{"id":900721,"date":"2026-09-22T01:20:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T01:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900721\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T01:20:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T01:20:19","slug":"extraordinary-islamic-items-from-sydney-suburbs-at-powerhouse-parramatta-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900721\/","title":{"rendered":"Extraordinary Islamic items from Sydney suburbs at Powerhouse Parramatta opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tarik Hussein thinks there were only 10 kanuns in Australia when he began playing in 2006.<\/p>\n

The Sydney musician and engineer says he grew up playing the piano and guitar, and discovered the kanun when he was 17 years old.<\/p>\n

The kanun is a precursor to the piano, played by plucking 78 strings with the fingers while it lays across the player’s lap.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The kanun is a centuries-old instrument from the Middle East.\u00a0 (ABC News: Declan Bowring)<\/p>\n

Mr Hussein says it is impossible to find kanuns in Australia, so when he started teaching the instrument, he needed to get them imported from T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n

He says because the instruments are generally quite old and rare, they would often get damaged in transit or wear out quickly.<\/p>\n

“They would have a lot of issues with the skin tearing and the bridge collapsing,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tarik Hussein and his father-in-law learned how to build kanuns by pulling one apart. (ABC News: Declan Bowring)<\/p>\n

To avoid this, Mr Hussein resolved to become the only maker of kanuns in Australia, enlisting the help of his father-in-law, who had a functioning home workshop and a passion for challenging craft projects.<\/p>\n

“His woodworking skills helped me to maintain the instruments and repair the instruments,” Mr Hussein says.<\/p>\n

“And then I thought to challenge him and ask if he’d be willing to try to make one together.”\"A<\/p>\n

Having played the kanun since he was 17, Tarik Hussein now teaches it.\u00a0 (ABC News: Declan Bowring)<\/p>\n

Mr Hussein said making a kanun was something of a close-guarded secret among the makers in T\u00fcrkiye, so they reverse-engineered his favourite one.<\/p>\n

“He pretty much pulled my favourite one completely apart. It was actually very heartbreaking to see,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We came up with something that I would say is quite unique. It’s not the same as what you’d get overseas.<\/p>\n

“It’s more, it’s more of an Australian version of the kanun.”\"A<\/p>\n

The kanun is seen as a forerunner to the piano. (ABC News: Declan Bowring)<\/p>\n

Mr Hussein says as far as they can tell, they are the only kanun makers in Australia.<\/p>\n

But they do this as a labour of love, not as a commercial outfit.<\/p>\n

“We spend more than a year or two per instrument,” Mr Hussein said.<\/p>\n

“Then, seeing my students’ face light up when I tell them that this is something that we built here, and they’re going to learn on that. That really brings me joy.”<\/p>\n

Exceptional stories in items in the suburbs<\/p>\n

Mr Hussein and his father-in-law’s personal connection with kanuns features in a new film series launching with a festival marking the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta on November 7.<\/p>\n

The series of short films, called Moments in Waiting, is by western Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi and focuses on significant objects from the Islamic world found in Sydney’s suburbs.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Western Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi produced the film collection Moments in Waiting.\u00a0 (ABC News: Jade Barker)<\/p>\n

Mr Sabsabi says he found the extraordinary in the ordinary after a series of public call-outs over the past few years.<\/p>\n

“It is about not just the objects, but also the stories that are contained within those objects,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a way to bring out these stories and share them with broader Australian communities.”<\/p>\n

Mr Sabsabi says Mr Hussein’s story shaped up as a modern Australian experience of migration and cultural diversity.<\/p>\n

“We come together and, from various places, we bring our technologies, our stories, our being, to shape a modern contemporary Australian identity,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Hussein will also perform on his kanun with the Three Rivers Ensemble during the opening festival.<\/p>\n

The recently announced festival spans 179 events across four weekends in November, including a talk by veteran astronaut Charles F Bolden Jr, a major performance by a Torres Strait Island group for the first time outside of the islands, and a Diwali day party.<\/p>\n

A collection that rivals a museum<\/p>\n

Among the stories in Moments in Waiting is a decree from the Ottoman Empire written in four languages that found its way to Australia when the owner fled the early 1990s war in Bosnia.<\/p>\n

The series also features an entire home in Bonyrigg in Sydney’s south-west that at one point served as a mosque and produced the Australian Muslim Times.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mohamad Ali has an extensive collection of calligraphic manuscipts.\u00a0 (Supplied: Powerhouse Parramatta)<\/p>\n

There’s also a collection of more than 100 calligraphic manuscripts of the Koran that rivals any Australian museum collection, owned by Sydney teacher Mohamad Ali.<\/p>\n

Mr Ali said he had extensively collected vinyl, cassettes and T-shirts of artists such as Madonna, Prince and Eurythmics before finding an interest in Islam in his 20s, when he saw an exhibition by Persian-born collector Nasser David Khalili.<\/p>\n

He became fascinated with the intricate work of calligraphers, who would likely have taken years to write a 600-page Koran.<\/p>\n

“For them, it was a journey \u2014 a spiritual journey,” Mr Ali said.\"Two<\/p>\n

Some of the manuscripts in Mohamad Ali’s collection go back 1,200 years. (Supplied: Powerhouse Parramatta)<\/p>\n

“I just wanted to learn a little bit more about the scribing process \u2026 but then that led me to a greater understanding, or a deeper understanding, of what my own personal faith was about.”<\/p>\n

Mr Ali’s extensive collection goes as far back as the 8th century, encompassing many Islamic empires and dynasties.<\/p>\n

He hopes the story of his collection will go beyond the Islamic community and create a greater appreciation for the cultural impact of Islam on the world, in art and education.<\/p>\n

“Islam’s got a lot, and has always had a lot, to contribute to the world’s existence,” Mr Ali said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarik Hussein thinks there were only 10 kanuns in Australia when he began playing in 2006. The Sydney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,469425,469429,469428,469427,469424,469423,469422,469426,289700,469421,469430],"class_list":["post-900721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-islam-objects-powerhouse","tag-kanun","tag-kanun-maker-sydney","tag-kanun-workshop-sydney","tag-khaled-sabsabi-exhibition-sydney","tag-khaled-sabsabi-powerhouse-parramatta","tag-moments-in-waiting-exhibition","tag-muslim-objects-powerhouse","tag-powerhouse-parramatta","tag-powerhouse-parramatta-moments-in-waiting","tag-tarik-hussein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}