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Posts Tagged Brunei

WHY MUSLIMS REBEL AND ADOPT TERROR AS A WEAPON PART-2: Brunei: The Hypocritical and Humble Lifestyles of Our Islamic Brothers,the Brunei Princes

 
Islam lived on in Brunei till today and with the Constitution in 1959, Islam became Brunei’s Official Religion.

The golden history of Islam in Brunei

A man with his son heading to Jame Asr’ Hassanil Bolkiah to attend the Friday prayers. Muslim men are obligated to participate in Friday prayers, also known as Jumu’ah. Pictures: BT/Rudolf Portillo and Raul Padernal
IT has been debated when Islam actually first arrived in Brunei. A number of relics showed that Islam could actually be practised in Brunei by the 12th century. 
Amongst these were tombstones found in the various Islamic graveyards in Brunei particularly the one at Rangas which showed one with a Chinese Muslim by the name of Pu Kung Chih-mu. He was buried there in 1264. This is more than a hundred years earlier before the conversion of Awang Alak Betatas as the Islamic Sultan Muhammad Shah, the first Sultan of Brunei.

Pu is the common surname which according to Chinese historians identified them as someone who is a Muslim. The tombstone also identified Pu Kung Chih-mu as one who had originated from Chuan-chou City in China. During the Sung Dynasty, Arab and Persian Traders flocked to the Kwang Chow (Canton) in Kwangtung Province and Chuan-chou in Fukien Province.

It was not the only Chinese Muslim grave there. In another grave nearby belonged to another Chinese Muslim by the name of Li Chia-tzu from Yung Chun (Fukian) who died in 1876. Yung Chun is also another city in China where Muslim travellers frequently trade.

According to Chinese records, stated in the “Notes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacca Compiled From Chinese Sources” written by WP Groeneveldt in 1880, one Chinese Islamic trader arrived in Brunei in the 10th century. His name was P’u-lu-shieh. He was both a trader and a diplomat. SQ Fatimi writing in the Sociological Research Institute in Singapore in 1963 under an article entitled “Islam Comes to Malaysia”, P’u-lu-shieh name is akin to Abu al-Layth.

The Brunei King at that time was named Hiang-ta. The arrival of the diplomat-trader from China was greeted with great ceremony. If this is so, Islam has actually arrived in Brunei in the year of 977.

One may discount the fact that the Muslim diplomat-trader did not do anything in Brunei but merely brought greetings and therefore one should not read too much into this. However the interesting thing was that the Brunei King’s delegation to China to return the Emperor’s greetings was headed by another Muslim by the name of P’u A-li (Abu Ali).

Based on this fact alone, Abu Ali must have held an important position in the Brunei Government if he was tasked to be Brunei’s Ambassador in those days and even if the King of Brunei then was not himself a Muslim, some members of his royal court were Muslims.

A number of European historians claimed that Brunei was still not a Muslim nation until the 15th century. However, the Ming Shih, Book 325, a Chinese reference book noted that the King of Brunei in 1370 was Ma-ho-mo-sa. Some say that this should be read as Mahmud Shah. But local Brunei historians take this to refer to “Muhammad Shah” the first Islamic Sultan of Brunei.

Robert Nicholl, a former Brunei Museum Curator argued in another paper entitled “Notes on Some Controversial Issues in Brunei History” in 1980 that the name Ma-ho-mo-sa could be pronounced as Maha Moksha which means Great Eternity. Maha Mokhsa would make it a Buddhist name. Nicholl goes on to argue that even the Brunei Sultan who died in Nanjing in 1408 was not a Muslim. Another European Historian, Pelliot, Ma-na-jo-kia-nai-nai was reconstituted as Majarajah Gyana (nai). But the closest title would have been Maharaja Karna. However Brunei historians have stated that the King was Sultan Abdul Majid Hassan who would have been the second Sultan of Brunei.

Nicholl further argued that Sultan Muhammad Shah converted to Islam as late as the 16th century and not during the 14th century as is widely known. However according to Brunei historians, Sultan Muhammad Shah converted to Islam in 1376 and that he ruled until 1402. After which time, it was Sultan Abdul Majid Hassan, who died in China who ascended the throne. That was when Sultan Ahmad reigned in Brunei beginning 1406.

Most likely there were two waves of Islamic teachings that came to Brunei. The first was brought by traders from Arabia, Persia, India and China. The second wave was brought about by the conversion of Sultan Muhammad Shah. With the coming of the second wave, Brunei’s Islamisation hastened.

!The propogation of Islam in Brunei was led by a Syarif with the name of Syarif Ali who was a descendant from Rasulullah S.A.W. through his grandsons Sayydinia Hassan or Sayydinia Hussin.

Syarif Ali arrived from Taif. Not long after he arrived in Brunei, he was married to a daughter of Sultan Ahmad. Syarif Ali built a mosque in Brunei. Syarif Ali was closely connected to a few other well known Islam propogationist in the region such as Malik Ibrahim who went to Java, Syarif Zainal Abidin in Malacca, Syarif Abu Bakar or Syariful Hashim in Sulu and Syarif Kebungsuan in Mindanoa. 

Syarif Ali ascended the throne as the third Sultan of Brunei when he took over from his father-in-law. Because of his piousness, he was known as Sultan Berkat (Berkat means ‘blessed’).

The mosque especially the pulpit was used by Sultan Syarif Ali himself. Sultan Syarif Ali himself conducted the sermons during Friday prayers. So he was not only the Sultan but he was also the Imam and brought the religion directly to the Brunei people.

According to Thomas Stamford Raffles in his book “The History of Java”, the Islamic activities of Sultan Syarif Ali was not limited to Brunei. He was also known to have gone over to Java to propagate Islam where he was known as Raja Chermin. He tried hard to convert the Majapahit King named Prabu Angka Wijaya.

The efforts of the Brunei Sultans in spreading Islam helped to spread Islam not only in Borneo but also as far north as to the southern Philippines islands. When Malacca fell to the Portuguese in 1511, it was Brunei which played a major role in the spread of Islam in the region.

By the 16th century, Brunei had built one of her biggest mosques. In 1578, Alonso Beltran, a Spanish traveller described it as one of five storeys tall built on the water. Most likely it had five layers of roofs to represent the five pillars of Islam.

Islam was firmly rooted in Brunei by the 16th century. This mosque was unfortunately destroyed by the Spanish in June that same year.

By the time of Sultan Hassan, Brunei’s ninth Sultan, Brunei had the Islamic laws incorporated into the Brunei canons. Pengiran Dato Dr Hj Mohammad writing a Malay article entitled “Kemasukan Islam ke Brunei Darussalam dan Undang-Undangnya” (Arrival of Islam in Brunei Darussalam and the Laws) noted that out of the 47 chapters of the Brunei canons, 27 of those chapters had Islamic elements.

Islam lived on in Brunei till today and with the Constitution in 1959, Islam became Brunei’s Offical Religion.

The writer runs a website on Brunei at bruneiresources.com.

The Brunei Times

 
Brunei royal a prince among perverts
  • By DAREH GREGORIAN, ADA CALHOUN and DAN MANGAN

It’s good to be the prince.

Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei has dropped billions of dollars on call girls, hundreds of cars, hotels, paintings and a yacht named T-ts — and has billions more still in the bank — as he leads a decadent life that would make Caligula blush.

Over the years, the perv prince has been sued — along with his brother, the Sultan of Brunei — by an ex-Miss USA accusing them of running a white-slavery ring out of their 1,788-room place. He’s also been sued by his own brother for swindling nearly $15 billion from their tiny, oil-rich country.

CHISELER:  Prince Jefri Bolkiah (above) of Brunei laid down $1 million to have six lurid statues made of him having sex with one of his conquests. The statuary is now an issue in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

Paul Grover
CHISELER: Prince Jefri Bolkiah (above) of Brunei laid down $1 million to have six lurid statues made of him having sex with one of his conquests. The statuary is now an issue in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

Photos: Prince Jefri’s statues

Now, Prince Jefri, 56, is set to take a Manhattan courtroom by storm next week at a trial that could feature six life-size statues that he commissioned depicting him having sex with his latest fiancée — a narcissistic set of kitsch for his Long Island mansion that set him back $1 million.

If that isn’t odd enough, Jefri’s lawsuit against two financial advisers he claims screwed him out of $7 million has been effectively bankrolled by the same brother who accused him of corruption.

A Manhattan judge issued a gag order in the case yesterday after Jefri’s lawyer griped over news stories detailing the statues.

“I’m always amazed at Prince Jefri’s capacity to take decadence to its absolute extreme manifestation and to be a colorful character,” said Jillian Lauren, 37, a former NYU student whose book “Some Girls: My Life in a Harem” details her past life as one of his dozens of paid paramours.

“The statues don’t surprise me a bit,” Lauren told The Post. “The palace had giant gold tigers that served as the base of a coffee table. They held precious stones in their mouths.

“I had never seen anything like that in my life.”

Although he has four current wives and has been divorced twice, Jefri has never let the bonds of matrimony keep him from bedding other women.

The prince, who has 17 children by seven women, at one point was spending upward of $250 million per year just to keep pricey calls girls, centerfolds and runaway teens on payrolls of companies linked to his family’s sultanate.

On at least one occasion, Jefri was entertained by up to 40 hookers at once at London’s Dorchester Hotel, which his family owned.

Former Miss USA Shannon Marketic, now 38, sued the prince and the sultan in 1997 for holding her against her will as a sex slave in Brunei.

Her suit claimed she and other young women were lured into traveling there under false pretenses. It said that their passports were confiscated on arrival and that they were checked for sexually transmitted diseases.

Marketic said she and the other women were routinely groped, fondled and otherwise sexually assaulted in the palace, where they were forced to show up for late-night disco parties to entertain Jefri’s pals.

“You are whores, and I do not know why Boss paid so much money for you,” one employee of Brunei’s royal family allegedly told the women. “You are the worst group of whores we have ever had over here.”

Jefri and the sultan got the suit tossed after claiming diplomatic immunity.

Marketic told The Post yesterday that news of Jefri’s Kama Sutra-inspired statues of himself and a lover were not surprising, except for the fact that they show “willing participants, and not anyone being held against their will, duped or doped. I’d say that’s an improvement.”

The statues are just one example of how Prince Jefri is often thinking about sex when he doesn’t happen to be having it.

Jefri had to sell off or surrender many of his possessions — including “over 600 properties, over 2,000 cars, over 100 paintings, five boats and nine aircraft” — to settle his brother’s $15 billion fraud claim but luckily “still retained billions of dollars in other holdings,” a Delaware judge noted in a 2008 court ruling.

Those holdings are rumored to include a cache of diamonds valued at more than $1 billion, which lawyers defending his former financial advisers reportedly intend to grill him about when he takes the witness stand in Manhattan Supreme Court next week.

My nights at the harem

NYU dropout bares royal pleasure palace

  • By SUSANNAH CAHALAN
  • Last Updated: 10:51 AM, December 27, 2009
  • Posted: 3:30 AM, December 27, 2009

Jillian Lauren was frightened out of a deep sleep by a banging at her door.

“You must get ready. Five minutes,” a voice barked. She dressed and timidly entered a Merce des-Benz with tinted windows, more than 9,000 miles from her New Jersey home.

Lauren, who grew up in Livingston and studied acting at New York University, was in the last place a Jewish American princess belongs: in Brunei — a Muslim monarchy on the north coast of Borneo in Southeast Asia — and in a harem.

She waited four hours in a gold-encrusted room for the man she came to see as her “savior,” the royal around whom the harem revolved: Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the former finance minister of the oil-rich nation and the brother of one of the world’s richest people, the Sultan of Brunei.

INSATIABLE: Prince Jefri of Brunei (above) bedded but later tired of Jillian Lauren, one of 40 women in his harem.

Tiffany Rose/WireImage.com
INSATIABLE: Prince Jefri of Brunei (above) bedded but later tired of Jillian Lauren, one of 40 women in his harem.

When he arrived, reeking of Calvin Klein’s Egoiste, she breathed a sigh of relief. As he led her into the Hugh Hefner-inspired bed room, she lifted off her sun dress and had sex with him for the first time.

“I fell victim to Stockholm Syndrome,” Lauren writes in her book “Some Girls: My Life in a Harem” (Plume), out in April. “I knew I was a hooker, but somehow I felt like Cinderella.”

Lauren lifts the veil off her secret harem life, sharing vivid and explosive details of her 18 months as a hired party girl, her bizarre affair with the prince, the outrageous shopping sprees and the fighting within the international clique of 40 women who fought for the prince’s affections.

Lauren, the adopted daughter of a Jewish stockbroker and a housewife, never thought she’d end up in a Muslim’s brothel. She grew up in a town where “orthodonture was mandatory and getting a nose job as a gift for your sweet 16 was highly recommended.”

By the time she was 16, she had enrolled in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Six months later, she dropped out and started stripping in Times Square. Eventually she became an elite call girl.

One job required her to “amuse” a Singaporean businessman, with the promise of $20,000 in return. To land the gig, Lauren auditioned with seven other women while a photographer shot pictures of them in lingerie.

She won the gig — but then learned that it wasn’t a Singaporean businessman hiring. It was a Brunei prince.

Shortly after, Lauren told her parents she had an acting gig and hopped on a plane to Brunei. A woman met her at the airport and taught her how to deal with the prince and his friends at parties.

Lauren was escorted to her new home — an opulent palace with football field-sized Italian marble floors, plush gold-spun carpets, gilded everything (including tissue boxes).

That night, Lauren attended a party for the prince — with 40 other girls, some younger than 16. At that moment, Lauren realized she was part of a harem.

She quickly worked out the hierarchy. Tables were arranged by country, with Filipino girls at the top — because, she heard, the prince’s favorite girl was a Filipino ex-television star named Fiona. There were six Americans, including a Marilyn Monroe look-alike.

Rumor had it that the prince was looking to crown his fourth wife, so there was constant, subtle infighting.

Whenever he walked into a party, the girls preened and posed. Each night, he would pick one and disappear with her for a half-hour.

Lauren caught his attention when she sang his favorite Malay song. Soon after, she was sitting to his left, the second-most prized seat in the house, next to Fiona’s first-place seat.

Once, Lauren was plucked to join Fiona — a high honor — on a shopping spree in Singapore, where her driver held a Louis Vuitton sack full of cash. She hit Chanel, Hermes, Versace, Dior, Armani and Gucci.

She began to fall for the prince, accompanying him to Malaysia. But on that same trip, he rented her out to his brother, the sultan, for sex.

His fancies were fleeting. She soon fell out of favor, and her rank in the harem declined. Rather than battle it out, she returned to the Big Apple. Her pay? A fat sack of Singaporean dollars and a Tiffany choker, bracelet and earring set.

More than a decade later, Lauren has cleaned up her life. She met her husband, Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, and adopted a child named Tariku. They now live in LA.

Things didn’t work out as well for the prince.

Prince Jefri Bolkaih was alleged to have embezzled nearly $15 billion during his time as finance minister — and has reportedly not spoken to his brother since 2004.

Although recent reports suggest the prince has returned to Brunei, his international reputation as an over-the-top playboy has marred his image for good.

scahalan@nypost.com

Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the playboy brother of the Sultan of Brunei, led an exorbitantly lavish lifestyle until his assets were frozen and many of his positions sold off.

 

In fact, he “has probably gone through more cash than any other human being on earth,” according to an extensive story chronicling the prince and his ongoing $23 million legal battle with his former lawyers in the July issue of Vanity Fair.

At one point, he was reportedly spending $50 million a month.

Prince Jefri’s fairy tale life came crashing down after authorities discovered that Jefri had personally blown through $14.8 billion from a government oil investment fund he was purportedly overseeing.

And he remains embroiled in a legal battle with his former attorneys.

Mark Seal’s entire piece in Vanity Fair is worth a read. We picked out some of the highlights.

 

He owned a collection of 2,300 cars; mostly Bentleys, Ferraris, and Rolls-Royces

He owned a collection of 2,300 cars; mostly Bentleys, Ferraris, and Rolls-Royces

exfordy via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

As well as eight private planes and a helicopter.

As well as eight private planes and a helicopter.

MSVG via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

At one point he was forced to surrender five diamonds, worth $200 million, to the Brunei Investment Agency

He paid $1.3 million for erotic fountain pens and $10 million for eight jewel-encrusted watches that depicted couples having sex

He paid $1.3 million for erotic fountain pens and $10 million for eight jewel-encrusted watches that depicted couples having sex

Papatrutzi via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

He gave one of his consorts a necklace that she later auctioned off for $100,000 at Christie’s

He gave one of his consorts a necklace that she later auctioned off for $100,000 at Christie's

fallwithme via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

He commissioned the artist J. Seward Johnson to create $800,000 sexually explicit statue, purportedly of himself and his ex-fiancée

He commissioned the artist J. Seward Johnson to create $800,000 sexually explicit statue, purportedly of himself and his ex-fiancée

anniegreensprings via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

His fleet of five boats included a yacht named Tits; its tenders were named Nipple 1 and Nipple 2

His fleet of five boats included a yacht named Tits; its tenders were named Nipple 1 and Nipple 2

anniegreensprings via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

He owned a collection of five-star hotels including the New York Palace and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles

He owned a collection of five-star hotels including the New York Palace and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles

New York Palace

Source:  Vanity Fair

He purchased Asprey, the London jeweler to the Queen, for $385 million

He purchased Asprey, the London jeweler to the Queen, for $385 million

daisybush via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

He paid $17 million for Michael Jackson to perform at his 50th birthday, at a stadium custom-built for the event

He paid $17 million for Michael Jackson to perform at his 50th birthday, at a stadium custom-built for the event

Source:  Vanity Fair

He bought a $7 million rug woven of gold thread and embroidered with jewels

He bought a $7 million rug woven of gold thread and embroidered with jewels

Dave Goodman via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

He bought the former Playboy Club in London for $34 million, more than four times the market price

He bought the former Playboy Club in London for $34 million, more than four times the market price

svenonsan via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

He once paid $1.5 million for a badminton coach

He once paid $1.5 million for a badminton coach

bobolink via Flickr

Source:  Vanity Fair

He once imported Joe Montana and Herschel Walker to teach his son football at a cost of seven figures each

He once imported Joe Montana and Herschel Walker to teach his son football at a cost of seven figures each

Wikimedia Commons

 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/prince-jefri-brunei-spending-habits-2011-6?op=1#ixzz2Gn0DXgzB

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