thailand , Kampung Alor in East Timor , and

3774-517: Is the lack of possessive pronouns (and suffixes) in eastern dialects. Manado uses the verb pe and Ambon pu (from Malay punya 'to have') to mark possession. So 'my name' and 'our house" are translated in western Malay as namaku and rumah kita but kita pe nama and torang pe rumah in Manado and beta pu nama , katong pu rumah in Ambon dialect. The pronunciation may vary in western dialects, especially

3876-608: The Cham alphabet are used by the Chams of Vietnam and Cambodia . Old Malay was written using Pallava and Kawi script, as evident from several inscription stones in the Malay region. Starting from the era of kingdom of Pasai and throughout the golden age of the Malacca Sultanate, Jawi gradually replaced these scripts as the most commonly used script in the Malay region. Starting from the 17th century, under Dutch and British influence, Jawi

3978-601: The Constitution of Malaysia . This attention was coupled with considerable bemusement over followers' central objects of veneration, which include a large cream-coloured teapot, prompting local and foreign media to dub the sect as the "teapot cult". The 6-acre (2.4 ha), 33-building complex was located near the village of Kampung Batu 13, Hulu Besut, in the Besut district in northern Terengganu (some 400 km northeast of Kuala Lumpur and 20 km south of Besut's most populous settlement, Jerteh ). Sky Kingdom had existed on

4080-564: The Enakmen Pentadbiran Hal Ehwal Agama Islam 1986 (Administration of Islamic Religious Affairs 1986), stating that his teachings and beliefs were "false, deviant, corrupting and threatening to the public peace" ( membawa ancaman kepada ketenteraman orang awam serta merosakkan akidah ). He pleaded guilty to a charge of "belittling Islam" ( menghina Islam ), and was jailed for 11 months and fined RM 2,900. The Religious Affairs Office hoped that Ariffin's arrest would prevent

4182-466: The Encyclopædia Britannica from 1771 describes the Ark as factual. It also attempts to explain how the Ark could house all living animal types: "... Buteo and Kircher have proved geometrically, that, taking the common cubit as a foot and a half, the ark was abundantly sufficient for all the animals supposed to be lodged in it ... the number of species of animals will be found much less than

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4284-484: The Renaissance saw much speculation on the nature of the Ark that might have seemed familiar to early theologians such as Origen and Augustine . At the same time, however, a new class of scholarship arose, one which, while never questioning the literal truth of the ark story, began to speculate on the practical workings of Noah's vessel from within a purely naturalistic framework. In the 15th century, Alfonso Tostada gave

4386-399: The 12th-century Jewish commentator Abraham ibn Ezra interpreted the ark as a vessel that remained underwater for 40 days, after which it floated to the surface. The First Epistle of Peter (composed around the end of the first century AD ) compared Noah's salvation through water to Christian salvation through baptism. Hippolytus of Rome (died 235) sought to demonstrate that "the Ark was

4488-526: The Archons , a 3rd-century Gnostic text, Noah is chosen to be spared by the evil Archons when they try to destroy the other inhabitants of the Earth with the great flood. He is told to create the ark then board it at a location called Mount Sir, but when his wife Norea wants to board it as well, Noah attempts to not let her. So she decides to use her divine power to blow upon the ark and set it ablaze, therefore Noah

4590-432: The Ark. A differing opinion is that the Ark itself distinguished clean animals from unclean, admitting seven pairs each of the former and one pair each of the latter. According to Sanhedrin 108b, Noah was engaged both day and night in feeding and caring for the animals, and did not sleep for the entire year aboard the Ark. The animals were the best of their kind and behaved with utmost goodness. They did not procreate, so

4692-664: The Armenians believed that the remains of the Ark lay "in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans", in a location they called the Place of Descent ( Ancient Greek : αποβατηριον ). He goes on to say that many other writers of "barbarian histories", including Nicolaus of Damascus , Berossus , and Mnaseas mention the flood and the Ark. In the fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis wrote about Noah's Ark in his Panarion , saying "Thus even today

4794-571: The Babylonian Atrahasis version, the flood is sent to reduce human overpopulation, and after the flood, other measures were introduced to limit humanity. A consensus among scholars indicates that the Torah (the first five books of the Bible, beginning with Genesis) was the product of a long and complicated process that was not completed until after the Babylonian exile . Since the 18th century,

4896-558: The Besut Land Office destroyed Sky Kingdom's buildings, citing Section 129 of the National Land Code, which punishes unauthorised construction with land confiscation. The titular landowner is Ariffin's first wife, who failed to appear in court for a hearing on the ownership. At a 1 September 2005, hearing, a trial date for the 45 followers accused of violating the government fatwa was set for three days beginning 18 December. All of

4998-503: The Earth to absorb the water, and certain portions which were slow in obeying received salt water in punishment and so became dry and arid . The water which was not absorbed formed the seas, so that the waters of the flood still exist. Masudi says the ark began its voyage at Kufa in central Iraq and sailed to Mecca , circling the Kaaba before finally traveling to Mount Judi , which surah 11:44 gives as its final resting place. This mountain

5100-458: The Flood, Noah, and the Ark as we know it today certainly originated in the landscape of ancient Mesopotamia, modern Iraq." Linguistic parallels between Noah's and Atrahasis' arks have also been noted. The word used for "pitch" (sealing tar or resin) in Genesis is not the normal Hebrew word, but is closely related to the word used in the Babylonian story. Likewise, the Hebrew word for "ark" ( tēvāh )

5202-593: The Islamic belief that Noah had numerous companions on the ark, either 40 or 72, as well as his family, and that he taught for 950 (symbolic) years before the flood. The Baháʼí Faith was founded in 19th century Persia, and it recognizes divine messengers from both the Abrahamic and the Indian traditions. Multiple Jewish and Christian writers in the ancient world wrote about the ark. The first-century historian Josephus reports that

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5304-404: The Malay world of Southeast Asia, and was one of the oldest testimonies to the advent of Islam as a state religion in the region. It contains the proclamation issued by a ruler of Terengganu known as Seri Paduka Tuan, urging his subjects to extend and uphold Islam and providing 10 basic Sharia laws for their guidance. The classical Malay language came into widespread use as the lingua franca of

5406-991: The Malayic languages spoken by the Orang Asli ( Proto-Malay ) in Malaya . They are Jakun , Orang Kanaq , Orang Seletar , and Temuan . The other Malayic languages, included in neither of these groups, are associated with the expansion of the Malays across the archipelago. They include Riau-Johor Malay ( Malaysian and Indonesian ), Kedah Malay , Kedayan/Brunei Malay , Berau Malay , Bangka Malay , Jambi Malay , Kutai Malay , Natuna Malay, Riau Malay , Loncong , Pattani Malay , and Banjarese . Menterap may belong here. There are also several Malay-based creole languages , such as Betawi , Cocos Malay , Makassar Malay , Ambonese Malay , Dili Malay , Kupang Malay , Manado Malay , Papuan Malay , Pattani Malay , Satun Malay , Songkhla Malay , Bangkok Malay , and Sabah Malay , which may be more or less distinct from standard (Malaccan) Malay. Due to

5508-548: The Mesopotamian flood story was written in Greek in the third century BCE by a Babylonian priest named Berossus . From the fragments that survive, it seems little changed from the versions of 2,000 years before. The parallels between Noah's Ark and the arks of Babylonian flood heroes Atrahasis and Utnapishtim have often been noted. Atrahasis's Ark was circular, resembling an enormous quffa , with one or two decks. Utnapishtim's ark

5610-453: The accused are represented by Wan Haidi Wan Jusoh of Ubaidullah Aziz and Company, who unsuccessfully petitioned the court to order his name blacked out by the media. The Sky Kingdom had previously had great difficulty obtaining legal representation, presumably because of attorneys' fears of reprisals or negative publicity. As of 2007, after wide media coverage, the original Hulu Besut commune, now containing only 24 members, had reportedly chosen

5712-654: The actual ancestor of Classical Malay. Old Malay was influenced by Sanskrit, the classical language of India . Sanskrit loan words can be found in Old Malay vocabulary. The earliest known stone inscription in the Old Malay language was found in Sumatra , Indonesia, written in the Pallava variety of the Grantha alphabet and is dated 1 May 683. Known as the Kedukan Bukit inscription , it

5814-478: The ark have been suggested but have never been confirmed. Search sites have included the Durupınar site , a site on Mount Tendürek , and Mount Ararat , both in eastern Turkey , but geological investigation of possible remains of the ark has only shown natural sedimentary formations. While biblical literalists often maintain the Ark's existence in archaeological history, its scientific feasibility, along with that of

5916-402: The ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high (approximately 134×22×13 m or 440×72×43 ft). These dimensions are based on a numerological preoccupation with the number 60, the same number characterizing the vessel of the Babylonian flood hero. Its three internal divisions reflect the three-part universe imagined by the ancient Israelites: heaven, the earth, and

6018-564: The body of the Church. Jerome ( circa 347–420) identified the raven, which was sent forth and did not return, as the "foul bird of wickedness" expelled by baptism ; more enduringly, the dove and olive branch came to symbolize the Holy Spirit and the hope of salvation and eventually, peace. The olive branch remains a secular and religious symbol of peace today. According to the Hypostasis of

6120-500: The charge of failing to observe the government fatwa by continuing to be "members of a sect declared deviant", which carries a fine up to RM 3,000 or two years in prison. One of those arrested faced an additional charge of "humiliating Islam" for claiming no longer to be a Muslim. Court cases will revolve around the right of religious freedom, which is theoretically guaranteed by the Malaysian constitution. On 1 August 2005, officials of

6222-549: The colonial language, Dutch, is no longer commonly spoken. (In East Timor , which was governed as a province of Indonesia from 1976 to 1999, Indonesian is widely spoken and recognized under its Constitution as a 'working language'.) Besides Indonesian , which developed from the Riau Malay dialect, there are many Malay varieties spoken in Indonesia; they are divided into western and eastern groups. Western Malay dialects are predominantly spoken in Sumatra and Borneo , which itself

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6324-449: The coming deluge, but was ignored or mocked. God placed lions and other ferocious animals to protect Noah and his family from the wicked who tried to keep them from the Ark. According to one Midrash , it was God, or the angels , who gathered the animals and their food to the Ark. As no need existed to distinguish between clean and unclean animals before this time, the clean animals made themselves known by kneeling before Noah as they entered

6426-479: The commune for the first time have to drink holy water from the vase which is perpetually filled by the teapot. Another notable feature in the compound is an equally large yellow umbrella, which offers "a place for people to take shelter beneath God." It is said that this can also be associated with the nine planets in Hinduism." Other symbols present include an ornamental fishing boat, identified with Noah's Ark , and

6528-671: The constitution as one of two working languages (the other being English ), alongside the official languages of Tetum and Portuguese . The extent to which Malay is used in these countries varies depending on historical and cultural circumstances. Malay is the national language in Malaysia by Article 152 of the Constitution of Malaysia , and became the sole official language in Peninsular Malaysia in 1968 and in East Malaysia gradually from 1974. English continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial fields and in

6630-505: The court moved to establish the Johor Sultanate, it continued using the classical language; it has become so associated with Dutch Riau and British Johor that it is often assumed that the Malay of Riau is close to the classical language. However, there is no closer connection between Malaccan Malay as used on Riau and the Riau vernacular. Among the oldest surviving letters written in Malay are

6732-481: The early settlement of a Cape Malay community in Cape Town , who are now known as Coloureds , numerous Classical Malay words were brought into Afrikaans . The extent to which Malay and related Malayan languages are used in the countries where it is spoken varies depending on historical and cultural circumstances. Malay is the national language in Malaysia by Article 152 of the Constitution of Malaysia , and became

6834-474: The eastern part of the Malay or Nusantara archipelago and include Makassar Malay , Manado Malay , Ambonese Malay , North Moluccan Malay , Kupang Malay , Dili Malay , and Papuan Malay . The differences among both groups are quite observable. For example, the word kita means 'we, us' in western, but means 'I, me' in Manado, whereas 'we, us" in Manado is torang and Ambon katong (originally abbreviated from Malay kita orang 'we people'). Another difference

6936-590: The far southern parts of the Philippines . They have traditionally been classified as Malay, Para-Malay, and Aboriginal Malay, but this reflects geography and ethnicity rather than a proper linguistic classification. The Malayic languages are mutually intelligible to varying extents, though the distinction between language and dialect is unclear in many cases. Para-Malay includes the Malayic languages of Sumatra . They are: Minangkabau , Central Malay (Bengkulu), Pekal , Talang Mamak , Musi (Palembang), Negeri Sembilan (Malaysia), and Duano’ . Aboriginal Malay are

7038-422: The flood narrative has been analysed as a paradigm example of the combination of two different versions of a story into a single text, with one marker for the different versions being a consistent preference for different names "Elohim" and "Yahweh" to denote God. The Talmudic tractates Sanhedrin , Avodah Zarah , and Zevahim relate that, while Noah was building the Ark, he attempted to warn his neighbors of

7140-409: The group once hosted a visit by a Christian group. Ayah Pin accepts the existence of angels , as well as a class of Malaysian forest fairies, called Orang Bunian . The Sky Kingdom also emphasizes the importance of spiritual healing as well as dream interpretation . Ayah Pin used to conduct "sessions" on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. According to a witness, the sessions began at 3.00am with

7242-472: The group's ideology. Some notable symbols include a two-story high cream coloured teapot with a similarly-sized blue vase, costing RM 45 million. The teapot is said to symbolise the purity of water and "love pouring from heaven". It is the earthly model of a celestial prototype. According to Ayah Pin, it was inspired by the dreams of one of his followers, and reflects a similar vessel in the sky which God uses to shower his blessings on mankind. Followers who visit

7344-560: The heavens and is believed by his followers to be the reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha , Shiva , and Muhammad . Devotees of Sky Kingdom believe that one day, Ayah Pin will return as the Imam Mahdi . His followers consider him the king of the sky, and the supreme object of devotion for all religions. A major emphasis of the Sky Kingdom religion is ecumenical dialogue and inter-religious harmony. People of different religious backgrounds have joined. Ayah Pin has visited several Hindu temples and

7446-514: The highlands of Sumatra , Indonesia . Terengganu Inscription Stone (Malay: Batu Bersurat Terengganu ; Jawi: باتو برسورت ترڠݢانو ) is a granite stele carrying inscription in Jawi script that was found in Terengganu, Malaysia is the earliest evidence of classical Malay inscription. The inscription, dated possibly to 702 AH (corresponds to 1303 CE), constituted the earliest evidence of Jawi writing in

7548-554: The language is sometimes called Malacca, Johor or Riau Malay (or various combinations of those names) to distinguish it from the various other Malayic languages . According to Ethnologue 16, several of the Malayic varieties they currently list as separate languages, including the Orang Asli varieties of Peninsular Malay , are so closely related to standard Malay that they may prove to be dialects. There are also several Malay trade and creole languages (e.g. Ambonese Malay ) based on

7650-746: The languages' words for kinship, health, body parts and common animals. Numbers, especially, show remarkable similarities. Within Austronesian, Malay is part of a cluster of numerous closely related forms of speech known as the Malayic languages , which were spread across Malaya and the Indonesian archipelago by Malay traders from Sumatra. There is disagreement as to which varieties of speech popularly called "Malay" should be considered dialects of this language, and which should be classified as distinct Malay languages. The vernacular of Brunei— Brunei Malay —for example,

7752-454: The letters from Sultan Abu Hayat of Ternate , Maluku Islands in present-day Indonesia , dated around 1521–1522. The text is addressed to the king of Portugal , following contact with Portuguese explorer Francisco Serrão . The letters show sign of non-native usage; the Ternateans used (and still use) the unrelated Ternate language , a West Papuan language , as their first language . Malay

7854-436: The local Religious Affairs Council ( Jawatankuasa Fatwa Majlis Agama Islam dan Adat Melayu Terengganu ) issued a fatwa against the group. About this time, four adherents were arrested for the crime of renouncing Islam , but they were later freed since as ex-Muslims Malaysia's sharia court no longer has jurisdiction over them. In 2001 Ayah Pin himself renounced Islam. The Sharia court accused him of contravening Section 25 of

7956-404: The lowest of the Ark's three decks, humans and clean beasts on the second, and the unclean animals and birds on the top. A differing interpretation described the refuse as being stored on the topmost deck, from where it was shoveled into the sea through a trapdoor. Precious stones, as bright as the noon sun, provided light, and God ensured the food remained fresh. In an unorthodox interpretation,

8058-418: The mercy of the Malaysia's Higher Shariah Court, with 40 having received leniency upon renouncing the group. Sky Kingdom attracted worldwide mass media attention in mid-2005 over concerns about efforts by the Malaysian government to suppress its followers as apostates from Islam . The controversy brought to light the issue of whether sharia law superseded the right to religious freedom under Article 11 of

8160-487: The movement's growth. However, the Sky Kingdom continued to attract new followers from university students and Orang Asli . On 18 July 2005, a group of masked vigilantes attacked the group's headquarters, smashing windows and torching buildings. Two days later, 58 Sky Kingdom followers were arrested, and on 31 July three of Ariffin's four wives were arrested in Kelantan . Ariffin escaped capture. Forty-five of his followers face

8262-654: The myth of the global flood that destroys all life only begins to appear in the Old Babylonian period (20th–16th centuries BCE). The reasons for this emergence of the typical Mesopotamian flood myth may have been bound up with the specific circumstances of the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BCE and the restoration of order by the First Dynasty of Isin . Nine versions of the Mesopotamian flood story are known, each more or less adapted from an earlier version. In

8364-478: The national language ( bahasa kebangsaan or bahasa nasional ) of several nation states with various official names: in Malaysia, it is designated as either Bahasa Malaysia (" Malaysian ") or also Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language"); in Singapore and Brunei, it is called Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language"); in Indonesia, an autonomous normative variety called Bahasa Indonesia (" Indonesian language ")

8466-409: The number of creatures that disembarked was exactly equal to the number that embarked. The raven created problems, refusing to leave the Ark when Noah sent it forth, and accusing the patriarch of wishing to destroy its race, but as the commentators pointed out, God wished to save the raven, for its descendants were destined to feed the prophet Elijah . According to one tradition, refuse was stored on

8568-544: The numbers of followers of Sky Kingdom put them at several thousand, though this number would heavily depend on the criteria used for inclusion. As few as 25 now live on the commune, down from about 120 prior to the demolitions. Besides Malaysia, members are also said to be located in Singapore, India, the United Kingdom, India and various African countries. One adherent hails from New Zealand. A Muslim by birth, Ariffin, also known as Ayah Pin, claims to have direct contact with

8670-564: The oldest version, inscribed in the Sumerian city of Nippur around 1600 BCE, the hero is King Ziusudra . This story, the Sumerian flood myth , probably derives from an earlier version. The Ziusudra version tells how he builds a boat and rescues life when the gods decide to destroy it. This basic plot is common in several subsequent flood stories and heroes, including Noah. Ziusudra's Sumerian name means "he of long life." In Babylonian versions, his name

8772-431: The option of answering questions using Jawi. The Latin script, however, is the most commonly used in Brunei and Malaysia, both for official and informal purposes. Historically, Malay has been written using various scripts. Before the introduction of Arabic script in the Malay region, Malay was written using the Pallava , Kawi and Rencong scripts; these scripts are no longer frequently used, but similar scripts such as

8874-717: The pronunciation of words ending in the vowel 'a'. For example, in some parts of Malaysia and in Singapore, kita (inclusive 'we, us, our') is pronounced as /kitə/ , in Kelantan and Southern Thailand as /kitɔ/ , in Riau as /kita/ , in Palembang as /kito/ , in Betawi and Perak as /kitɛ/ and in Kedah and Perlis as /kitɑ/. Noah%27s Ark Early Christian and Jewish writers such as Flavius Josephus believed that Noah's Ark existed. Unsuccessful searches for Noah's Ark have been made from at least

8976-528: The region during the Malacca Sultanate era (1402–1511). It was the period the Malay language developed rapidly under the influence of Islamic literature. The development changed the nature of the language with massive infusion of Arabic , Sanskrit , and Tamil vocabularies, called Classical Malay . Under the Sultanate of Malacca the language evolved into a form recognisable to speakers of modern Malay. When

9078-502: The remains of Noah's ark are still shown in Cardyaei." Other translations render "Cardyaei" as "the country of the Kurds". John Chrysostom mentioned Noah's Ark in one of his sermons in the fourth century, saying ""Do not the mountains of Armenia testify to it, where the Ark rested? And are not the remains of the Ark preserved there to this very day for our admonition? The first edition of

9180-632: The sign of the cross, before eventually landing on Mount Kardu "in the east, in the land of the sons of Raban, and the Orientals call it Mount Godash; the Armenians call it Ararat". On a more practical plane, Hippolytus explained that the lowest of the three decks was for wild beasts, the middle for birds and domestic animals, and the top for humans. He says male animals were separated from females by sharp stakes to prevent breeding. The early Church Father and theologian Origen ( circa 182–251), in response to

9282-430: The site since the mid-1980s, though the group itself dates back to the late 1970s. Before the commune was demolished, the group supported itself through rubber tapping, religious tourism, and confectionery production. The Malaysian government has described the "teapot cult" of Sky Kingdom as one of 22 "heretical" Islamic "sects" or "cults" in Malaysia, which altogether have an estimated 22,800 adherents. Most estimates of

9384-583: The sole official language in West Malaysia in 1968, and in East Malaysia gradually from 1974. English continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial fields and in the superior courts. Other minority languages are also commonly used by the country's large ethnic minorities. The situation in Brunei is similar to that of Malaysia. In Singapore, Malay was historically the lingua franca among people of different nationalities. Although this has largely given way to English, Malay still retains

9486-435: The status of national language and the national anthem , Majulah Singapura , is entirely in Malay. In addition, parade commands in the military, police and civil defence are given only in Malay. Most residents of the five southernmost provinces of Thailand —a region that, for the most part, used to be part of an ancient Malay kingdom called Pattani —speak a dialect of Malay called Yawi (not to be confused with Jawi), which

9588-590: The superior courts. Other minority languages are also commonly used by the country's large ethnic minorities. The situation in Brunei is similar to that in Malaysia. In the Philippines , Indonesian is spoken by the overseas Indonesian community concentrated in Davao City . Functional phrases are taught to members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines as well as local students. Malay, like most Austronesian languages,

9690-450: The time of Eusebius (c. 275 – 339 CE) to the present day. In the 1st century, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus claimed the remaining pieces of Noah's Ark had been found in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans, which is understood to be Mount Ararat in Turkey . Today, the practice of seeking the remains of the Ark is widely regarded as pseudoarchaeology . Various locations for

9792-412: The time of Eusebius (c. 275–339 CE). Believers in the Ark continue to search for it in modern times, but no scientific evidence that the Ark existed has ever been found, nor is there scientific evidence for a global flood. The boat and the natural disaster as described in the Bible would have been contingent upon physical impossibilities and extraordinary anachronisms. Some researchers believe that

9894-537: The underworld. Each deck is the same height as the Temple in Jerusalem, itself a microcosmic model of the universe, and each is three times the area of the court of the tabernacle, leading to the suggestion that the author saw both Ark and tabernacle as serving for the preservation of human life. It has a door in the side, and a tsohar , which may be either a roof or a skylight . It is to be made of gopher wood " goper ",

9996-501: Was a cube with six decks of seven compartments, each divided into nine subcompartments (63 subcompartments per deck, 378 total). Noah's Ark was rectangular with three decks. A progression is believed to exist from a circular to a cubic or square to rectangular. The most striking similarity is the near-identical deck areas of the three arks: 14,400 cubits , 14,400 cubits , and 15,000 cubits for Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, and Noah, only 4% different. Irving Finkel concluded, "the iconic story of

10098-612: Was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920 at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra , on the banks of the Tatang, a tributary of the Musi River . It is a small stone of 45 by 80 centimetres (18 by 31 in). For centuries, Srivijaya , through its expansion, economic power and military prowess, was responsible for the widespread of Old Malay throughout the Malay Archipelago . It

10200-452: Was gradually replaced by the Rumi script. Malay is spoken in Brunei , Indonesia , Malaysia , East Timor , Singapore and southern Thailand . Indonesia regulates its own normative variety of Malay, while Malaysia and Singapore use a common standard. Brunei, in addition to Standard Malay, uses a distinct vernacular dialect called Brunei Malay . In East Timor , Indonesian is recognised by

10302-601: Was the working language of traders and it was used in various ports, and marketplaces in the region. Other evidence is the Tanjung Tanah Law in post-Pallava letters. This 14th-century pre-Islamic legal text was produced in the Adityawarman era (1345–1377) of Dharmasraya , a Hindu-Buddhist kingdom that arose after the end of Srivijayan rule in Sumatra . The laws were for the Minangkabau people , who today still live in

10404-903: Was used solely as a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communications. Malay is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, which includes languages from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean , with a smaller number in continental Asia . Malagasy , a geographic outlier spoken in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean , is also a member of this language family. Although these languages are not necessarily mutually intelligible to any extent, their similarities are often quite apparent. In more conservative languages like Malay, many roots have come with relatively little change from their common ancestor, Proto-Austronesian language . There are many cognates found in

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