Did Indian Muḥarram Transform into Malaysian Boria?: Reassessing the Transformation of Indian and Shiʿi Muḥarram into Boria, a Carnivalesque Malaysian Performance

Boria in contemporary Malaysia (especially in the northwestern state of Penang) is a popular annual choral street performance that is performed by a number of troupes. The size, membership, contents, and movements of each boria troupe may vary from year to year, and they can have a comical, political, or satirical theme. Consequently, the troupes are dressed according to the themes of their songs or performances and are accompanied by the appropriate musical instruments. The routines are performed merely for fun and entertainment (including an annual singing competition in which prizes and certificates are handed out) and composed predominantly of Sunni Malays representing a street, kampong (a village), or a district. Nevertheless, what is common to most bands is that each has a leading singer (tukang karang) who is in charge and recites the more significant passages, and that boria was traditionally performed during the first ten days of the Islamic (Arabic) lunar month of Muḥarram.

Most Southeast Asian studies scholars and researchers advocate that boria is in fact not indigenous to the Malay-Indonesian world and the Sunni school of Islam (to which most Malay-Indonesians adhere) but rather locate its roots in the solemn Shiʿi Indian and Persian observance of Muḥarram (Wynne 1941, 184–88; Wilkinson [1908] 1957, 62; Turnbull 1970, 87–95; Bujang 1982, 5–7; Fujimoto 1988, 171; Gullick 1991, 340–41; Yousof 1994, 31–32; Mahani 1999, 156–58, 180; van der Putten 2015, 208; Tschacher 2022, 56). Here the observance of Muḥarram refers to the annual ten-day public and private commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Husain (the grandson of Prophet Muhammad) and his seventy-two relatives and followers by the army of the numerically superior ʿUmayyad dynasty in the field of Karbala in Iraq in 680 ce. This tragedy is understood to have taken place during the first ten days of the Islamic-Arabic lunar month of Muḥarram and has since been remembered and commemorated indoors (including privately) and outdoors (through solemn processions, passions plays, and dirge) by nearly all Muslims belonging to the minority Shiʿi school. Many Sunni Muslims (including mystic Sufi orders) and nations similarly observe the ten days of Muḥarram as a religious occasion connected to the Karbala tragedy; others, including many Malaysians, simply consider it as the beginning of the Islamic lunar year celebrations (referred to as Awwal Muḥarram).

On the origin of the religious Muḥarram commemoration in the Malay Peninsula, most Southeast Asian studies scholars overwhelmingly argue that it was first introduced and observed by Indian Shi’i migrants (comprising chiefly sepoys as well as an admixture of laborers, convicts, or traders) following the founding of the island of Penang as a British settlement and colony in 1786. Thus, these scholars maintain that by the mid-nineteenth century, with the gradual passing of the first generation of Indian Shiʿa in Penang, their offspring, including children of mixed Malay-Indian marriages, and the local Sunni Malays soon adopted, imitated, and continued the religious Muḥarram in their own style (Bujang 1982, 5–7; Fujimoto 1988, 171; Yousof 1994, 31–32; S. N. Khoo 1994; Mahani 1999, 156–58, 180). But these scholars continue that, to the dismay of the old Shiʿa of Penang, the new generation transformed the somber observance of the occasion into boria (a word of unknown origin; see Mozaffari Falarti 2004) as an unorthodox practice (involving “buffoonery” and masquerading as animals and other stock characters), as first reported by J. D. Vaughan in the 1850s (Vaughan 1858, 138–39; Yusof 1922, 2–5; Wynne 1941, 184–88; K. K. Khoo and Malhi 1993).

This frivolous, colorful, and unconventional aspect of Muḥarram, these scholars argue, was historically unique and rooted in colonial Penang (and not in India, or elsewhere in Southeast Asia) and is indicative of the religious transformation that had formerly taken place there among the new generation of Malay Muslims and Shiʿa. Writing in the early 1940s, Mervyn L. Wynne (1941, 184–88) found a similarity in boria stock characters (including masquerading as mystics and animals) to those in India. But he believes that Muḥarram stock characters and participants in India were of a devout nature, while those in Penang were chiefly composed of Indian criminals (particularly Thuggees) sent to the island by the British as prisoners.

On reports of Muḥarram, masquerading, and boria in Singapore and elsewhere in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century Malay Peninsula, most scholars maintain that undoubtedly it was a tradition inspired and transplanted from Penang, and not indigenous to those places (Hamilton 1920, 140–41; Wynne 1941, 184–88; Wilkinson [1908] 1957, 62; Turnbull 1970, 87–95; Fujimoto 1988). Malaysian political activist and writer Mohd Faizal Musa similarly links historical Shiʿi influences in Malaysia to that of historic Penang and boria. According to him, “it is not surprising that Shiʿi influences are apparent in Malay performing arts. For instance, the origin of boria (choral street performance) shows that Shiʿism is nothing new in Malaysia, especially in Penang” (Musa 2013, 425).

In two separate studies in 2004 and 2016 on Penang’s historic Muḥarram and the roots of the word “boria,” I was unable to find any direct or indirect Shiʿi connection and links.^[1] In the course of my research, I was unable to obtain evidence to suggest that by the mid-nineteenth century there was virtually any Shiʿi community living in Penang (where most Indian sepoys were Hindu or Sunni Muslim), or that it would have initiated its annual Muḥarram commemoration. Consequently, I suggest that the word “boria” and Muḥarram in colonial Penang cannot have its roots attributed to the Shiʿi Muslims living on the island.

I would argue that there is an overreliance by contemporary scholars on simply citing theories and deriving conclusions on the origin of Muḥarram and boria in colonial Penang based on a single source, a brief two-page commentary written in 1897 by G. T. Haughton. According to Haughton, boria has its roots in the Muḥarram observance that was first introduced into the island by Indian sepoys (without indicating their religious affiliation) from the Madras Native Infantry in 1845, who used to dress up as stock characters during Penang’s Muḥarram performances. In order to unravel the origin of boria and its former connection to the observance of Muḥarram in colonial Penang, one must look elsewhere and from a multidisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, I ask whether scholarly assumptions made about masquerading and “buffoonery” associated with boria are unique to colonial Penang, by referring to an ephemeral connection of names for stock characters in Haughton’s report to similar characters in India, mentioned in passing by Wynne in 1941. I thus suggest a re-examination of the alleged transformation of the religious Muḥarram performance into unorthodox boria. Thus, I advocate a need to further trace and study the participants and the alleged transformation of Muḥarram into boria.

In a continuation of my earlier studies on boria, this article will further focus on the transformation of Penang’s historic Muḥarram into boria. I will thus argue that boria stock characters during the month of Muḥarram in late-nineteenth-century Penang have a historical precedent, and that they do not reflect a religious transformation. For technical, historical, and linguistic reasons I will assign the term “faqīrs” to the ebullient parties joining the religious Muḥarram performances in India, Penang, and elsewhere. This is a general term that includes those characters dressed as Hindu and Muslim mystics (particularly Sufi inspired characters), yogīs/jogīs or faqīrs (that is, a beggar or mystic), and other types of ascetics or mendicants, as well as those masquerading in animal costumes (such as tigers or birds). It is noteworthy that turning into a faqīr can easily be documented in earlier records of masquerading Muslim and Hindu bands accompanying the somber Muḥarram commemoration in south-central parts of India, archipelagic Southeast Asia, and in the earlier part of the nineteenth century in Penang, and these figures were of a cheery nature (see also Mohammad 2013). Although beyond the scope of this article, it is noteworthy that in south-central India the participants were both Hindus and Muslims that, as part of the fulfilment of a vow and ritual, would for ten days partake in the processions as “temporary” Muslim or Hindu mystic-beggars and animal characters, particularly children as tigers or birds (Shurreef 1832, 201–2; Khan 1844, 343; “The Madras Native Army” 1859, 136; Grieve 1910, 474; Kidambi 2004, 10, 41–43; Masoudi Nejad 2015, 335). As will be explained in this study, turning into a faqīr was indeed an accepted, nonintimidating, and integral part of the religious experience in India (particularly by Hindu and Sunni Muslims), which was undoubtedly transplanted into Penang, Singapore, as well as other parts of island and mainland Southeast Asia.

J. D. Vaughan and the transformation of Muḥarram into fun-loving boria

A number of Southeast Asian studies scholars maintain that, though there may not be any reference to boria earlier than Haughton’s 1897 article, the transformation of somber Muḥarram into a burlesque type festival had already manifested itself half a century earlier at Penang.^[2] Evidence of a transformation is said to be evident in two reports by Vaughan written in 1854 and 1858. Thus, these scholars maintain that Vaughan’s earlier reports of public “buffoonery” and “masquerade” by children of mixed Malay and Indian parentage (referred to as Jawi-Peranakan) during the religious Muḥarram performances are clear-cut examples of a change taking place there. In both articles Vaughan does not cite either the word “boria” or “faqīr”; nor does he specify the religious affiliation (including, if they were Shiʿa) of the Jawi-Peranakan reported in Penang. But Vaughan reports the carnivalesque aspects of Muḥarram solely as the eclectic dressing-up of Jawi-Peranakan children. According to Vaughan these children:

disguise themselves in a variety of ways to prove amusing, some dress as beggars of various nations, others as birds and beasts; some of them study the habits and movements of wild beasts so well, especially the tiger, that their imitations of the brute are splendid, some assume the attire of Europeans and dance various fashionable dances including the polka. (1858, 138–39)

Consequently, most scholars uphold that the intermarriage between Indian migrants and the Malay population had ultimately produced a new breed of performers that in the second part of the nineteenth century turned the religious Muḥarram into boria, an irreligious burlesque practice. Wynne similarly defines a clear construction of a syncretic model based on an essentialized, “pure” model of Muḥarram and giving a specific timeframe. In the words of Wynne, “with the aid of Vaughan and Haughton the transition period of Muḥarram in Malaya is from 1860 to 1895, until it emerges as the modern Boria” (1941, 194).

A parallel can be drawn between Vaughan’s reference to masquerading characters and animals during Muḥarram to the faqīr aspect of the occasion in historic India and in Singapore (in particular, refer to the more recently rediscovered indigenous source Syair Tabut [Poem of the Tomb Effigies], in Malay-Indonesian as well as Persian/Urdu/Arabic, published in 1864 and written by a local devotee on the observation of Muḥarram there; see Lunn and Byl 2017, 391–420).^[3] Hence, the involvement of the Jawi-Peranakan children in the Muḥarram commemoration of Penang is not unusual and does not indicate a mockery of the religious Muḥarram observed by the Shiʿa. Undoubtedly by the mid-nineteenth century the Jawi-Peranakan constituted an emergent segment of the Malay and Indian population in the Straits Settlements (Melaka, Penang, and Singapore).^[4]

British Orientalist and Southeast Asian studies scholar John M. Gullick believes the reported dressing-up as “minstrels in fancy dress” during the month of Muḥarram involved only nineteenth-century “Muslim members of Indians regiments” at Penang (1991, 340). Gullick describes the transformation of Muḥarram as, “In their original form in India, these had been performances to celebrate the memories of Hassan and Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, but that aspect did not appear in their presentation in Penang” (1991, 340). Without elaborating, Gullick concludes that the devout Muslim members of the Indian regiment during their stint in Penang decided to deviate from their customary religious and somber observance of Muḥarram by starting nonreligious “topical songs” and “sketches” of boria (1991, 340–41). From the claims made by Gullick, it is difficult to agree with his implication of a somewhat spontaneous appearance of boria as a nonreligious practice at Penang. Primarily, this is because he does not clarify why or how staunch and religious Muslim members of Indian regiments in their short stay on the island decided to suddenly masquerade themselves in Penang singing irrelevant nonreligious “topical songs” and “perform[ing] sketches.”

At the same time, Gullick does not elaborate further on the Muslim segment of the Indian regiments during the colonial period. For example, he does not specify if it comprised Sunni or Shiʿi Muslims. In fact, according to a number of reports and studies, Muslims in the Indian Native Regiments (of Madras, Bombay, and Bengal) during the first half of the nineteenth century were a minority (Postans 1839, 1:157; Sykes 1847, 102, 109–10, 124; “The Madras Native Army” 1859, 134; Cadell 1938, 161, 200; Peers 1991, 549; Mozaffari Falarti 2016, 462–64). An 1859 official report focusing on the Madras Native Infantry members (reproduced at length in the Calcutta Review; see “The Madras Native Army” 1859, 134–35) notes that the Muslims are only a small number constituting one-fourth of the total strength of the corps.

The report on the religious composition of the Madras regiments is of particular interest, since it seems that they were not only regularly posted to the Malay Peninsula throughout the nineteenth century, but also from the 1840s to 1860s they constituted the major native Indian contingent stationed there (Stephens 1899, 262; Mahani 1999, 154; Rai 2013, 366, 393; Mozaffari Falarti 2016, 458). In addition, as pointed out earlier by Haughton in 1897, boria and the observance of Muḥarram at Penang were originally introduced there by a native regiment from Madras. Thus, Gullick does not specify how such a comparatively small number of Muslims represented in the Indian regiments were solely responsible for the emergence of boria in Penang. Alternatively, as the 1859 report clearly indicates, dressing up as characters during Muḥarram by Hindu and Muslim members of the Madras Native Infantry was already a well-established and ingrained practice and custom in India, and did not have its origin at Penang or the Malay Peninsula. According to this report, during Muḥarram members of the Madras Native Infantry in India would roam around as

bands of masquers wander about the whole day, assembling at night in front of the Tazziah, where a crowd is always collected. The characters such as tigers, fuqueers, byraghees, soucars and bunniahs, are not assumed by Mahomedans only. Hindoos as often join in the fun and mostly in consequence of vows registered that if they succeed in some particular purpose they may have in view, they will assume a certain character for so many years. (“The Madras Native Army” 1859, 136)

In this report from India, tigers, byraghees (i.e., “recluse” in Hindi), soucars (a great merchant in Hindi), and bunniah (a person belonging to a trading community-caste in India) are stock characters depicting animals or castes and represented in the faqīr aspects of Muḥarram in south-central India (Shurreef 1832, 201–2; Postans 1839, 1:236–37; Bayly 1989, 142). Meanwhile, Tazzia^[5] in the Indian context represents symbolic replicas of Imam Husain’s Karbala shrine-tomb made of glass, wood, paper, and tassels that are displayed and carried through the town (Chelkowski 1985, 28; Korom 2003, 4; Mozaffari Falarti 2004; Kidambi 2004, 33; van der Putten 2015, 205). Thus, the adaptation and practice of these Hindu or Muslim faqīr characters by sepoys is astounding, since we can draw not only a parallel with the account of Haughton but also assume that other Madras regiments visiting the Malay Peninsula would have been likely to actively participate in the mid-nineteenth-century Muḥarram performance. Conversely, in the 1864 indigenous source of Syair Tabut from Singapore there is no indication that Muḥarram there was merely observed by or belonged to the Indian regiments (Tschacher 2022, 64).

Since the 1970s, a number of predominantly Malaysian scholars have offered a new theory on the origin of boria as originating from the Shiʿi taʿziyeh (a Persian genre of drama arts, derived from the Arabic word meaning consolation and mourning) that were supposedly held concurrent to the outdoor displays of the occasion in Penang (Aziz 1979, 6, 8–9; Bujang 1987, 111–12; Yousof 1994, 31–3; Mahani 1999, 156; Manan 2016, 28). In the words of Shakila Abdul Manan (2016, 27), while citing a paper delivered earlier in 2002 by Malaysian scholar Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof (Yousof 2002, quoted in Manan 2016, 27):

Boria originated from performances of tragic, passion plays, known as taziya enacted by Shia or Shiite Muslim communities in Iran and Northern India to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussain, the second son of Ali, Islam’s fourth caliph, at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muḥarram 610 A. H.

According to these scholars, Muḥarram taʿziyeh plays from Persia and India, with their original zeal and pathos, arrived through Shiʿi settlers to Penang shortly after the foundation of the island as a British settlement in 1786. This process, they argue, can be demonstrated through references to Indians in historic Penang holding symbolic “taʿziya” and “tābūt” during Muḥarram, and that with time (around the time of Vaughan’s articles) the original Shiʿi participants were gradually replaced by their mischievous and nonreligious children (the Jawi-Peranakan) as well as Sunni Malay-Indonesian inhabitants of Penang and others that turned Muḥarram into a carnivalesque boria. In contrast, I refute this theory by demonstrating that these scholars discount the fact that the term “taʿziyeh” refers to passion plays of Persian origin, which are not connected to the South Asian practice of displaying and taking out in procession replicas of Imam Husain’s Karbala shrine-tomb (taʿziya) or coffin effigies (tābūt) (Mozaffari Falarti 2004). Indeed, as I argue, many contemporary Southeast Asian studies scholars (not familiar with Arabic, Persian-Farsi, Turkic, or South Asian languages) seem to be perplexed and bewildered by the West Asian and Indian usage of the term (discussed at length by Ruffle [2025]), which has more to do with mobile structures (including symbolic coffins) built for the occasion.

To these insights it can be added that the mode, movement, conduct, clothing, structure, membership, and genres of Persian or Shiʿi passion plays (that are sombre, heartrending, and theatrical in nature) are also vastly different to that of boria. Moreover, attempts by Malaysian scholars such as Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof (1994, 31–33) and Shakila Manan (2016, 27) to connect boria to passion plays in Persia and Northern India are liable to be dismissed as being based purely on conjecture. Indeed, as a number of Islamic studies scholars have argued, it is more than likely that taʿziyeh is not indigenous to Persia (including the possibility that it was inspired by European-Christian passion plays; see Asgar 1963, 230–31; Nakash 1993, 170–72; Gaffari 1984, 367), and that it can only historically be traced as having appeared in the late eighteenth century, shortly before the British settlement of Penang, and not earlier (Cole 1988, 114; Korom 2003, 3, 32–33, 37–38; Rahimi 2012, 233n116; Deacon 2020, 7). Furthermore, it is established that the geographical spread, development, and popularity of taʿziyeh as passion plays only took a sharp rise in late-nineteenth-century Persia, particularly with the installation of Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848–1896) to the throne and not earlier (Gaffari 1984, 368; Cole 1988, 114; Nakash 1993, 171–72; Jones 2012, 98; Deacon 2020, 2, 8). Hence, based on chronological evidence and geographical spread, the notion that well-established and multifarious passion plays from Persia traveled rapidly and directly to the newly established settlement of Penang (or Singapore) in the late eighteenth or mid-nineteenth century is over-optimistic, to say the least. The likelihood that the Persian-style passion plays soon made it into India and were instantly acknowledged or adopted and thence taken to Penang by its small Indian Shiʿi community is thereby also highly questionable.

The notion that Indians introduced Muḥarram passion plays into Penang and Singapore from “northern” or any part of India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should also be questioned. A number of South Asian studies scholars have pointed out that the Muḥarram taʿziyeh passion plays (including any Persian style or observance) throughout India (particularly in its northern regions) were extremely unpopular, short-lived (such as in the mid-nineteenth-century cities of Lucknow and Faizabad), were seen as a temporary “fad” (being limited to segments of the Persian diaspora in Bombay), and detested by many in the indigenous Indian Shiʿi population (Cole 1988, 114, 114n88; Hyder 2006, 39; Jones 2012, 98; Masoudi Nejad 2015, 333). Syed Akbar Hyder further remarks that unlike the popularity of theatrical passion plays and displays held in Iran, many Indian Muslims “perceived theater as trivial entertainment,” instead prefering to simply listen to reciters of the tragedy that applied “hand gestures and voice intonations” (2006, 39).

Reports of faqīrs in colonial Penang

One may wonder, would these “pro-Shiʿi origin” scholars still advance a theory that suggests the transformation of religious Muḥarram from the mid-nineteenth century onward by the Jawi-Peranakan or Muslim members of the Indian regiments, had they been aware of James Low’s early 1830s account of the island of Penang and the adjacent mainland region of Province Wellesley (Seberang Prai in Malay-Indonesian). In his account, Low not only talks of the observance of Muḥarram but also the “processions of fakeers” accompanying it. Low writes, “The processions of fakeers—often in little short of puris naturalibus, and hideously painted and disguised—are Saturnalia, which to say the most for them can only be barely tolerated anywhere” ([1836] 1972, 297). Unfortunately, Low provides no further information on this aspect of his account. Yet the significance of this, nearly fifteen years prior to the 21st Madras Infantry’s visit to Penang and three decades earlier than Vaughan’s report, is obvious. Besides, he clearly identifies the name given to these “hideously painted and disguised” individuals as “fakeers,” namely faqīrs, without mentioning if they were exclusively Indian or Malay (including Acehnese, Batak, Javanese, and Bugis, whom he identifies in the Penang Island and Province Wellesley as a separate category from the Malays; Low [1836] 1972, 125–26, 291–92), sepoys, convicts, or Jawi-Peranakan. In addition to Low and Vaughan, there are other reports that suggest a plausible connection of boria parties to the faqīr processions. These reports, however, do not trace the origin of these characters to India.

Haughton’s earlier report on the origin of boria connects it to the Madras sepoys from the 21st Madras Native Infantry dressing up in clothes “made of mats” and forming parties to sing songs of mourning while representing “four persons, Nanak Shah, Jogi Majnun, Balva Ghaghri and Boria” as part of the annual Muḥarram ritual during their 1840s stint in Penang (1897, 312). Without elaborating, he then continues that with time the Malays of Penang adopted this aspect of the Muḥarram performance as their own by naming it as boria. Consequently, Haughton refers to these characters during the Madras Native Infantry Muḥarram commemoration of Penang as “persons,” with the “Boria” person as a contender. Additionally, he continues that ultimately the Penang Malays adopted the performance and named it as boria.

Two decades later, in his 1922 Malay book Boria dan denchananya [Boria and Its Evils], Muhammad Yusof Ibn Sultan Meydin, as an eyewitness to boria and without referring to Vaughan or Haughton’s articles, agrees with the notion that the boria was made up of several parties. Based on his personal observations, Sultan Meydin notes that the various bands, whom he refers to as “faqīr,” had several names, such as jogī (i.e., a yogi), giro (gang, also spelled giroh in Hindi), or nānak shāh (a North Indian mendicant, also referring to Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism in the fifteenth century). Without further explanation, he states that these groups performed main gila (acting insanely) to collect charity during Muḥarram (Yusof 1922, 5–6).

As to the historic origin of boria in Malaya, Yusof (ibid., 2, 5–6) suggests its introduction from the Hindustani language through Bengali convicts sent to Penang by the British authorities a hundred years earlier (c. 1820). These convicts, whom he believes contributed to introducing the word “boria,” were the key source for names of faqīr stock characters and historically introduced the performance on the island. In addition, Yusof notes that it was customary during the first ten days of the month of Muḥarram to hold proper boria performances at night, while the more carnivalesque processions took place during the day (ibid., 1922, 11–12; Wynne 1941, 197). He then identifies the name given to this daily feat from “bahasa Kling” (a native Malay derivation referring to Tamil) as “KoliKallen” (“chicken or fowl thief”) plays.

Regarding the two characters jogī and nānak shāh observed by Yusof at boria performances, it is apparent that they are similar to the names mentioned in Haughton’s article more than two decades earlier. Similarly, Yusof’s account of “KoliKallen” reemphasizes the historic presence of the faqīr aspect of the Muḥarram observance in Penang and of similar day-night reports of the occasion (see Pinang Gazette & Straits Chronicle 1893a; Pinang Gazette & Straits Chronicle 1893b; Hamilton 1920, 140–41; Ahmad 1949, 103; Shepard 1965, 40; Ibrahim 1977–1978, 100, 100n, 101). Nonetheless, Yusof makes no further connection of his observations in Penang to those in India, nor does he suggest any explanation of how any of these names were introduced into Penang.

Peculiarly, in regard to Yusof’s Bengali argument of the origin of boria, there is no indication whatsoever why these Bengali-speaking convicts, about whom he is so adamant, would introduce a Hindustani word unfamiliar to them (see Bengali dictionaries by Dabbs 1965 and Murshid 1988).^[6] Certainly as a person of mixed Indian-Malay ancestry with close links to the Indian community of Penang, Yusof was familiar with Indian languages and dialects (Fujimoto 1988, 121–23, 177; Safie 1991, 82–84, 88–89). Then again, the overall Bengali population of both Penang Island and Province Wellesley seems to have been inconsequential, numbering about one thousand out of the total Indian population of about fifteen thousand in 1859–1860 (with only thirty Bengalis living in Penang’s main settlement of George Town).^[7] Equally, the masquerading faqīr participants of Muḥarram are only reported in the nineteenth century in southern India and not in Bengal or other northern provinces (Mozaffari Falarti 2004).

It is also possible that KoliKallan is not from the Tamil language as understood by Yusof and is historically derived from other Indian dialects found in south-central India. For example, it could have been derived from the word “kolkkali” found in the Malayalam (formerly Malabari) dialect, spoken chiefly in Kerala (a region well represented among the Muslim and Hindu population of historic Penang). Assuming that this was the case, “kolkkali” is translated as “stick play” and refers to a popular Muslim ritual dance accompanied by devotional songs (performed honoring Islamic saints or martyrs; see Dale and Menon 1978, 526–35).^[8] Indeed, kolkkali’s religious connotations and devotional songs for martyred Muslim figures could have fitted well with the religious observance of Muḥarram and the Karbala tragedy.

It is therefore probable that for personal, religious, and sociopolitical reasons Yusof intentionally tried to distance himself from popular theories and origins of the term “boria” by connecting it to the Jawi-Peranakan, southern India, and the Malays. This attempt reflects his devotion to his own Jawi-Peranakan ancestry (Fujimoto 1988, 67–68, 177, 206, Appendix D; Safie 1991, 88; van der Putten 2015, 215–19). According to Fujimoto, throughout his writings Yusof consistently defends the “good name of the Jawi-Peranakan” (1988, 177).

An appendix at the end of Yusof’s book indicates the negative image of boria during his time, hence explaining his attempt to distance himself from it. The attachment is simply a reproduction of a decree issued to the Muslims of Penang by several Sunni religious authorities of Penang (including the mufti) during Muḥarram 1339 ah (September 1920 ce) informing them of the banning of boria. This unsuccessful attempt by Sunni religious authorities in Penang from 1917 to 1924 and a similar one in neighboring Kedah in 1920 reflects the new interpretation of Islam by both the religious entities of the Malay Peninsula and the newly colonial-educated population (Fujimoto 1988, 177n; Mahani 1999, 178–79). However, Yusof’s continuous ideological conflict with prominent Malay Muslim scholar and reformer Sheikh Tahir Jalal al-Din, as well as his involvement with the modernist faction of Penang (Kaum Muda), the “Young Muslim Union,” and the Ahmadiyyah (Lahore Party or Anjuman-e Islam, often considered heretical by most Muslim religious authorities)^[9] movements, which viewed boria as dissenting and religious innovations, were perhaps other factors contributing to his disapproval (al-Attas 1963, 32–33; Roff 1983, 327–28; Fujimoto 1988, 121–23, 177; Safie 1991, 82–84, 88–89; van der Putten 2015, 216–17).

In a short speech delivered to Penang’s Rotary Club in 1937, Dr. Kamal Mohammad Ariff from personal recollection identifies four kinds of “plays” (naming them holī, giroh, nānak shah, and jogī) popular during Penang historic boria (Khor 1995, 106–7; K. K. Khoo and Malhi 1993, 28). Without explaining if these are names, genres of plays, or boria types, he continues that the plays were introduced by early Muslim settlers from India. Ariff further points out that the day performance, referred to as “kolikalain” from the Tamil language (chicken thief), had already disappeared by the mid-1930s (ibid., 28).

Interestingly, among the suggested four names of holī, giroh, nānak shāh, and jogī, the latter two certainly correspond with the names in both the accounts of Haughton and Yusof. Similarly, Ariff’s distinction of a day and night performance confirms both Yusof’s earlier account and the presence of faqīrs at Penang. Furthermore, his association of the word “kolikalain” to the Tamil language also reemphasizes its southern rather than northern Indian origin. Conversely, his claim of the disappearance of the day performance can perhaps be confirmed by the 1949 report by Zainal-ʿAbidin bin Ahmad (1949, 103) of boria being held at night only.

Mervyn L. Wynne’s detailed study on the Muḥarram transformation into Boria

Wynne (1941) also reexamined Haughton’s 1897 article and accepts that there were four “persons” including one named “Boria” in the Muḥarram commemoration. Moreover, through a study of a book on the Muslims of India by Jaffur Shurreef (also spelt as Jaʿfar Sharif)^[10] and translated in 1832 by G. A. Herklots, Wynne was able to draw a parallel between the Penang four “persons” (referred in Haughton 1897) and the Indian “faqīr” of the Muḥarram performance. Wynne is then the first scholar to identify these “persons” represented during Muḥarram of India, as described in the translated book by Herklots. But as a colonial officer, in his report on British Malaya Wynne seemed little interested in researching from where in India the faqīr aspects of Muḥarram in Penang originated. To Wynne, such fancily dressed characters were simply part of the overall Muḥarram commemoration and more about colonial projections on Muḥarram in India and elsewhere. Wynne writes,

We submit for acceptance that the “four persons” in the Boria mentioned by Haughton are identifiable in the Herklots’ description of the Muḥarram as follows:

Haughton

1. Nanak Shah
2. Jogi Majnun
3. BalvaGhaghri
4. Boria

Herklots

1. The Nanak Shahi
2. The Jogi
   The Majnun Faqirs
3. The Ghagriwala
4. The Bhar-bhariya or “Foolish Chatterers.” (1941, 193)

From this statement by Wynne, it is clear that from Herklots’s translation of Qanoon-e Islam he was unable to pinpoint a direct reference to the “persona” identified in Haughton’s article as “Boria.” The connection of the names is nothing more than an assumption and guess on Wynne’s part, from which he derives following conclusion that, “We suggest that the true origin of the name Boria is to be found in a corruption of the Hindustani term bhaṛbhaṛiyā, or ‘foolish chatterers,’ the reduplicative prefix of which has been dropped” (ibid., 193).

Wynne then attempts to identify in the Malay language the name of the other three “persons” referred to in Haughton’s article by consulting Wilkinson’s 1932 Malay-English dictionary and citing the relevant parts at length. Through Wilkinson’s dictionary, Wynne discovers that only the words “majnūn” and “jogī” appear in the Malay-Indonesian language. He then cites at length from Wilkinson’s translation the Malay-Indonesian word “majnūn” as “mad, behaving as one possessed, used specially of children who mimic frenzy in the Minangkabau region of western Sumatra’s Hassan-Hussein processions,” that is Muḥarram; and “jogī” as “Hindu ascetic” (ibid., 194). Wynne believes the use of both words in Malay sheds further proof of their origin in the observation of Muḥarram in India through a link that would have been lost “had it not been for the timely article of Haughton.”

Paradoxically, Wynne refers to a short 1938 report by the Ceylon inspector general of police, Sir Herbert Dowbiggin, of Malay descendants of the old Rifle Regiment in Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) dressing-up and masquerading during the Muḥarram that he found to be similar to Penang (Wynne 1941, 199). Wynne failed to further elaborate on the historic commemoration of Muḥarram in Ceylon and its alleged connection to Penang. He too neglected to elaborate further on its connection and roots to India or Sumatra, instead suggesting that boria could have been of Caribbean and Guyanese origin (ibid., 201).

Although there are several theories regarding the origins of Penang boria, Wynne’s connection between Haughton’s “persons” and Jaffur Shurreef’s “Sufi faqīr” appears logical. This link is further supported by earlier reports from 1836 (Low [1836] 1972, 297) and 1922 (Yusof 1922, 5), which refer to boria performers as “faqīr.” Equally within the context of “faqīrs,” other than Herklots and Haughton, both Yusof and Ariff also report independently on nānak shāh and jogī. Hence this unearthing by Wynne (1941) is astounding not only with respect to the origin of the word but also to the boria performance. Then again, one may wonder if Wynne would still suggest the origin of boria to be the Hindi word “bhaṛbhaṛiyā” if he was aware that it does not appear in Herklots’s original and less-accessible 1832 or 1863 editions, but only in William Crooke’s 1921 revised edition with additions. Indeed, according to Crooke’s (Sharif 1921, xv) own admission, his edition of the book includes omitted parts from the original translation, as well as new information, additions, and statistics that appear to have included the word “bhaṛbharṝyā.”

Other than this tenuous connection of Haughton’s “Boria person” to the bhaṛbhaṛiyā, Wynne fails to examine this much further. Nor does he examine the significance of the faqīr connection from a historic perspective, with respect to its arrival into various parts of the Malay-Indonesian world and elsewhere. Little is also said of the Muḥarram faqīr in India; Wynne neglects to inquire further whether this was a common practice among all Muslims and Hindus in India. We might inquire whether the performance of faqīrs in India was an urban or rural phenomenon, whether it was performed primarily by non-Shiʿa, or whether it was specific to a designated geographical region. He also offers little light into the Indian communities of Penang, Singapore, and Southeast Asia, particularly on the question of their regional-geographical origin and religious affiliations. In particular, he only refers to Muḥarram in colonial Singapore in passing and as having its roots in Penang. Besides, Wynne’s approach in connecting the name of Haughton’s faqīr stock characters by means of Wilkinson’s Malay dictionary is highly questionable. For one thing, the existence of either majnūn or jogī as Muḥarram stock characters in the Malay-Indonesian language does not necessarily prove a correlation to either Haughton’s article or Indian Muḥarram and could indeed have a much older origin from West Asia and India.

Wynne additionally fails to expand on Wilkinson’s connection of the Malay word “majnūn” and jogī to the Minangkabau’s Muḥarram, to which he has only referred in passing. Wynne moreover makes no further attempt to investigate Dowbiggin’s observation of the faqīr aspect of the Muḥarram commemoration by the Malay descendants of the old Rifle Regiment in colonial Ceylon (disbanded in the 1870s). It is therefore strange that despite Wilkinson’s and Dowbiggin’s Malay connection of the faqīr Muḥarram procession, Wynne does not include Minangkabau (or Sumatra) and Ceylon in his section under the heading “Penang Not Necessarily the Home of the Boria” (Wynne 1941, 201). Rather, Wynne prefers to attribute the Caribbean islands and Guyana (located in South America) as a possible contender for being the home of boria. His belief is based on no more than citing various sources on the historic East Indian migrant observance of the Muḥarram commemoration.

Conclusion

Most scholars and researchers dealing with the origin of boria and the Muḥarram commemoration in the Malay Peninsula believe that it began on the island of Penang. According to such accounts, in the mid-nineteenth century, the religious and somber Indian or Shiʿi Muḥarram commemoration degenerated into boria, with its new form transforming it into a carnivalesque event. This transformation, they believe, was complete by the end of the nineteenth century, as referred to in Haughton’s commentary of 1897. But as this article argues, dressing up as characters and animals was already an integral part of the Muḥarram in historic south-central India that was certainly transplanted from there into the Malay Peninsula (including Penang). Hence, there is no indication of a mid-nineteenth-century transformation of the occasion on the island, as argued and virtually accepted by many scholars. In fact, the faqīr aspect of Muḥarram at Penang has a historic precedence and can be traced to the early part of the nineteenth century, as reported by James Low. The attempts by several scholars to connect the occasion and its origin particularly to Indian sepoys, children of mixed marriage, and other Shiʿi participants on the island are also primarily based on conjecture. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere (2004, 2016), there was no evidence of Shiʿa living in Penang in the mid-nineteenth century; by looking at the composition of Indian regiments serving the British in the nineteenth century, one finds that they were predominantly Hindus with remnant Muslims from the Sunni school (accounting for about one-third of all sepoys).^[11]

Among the scholars and writers on the subject, Wynne’s (1941) detailed study is the first and perhaps the only to link Haughton’s survey of Muḥarram stock characters (whom he refers to as “persons”) to the faqīr of the Indian Muḥarram commemoration. Likewise, his enquiry into various aspects of Haughton’s article, boria, and miscellaneous references to Muḥarram elsewhere outside Penang and India is noteworthy. Wynne only makes these connections in passing, alongside his other fanciful and controversial theories, and fails to acknowledge the significance of his findings especially in relation to the faqīr aspects of Muḥarram in Penang. Besides, there is virtually no information or query by Wynne and other scholars on why or from where the faqīr aspects of Muḥarram in Penang or elsewhere originated. Nor has there been any attempt to explain the existence of similar reports of faqīrs in various accounts of Muḥarram in Sri Lanka, island Southeast Asia, or elsewhere. However, what is remarkable is also the continuation of boria performance as an aspect of the historic Muḥarram commemoration in the region, and its survival and adaptability to include modern themes and topics of social importance—following its ban by the British authorities in Penang and Singapore in the late nineteenth century—as well as its continuation into contemporary times.

Finally, as this article highlights, there is a need for most contemporary Southeast Asian studies scholars and students dealing with similar topics to expand their research, arguments, horizon, understanding, and readings from a multidisciplinary perspective. This includes a familiarity with as well as a working knowledge of Islamic history, languages (particularly Persian-Farsi, Turkic, Urdu, Bangla, Tamil, and Arabic), the Indian subcontinent, migration patterns, demography, as well as colonial politics and rivalry for the region and beyond. Indeed, it is unfortunate that many scholars and students dealing with the history of Islam and politics continue to use and refer to modern interpretations and parameters of what constitutes nations, borders, and religion, to the exclusion of what was formerly observed and held.