Keramat in Singapore in The Mid-Twentieth Century

KERAMAT IN SINGAPORE IN THE MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY
Author(s): P. J. RIVERS
Source: Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , 2003, Vol. 76, No.
2 (285) (2003), pp. 93-119
Published by: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41493501
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KERAMAT IN SINGAPORE IN THE
MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY
by
P. J. RIVERS
The Notion of 'Keramať Graves

The Encyclopedia Britannica notes that 'Muslim popular religion - particularly under
Sufi (Islamic mysticism) influence - abounds in miracles, pilgrimages to the tombs of
wonder-working saints, and the like. Dogmatic theology, too, recognizes miracles as
facts.'1 Muslim dogmatics accept miracles ( karamat ), which 'loom large in popular belief
and piety'. The problem is nevertheless complicated by the fact that Satan, too, can
perform miracles.
A further problem is that even though the Prophet himself denied the existence of
saints, the masses continued to 'canonize' men 'endowed with charismatic powers
(i karamat ), allowing them to go miraculously from one place to another far away; to wield
authority over animals, plants, and clouds; and to bridge the gap between life and death'.2
From this grew cults at the sites of certain graves and the practice of pilgrimages to these.
This belief was taken to Southeast Asia to supplement animistic and other pre-Islamic
beliefs there. Certain attributes, such as 'providing food from the unseen, presence in two
places at the same time' can be discerned in the stories of keramat in Singapore, such as
Dato Syed Abdul Rahman on Peak Island and Habib Noh on Mount Palmer.3
R. J. Wilkinson pointed out about a century ago, that keramat , as used in Malay,
derived from an Arabic word meaning 'miracle working' or 'invested with supernatural
powers'.4 It could apply not only to a grave but also to a living person, an animal, or a
natural feature such as a tree, hill, or whirlpool, or some other object such as a cannon. As
an unlikely miraculous talisman, these tools of war when women sit astride, for an
obvious reason, attract fertility cults throughout the Malay Archipelago. Housed alongside
the ferry pier at Butterworth, one such keramat was even a 'floating' cannon that
propelled itself ashore on the beach.
An interesting variant of keramat when applied to reigning Sumatran princes is
interpreted as 'the Lord's Anointed'. Marsden, the contemporary of Thomas Stamford
Raffles, notes that keramat can mean a 'venerable' or 'dignified' person as well as 'holy
ground'.5 It attached to ancient burial places, especially of Arab missionaries.
In a short book by Fozdar (that makes no mention of keramat or Malaysia), it is
interesting to note similarities in practices. 'Sacrifices were offered to Heaven, the hills
and rivers, ancestors as well as all the other spirits,' while elsewhere the author mentions
others such as the household or kitchen gods.6 He considers that ancestor worship, with
1 Encyclopedia Britannica, CD 2000 Deluxe, see entry Miracles , Islam.

2 Ibid., see entry Saint , Islam.
3 Ibid., see entry Sufism: Sufi Thought and Practice.
4 R. J. Wilkinson, A Malay-English Dictionary , London: MacMillan, 1959, Vol. 1, 'keramat', p. 566, and
R. J. Wilkinson, An Abridged Malay-English Dictionary , London: Macmillan, 1964, 'keramat', p. 132.
5 William Marsden, A Dictionary and Grammar of the Malayan Language , Kuala Lumpur: Oxford
University Press, 1984, Vol. 1, 'keramat', p. 255.
6 Jamshed Fozdar, The Fallacy of Ancestor Worship , Bombay: Privately printed, 1965, p. 9.
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its own sacred places, corrupted Hinduism and Chinese or Zen Buddhism. The custom is,
he concludes, contrary to the concept of 'Karma' - the effect of any act, religious or
otherwise, affecting the afterlife.
'Karma' is a Sanskrit term used to describe the 'Way', and has now entered both
English and the Malay language, in the latter referring to everything that man does during
his lifetime in the world ('semua perbuatan manusia sewaktu hidupnya di dunia'). The
Kamus Dewan also gives a secondary and older meaning of 'a curse' or 'an oath', which
is the only usage in Wilkinson, who notes that it also includes 'spells as the result of an
imprecation'.7 Although he points out that the Sanskrit 'karma' means something
different, MacDonell apparently connects it with the root for sorcery and magic.8
Perhaps in Malaysia this 'Brahminic idea developed by the Buddhists' helped the
adoption of the keramat concept by other races.9 Coincidentally, Endicott records that the
Arabic 'Karama', 'nobility, honour, respect, esteem, etc.' is the singular of 'Keramat',10
while the Encyclopedia Britannica explains that 'The advanced mystic was often granted
the capacity of working miracles called karamat (charismata or "graces").'11 It is
interesting that the otherwise unconnected words karama , karma , and charismata , which
sound so similar, express facets of the miraculous - 'by God's grace'. Transliterations
from the Malay languages give us kramat , karamat , and keramat.
In Singapore, the only definite keramat grave of an ancestor founder is that of
Lasam at Siglap. The Keramat Iskandar Shah may perhaps be that of the founder of
'Singhapura' but is accorded the name of the last of the dynasty. Some others, which can
be identified with an actual person, are usually of a 'living saint', such as the famous
Habib Noh. 'Dead' saints are imagined for those in, for example, the kubor panjang ('long
grave') off Arthur Road and elsewhere. The 'living saint' earned his reputation while still
alive and might be referred to as a 'Wali-Allah'. The 'holy man' is such by birth or
achieves his status by remorseless prayer or fervent religious study. However, it is not
always universally accepted that a grave is keramat , even by relatives, such as the one of
Fakeh Haj i Abdul Jalil that was formerly in Arab Street.
The Other Threads of Keramat

Cheu has discussed how Chinese ancestor worship tends towards the keramat spirit
shrines.12 He gives a valuable summary showing how diverse cults of animistic spirits and
people were incorporated into keramat , illustrated by a useful chart showing the various
threads. Almost all the elements can be identified in Singapore in connection generally
with keramat graves. In several instances, belief in sacred hills, trees, or stones grew about
such objects and then focused on a convenient burial site identified with apocryphal
saints.
Indeed, Endicott maintains that miraculous localities acquire powers almost in spite
of themselves. Of grave keramat - 'the one chosen and the name given to him are matters
7 Kamus Dewan , 3rd edn., Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1996, 'karma', p. 579.
8 A. A. MacDonell, A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary, London: Oxford University Press, 1952.
9 Funk and Wragnell, New Desk Standard Dictionary , New York, 1954, 'karma', p. 439.
10 K. M. Endicott, An Analysis of Malay Magic , Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970, n 5, page 90.
1 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, see entry Suflsm: Sufi Thought and Practice.
12 Cheu Hong Tong, 'The Sinicization of Malay Keramats in Malaysia', Journal of the Malaysian Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society , 71(2), 1998, Fig. 1, p. 30 et seq.
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of accidental circumstances. It is the power of the unusual grave and not the person
alleged to be in it that is important.'13 This helps to explain how Singapore in less than
two centuries could have produced so many saints.
The pace of the production of keramat in the Malay Peninsula is slower now. In the
Cameron Highlands, where Malay settlements only date from towards the end of the
Emergency, no keramat have emerged despite the large presence of Orang Asli. The
nearest was an Indian grave near Tapah, which provides the road link leading to the hills.
The Pejabat Ugama (Religious Affairs Department) removed it from the junction of the
Chenderiang Road when it started to acquire a reputation. Yet, the Chinese, in particular,
have marked many a tree or business with a 'Datuk Kong' shrine. At the Green Cow
Corner, named after Mrs Rafferty's well-known pub burnt down by the Communists, an
enterprising Indian vegetable farmer displayed for sale a stock of these shrines, mailbox
sized and brightly painted in red and gold. A nearby Butterfly Farm tends to one at the
roadside, while lower down, at the Farmer's Market, until the hillside was cropped for
road widening, steps led to another at the foot of an old tree. Malays quip that these are
keramat nombor - 'places for hopeful lottery players'.
In the Malay World, pre-Islamic beliefs were given a veneer of respectability
assisted by the spread of the 'tarikať of Sufi mystics. By attaching the Arabic-derived title
of 'keramat', status was given to superstitious sites and the term was soon incorporated
into Bazaar Malay. Keramat was used to describe all sorts of 'lucky' or unusual sites, or
attached when forgotten graves were uncovered while clearing the land. Artless believers
might flock to these sites promoted colloquially to ipseudo-keramat but the more sceptical
scoffed that such was the grave of kera Mat - 'Mat's monkey'.
Unlike elsewhere, sacred animals do not figure in Singapore keramat. When my
ship was trading to Jambi, I noted in a Sumatran river what appeared to be a dirty white,
waterlogged tree trunk. As the pilot casually remarked that it was the local 'Dato'
Keramat', the crocodile made off like a 15-foot torpedo. I paid my respects whenever our
paths crossed again. About 400 years ago in the Malacca River, the king of the crocodiles
was not so courteously treated. Either by blessing of a Portuguese priest or the keris of a
Malay dato', it was changed into stone. The laterite figure can still be found in about
4 metres of water. Other animals could also be elevated; in the nineteenth century,
Sir George Maxwell shot a keramat rhinoceros at Pinjeh.14
In Singapore, although tigers abounded into Victorian times, only the name of their
smaller cousin, the cat, has remained. Renowned for its pigeons, the Keramat Kuching,
the 'Miracle Cat' as it was popularly known in the 1950s, was near Track 2 off the old
Upper Changi Road before the area was restructured. In earlier times, at Tanah Merah
Besar, there was another Keramat Kuching of a cat-like stone near the shore. This was not
the only identification based on oddly shaped rocks. At Tanjong Karang, on the west
coast, there was an imagined keramat grave until an inspection in 1890 showed that it was
merely a detached block of ironstone resembling a tomb.
The superstitious of all races ascribe special powers to resident spirits in certain
trees of unusual size or great age. So also in Singapore. In 1971, a large tree crashed down
on an empty tongkang (cargo barge) tied alongside Boat Quay. The tree had been left
untouched for forty years because the Chinese considered it a 'holy shrine'. After its fall,
Endicott, Analysis of Malay Magic , p. 94.

14 George Maxwell, In Malay Forests , Singapore: Donald Moore, 1957, p. 10.
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in which no one was injured, stallholders claimed that the tree had bled to death and
thoughtfully chopped the remains into small pieces to relieve its suffering.15
Such beliefs are universal. Maoris in New Zealand blessed a 125-year-old tree,
'Auckland's best known landmark', before it was officially felled after vandals had
virtually killed it.16 Generally, in Malaysia, near trees of such reputation, as with other
'genius loci', a convenient grave was sought and the occupant credited with holy status.
A tree by the Keramat Siti Aminah brought about a three-month delay in a construction
programme at Upper Serangoon Road in 1968. Another case involved Tamil labour
during the construction of the RAF base at Seletar before World War II. These were not
unique. There were many such cases both in Singapore and throughout Malaysia.
In Southeast Asia, people quite naturally accept the idea of a tutelary spirit. 'Around
some small kampongs today can be seen offerings of yellow rice, eggs and the like placed
for the hantus (spirits) of the vicinity to encourage them to keep away from coming inside
the village.'17 Usually at the foot of old trees, it is pointed out that these may develop into
keramat shrines, often taking the name of a deceased religious. Also usually associated
with a tree, Nat shrines that I have seen on the outskirts of Burmese villages were in the
form of little houses provided for the local spirits. More elaborate than those for the
Chinese Datok Kong in Malaysia, similar shrines can also be found in Thailand, and even
in Caldecott Hill in Singapore in the 1980s, a mansion had one in its garden.
There are differences, however. Unlike Malay villagers who bribe the spirits to stay
away, Burmese make offerings in advance to propitiate them. Singaporeans make
payment against results, which is why some non-producers fade away. Like a Lloyd's
salvage agreement, it is a matter of 'no cure, no pay'. These are pseudo -keramat for, as
Endicott maintains, true keramat do not die.18
Miracles are usually of a minor nature; there is no question of a Lazarus, no site is
a Lourdes. Fertility cults attach with hanging stones, while others request that a sick child
be made well. Most of these pseudo -keramat revolve around the supply of supernatural
insider information on horse races or four-digit lotteries. Behind the old Central Police
Station, where the South Bridge Centre now is, there was a disused public latrine fitted
with buckets that the daily 'honey' wagon had to empty. Festooned with barbed wire
while it awaited demolition, it was an unlikely candidate for canonization, yet there were
nightly visitations by four-figure punters with burning of candles and presumably incense.
A journalist, Danaraj, in a misleadingly titled book, mentions a few keramat in Singapore,
including the well-known tomb purported to be that of Sultan Iskandar on Fort Canning,
the popular mausoleum of Habib Noh, and the grave of a Dato Naning, said to be in Anson
Road.19 Danaraj was concerned with bomoh (medicine men), spells, and houses haunted
by spirits. Among the many grades of bomoh , he describes certain of them, who acquired
familiars, as hantu keramat. To McHugh, this 'is a kind of possession by a good spirit'
and he also describes a new phenomenon, the 'Islamic hantu', who appears in the garb of
a Haji, one who has completed the pilgrimage to Mecca.20
15 Straits Times, 23 April 1971.

16 New Straits Times , 27 October 2000.
17 J. N. McHugh, Hantu Hantu: An Account of Ghost Beliefs in Modern Malaya , Singapore: Donald
Moore, 1953, p. 87.
18 Endicott, Analysis of Malay Magic , p. 76.
19 A. G. S. Danaraj, Mysticism in Malaya , Singapore: Asia Publishing, 1964, p. 10.
20 McHugh, Hantu Hantu , p. 92.
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Danaraj considered a certain Tahar Suhaimi to be a powerful bomoh who had

learned his trade from 'the greatest Bomoh [who] ever lived in Singapore'.21 This-self
styled professor, Habib Syed Hamid, who operated in Jalan Sultan, in a photograph when
aged 99 looked like an Afghani elder. The young Tahar Suhaimi, although a convert to
Islam, carried a kadavi each year at the Tamil festival of Thaipusam. Despite this and
Danaraj noting that in visits to ker amai graves 'some Muslims make vows to prophets and
saints',22 his book captured Forewords from Abdul Rahman bin Haj i Talib, then Minister
of Education Malaysia, Ahmad bin Mohamed Ibrahim, State Advocate General,
Singapore, and Abu Bakar bin Zainal, State Adult Education Officer, Pahang.
Bazaar Malay uses the term keramat loosely. The long gone Havelock Road Police
Station was supposed to have had a keramat resident spirit. There was no grave but an
orang halus (fairy, spirit) formerly in a lockup moved to a nearby tree, either homeless
after the station was demolished or because the company was rowdy. A similar story is
told of railway quarters upstairs in the old police station at Woodlands, near the turning to
Kranji Road. One drunk, having navigated the steps, the following morning awoke
outside, moved it is said by an offended keramat.
Keramat were somewhat fastidious about rubbish from houses or indecorous
behaviour from their inhabitants. I was told that off Rangoon Road, in 'a lot near a fire
hydrant', there was formerly a 'Keramat Ganja'.23 'Opium' seems a peculiar name for a
shrine but it was particularly visited on Maulud, the Prophet's Birthday. Two tombs were,
depending on the informant, either those of Mohamed Shah and, in the smaller one, Bakar
Shah, who were famous for having memorized the Qur'an, or of a husband and wife
buried there about the turn of the century. Two houses built nearby in the 1890s collapsed
because of spirited displeasure. Another story related to me tells that about the time of
World War I, another house there fell down just after a police officer left it after a night's
sleep 'because the keramat didn't want to be disturbed'.24
Care had to be taken not to offend the spirit's sensibilities, so people often took
disputes to a keramat on the grounds that a liar would be afraid to swear falsely in front
of it. Incidentally, with pre-Islamic beliefs at Keningau in East Malaysia, villagers still
turn to spirits to protect the forest by making offerings at a batu sumpah ('swearing
stone').25
Sometimes a visit to a keramat could have unexpected results. A Malay woman told
me that when she was a small girl she was taken to the Keramat Kuching, and in her
excitement she dashed in without kicking off her shoes. That night she became feverish
and her feet swelled up. Relief was only obtained when a suitable offering of nasi kunyit
(yellow glutinous rice) was made and forgiveness begged.
Nor are Westerners immune. Way back in 1884, a European who scoffed at a
Malaccan keramat sickened and died after three days of feverish nightmares. Such ideas
are often connected with ancient remains elsewhere in the world. In January 2000, a local
newspaper reported that the family of a Belgium tourist experienced bad luck until he
returned a stone removed from a prehistoric grave site in Inverness, northern Scotland.26
21 Danaraj, Mysticism in Malaya , p. 43 and photo following p. 44.

22 Ibid., p. 10.
23 Personal communication.
25 Star , 29 September 2000.
26 Star , 10 January 2000.
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Other than these minor punishments, with an exception of a stone of the Sea Gypsies
mentioned below, I have not found any mention in Singapore of 'evil' keramat.
Elsewhere, marked by anguished screams at night, these can be the graves of persons who
practised black magic or caused harm to others.
Non-Malay Keramat
Due to colloquial terminology, even non-Muslim graves have been designated keramat.
There was a so-called Sikh Keramat in the grounds of the General Hospital in Sepoy
Lines, a name from the days of the East India Company when the area was the military
cantonment for native troops.
This grave was in appearance quite unlike the Muslim type. Surrounded by a low
curb, it was a grave-sized rectangular box bearing a truncated pyramid block from which,
in the centre, protruded a phallic topknot. The tomb was believed to be that of Baba
Karam Singh. But there is another contender, Maharajah Singh, possibly the initial Sikh
pioneer of Singapore - although not by choice.
The Sikhs, for diverse reasons known as 'Bengalis', were evidently late emigrants,
the first being political exiles after the Second Sikh War of 1848, although others followed
for service in the police. Among the former was Maharajah Singh, incarcerated in the
recently built gaol, later the site of Outram Road Prison. Evidently a model, indeed a
saintly prisoner, with spiritual powers including miracles, after his death in the 1850s a
memorial was raised where he was cremated outside the walls. This was removed when
the prison was enlarged in the 1870s and, it is said, re-erected as a tomb across the road
in the grounds where the General Hospital was later built (and completed in 1 882). Others,
however, insist that this was the grave of an equally saintly Baba Karam Singh.27 In 1965,
on government orders it was dismantled and five of the original stones placed in the Silat
Road Sikh Temple.
Chinese names have also been incorporated. I was informed that off Kallang Road,
near Kampong Soo Poo, there was a keramat of that name 'in a graveyard by the bus
stop'.28 The area has now been renovated but an eponymous road is still there. This may
have been confused with the Keramat Hitam (the Black Keramat) found across the river
among squatters in an old Indian graveyard now cleared away. Other nearby Chinese
shrines referred to as keramat were those of Soo Nan and Moh Ping, possibly the same,
at the end of Lorong 1, by the Happy World grounds. This amusement centre at the
junction of Mountbatten Road and Geylang Road was later renamed the Gay World.
Orthodoxy and Keramat

Of considerable interest is Cheu's conclusion that 'more and more Chinese have adopted
the keramats as less and less Malays worship them in the wake of Islamic revival since
the 1980s.'29 Of course, Malays deny that they actually worship these sites. A respectful
greeting to the Dato' Keramat, the tutelary guardian spirit, is by no means neglected,
especially in rural areas. Even the orthodox have been known to give the Muslim
salutation of 'Salaam Alaikum'. But the trend has been for Malays to reject prayers other
27 Seva Singh Gandharab, Early Sikh Pioneers of Singapore , Singapore: Privately printed, 1986, p. 3
29 Cheu, 'Sinicization of Malay Keramats', p. 55.
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than at the graves of settlement founders, religious teachers, devout persons, or others
regarded as 'Wali- Allah'. Pious Muslims consider that praying directly to these keramat
is irreligious; the prayer is made only to Allah with remembrance of the good soul interred
there. But, as with Christians and their saints and relics, this is a fine distinction, often lost
sight of, so religious authorities have been taking steps against the practice - discourag-
ing the belief in both the quick and the dead.
McHugh tells of Siti Hijah, a 35-year-old Malay woman who claimed not only that
she had she been possessed by a keramat hantu , but that her father was the famous
keramat of Pulau Besar.30 When she moved to Batu Pahat, villagers enthusiastically
believed her until she was hauled into court and fined five dollars. Similarly, in 1947, a
woman who moved to Batu Gajah and declared herself a keramat , was promptly arrested
and fined in court. Official discouragement still continues. In 1986, at Alor Star, religious
authorities immediately discounted rumours that could have bred yet another keramat.
'Claims that knocks have been heard from the grave of Kassim Mohammed Noor, a
former headmaster.... Thousands of curious people have descended on the grave.'31 A
decade later, at Tanah Merah in Kelantan, the grave of a recently deceased bomoh drew
crowds of 'deviationists' when the 2-metre-high tomb was rumoured to be keramat}1
As well as prevention, steps are also being taken to clear up mistaken beliefs. In
Selangor, certain graves of Dato' Keramat even acquired the appurtenances of a mosque,
including the niche ('mesjid lengkap dengan kubah'), prompting the State Religious
Department to warn that there were no keramat graves in Islam ('Dalam Islam tak ada
kubur berkeramat').33 At Klang, the authorities closed down four shrines to Keramat
Datuk - all Hajis: Abu Bakar (in Jalan Tengah), Othman (Jalan Bukit Kuda), Khayat
(Jalan Meru), and Asra Karman (Jalan Goh Huat Hock).
Some are of long standing, indeed, little more than the continuation of heathen
habit. Round and about Melaka there are a number of ancient keramat. In 1990, the
Melaka Religious Department destroyed several and burnt a building used as a prayer
hall - the Surau Khadijah - on Pulau Besar.34 Like Pulau Kusu in Singapore, boatloads of
pilgrims of various races and creeds were, and still are, drawn there. The efforts failed.
The following year it was announced that the State Religious Department would relocate
five old graves.35 A decade later, the authorities tore down illegal structures at graveyards
on the island where people continued to 'make offerings in the hope that they would get
rid of ailments afflicting them or their family members or to strike a jackpot'.36
On 13 February 1990, a Sabah State Fatwah (Religious Pronouncement) permitted
Muslims to only 'mark each grave with two "batu nisan" [gravestones] and to raise it over
the ground level with earth'.37 The ruling prohibited the construction of structures at
graves and placing there articles 'such as flags, mosquito nets, lamps, umbrellas, milk
bottles, pillows and portraits'.38 In Singapore, bowls of rice and other food are often
30 McHugh, Hantu Hantu , p. 88.

31 Straits Times , 9 September 1986.
32 Star, 8 March 1996.
33 Berita Minggu , n.d.
-34 Star , 19 February 1990.
3^ New Straits Times , 26 August 1991.
36 New Straits Times , 21 May 2000.
37 New Straits Times , 13 February 1990.
« Ibid.
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presented, and of course incense is burnt. At places such as the Keramat Kuching, live
pigeons were taken as an offering and released instead of sacrificed. On receipt of the niat ,
for instance on recovery from illness, streamers of cloth called panji-panji are hung.
These could be of any colour and were often in bright multi-coloured hues although
Malays and others from Indonesia prefer yellow, Indian Muslims green.
The Chinese Take Over

Interestingly, Wilkinson noted that the word topekong in Malay was also used for a
picture or an image over a Chinese shrine.39 So portraits, which I had not seen in the
1950s, and some other items in Sabah and elsewhere may be due to growing Chinese
influence, as pointed out by Cheu.40 He identifies several sites that have virtually
completed their metamorphosis to Chinese temples. Although the process was not so
highly evolved in early Singapore, what was called a joss house was often found near a
keramat , prompting some to opine that Chinese and Malay shrines were always paired. At
Lornie Road, a small Chinese temple with a resident snake existed much longer than the
forgotten Malay grave across the way on Caldecott Hill. At the edge of the eastern
anchorage alongside Pulau Sentosa, known as the Singapore Roads, the former Blakang
Mati, from that most popular of Chinese shrines at Pulau Kusu, worshippers still crowd
up the hundred and more steps to the neighbouring Malay Keramat during the annual
pilgrimage season.
Indeed, an interracial process has been going on in Singapore ever since
newcomers arrived in Raffles' wake - not only Chinese but Indians as well. Near the
harbour, throughout the year, all races visit the Malay favourite, Keramat Habib Noh, also
on a hill (Fig. 1). The nearby Tuapekong (Ho Tek Su) is on a much older site of a shrine
with a joss house or incense house going back to 1819 or 1820. 'Toh Peh Kong', trans-
lated as 'Great Grand Uncle', is often the Local Great Saint, while 'Tua Peck Kong' is
rendered as the 'God of Prosperity'.
Comber speaks of several Singapore temples dedicated to 'The Grand Old Man'
called 'Toh Peh Kong Tolong' [last word is Malay 'help'], shortened to 'Peh Kong'.41 He
connects this to topekong ('household divinity') where To is probably an abbreviation for
dato ' and pekong ' is probably derived from the shortened version of the Grand Old Man's
name. The Malay word tokong , meaning a Chinese temple, may also be connected with
his name.'42
Indeed, 'Dato Kong' is the most likely source of the Malay word topekong ,
sometimes loosely applied to a Tamil temple as well.43 The seafaring Malays give the
name to both a 'waterless islet' and the 'joss-house'.44 Cheu has pointed out the develop-
ment of the 'Datuk Kong' (synonyms for 'grandfather'), redundantly paired as an
honorific for the spirit in the shrine-cum-tera/wa/ worship.45 Colloquially shortened, the
'dato' pekong' becomes, as in Ulu Selangor, 'Toh Ketopang', and eventually 'to kong'.
39 Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary , Vol. 2, 'topekong', p. 1236.

40 Cheu, 'Sinicization of Malay Keramats', p. 55 et seq.
41 Leon Comber, Chinese Temples in Singapore , Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1958, p. 32.
42 Ibid., p. 33.
43 Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary , Vol. 2, 'topekong', p. 1236.
44 Ibid, 'tokong',p. 1231.
45 Cheu, 'Sinicization of Malay Keramats', p. 35.
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The 'Tokong' for a shrine is obviously a loan word and all these terms are etymological-
ly connected.
Speculation over the name of Pulau Tekong, Singapore's largest off-shore island,
has even derived its name from confusion with the islet 'tokong'. Others say a Chinese
called 'tekong' landed to search for water, or a guiding star of that name led ships to the
haven, or even that a pirate, once more Chinese, was beheaded ( bertokong ) here.46
Dictionaries note that tekong is a junk master or a Sumatran measure of weight. The
Kamus Dewan gives a variant, tikung , from Jakarta for, as Wilkinson puts it, a tikong -
'bend in road or river'.47 Yet others say that in 1804 refugees from a civil war fled here
from Kampong Tekong in Pahang.
At the shoreline of the neighbouring Pulau Ubin is a trim hut said to be the haunt of
a runaway Javanese princess who died in the late nineteenth century. What was evidently
a natural outcrop resembling the figure of a sleeping beauty was identified as the
crumbled remnants of her actual grave shrine, or makam , on the island's peak. This
disappeared with the quarrying of the granite for which the island is named and the bones
and remains of the makam transported themselves to a more restful spot by the beach.
The association of this Keramat Puteri Jawa on Bukit Puaka suggests an older
origin. 'Puaka' is the 'genius loci' - the spirit of the locality making a change, which
Wilkinson notes, into 'a dato' keramat or tutelary and miracle working saint'.48 This
shrine, painted yellow with a red roof and with various Chinese trappings, including a
gold-lettered name board, illustrates the sinicization observed elsewhere by Cheu.49 It is
a good example of a syncretistic process with the metamorphosis of an aboriginal
animistic spirit into a Malay wonder woman, then into a Chinese deity.
Orang Laut: Pre-Islamic Roots

Ancient animistic beliefs, either directly or indirectly, merged into a number of keramat
around Singapore Island. The local aboriginals were the Orang Laut, literally 'Sea
People', rendered as 'Sea Gypsies', who lived in boats around the coasts of Southeast
Asia. When on passage to Burma in 1955, 1 encountered on the open sea a dugout full of
the shy folk, who rowed furiously away from the direction of our ship. Until after the
middle of the twentieth century in Singapore, a few small communities still lived in what
were regarded as Malay kampongs with thatched huts built on stilts over the water.
In Keppel Harbour, passengers on liners would throw coins to skilled divers
alongside. They were Orang Laut children from Telok Saga on Pulau Berani, the 'Isle of
the Brave', and Belakang Mati, the 'Dead End', now called Sentosa 'the Peaceful'.
Fisherfolk there had been confirmed possession after supporting the British against
pirates, but their loyalty was to the Sultan of Johore who resettled a number near Pulai.
Among those left was a larger group, the ancient Biduanda Kallang, over the tidal basin
in Kampong Kuchan off Lorong 3. The largest community, the Kon Seletar, who buried
their dead in trees, was on the north of the island. Those about the Pulai River gave their
name to the Royal Air Force Flying Boat Base. The term derived from the days they lived
in the selat or straits around Singapore and the Riau Islands when they were loyal liege
46 Straits Times , 21 January 1985.

47 Kamus Dewan , 'tikung', p. 1444; Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary , Vol. 2, 'tikong', p. 1220.
48 Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary , Vol. 2, 'puaka', p. 914.
49 Berita Minggu, 27 October 1985.
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'Celetes' to the old sultans. In 1923, the Causeway split them from another group along
the shoreline west from Kranji, where some few were still living in sampans sixty years
later.50
From them may have derived a number of natural keramat, including sea and land
marks, that predated the arrival of the English. Near the end of a headland in Jurong,
overlooking Selat Sembilan, was the Keramat Tanjong Kling, a small grave of a Tamil
nahkoda (ship's master) of an Indian trading vessel who died while passing this spot. The
earliest reference, about 1840, predated the grave, so respect for the headland derived
possibly from the bare cliff as an important sailing mark for those making for the Old
Strait. By the 1950s it did not even rate a mention on Admiralty charts.
In 1952, on visiting the police station at Tanjong Kling at the end of Boon Lay Road,
Jurong, a police sergeant showed me two batu nisan but no cement or brick mound
between them. Batu nisan , round for men and flat for women, are grave markers, usually
paired; they are too close together to be translated as 'headstone' and 'footstone'. Unlike
the Chinese, who use granite, these are usually made of sandstone or, in more modern
times, cement. The sergeant did not know who was buried there, nor that this was
supposedly the grave of an Indian nahkoda who was said to have died some 125 years
previously. He told me that the headland and kampong took its name from the graves but
the villagers were 'orang asal-nya Kampong Glam' - people originally from Kampong
Glam who, in turn, were Orang Laut from the Riau Islands. The police station is still there
but the eponymous kampong is gone and the keramat is no longer marked in the
Singapore Street Directory.
Another natural feature regarded as keramat was a hill slope so marked in a map of
1854. This was off Havelock Road at Bukit Bentan, which takes its name from a kampong
of Chinese fishermen who came from Pulau Bentan in the Riau Islands and settled here
between 1820 and 1840. The keramat , in what is now the York Hill Estate, attached to an
Indian-type tomb said to be the grave of a master fisherman who died there towards the
end of the nineteenth century.
A Sea Gypsy keramat was a natural pillar of rock known to Malays as a 'Sailing
Stone', the Batu Berlayar, called by Europeans 'Lot's Wife'. It was blown up in 1848 as
an obstruction to shipping, although it had figured 'upon old charts engraved upwards of
200 years ago'.51 According to Buckley, it had 'been known to navigators for many
hundreds of years'.52 It stood at the end of Labrador Park by the western entrance to
Keppel Harbour, and there was an eponymous kampong along the Pasir Panjang Road.
Pre-European Malayan Influence

Munshi Abdullah, author and Malay Secretary to Raffles, recorded that Orang Laut
regarded as keramat the Batu Kepala Todak, the 'Garfish Head Rock'.53 It was among
several others at the mouth of the Singapore River. This one was the abode of an evil
spirit to whom they made vows and offerings and raised banners in its honour. The
peculiarly shaped spirit rock was also blasted away as a hazard to navigation.
50 Berita Minggu, 27 September 1981.

C. B. Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867 , Kuala Lumpur: Oxford
University Press, 1965, p. 489.
52 Ibid.
Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, Munshi, 'The Hikayat Abdullah', Journal of the Malayan Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society , 28(3), 1950, pp. 84-99, 130, n.7 p. 301.
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Todak connects to a famous Malay legend from when a horde of garfish invaded
ancient Singapura. A newspaper headlined that this 'Killer fish belongs to a carnivorous
species' after, unlikely as it seems, one in Kelantan speared a fisherman, Husin Mamat, in
the stomach.54 Other papers noted that a woman had been similarly killed off Perak in the
previous year. The legendary attack on Singapore was also recalled, but none commented
on the macabre coincidence that the latest death took place off Pulau Tengkorak ('Skull
Island') near Pengkalan Kubor ('Grave Jetty').
Tanjong Pagar ('Fenced Headland') was where a boy ordered that a stockade of
banana trees be erected to embed the 'swordfish' snouts when they charged ashore. For
reward, the king, prompted by jealous ministers, had him done away with. In one story,
the lad was loaded with chains and told to swim to the Indonesian island of Batam. He got
as far as a reef called Alang Berantai ('Barrier of Chains') in the Main Strait Singapore.
Several place names derive from this story. When arrested, the boy was wounded in the
scuffle and his blood gave colour to Bukit Merah ('Red Hill').
The final resting place of this too clever youth is near the navigational hazard of
Batu Berhenti ('Stopping Place'). Admiralty Sailing Directions advise 'violent eddies and
overfalls are usually to be met with' and ships should 'keep on the northern side of the
strait'.55 Small boats and even motor-powered launches have been lost here, so it is not
surprising that when the water is clear fisherfolk have seen a 'dato' keramať with crossed
legs in meditation.
Popular to this day in stories and bangs awan (Malay opera) was a beautiful 'Golden
Princess', Radin Mas, who also came to an untimely end. Like the keramat of Pualu Ubin,
she was Javanese. It is unnecessary to examine the various tales of this, but off Mount
Faber Road, below the Signal Station, the Keramat Radin Mas became associated with an
unnamed grave in the grounds of a government bungalow (Fig. 2). It is still there within
an area that has been considerably redeveloped. The eponymous street and kampong
below it have disappeared, while the Radin Mas School has moved elsewhere to modern
premises. A stream nearby was credited with health-giving properties before it became a
monsoon ditch.
Such legends from ancient Singapura are connected with the area from the
'cooking pot' of Telok Belanga to the 'stockade' of Tanjong Pagar. However, S. Durai
Raja Singam is more prosaic, merely noting that Radin Mas is a type of rice while the
Tanjong Pagar stockade was that of the Harbour Board.56 In these instances, he may well
be wrong. The Singapore Street Directory admits that 'the origin of the name Tanjong
Pagar is uncertain but it is undoubtedly much older than the present harbour installations,
and cannot be said to refer to them in any way.'57
Raja Singam has identified other natural features to which myths attached, such as
the 'Idol Islets' of Pulau Berhala scattered through the region.58 He sees the 'fragment' of
Berhala Keping as the 'joss' guarding the entrance between the islands of Berani and
54 New Straits Times , 18 March 1999.

55 Malacca Strait and West Coast of Sumatra Pilot , 5th edn, London: Hydrographer of the Navy, 1971,
p. 194.
56 S. Durai Raja Singam, Malayan Place Names , 4th edn, Kuala Lumpur: Privately printed, 1962, 'Radin
Mas', p. 249, 'Tanjong Pagar', p. 252.
57 Singapore Street Directory, 1968, n. 64 p. 255.
58 Raja Singam, Malayan Place Names , 'Berhala Keping', p. 242.
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Blakang Mati. This strait aims towards Pulau Hantu ('Ghost Island') in Keppel Harbour,
which could be seen from the Keramat Batu Berlayar. Sailing past there into the Western
Roads and towards the Keramat Batu Berhenti, just south of the long-established oil
refinery on Pulau Bukom, is Pulau Fong. Raja Singam renders this as 'Junk Island' after
a Chinese trading vessel was turned into stone by yet another sea spirit to prevent the local
piratical Sea Gypsies from capturing it.
The Kepala Todak stone was apparently alongside the one referred to in Begbie's
Diary , which recorded that at the mouth of the Singapore River there was a tidal covered
rock, marked with a pole by Lieut. Jackson of the Bengal Artillery.59 Flung there by
Badang, a local Hercules, it was the only survivor of several miraculous stones recorded
in the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals). Thus, 'the house of Sang Ranjuna Тара and his
wife was turned into rock which exists to this day in the moat of Singapura'.60 The body
of another good man, executed by the rajah, disappeared but there remained his 'blood,
which turned into stone and is there to this day' - all very reminiscent of the origins of
Red Hill (Bukit Merah).61
Ancient Singhapura
There were few antiquities when Raffles arrived in 1819: some brick foundations and a
grave or two on Bukit Larangan, the 'Forbidden Hill', as well as at its foot the mound of
a mile-long wall and a depression marking a moat. A couple of years later, an engraved
stone block was found at the mouth of the Singapore River about where the massive
Fullerton Building was built. Two keramat quickly evolved from these discoveries.
One of the first of the Victorians, born like Singapore in the same year as the Great
White Queen, a well-known European, W. H. Read, who arrived in 1841, told of this
'valuable relic of antiquity' on the foreshore. 'It used to be decorated with flags and
offerings when at the entrance of the Singapore River.'62 The engraved block had been
discovered when Capt. Flint RN, the Master Attendant and brother-in-law of Raffles, sent
some sailors from Bengal to clear away the brush at the mouth of the river. As usual, in a
sort of precursor of the Mummy's Curse of the next century, the Indians were frightened
by the mysterious markings. They backed off and the work was finished by Chinese
workmen.
But all races flocked to view the coarse red sandstone block, 10 feet high, 2-5 feet
thick, and 9-10 feet in length. The weathered inscription of about 50 lines was so
illegible that it baffled the efforts of even Raffles to decipher the letters. Some saw a
resemblance to another such find in Province Wellesley, on the mainland opposite Penang.
Although various copies were made, it was never deciphered, and, as Munshi Abdullah
remarked, 'Only Allah knows.'63 Blown up in the time of Governor Bonham, only a
portion that was even partially readable was sent to India for study.
Of the ancient remains, this memorial stood as late as 1835, until the time the Irish
architect George Coleman was Superintendent of Public Works, when it was blasted to
59 P. J. Begbie, The Malayan Peninsula , Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 357.
60 Brown, С. C. (trans.), Sejarah Melayu - Malay Annals, Singapore: Oxford University, 1970, p. 41.
61 Ibid., p. 40; W. Lineham, 'The Kings of 14th Century Singapore', Journal of the Malayan Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society , 21(1), 1947, pp. 117-27, n. 6 p. 118, n. 10 p. 119.
62 W. H. Read, quoted by Buckley, Anecdotal History , p. 94.
63 Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah, p. 147.
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pieces to make way for a bungalow. The mile-long wall with its moat, and the founda-
tions, have disappeared from the hill, which having been given several names over the
years is now known as Fort Canning from when it was built in 1859.
Only the site of the grave survives upon which a rebuilt tomb is given the name of
the last ruler, Iskandar Shah, who, after the destruction of Singapura in 1391, went on to
found Malacca. The identification is doubtful as the Sultan died at his new capital in 1413.
Known as the Keramat Iskandar Shah, it is the last connection with those ancient remains,
even though the exact occupant of the grave is undetermined (Fig. 3).
After a dig for the National Museum in January 1984, John Miksic, a lecturer in
Archaeology at Gadja Mada University, Yogyakarta, uncovered pottery fragments dating
as far back as the fourteenth century. There is, therefore, a possibility that the grave may
be that of Sri Tri Buana (c. 1299-1 347), the founder of the Singapore dynasty that lasted
until Iskandar Shah fled. As recorded in the Sejarah Melayu, this legendary ancestor, also
called Sang Utama, and possibly another refugee from Java, landed at the bay of Telok
Belanga and was buried 'on the hill of Singapura' on the island of Temasek.64 But, of
course, it makes it easier for Muslims to make their offerings to a Muslim ruler rather than
to the 'Lord of the Three Worlds' - Sri Tri Buana.
Another possibility is that this was just a grave dating from a sixteenth-century
settlement that was rebuilt on the site of Singhapura. During the Japanese Occupation, a
valuable clue was lost with the disappearance from Raffles Museum of some ancient gold
ornaments, possibly Hindu, found on the hill in 1928.
In any event, the grave was already ancient when Raffles arrived in 1819 and
ordered labourers to clear the haunted hill where a palace once stood. The local Malays
had long been reluctant to intrude into the precincts of a royal grave. They told of
drumming and shouts from the area where there were several graves. Raffles himself
noted this in several letters to the lexicographer William Marsden, remarking that if he
died on the island, 'The tombs of the Malay Kings are however close to hand.'65 To the
Duchess of Somerset he wrote rather than 'to become food for fishes, I preferred
ascending the Hill, where if my bones must remain in the East, they would have the
honour of mixing with the ashes of Malayan kings'.66
But if the local Malays refused to desecrate the soil of their ancestors, those from
Malacca were less inhibited and hauled a cannon to the top. Still the grave, royal or not,
had its attractions, and John Crawfurd, later Resident, on passage to the Court of Siam,
visited Singapore and in February 1822 inspected the 'only remains of antiquity, besides
the stone'.67 On the Singapore Hill, on terraces, were some traces of foundations,
including a conjectured Buddhist temple and the putative grave of the last king of
Singapore. 'Over the supposed tomb of Iskandar a rude structure has been raised, since
the foundation of the settlement, to which Muhammadans, Hindoos, and Chinese equally
resort to do homage.'68
64 Brown, Sejarah Melayu , p. 21.

65 Thomas Stamford Raffles, quoted in C. E. Wurtzburg, Raffles of the Eastern Isles , London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1954, p. 620.
66 Ibid., p. 621.
67 John Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China , Kuala Lumpur: Oxford
University Press, 1967, p. 46.
68 Ibid.
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Buckley quotes an official letter of the following year ordering that the Chinese be
prohibited from 'letting off fireworks at the Kramat you have allowed to be erected on the
government hill'.69 A century later, the Museum and Library Committee asked the
government for 'the removal of sordid surroundings of the tomb, the erection of a
mausoleum and cloister, and the beautifying of the approaches to this interesting though
mysterious relic of the distant past'.70 In the 1950s, from near the southernmost gate of
the Old Christian Cemetery, visitors followed a rough path that went outside the wall. A
concrete platform had been laid around the grave that had a yellow canopy. The building
was clean and well kept by an Indian caretaker and his wife. Finally, in 1990, in time for
the 600th anniversary of the founding of Malacca, at a cost of almost S$ 150,000, the
government ordered a restoration. Fittingly, this incorporated twenty wooden pillars
carved by Malaccan craftsmen.
Nineteenth-century Growth
Within a short time of the British Settlement's foundation, Singapore keramat soon began
to proliferate. As early as 1823, the grave of an executed murderer was perceived as one.
The Keramat Syed Yassin, formerly found near Tanjong Pagar Police Station, was
regularly visited until fenced off by the Singapore Harbour Board (now the Port of
Singapore Authority). Both the site and the station at the junction of Keppel Road have
long disappeared.
A descendent of the Prophet, Syed Yassin, an Arab trader from Pahang, created a
stir in early Singapore when, on 11 March 1823, he ran amok after being ordered
imprisoned for debt. Escaping the police, he killed a Hindu government peon, then
severely wounded the Resident Colonel William Farquhar, before he was shot dead by the
latter 's son. Raffles, apprehensive that this was a signal for a general uprising, ordered the
body hung for a fortnight in an iron cage at Tanjong Malang - as a 'place of bad luck' the
spot was appropriately named but probably derives from a submerged 'pinnacle rock'.
Marking the western boundary of the settlement, other names were 'Malay Spit' or Telok
Ayer Point. It formed with the jutting Tanjong Pagar the East Lagoon, alongside which the
Royal Singapore Yacht Club had its premises. Not far way, his grave subsequently
'became a place of pilgrimage, and Syed Yassin was considered a great saint, because the
holy Syed had only killed a Fakir (the Hindoo) and wounded a Nazarene (Colonel
Farquhar)'.71
The production of keramat also intertwined with arriving migrants - the twinned
Chinese and Malay shrines at Peak Island at the edge of the harbour, mentioned above,
being among the most interesting. Better known by its hybrid name of Pulau Kusu, a
popular Chinese temple is on what were originally two small reef outcrops. With
increased acreage from reclamation, it is now updated with smart buildings and manicured
lawns, as well as fertility trees, from which barren women hang fans for daughters or
wishing stones for sons, nowadays wrapped in red plastic bags. Generally, there are few
visitors, but along with a regular ferry, extra boats are laid on to handle crowds on the
Feast of Tua Peck Kong, in this case Nine Venerable Sovereigns, in the ninth lunar month.
69 Buckley, Anecdotal History , p. 96.

70 W. Makepeace, G. E. Brooke, and R. St. J. Braddell (eds.), One Hundred Years of Singapore , Singapore:
Oxford University Press, 1991, Vol. 1, p. 577.
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The pilgrims also make a point of visiting the Malay Keramat.

The origin of the Chinese interest is disputed. One story is that plague-ridden
passengers gave thanks here after they recovered when their junk anchored off the island.
Kusu is Hokkien for 'tortoise', inspired perhaps by the shape of the island, but a legend
tells of a giant tortoise saving shipwrecked Chinese sailors and landing them at this spot.
Another twist to this tale has the tortoise transforming itself into the islet. In yet another,
the tortoise landed two fishermen, one Chinese, the other Malay, obviously meant to
explain the Muslim shrine.
The Malay version is that about 1830 two ascetics made their way to the island to
meditate for three months. One was an Arab, Syed Rahman, and the other a Chinese
known as Yam. Not having brought any supplies, after three days Yam complained of
hunger, so Syed Rahman directed him to their sampan that was miraculously filled with
food. When their stint was finished, the ever helpful sampan carried them ashore without
the duo having to paddle. The two made repeat visits and finally died on the island. It is
not clear what happened to Yam's body but that of the Arab was buried there, later joined
with those of his mother and daughter.
Dato Syed Abdul Rahman is also said to have died in 1816(7), while the group of
graves are said to be a Malay family of three 'who died long, long ago', the other two
being his mother Ghalib and his daughter Sharifah Fatimah.72 In 1973, an 86-year-old
Malay known as Pak Besar ('Big Daddy') owned the three graves, alms for which
provided him with a good livelihood.
Man-made ruins may or may not be connected with some forgotten shrine.
Mentioned by W. Lineham, on the left hand side of Nassim Road, going toward the
university in the compound of a government house, a former keramat grave was outlined
by bricks.73 When I was lecturing in Nautical Studies at the Singapore Polytechnic, then
in Prince Edward Road, the principal, an amiable New Zealander, Mr Scully, told me that
the campus project had been truncated because of a Malay keramat within dilapidated
walls on a hillock. I ventured that it was nothing of the sort and suggested that there was
confusion with the nearby Habib Noh. Indeed, this site was known as the Parsee 'Burial'
Ground, which seems unusual as that sect left their dead to the birds of the air. Long
disused, some old graves, dating from 1828, were moved elsewhere. Near the harbour, this
was located on the original Mount Palmer, recalling one of the first European merchants.
A short distance away, on a hill off the end of Palmer Road, is the most famous of all, the
Keramat Habib Noh, who had been a 'living' saint (see Fig. 1). Nowadays labelled as a
Makam, perhaps best translated as a 'Mausoleum', it is the tomb of Habib Noh
b. Mohammed al-Habshi. 'Habib', the 'Beloved' of God, is a title sometimes given to
descendants of the Prophet, although 'Lord' Syed is borne by males and the 'Noble'
Sharifah by females.
Habib Noh died at an advanced age in July 1866 in the home of a relative of
Temenggong Abu Bakar at Telok Belanga. Some 52 steps lead to the marble-covered
building erected by Syed Mohammed bin Ahmed Al-Sagoff about 1890 and still
maintained by that family from an endowment fund they established. It, and the mosque
of Masjid Mohamed Salleh, were renovated in the 1980s for S$800,000.
72 Asia Magazine , 16 September 1973, p. 19.

73 Lineham, 'The Kings of 14th Century Singapore', pp. 117-27, n. 6 p. 118.
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Shortly after it was founded, Habib Noh came to the Settlement from Penang where
he may have been born. But a story has it that he was actually travelling from Moulmein
in Burma but stopped at Penang. His friends carried on by ship to Singapore, and although
no other ship overtook them, it is said that Habib Noh met them on arrival.
Incidentally, in Klang, Selangor, near Simpang Lima, there is a shrine to an Arab,
Sheikh Muhammad Ali, who was said by some to be a kinsman. R. O. W. Winstedt puts
his arrival about 1880 and adds without comment on its efficacy, the following litmus test
for authenticity. 'A way to test if the dead saint will cause a vow to be fulfilled is to take
a stick and say "If thou will help me, let this stick grow longer"; if help is to be forth-
coming it will lengthen at once.'74
Habib Noh was very religious and attended the Sultan Mosque and the Istana at
Kampong Glam. He was renowned for extreme piety, and for his ability to walk on water.
He could transport himself to wherever he wanted and visited Mecca every Friday. He was
always trailed by boys, which is not surprising, as being fond of children he used to throw
money to them, scooping it up from the tables of the moneychanger Chettiars. And,
according to the mother-in-law of Superintendent of Police Mahmood, they were never
short at the end of the day! Habib Noh cared nothing for money, and when some Chinese
gave him a diamond ring he threw it into the sea. He was verbally abused, so he called the
ring back from its watery grave and returned it. His sanctity was confirmed when, during
the Japanese attacks on Singapore, the site was untouched by bombs or shells that fell
about the harbour.
Keramat Habib Noh, as mentioned earlier, continues to draw devotees in great
numbers, being especially noted for solving personal problems. In 1994, a Malaysian
politician who had girl trouble made a successful pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Habib
Noh in Singapore; he was not among those prosecuted for statutory rape of a willing but
underage erstwhile maiden.
The Indian Connection

Not far from Habib Noh is Telok Ayer Street, which follows the original shoreline. As a
landing place for travellers and emigrants from the time that Raffles founded his new port,
a number of places sprang up where they could give thanks. There are still three in a row,
which at the time faced the sea. One, the Nagore Durgha, now labelled a Muslim shrine,
was simply an Indian Mosque in the 1950s (Fig. 4). Although there was no tomb, some
said it was the Keramat Nogol or Narghol. To others, it was a memorial to a saint who
died in India. The Nagore Durgha (1828-33) is officially listed as the oldest monument in
Singapore, followed by the Masjid Jamae (1830-5), which is mentioned below.
Further along Telok Ayer Street is the Thian Hock Kien Temple, originally the site
of a Hokkien joss house from about 1821-2. The third is the Al-Abrar Mosque, known in
the 1950s as the Masjid Chulia. Although first built around 1827-30, the present building
(1850-5) is the seventh oldest monument. It may have been renamed because there was
another Chulia Mosque in South Bridge Road, which contains the tomb of an Indian who
used to bathe in boiling water. He died at the time of some Indo-Chinese riots so his
burial was deferred but the body remained 'sweet', so some regard his grave as keramat.
74 R. O. W. Winstedt, 'Karamat: Sacred Sites and Persons in Malaya', Journal of the Malayan Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society, 2(3), 1924, n. 41 p.275.
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FIG. 1: Keramat Habib Noh at Palmer Road, with Masjid Salleh in the foreground.
FIG. 2: Keramat Iskandar Shah at Fort Canning.
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FIG. 3: Keramat Raden Mas Ayu at Mount Faber.
FIG. 4: Nagore Durga Shrine at the junction of Telok Ayer Street and Boon Tat Street.
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The namesake at the corner of Mosque Street is now the Jamae Mosque, replacing
an earlier brick structure of about 1826 built under the leadership of Anser Saib (Sahib).
Still called the Chulia Mosque in the 1950s, the original name came from the
moneychangers of the Coromandel Coast. They congregated at Chulia Street off Raffles
Place, but this was originally Kling Street that was relabelled when the common name for
Tamils became regarded as pejorative. Scholars see 'Kling' as a native of Kalinga in the
Telugu district, an ancient, once famous south Indian kingdom even mentioned by Pliny.
However, popular folklore says that onomatopoetically it recreates the sound of the leg
irons worn by the first Tamil arrivals as convict labour transported from India.
Many keramat are Indian, the most famous being Keramat Habib (Syed) Ismail by
the side of Upper Bukit Timah Road, opposite the old Ford Motor Company (where
General Percival surrendered to the Japanese in 1942). The fact that it missed damage
from bombs and shells, like Habib Noh at Keppel, is regarded as proof of it being
genuine. Because it is near the old 8th mile stone, it is known also as 'Keramat Batu
Lapan' to Malays and Chinese, or as 'Ten Hills' - 'eyam malai andavu' - to Tamils,
whether Muslim or Hindu.
It is still much frequented as helpful for those wanting children or for those whose
children are ill. The Singapore Street Directory says the grave inside was of an Arab of
great piety who died about seventy years ago, which would have been about the 1930s.
His name may have been Nasoor, a Mecca saint. But in the 1950s, another candidate was
an Indian Muslim, Nagool, who had been a living saint revered for his goodness. The
names are reminiscent of the so-called keramat in the Chulia Mosque in South Bridge
Road.
Yet, there is even more uncertainty, for it is said that a keramat existed before the
road was built in 1843. At that time, there was a caretaker, about ninety years old, who
being under miraculous protection was unafraid of tigers although many roamed nearby.
In fact, as late as 1896 two tigers were shot in Bukit Timah.
The Long Graves

Kubor Panjang ('Long Grave') in Ringwood Road, off Arthur Road, was the 'most
interesting' of the long graves, albeit of a 'manufactured' saint.75 About 47 feet long, it
was the longer of two graves and was believed to have grown in size because of the piety
of the interred. The date was uncertain but may have been about 90-1 10 years old in 1956.
In 1981, the owners, a realty company, applied to exhume the graves to be removed to the
Chua Chu Kang Muslim Cemetery. Evidently without success at that time, the keramat
still appeared in the 15th edition (1988) of the Directory.
In the 1950s, an open-sided shed with galvanized roofing sheets sheltered the site.
Both gravestones were covered with cloth, a tarpaulin was also draped over the longer
one, and both mounds were bricked over and whitewashed. In addition, there was a
pottery incense burner, two candle stands, and small stones hanging along with strips of
cloth. On a visit there one dark night, I met a party from Changi emotionally crying in
thanks for the cure of a sick child they had brought there earlier.
Some say that this, and another Kubor Panjang in Lorong 40, Geylang, are the
graves of related unnamed Indian brothers. I found that this second grave was sheltered
75 Singapore Street Directory, 1968, n. 70 p.256.
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by a whitewashed shed, whose door was bolted but not locked at my visit. A single long
grave was covered with a yellow cloth, and there was an incense burner and two or three
small stones hung up.
Police Superintendent Mahmood was firm that this was actually the grave of Syed
Hussain Al-Attas. Mahmood told me he helped to build the shed paid for by a Chinese
who spat nearby and vomited blood until he begged forgiveness. Others say a grateful race
lottery winner built the hut, but there is some confusion. This is one of two keramat across
the Sungei Geylang from Lorong 40 in Siang Lim Park. The other, Keramat (Sharifah)
Katijah, died a virgin and as a result the keramat does not help girls but only boys because
she likes them. According to some, the good lady and her husband are buried together in
the long grave with their child near by.
There used to be another kubor panjang on a small hill in the compound of Paya
Lebar Police Station, mentioned earlier. Dating back to the time of the Great War, the
story is not known but the grave was given the name of Keramat Siti Aminah. This grave,
housed in a small wooden building, took the form of a long slab of stone covered with a
yellow cloth. An old pattern was repeated with a large tree alongside that also acquired a
certain sanctity.
In 1968, a million dollar street widening project in Upper Serangoon Road was held
up by an 'old wayside wood-zinc shrine' which no one was willing to touch because 'evil
might come to them if they do so'.76 The part-time caretaker, Inche Salleh, had inherited
the post from his father-in-law. Although he worked for the Public Works Department, he
had already moved to Geylang. Both the Muslim Trust Fund Association and the Muslim
Advisory Board were asked by the PWD to assist. Finally, the tree was felled and the
remains moved elsewhere after PWD 'workmen took the precaution of offering prayers
before they started the work'. It is as well that they did. At Alor Star, in Kedah, a mystery
rash affected firemen when they tried to put out a fire at a 100-year-old tree shrine. As
soon as Irrigation Department workers cut a few branches, it had burst into flames which
days later still burned despite attempts to extinguish the fire.77
Police Guardians
There was another miracle family connected with the Keramat Siti Mariam behind the
Rumah Miskin Police Station in Balestier Road. This was one of a number of keramat ,
many female, cared for by senior Malay policemen. It was still visited by Muslims after
the police station decommissioned and the building was occupied by the Indian Fine Arts
Society. The younger sister of Siti Mariam was a keramat at Thomson Road, given the
alternative names Rafiah or, more likely, Siti Zainab. Their brother's grave was a keramat
mentioned above at Caldecott Hill, near the radio station that is now the Singapore
Broadcasting Corporation. They were a poor Javanese family who lived in Haj i Artiin
Perumal Road, which I never managed to trace, and earned their living along the seashore
collecting various shellfish. The grave of the brother had disappeared by the 1950s and
now all three are gone.
Keramat were mentioned as being in the grounds of former sub-police stations, both
used as a Customs House and Fisheries Control - one in Upper Serangoon Road and the
other the grave of Siti Aishah or Habshah in Ama Keng Village.
Straits Times , 16 August 1968.

77 Sunday Times , 30 January 1983.
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The Keramat Maliki, off the East Coast Road not far from an Indian temple, was
found by crossing a bridge and climbing the hill. Although Kampong Maliki was near by,
the grave was in a ruinous state when I visited it. When I told him of it, Superintendent
Mahmood led others to clean it up. The area had been developed and the keramat is now
located by the Temasek Junior College on the edge of Sennet Estate. Maliki is the name
of an eighth-century Muslim sect of the teacher Malik b. Anas.
Probably eponymously named after the village, an unusual story is told that a
hermit sat in meditation until the roots grew around him as far as his neck. People going
to the hermit caught his attention by shaking a pole, which he would shake back. It is
possible that he did not like this casual mode because an old Javanese, whose money was
stolen, died a week after he requested help for the Haj pilgrimage. This sounds more like
a Hindu sadhu than a Muslim mystic.
Home Grown
More certain are other Muslim keramat graves from the old times of modern Singapore.
The Keramat Kubor Lasam was more commonly known as Keramat Siglap from the name
of the village founded by Lasam, who arrived from either Riau or South Borneo at the
time of Sultan Husain Mohamed Shah. The village existed before 1840, but the area has
changed with the reclamation of the foreshore; it now lies on the landward side of Marine
Parade. When I lived nearby in the late 1950s, the fisherfolk looked after the cemetery in
which there was a concrete wall about 6 feet high around a very low shelter over two sets
of stones (male and female). There were no particular marks of respect, such as incense.
The keramat is no longer marked although there is a new mosque in Jalan Sempadan.
A note in the Street Directory of 1966 observes that this founder's grave 'Seems too
reminiscent' of the Bugis leader buried at Telok Belanga. According to Winstedt, Lasam
was one of three brothers, the eldest Lasa and the youngest Bujang, of the royal house of
Pontianak.78 They migrated first to Bangka then, in the time of Husain (1809), to
Singapore Harbour. On their way there, they landed at a clearing on the south side of the
island during a great storm, hence the name 'Si-gelap' - the dark one. Immigrants from
Riau and Lingga later settled at that place. Lasa returned to Pontianak but the English
appointed Lasam as the penghulu (headman) of the fishing village. The good man not only
single-handedly arrested a Bugis Wak Biak, who ran amok killing several people, but also
recaptured him after he escaped from police custody. Even while alive, people regarded
Lasam as holy and even more so after he died when his corpse became the colour of
saffron. Incidentally, Buckley does not mention Wak Biak in his several entries on amok,
including a lengthy dissertation in connection with the attack on Farquhar, although
noting that 75 per cent of those who ran amok were Bugis.79 This predilection may
account for the folk etymology of 'the bogie man'.
I could not trace the tale of another early Keramat, Mak Tanggoh, in the grounds of
Government House (now Istana Negara). No longer appearing on the maps, there was a
graveyard at the foot of what was then called Lock's Hill. This cemetery of Muslims, who
came from Bencoolen in 1825-8, was only open to the public on special occasions when
some took the opportunity to visit it. It lies opposite Buyong Road, from which, lying
78 Winstedt, 'Karamať, n. 26 p. 272.

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parallel to Orchard Road, are Kramat Lane and Kramat Road, spelt in the old style,
deriving their names from their neighbour. Not far from Woodlands, with different
transliteration, there is another Keramat Road off Admiralty Road West, in the area of the
former Naval Base Domain.
In Arab Street, the Keramat Fakeh Haji Abdul Jalil was a more elaborate tomb with
several other small ones, surrounded by a high wall. Fakeh was Imam to Sultan Husain
Mohammed Shah (d. 1835) from before 1819 until his death between 1825 and 30. When
I visited in the 1950s, his great grandson Ibrahim, who lived near by, was the caretaker.
As mentioned earlier, he, along with others, denied that the grave was keramat despite the
Directory entry. However, a few people still visited to make niat. The tomb was near
Blanco Court in a small courtyard entered from Arab Sreet between Victoria Street and
North Bridge Road, but the area was cleared and is now overbuilt.
The Keramat Kuching mentioned earlier still exists in the middle of a housing estate
in the curve between Chai Chee Road and Chai Chee Drive. A rather elaborate tiled
building was erected by an Indian medicine man as a keramat to his grandfather, Zain
Mustapha, claimed to be a 'Bismillah Wali' (saint of God). An earlier structure had burned
down and the grandson moved to this site following instructions received in a dream. It is
not clear what happened to the old man's actual grave.
As well as those discussed above, during my enquiries I was told of others, but
amongst the rice grains there was much chaff. Vague recollections and even vaguer
directions recalled keramat at various locales, such as at Bedok or Tanah Merah near the
Changi Air Base or 'in St Francis Road'. Others may have been confusion of location; the
possibility of a keramat at 'Lorong 37 or 39' may well be one of those across Geylang
Road at Lorong 40. A keramat in Upper Serangoon Rood, near the river, close to Kangkah
sub-police station, was probably the same as Siti Aishah.
Mention might be made of some forgotten grave or even a majestic tree, while a
number were placed on hills, such as at Pasir Panjang, which may have been the same as
the one across the road by West Point Gardens. Another was given as opposite the
Kampong Barn Police Station, which may have referred to Radin Mas. But that particu-
lar one may have referred to a grave in the old walled Malay Cemetery, enclosing the
resting places of the followers and family of the Bugis leader Balarra, who arrived in
1820. The police station is no longer there but the Tanah Kubor Raja is. At times, various
graves in the Malay section of Bidadari were fleetingly regarded as keramat.
An interesting location was at the West Point Garden, a large villa on a rather
secluded point of land at the end of a long narrow road. Isolated and difficult to approach,
it proved to be a perfect site for a variety of purposes in the twentieth century.
Commandeered by the Special Operations Executive before the Japanese invasion, it was
an ideal location for the 101 Special Training School, for a nascent underground move-
ment. Postwar, disguised as a hotel, it was the bane of the Anti Gambling Division of the
Police as they could not approach it in time to catch illegal gamsters in the act.
Conclusions and Survivors

Winstedt noted that research on karamat 'threw light not only on the nature-worship and
ancestor- worship of the primitive Malays but also on the facile canonization of Muslim
saints living and dead that marks the Indian source from which Islam came originally to
the peninsula'.80 The 'Indians', of course, were often called 'Arabs', and he makes little
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JMBRAS VOL. 76
mention of the influence on and from the Chinese other than the general inclusion of 'all
races' who worship at the shrines. He categorizes six types: natural objects, sacred
animals, magicians, founders, Muslim saints, and living Muslim saints.81
Samples could be discerned in early Singapore, with several rocks and hills of the
Orang Laut, but there were no sacred animals. Although there appear to be a number of
'magician' keramat scattered through Indonesia, dating from the time that Hindu
Majapahit fell, I do not know of any in Singapore. Only Keramat Lasam at Siglap was
apparently the sole founder, but that too is disputed and its fame was not widespread. The
bulk were mainly 'manufactured' saints derived from association with graves and trees. A
number were pseudo -keramat.
It would probably be more fitting to call this account 'The Lost Keramat of
Singapore'. In its great modern progress, Singapore has closed dozens of cemeteries and
relocated thousands of old graves, but several shrines, mostly pseudo -keramat, had
already begun to pass away from disuse or even because of earlier urban development.
Those connected with the Orang Laut had already disappeared by Victorian times and the
process continued through the 1950s, such as the one in Nassim Road or one off Balestair
Road near the Old Rifle Range. Some have been absorbed into the Chinese pantheon of
Local Saints.
At the end of the twentieth century, less than a baker's dozen had survived: ten are
shown on directory maps but only seven are listed. Two of these go back to ancient
Singapura - Iskandar Shah in Fort Canning Park and Radin Mas on the slope of Mount
Faber. Two more that bear names of known persons are Victorian - the famous Habib Noh
off Palmer Road and Habib Syed Ismail in Upper Bukit Timah Road. The others are of
uncertain provenance - in Lorong 40 there is a kubor panjang near Keramat Khatijah,
while another lady, Sharifah Rogayah, survives in Duxton Plain Park. The shrine of
Nagore Durgha in Telok Ayer Street may still be regarded as keramat but contains no
grave. Marked on maps merely as 'keramat' is another 'long grave' in Ringwood Road,
while Maliki off East Coast Road is unnamed as is that near Chai Chee Road formerly
popularly known as the Keramat Kuching.
Postscript: Half a Century On

Recently, at my home in the Cameron Highlands, I was visited by Supt Mahmood's
grandson, Maj. (R) Jamil Amin, and great-grandson, Col. Akhtar Zainuddin (RMAF).
Maj. Jamil kindly offered to check and photograph such keramat as remain in Singapore.
The various quotations below are from his communications to me.
In the Singapore Street Directory of 1988, less than a dozen keramat could be found
on the several maps, and of these seven were listed as being of special interest. Fifteen
years later, there apparently remained only Keramat Habib Noh in Palmer Road, Keramat
Iskandar Shah in Fort Canning Park, Keramat Radin Mas in Mount Faber Park, and the
Shrine Nagore Durgha in Telok Ayer Street (see Figs. 1^).
All of these have undergone renovation, some quite dramatically. This is particular-
ly so in the case of the one at Mount Faber that has grown from an almost derelict grave
to a monument to Radin Mas Ayu; the last is a Javanese honorific for 'gracious lady'.
80 Winstedt, 'Karamať, p. 264.

81 Ibid.
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The renowned Keramat Habib Noh is complemented by the Masjid Salleh and the
makam (shrine) of Syed Abdul Rahman, nephew of Habib Noh, is located on the slope of
the hill at the rear. This Syed Abdul Rahman is likely to be the person who initially
constructed the makam of Habib Noh rather than the person of the same name whose
keramat grave is on Peak Island, adjacent to the popular Chinese temple on Pulau Kusu
in the harbour. A silsilah (family tree) is exhibited in the building of the Keramat Habib
Noh. The incense house of the Tuapekong (Great Grand Uncle) still stands across the road.
The Nagore Shrine is currently closed for renovation having been declared an
historical site for Singapore. This is an unusual building in that it shares both a Hindu
temple and a Malay mosque founded by the first immigrants from the same area in India.
The tomb of an Indian who used to bathe in boiling water has been upgraded in the
compound of the Chulia Mosque in South Bridge Road. Maj. Jamil informs me that this
is the Keramat Muhamad Salih Vaillullah (or wali Allah - a guardian saint) as mentioned
by his grandfather, Supt Mahmood, who had been a member of the Hindu and Muslim
Endowment Board.
In addition, there is the peripatetic Sikh memorial shrine of Bhai Maharaj Singh -
the successful contender for remembrance - marked by a simple stone, originally in the
grounds of the Singapore General Hospital. The former Justice Choor Singh of the
Supreme Court in Singapore has published an account of this 'State prisoner of the
British', who died on 5 July 1856.82
Maj. Jamil found two graves identified as keramat in an old royal graveyard,
'nestled below blocks 102 and 103 of Bukit Purmei'. Once known as Bukit Kasita, this
name is given to the first keramat , that of Raja Ahmad; the second grave is that of Raja
Tengku Fatimah. 'A spring near the makam of Raja Tengku Fatimah is supposedly to have
healing powers. Devotees are reported to visit the keramat to collect water to ease aches
and pains in their legs and joints.'
Several other graves there now also seem to be be acquiring various shrine appur-
tenances, such as yellow umbrellas and cloth, incense sticks, and food offerings. These are
down the hill from the Keramat Radin Mas in the old walled Malay cemetery, Tanah
Kubor Raja, the resting places of the family and followers of the Bugis leader Balarra. The
site is probably waqaf (religiously endowed) land or even thought to belong to the state
of Johor. It should not be confused with the Tanah Kubor Temenggong, the graveyard of
the ancestors of the Sultan of Johore, at the corner of Telok Blangah Road and Kampong
Bahru Road.
Maj. Jamil searched for the Keramat Maliki cared for by his grandfather, but he
could not locate it, although he visited the Kampong Maliki Muslim burial ground in
Sennet Estate. A friend who lives across the road from there mentioned that devotees
continue to visit the graveyard but he could not say which is the makam.
The keramat of Habib (Syed) Ismail at the eighth milestone in Bukit Timah Road,
near the Ford factory, having survived Japanese bombs, no longer exists. The developers
have won. The unusual Keramat Panjang in Arthur Road/Ringwood Road is also no more.
Another long grave, probably that of Syed Hussain Al-Attas, in Lorong 40, has also
disappeared along with others of interest nearby.
Although others that I wrote of have disappeared, a few other keramat have
emerged. Such a one is the Keramat Kwaja Habibullah Shah (1913-71), located at Siglap.
82 Justice Choor Singh, Bhai Maharaj Singh, Singapore: Central Sikh Gurwarda Board, 1991.
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JMBRAS VOL. 76
'He was a south Indian Murshid of the Qadri Chisty Tarikat, who commuted regularly to
Singapore to meet his congregation. On his last trip to Singapore, in 1971, he passed away
and was buried at Kubur Kassim on Siglap Hill. His congregation continues to assemble
at his makam every Sunday to this day to zikir [perform religious chants] and offer prayers
in the name of their waliallah [saint].'
A relatively new keramat is under a tree within the compound of the People's
Association in the former Kallang Airport grounds behind the Firestone factory. It is one
of a handful of graves sited just inside the main gate of the old airport. 'Surprisingly, the
land office allowed a shed to be constructed and the keramat to remain to this day.' There
were formerly several reputed keramat among isolated graves and old cemeteries in this
area.
Maj. Jamil tells me that multiple keramat of Muslim, Hindu, and Chinese
appear to be sprouting up. Most of these will be pseudo-shrines, the result o
thinking. Despite official prohibitions against burning incense, holding rites
offerings of food, or even feeding birds, these practices still continue. There
a popular demand for such features as is evidenced also by the renewal of ol
such as Radin Mas, and the elaboration of others that survive.
Sources and Acknowledgments

Cheu Hong Tong gives a brief review of the limited articles in the Journal on
and a long list of reference literature. Among my books, Winstedt's study is on
that actually identifies the sites of any great number of keramat - 51 h
notes - although passing references are made by other scholars. The Singapor
Street Directory (for example, in the 8th edition, 1966) identified a dozen or
on the maps and recorded valuable information in nine 'Historical Notes', whic
had been prepared originally by Gibson-Hill. These were no longer inclu
editions, which were issued simply as the Singapore Street Directory , al
various maps still depict several keramat (cf. 15th edition, 1988).
The earlier Street Directory was helpful in supplementing some informa
keramat that I had garnered in the 1950s while a gazetted officer in the Singa
Force and then as Mate and later Master sailing out of Singapore. My
included Malay police or seamen, who were mainly from the Malay Peninsul
some Indians and Eurasians, particularly among the Police Inspectors.
generally more familiar with pseudo -keramat, haunted sites, or those that pro
the four-digit lotteries. The most knowledgeable and helpful with whom info
exchanged was Superintendent of Police Mahmood, who retired to become Se
Arms of the Legislative Assembly. It is apposite that his grandson, Major Jam
provided notes and photographs to complete this article.
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Appendix
I. The numbers in brackets are the pages of the maps in the Singapore Street Directory ,
15th edn, 1988, which no longer includes the splendid 'Historical Notes' found in earlier
directories.
KERAMATS (p. 86).

Keramat Habib Noh* (p. 66), Palmer Road
Keramat Habib Syed Ismail* (p. 178), Upper Bukit Timah Road
Keramat Iskandar Shah* (p. 38), Fort Canning Park
Keramat Khatijah (p. 236), Lorong 40, Siang Lim Park
Keramat Panjang (p. 236), Lorong 40, Siang Lim Park
Keramat Radin Mas* (p. 270), Mount Faber Park
Keramat Sharifah Rogayah (p. 60), Duxton Plain Park
Shrine Nagore Durgha (p. 62), Telok Ayer Street
Not in the above list but shown as keramat in maps:

Keramat* unnamed (p. 214), Ping Yee Secondary School, Chai Chee Road
Keramat Maliki* (p. 240), Temasik Junior College, Upper East Coast Road
Keramat* unnamed (p. 252), Ringwood Road
II. Singapore Guide and Street Directory the 8th Edition of 1966
Not shown in 1966: Lorong 40, Duxton Plain, Shrine Telok Ayer Street
Given mention in the notes, in addition to those above marked,* four have since disap-
peared:
Fakir Haji Abdul Jalil, Arab Street
Keramat Kubor Lasam, Siglap
Keramat, Bukit Bentam
Keramat, Tanjong Kling
References
Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, Munshi, 'The Hikayat Abdullah', Journal of the Malayan
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , 28(3), 1950.
Begbie, P. J., The Malayan Peninsula , Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1967; first
published 1934.
Brown, C. C. (trans.), Sejarah Melayu - Malay Annals , Singapore: Oxford University,
1970.
Buckley, С. В., An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867 , Kuala

Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1965; first published 1902.
Comber, Leon, Chinese Temples in Singapore , Singapore: Eastern Universities Press,
1958.
Cheu Hock Tong, 'The Sinicization of Malay Keramats in Malaysia', Journal of the
Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , 71(2), 1998, pp. 29-61.
Choor Singh, Justice, Bhai Maharaj Singh , Singapore: Central Sikh Gurwarda Board,
1991.
Crawfurd, John, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China , Kuala
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JMBRAS VOL. 76
Danaraj, A. G. S., Mysticism in Malaya , Singapore: Asia Publishing, 1964.

Encyclopedia Britannica , CD 2000 Deluxe.
Endicott, K. M., An Analysis of Malay Magic , Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press,
1970.
Fozdar, Jamshed, The Fallacy of Ancestor Worship , Bombay: Privately printed, 1965.
Funk and Wragnell, New Desk Standard Dictionary , New York, 1954.
Gandharab, Seva Singh, Early Sikh Pioneers of Singapore , Singapore: Privately printed,
1986.
Kamus Dewan , 3rd edn., Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1996.
Lineham, W., 'The Kings of 14th Century Singapore', Journal of the Malayan Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society , 21(1), 1947.
MacDonell, A. A., A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary , London: Oxford University Press,
1952; first published, 1924.
McHugh, J. N., Hantu Hantu: An Account of Ghost Beliefs in Modern Malaya , Singapore:
Donald Moore, 1953.
Makepeace, W., Brooke, G. E. and Braddell, R. St. J. (eds.), One Hundred Years of
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Navy, 1971.
Marsden, William, A Dictionary and Grammar of the Malayan Language , 2 vols, Kuala
Maxwell, George, In Malay Forests , Singapore: Donald Moore, 1957; first published,
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Singam, S. Durai Raja, Malayan Place Names , 4th edn, Kuala Lumpur: Privately printed,
1962; first published 1939.
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Wilkinson, R. J., A Malay-English Dictionary , 2 vols, London: MacMillan, 1959.
Winstedt, R. O. W., 'Karamat: Sacred Sites and Persons in Malaya', Journal of the
Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , 2(3), 1924.
Wurtzburg, C. E., Raffles of the Eastern Isles , London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954.
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The Other Threads of Keramat

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The Chinese Take Over

39 Wilkinson, Malay-English Dictionary , Vol. 2, 'topekong', p. 1236.

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Orang Laut: Pre-Islamic Roots

46 Straits Times , 21 January 1985.

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Pre-European Malayan Influence

50 Berita Minggu, 27 September 1981.

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54 New Straits Times , 18 March 1999.

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64 Brown, Sejarah Melayu , p. 21.

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69 Buckley, Anecdotal History , p. 96.

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The pilgrims also make a point of visiting the Malay Keramat.

72 Asia Magazine , 16 September 1973, p. 19.

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The Indian Connection

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FIG. 2: Keramat Iskandar Shah at Fort Canning.

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FIG. 3: Keramat Raden Mas Ayu at Mount Faber.

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The Long Graves

75 Singapore Street Directory, 1968, n. 70 p.256.

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Straits Times , 16 August 1968.

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78 Winstedt, 'Karamať, n. 26 p. 272.

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Conclusions and Survivors

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Postscript: Half a Century On

80 Winstedt, 'Karamať, p. 264.

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Sources and Acknowledgments

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KERAMATS (p. 86).

Not in the above list but shown as keramat in maps:

Buckley, С. В., An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867 , Kuala