Funeral rites that connect

When loved ones are gone, the ceremonies are not only to commemorate them but also to renew ties among the next generations of the family.

THE 10th Tunku Ampuan of Negri Sembilan and the 10th Raja Permaisuri Agong of Malaysia, Tunku Ampuan Najihah Almarhum Tunku Besar Burhanuddin passed away on Sept 8.

As the consort of the late Tuanku Ja’afar, she was the last of three sisters to be Tunku Ampuan, after Tunku Puan Besar Kurshiah (the consort of the eighth Yamtuan and first Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Tuanku Abdul Rahman) and Tunku Ampuan Durah (the consort of the ninth Yamtuan, Tuanku Munawir).

And if you are into royal factoids, Tunku Kurshiah is also the Raja Permaisuri Agong who is the biological mother of another Raja Permaisuri Agong, namely Sultanah Bahiyah of Kedah.

In turn, her husband, Kedah’s Sultan Abdul Halim is the only Ruler to have served as Yang di-Pertuan Agong twice, although the second time with a different consort, as Sultanah Bahiyah had passed away.

Like her sisters before her, Tunku Ampuan Najihah was keenly interested in various causes and took up patronages of women’s organisations such as the Girl Guides, Islamic Women’s Welfare Council and Women’s Institute. She had a particular passion for sport, being involved in women’s hockey, football and golf.

I remember seeing her on television while at school in the UK, during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, an event I watched with pride, which led my British friends to ask questions about the Malaysian monarchy and the particular intricacies of my state.

That was last visit to Malaysia of Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away exactly a year before Tunku Ampuan Najihah.

Another Malaysian event of that time that caught the eye of my budding activist friends was reformasi, with then Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim being sacked and subsequently arrested. I was asked questions about that too, and my school’s Amnesty Society wrote letters criticising his treatment. He is, of course, now Prime Minister leading a unity government with the blessing of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong following the 15th General Election.

I was present at the state funeral of Tuanku Ja’afar in 2008, which took place moments after my father was elected as his successor, as Yang di-Pertuan Besar, and that of my grandmother Tunku Ampuan Durah in 1999. Malay funeral rites have the advantage of being predictable: awkwardness and uncertainty are minimised because everyone already knows what to do, and the same is true with royal funerals which are guided by custom – although the cannon blasts do startle people.

I was fortunate to have been able to visit Tunku Najihah at the hospital the evening before she passed away. The next morning, her body lay in her Kuala Lumpur residence for people to pay their respects, before being transported to Seri Menanti for a lying-in-state.

Prayers were held before the funeral procession, which saw servicemen from different branches of the armed forces pulling the gun carriage conveying the coffin, flanked by the Orang Istana bearing the royal regalia, as 16 rounds of 102mm artillery reverberated in equal paces.

The previous time cannons were fired for a royal funeral in Seri Menanti was for my late younger brother in 2016, when eight rounds were fired on that unforgettable rainy day; but the regalia also accompanied the funeral of Tunku Sheilah Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman in May this year.

Although flags were directed to be flown at half-mast in mourning for the day, the route was already lined with the flags of Negri Sembilan and Malaysia in celebration of the National Day and Malaysia Day, which echoed her role as queen of both. At the mausoleum, Tunku Ampuan Najihah’s grandsons led the filling of the grave, and after the talqin prayers, relatives including two of her brothers – Tunku Mahmud and Tunku Shahabuddin – sprinkled water and flowers upon the earth.

While she lived to be a hundred years old, most of the family members were prepared for her departure, and at the funeral and then at the tahlil prayers, relatives gathered not only to commemorate her, but also to renew ties among the next three generations of the family.

As is often the case, it was a foreign observer who succinctly summed up the historic day: “As much as this was a family in grief like any other, the ceremonial aspects reminded us how multiple generations helped to shape and were shaped by the country in which we now live.”

Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin is the second son of the Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negri Sembilan. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.