Visiting Aishah Wahab

Many people may have forgotten who Aishah Wahab is. She made news headlines in the UK and Malaysia 10 years ago. It was the case of a group of people who were held captive in a house in London for 30 years by the then 73-year-old Aravindan Balakrishnan, the leader of the Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. It was shocking to know that a Malay was amongst the victim.

Ten years on, Aishah is a changed person. When she gained her freedom, the first thing that she wanted to do was to connect to the Muslim and Malay community. By enrolling on an Arabic language course, she made the connection with the Muslim community. She soon got in touch with a Melayu UK family in her area, and this family has helped her to get back into the Malay community, helped her experience the Malay culture once again, and helped her to understand and practise Islam. Aishah is now a practising Muslim, and she is happy that she is part of the Malay community again. We visited Aishah last weekend and she is also looking forward to come to a Melayu UK event to meet more Malays.

Melayu UK have members throughout the United Kingdom, even in predominantly white & non-Muslim areas. Many of the members of Melayu UK are from mixed marriages. Many are also second, third or fourth generation Malays in the UK. This is the uniqueness of Melayu UK and our community can only grow bigger.

Hamidi Abdul Rahman
(President)