Tanah Tujuh

Sejak Kampung Longkai dilanda geruh, kejadian pelik sering berlaku. Haji Ipin sedar ada kuasa jahat yang mengganggu. Makhluk durjana itu tiba-tiba muncul. Haji Ipin diserang penyakit misteri. Matanya berulat dan perutnya membusuk. Dia tahu angkara siapa, tapi mulutnya bagai dipasung. Kiai Shamsudin yang jauh di Batu Pahat mendapat firasat yang Haji Ipin, rakan seperguruannya sedang diuji permainan sihir. Sebagai pendakwah, dia wajib menyeru yang hak dan menentang yang batil. Lantas, anak didiknya Hambali dihantar ke sana untuk memutihkan yang hitam dan menerangkan yang gelap. Pertempuran mistik untuk menyelamatkan nyawa pun terjadi. Mistik tentunya ditentang dengan cara mistik. Zikir, tasbih dan tahmid jadi senjata menentang syaitan laknaktullah. Dalam debar dan gementar, mereka bergelut kerana sebuah dendam

About the Author Faizah Idrus completed her Phd in Education in 2012 specifically in Sociolinguistics from The University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. Her PhD thesis was entitled: The Construction of Shared Malaysian Identity in the Malaysian Literature Classrooms. She obtained her Master’s Degree in Professional Studies in Education from The University of Leicester, United Kingdom and her Bachelor’s Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from The University of Leeds, United Kingdom. She has written numerous articles related to her field of studies. She has written two books and also an Editor of several compilation books. She has more than 30 years’ experience as a primary, secondary school teacher as well as an academic at Higher Education Institutions. Her interests include but not confined to English as a Second Language, Language, identity and Community and Teacher Education, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Cultural Intelligences etc. She is currently an academic at Department of Language and Literacy, Kulliyyah of Education, International Islamic University Malaysia.

This book seeks to break new ground, both empirically and conceptually, in examining discourses of identity formation and the agency of critical social practices in Malaysia. Taking an inclusive cultural studies perspective, it questions the ideological narrative of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ that dominates explanations of conflicts and cleavages in the Malaysian context. The contributions are organised in three broad themes. ‘Identities in Contestation: Borders, Complexities and Hybridities’ takes a range of empirical studies—literary translation, religion, gender, ethnicity, indigeneity and sexual orientation—to break down preconceived notions of fixed identities. This then opens up an examination of ‘Identities and Movements: Agency and Alternative Discourses’, in which contributors deal with counter-hegemonic social movements—of anti-racism, young people, environmentalism and independent publishing—that explicitly seek to open up greater critical, democratic space within the Malaysian polity. The third section, ‘Identities and Narratives: Culture and the Media’, then provides a close textual reading of some exemplars of new cultural and media practices found in oral testimonies, popular music, film, radio programming and storytelling who have consciously created bodies of work that question the dominant national narrative. This book is a valuable interdisciplinary work for advanced students and researchers interested in representations of identity and nationhood in Malaysia, and for those with wider interests in the fields of critical cultural studies and discourse analysis. “Here is a fresh, startling book to aid the task of unbinding the straitjackets of ‘Malay’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Indian’, with which colonialism bound Malaysia’s plural inheritance, and on which the postcolonial state continues to rely. In it, a panoply of unlikely identities—Bajau liminality, Kelabit philosophy, Islamic feminism, refugee hybridity and more—finds expression and offers hope for liberation”. Rachel Leow, University of Cambridge “This book shakes the foundations of race thinking in Malaysian studies by expanding the range of cases, perspectives and outcomes of identity. It offers students of Malaysia an examination of identity and agency that is expansive, critical and engaging, and its interdisciplinary depth brings Malaysian studies into conversation with scholarship across the world”. Sumit Mandal, University of Nottingham Malaysia “This is a much-needed work that helps us to take apart the colonial inherited categories of race which informed the notion of the plural society, the idea of plurality without multiculturalism. It complicates the picture of identity by bringing in religion, gender, indigeneity and sexual orientation, and helps us to imagine what a truly multiculturalist Malaysia might look like”. Syed Farid Alatas, National University of Singapore

Karya ini sekali lagi mempamerkan keberanian pengarangnya dalam memberikan tafsiran baru terhadap satu lagi karya klasik agung orang Melayu. Kali ini dengan menggunakan kaedah filologi, Prof. Emeritus Datuk Dr. Ahmat Adam secara kritis telah membedah isi kandungan sebuah hikayat yang selama lebih daripada dua abad ternyata salah dibaca dan silap ditransliterasikan ke huruf Rumi oleh para pengkaji Orientalis dan tempatan. Kesalahan zaman-berzaman ini jugalah yang menjadikan hikayat yang masyhur ini telah silap ditafsirkan bukan sahaja dari segi penyebutan nama gelaran Laksamana Melaka yang sebenar, tetapi juga dari segi isi kandungan yang menceritakan petualangan Laksamana yang masyhur itu. Yang menjadi lebih parah lagi ialah selepas kisah legendaris Laksamana itu diceriterakan oleh pengarang Sulalat u’s-Salatin, kisah pengembaraannya yang dilukiskan di dalam Hikayat Hang Tuha telah mempengaruhi pemikiran sebahagian anggota masyarakat dan dipercayai oleh mereka itu sebagai kisah yang benar-benar terjadi dalam sejarah Melaka. Melalui kajian ini pengarang cuba mengajak pembaca agar menilai sendiri karya sastera yang berlatarkan sejarah ini, dan cuba berfikir secara kritis untuk membezakannya dengan sebuah karya sejarah yang lebih tulen mengenai kesultanan Melaka dan Laksamana yang benar-benar wujud pada zaman abad ke-15 dan ke-16.

This exhaustive volume catalogs nearly three thousand demons in the mythologies and lore of virtually every ancient society and most religions. From Aamon, the demon of life and reproduction with the head of a serpent and the body of a wolf in Christian demonology, to Zu, the half-man, half-bird personification of the southern wind and thunder clouds in Sumero-Akkadian mythology, entries offer descriptions of each demon's origins, appearance and cultural significance. Also included are descriptions of the demonic and diabolical members making up the hierarchy of Hell and the numerous species of demons that, according to various folklores, mythologies, and religions, populate the earth and plague mankind. Very thoroughly indexed.

REEN sebak setiap kali teringatkan dia. Sudah tiga hari dia menangis. Cukuplah. Air matanya kini sudah ke­ring untuk lelaki itu. Muka macam hero, tetapi hati macam binatang! Dasar manusia tidak berhati perut! Bencinya bukan dibuat-buat. Marahnya meluap-luap. Dia telah diperbodoh­kan oleh sepupu sendiri. Jadikan saudara sen­diri seperti barang permainan dan bahan ketawa. Maruahnya dipertaruhkan. Dia berasa cukup ter­hina. Hinaan paling besar kerana saudara sendiri yang melakukannya. “Tak guna!” Reen menyumpah. Hanya beberapa orang sahaja yang tahu hakikat permainan ini. Keluarganya langsung tidak tahu-menahu. Te­tapi dia pasti, suatu hari nanti akan heboh jua. Biarlah anak ini melihat dunia dulu. Dia tidak akan sesekali membenar­kan lelaki itu mendekatinya lagi. Dia akan pergi jauh dari sini. Biarlah kenangan pahit itu kekal di sini. Cameron Highlands sekali lagi menyaksikan kesedihan Nik Nazrini. Lara hatinya dibawa ke tanah dingin ini de­ngan ha­rapan akan sedikit sebanyak menyejukkan hati yang luka. Bila agaknya darah yang mengalir dari hati luka ini akan berhenti? Dia kurang pasti. Yang pasti, parut yang tinggal nanti tentu hodoh sekali. Dia bencikan parut yang bakal melekat dalam hatinya. Ia pasti akan menjadi dendam kesumat. Dendam pada manusia yang tidak berhati perut. Tergamak membakar impian orang lain semata-mata untuk menjaga ego sendiri.