Walking into An Nhơn hamlet, visitors encounter something found in very few settlements across Vietnam. Within the same hamlet, about two hundred meters apart, stand two houses of worship belonging to two communities that share an Islamic root yet have followed separate paths for centuries. One is the Sang Magik of the Cham Bàni community, a long, brightly whitewashed hall with flat walls whose doors stay closed for nearly the entire year. The other is Islamic Mosque 103, An Nhơn, an orthodox Sunni masjid whose doors open every day.
This entry covers the first sanctuary. Villagers refer to their settlement not by its administrative title, but by its Cham name: palei Mblap Klak, meaning Old Mblap. About two kilometers away lies New Mblap, known in Vietnamese as Phước Nhơn with its Phước Nhơn Bàni Mosque. Together the two villages form a sibling pair, and both share the distinctive presence of two sanctuaries of different Islamic traditions standing side by side.
IOld Mblap, New Mblap, and the Bàni faith
A clear distinction must be stated from the outset, because this is the point most frequently confused. Bàni is the localized form of Islam practiced by the Cham people, shaped specifically in South Central Vietnam, and distinct from orthodox Sunni Islam followed by the Cham Islam community and Malay Muslims. Both traditions share a common origin, yet their religious practices diverged centuries ago. The library records these differences as historical facts without ranking one practice above the other.
Regarding the village name, Mblap is the ancestral name of the settlement area, while Klak means old and Baruw (or Birau, Bahrau) means new. An Nhơn is palei Mblap Klak, the old village, while Phước Nhơn is palei Mblap Baruw, the newer sister village that branched off from it. Published sources transliterate this name in several ways, including Pamblap Klak and Pamblap A Lhak, all carrying the same meaning of Old Mblap. This entry uses Mblap Klak for consistency while noting the variants so readers can recognize them across other documents.
According to Bàni doctrine, the supreme being is Po Awluah, namely Allah. Their scripture is called the Kuraân, written in a modified Arabic script interspersed with ritual directions in Cham Akhar Thrah script, memorized by the clerics for liturgical recitation. Alongside Po Awluah, Bàni believers continue to venerate ancestral spirits and retain nature deities within their ritual system.
The greatest doctrinal difference lies in the Five Pillars of Islam. In orthodox Islam, those five duties rest upon each individual believer, so worshippers pray five times daily and the entire congregation fasts throughout Ramadan. In the Bàni tradition, the five duties are entrusted to the clerical order to fulfill on behalf of the entire village, and monetary almsgiving is adapted into the ritual of rice exchange offered at the sanctuary. Consequently, during the month of Ramưwan, the clerics move into the Sang Magik and observe the fast on site, while lay believers perform grave-sweeping, offer meals to ancestors, and keep taboos at home.
Historically, Islam reached the kingdom of Champa by sea at an early date, brought by foreign merchants and artisans residing along the central coast. Over centuries, that early Islamic current blended with indigenous beliefs and the existing Brahmanist layer to form the Bàni religion practiced today, complete with its own clerical hierarchy and festival calendar.
Published statistics record about 29,700 Bàni followers across the former Ninh Thuận province, concentrated in 12 hamlets across 6 communes within the four former districts of Ninh Hải, Ninh Sơn, Ninh Phước, and Thuận Nam. Seven of those hamlets have their own Sang Magik sanctuary, namely Văn Lâm, Phú Nhuận, Thành Tín, Lương Tri, An Nhơn, Phước Nhơn, and Tuấn Tú. An Nhơn is one of those seven sanctuaries.
The most common confusion in An Nhơn lies not in abstract theology, but right on the ground of the hamlet. Outsiders who hear that the hamlet has an Islamic house of worship often assume there is only one. In fact, there are two sanctuaries belonging to two different religious systems.
The first is the Bàni Sang Magik (called Magik Haluw Mblap Klak in Cham), the subject of this entry. The second is Islamic Mosque 103, An Nhơn, carrying the Arabic name Al Noor (or An Noor). Published studies diverge on the founding year of Mosque 103: data from the Provincial Islamic Representative Board cited in a 2019 study by Chu Văn Tuấn records that it was built in 1964 and renovated in 1995, whereas a 2008 study by Tạ Long and Ngô Thị Chính (along with a 2007 volume edited by Nguyễn Hồng Dương) records that it was built in 1968 (after Mosque 102 in Phước Nhơn, built in 1964). A 2018 report recorded about 229 followers at Mosque 103 (while a September 2019 field survey counted 73 households with nearly 300 residents). That mosque serves the Cham Islam community, which practices orthodox Sunni Islam, keeps its doors open year-round, and prays five times daily.
The two sanctuaries stand about two hundred meters apart. Anyone who visits only one and writes about the whole hamlet misses half the picture. The library has a dedicated entry for that orthodox mosque so readers can view both sides together.
IIMblap Klak village and its Sang Magik
The sources consulted by the library do not record a specific founding year for this Sang Magik, and the library states plainly that the date is unrecorded rather than offering an unverified figure. This is normal for Cham villages, because original structures were built of perishable materials and rebuilt repeatedly over generations, so chronology was remembered by clerical succession rather than stone inscriptions. There is no founding stele here to read.
- 9th to 11th centuryEarly Islamic tracesAccording to one line of scholarship, Islam reached the kingdom of Champa by sea along with foreign merchants and artisans residing along the central coast.
- 14th to 17th centuryFormation of the Bàni faithEarly Islamic currents blended with indigenous beliefs and the existing Brahmanist tradition, forming the Bàni religion with its own clerical hierarchy and festival calendar.
- UnrecordedBranching of the Mblap villagesA group of residents from Mblap Klak branched off to establish a new village called Mblap Baruw, namely Phước Nhơn. Sources do not record the year of this split, preserving only the paired names of Old and New Mblap.
- Before the mid-20th centurySang Magik of light materialsAccording to scholarly descriptions, Bàni Sang Magik halls were originally built with thatched roofs, bamboo or mud walls, and earthen floors, rebuilt periodically rather than in permanent masonry.
- 1964 or 1968Orthodox mosque in the same hamletIslamic Mosque 103, An Nhơn (Al Noor) was erected in the hamlet (published studies record 1964 or 1968, renovated in 1995), marking the coexistence of two Islamic traditions within a single hamlet. It is a separate institution from the Bàni sanctuary.
- Second half of the 20th centuryRebuilt in durable materialsThe Bàni Sang Magik was rebuilt with brick walls and a tiled or metal roof, preserving its traditional layout while changing the materials.
- Present dayOne of the seven sanctuaries of the regionAn Nhơn is one of the seven Bàni Sang Magik of the former Ninh Thuận region, participating in the triennial Suk Yeng festival cycle across the seven villages.
One aspect of daily livelihood closely tied to both Mblap villages deserves mention, because it explains why this hamlet is populous and why so many of its residents travel far from home. An Nhơn and Phước Nhơn form a long-standing traditional herbal medicine center of the Cham people, drawing on ancient Champa medical knowledge influenced by Indian Ayurveda and traditional Eastern medicine. According to a report in Heritage World (Thế giới Di sản) magazine, across Xuân Hải commune about 1,200 households practice herbal medicine, concentrated most heavily in An Nhơn and Phước Nhơn hamlets (where roughly 95 percent of households travel to sell herbal remedies and treat patients), supported by 13 local herbal wholesalers supplying about one ton of dried medicinal plants daily (around 300 tons annually), and since early 2010 the Provincial Traditional Medicine Association has run a medicinal plant conservation project in both hamlets. Villagers travel across Vietnam and neighboring countries selling medicine, then return home for the festival season. Although herbal medicine is a secular trade rather than a religious duty, it shapes the annual rhythm of departure and return for the entire village, anchored by the reunion month of Ramưwan.
IIITelling the two sanctuaries apart by sight
This is a point that often surprises visitors, so it is worth stating plainly. In terms of basic building mass, a Bàni Sang Magik and a traditional Cham masjid are actually quite similar. Both blend vernacular Cham architectural features with Islamic elements, both are rectangular halls, and both orient their prayer walls toward Mecca. In An Nhơn, the two buildings stand within the very same hamlet, making it easy for a casual visitor looking only at walls to confuse them.
The fundamental difference lies in liturgical practice rather than the building shell. To tell them apart visually, visitors can look at the following features.
The Bàni Sang Magik stays closed for nearly the entire year, opening only during the month of Ramưwan and Cham calendar festivals such as Suk Yeng. The orthodox masjid stays open year-round with worshippers entering five times daily. This is the most immediate visual cue.
The Bàni Sang Magik is a long hall with a two-sided pitched roof, lacking the bulbous dome and elevated minaret tower of an orthodox masjid, even though the main doorway of the An Nhơn Bàni sanctuary still displays a red plaque with Arabic script (Allah - Muhammad) and a crescent moon and star emblem.
Both sanctuaries orient their prayer walls along the qiblah toward the Kaaba in Mecca, which from Vietnam is due west. Because Bàni shares this rule with orthodox Islam, orientation alone does not distinguish the two.
A long open room without central dividing columns, its floor left completely clear of chairs, statues, or paintings. Inside the Bàni hall, clerical seating is arranged by rank in horizontal rows facing the western prayer wall.
Beside the Bàni Sang Magik stand a kitchen and resting quarters, because during the month of Ramưwan the Acar clerics reside on site for the full month and take all their meals and rest within the compound. An orthodox masjid does not require month-long living quarters.
In short, if visitors stand in An Nhơn hamlet and want to know which sanctuary they are looking at, beyond checking for a dome they can ask three questions: how many times a day do these doors open, who observes the fast during the sacred month, and does the entire village go out to the clan cemeteries for grave-sweeping before the fast begins. Those three questions distinguish the two immediately, because they point to the core liturgical differences between the two traditions.
IVThe lie of the land and orientation
One premise must be stated plainly before reading further. Islam does not teach feng shui, and neither does the Bàni tradition. The direction of prayer inside a Sang Magik is fixed by the qiblah, pointing toward the Kaaba in Mecca, which from Vietnam is due west. That is a mandatory rule of the faith rather than a geomantic calculation, and the builders have no discretion to choose otherwise.
The observations below are entirely a comparative reading by the library for readers familiar with traditional Vietnamese geomancy, and represent neither religious doctrine nor the intentions of the builders.
First is the configuration of a paired settlement, which is the most distinctive feature of An Nhơn. Traditional Vietnamese geomancy pays close attention to mother and daughter villages, where the older settlement holds the ancestral root while the newer settlement branches out toward water or a roadway, forming a mutually supporting pair. Here that relationship is preserved directly in the Cham names Old Mblap and New Mblap, a nuance that the administrative names An Nhơn and Phước Nhơn do not convey. Read through classical eyes, this is a configuration of mother and child sharing a single vein, two villages bound by a common population origin, a shared herbal medicine trade, and an identical religious structure.
Second is placement within the hamlet. The Sang Magik does not stand on the outskirts, but sits right amid the residential neighborhood on the same level ground as family homes, without high perimeter walls or a vast forecourt. In traditional Vietnamese terms, this is a central gathering (tụ giữa) layout that places the sanctuary at the heart of the settlement rather than isolating it.
Third is a spatial arrangement that looks most unusual to a classical geomancer. Within a single hamlet stand two houses of worship belonging to two different religious systems, about two hundred meters apart, both facing the exact same direction. When classical geomancy encounters two sanctuaries in close proximity, it immediately checks for clashing bearings, competing orientations, or one structure siphoning qi from the other. Here that conflict never arises, for reasons entirely outside the geomantic compass: both buildings orient their prayer walls westward toward Mecca so they never face each other in opposition, and each community follows its own calendar so their festival rhythms do not collide. What classical geomancy would view as a difficult spatial problem is resolved naturally in practice through liturgical order.
Finally, there is the western orientation seen through traditional eyes. In classical five-element theory, the West belongs to the Metal element, corresponding to autumn and inward contraction, and vernacular Vietnamese houses rarely favor facing west because of the harsh afternoon sun. Here the westward prayer orientation is maintained neither for climate nor for topography, but solely because Mecca lies in that direction. It is a clear example of a religious precept taking precedence over all terrestrial calculations, and even over physical comfort.
VRamưwan and the seven-village festival cycle
Ramưwan is the largest annual festival month of the Cham Bàni community, reckoned by the traditional Cham calendar and therefore falling on different solar dates each year. Rather than a single holiday, it is an entire ritual season encompassing ceremonies at clan cemeteries, in family homes, and inside the Sang Magik. For a village like An Nhơn, where roughly ninety-five percent of households travel far from home to sell herbal medicine, Ramưwan is also the season when the entire village reunites.
| Observance | Location | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Grave-sweeping before Ramưwan | Clan cemeteries | Families visit their matrilineal clan cemeteries with cakes, fruit, and betel to invite ancestral spirits home. This is an indigenous ritual layer absent from orthodox Islamic Ramadan. |
| Ancestral meal offerings | Individual homes | Families lay out offering trays at home, presenting each deceased relative with one vegetarian tray and one meat tray. Villagers working far away arrange to return home for this occasion. |
| Clerics enter the Sang Magik | Sanctuary | The Acar clerics perform ritual purification and move into the sanctuary, fasting and praying on behalf of the entire village. Only during this month do the sanctuary doors stay open continuously. |
| Strict fasting phase | Sanctuary | Published sources differ on its length, recording either the first three days or the first fifteen to sixteen days. During this phase, clerics abstain from food and drink before sunset and do not return home. |
| Breaking the fast | Sanctuary and village | At the end of the month, the clerics leave the sanctuary and the doors close again until the next festival. |
| Suk Yeng festival | Sanctuary | A rotating Friday festival held at the sanctuary on a three-year cycle across the seven Bàni villages of the region, featuring ceremonial drumming, scripture recitation, and offerings. |
Regarding the Suk Yeng festival, two points deserve mention. First, sources transliterate the name differently, with some spelling it Suk Yơng. Both spellings refer to the same ceremony, differing only in how Cham pronunciation is rendered in Roman script. Second, the festival does not take place in an isolated village, but rotates sequentially through the seven Bàni villages of the region, visiting one village each Friday over seven consecutive weeks in the order of Thành Tín, Văn Lâm, Phú Nhuận, Lương Tri, An Nhơn, Phước Nhơn, and Tuấn Tú. During the 2025 festival season (which opened in Thành Tín on October 31 and concluded in Tuấn Tú on December 12), An Nhơn served as the fifth stop in the cycle.
What makes this rotating cycle remarkable is that it shows the seven Sang Magik do not stand in isolation, echoing the traditional Cham proverb Tajuh Halau, klau Bimong (seven Bàni sanctuaries, three Cham temple tower complexes). Each sanctuary is one link in a single chain, welcoming the clerics of the other six villages when its Friday arrives. For An Nhơn, a hamlet already accustomed to two religious communities living side by side, the seven-village cycle adds another layer of meaning, reminding visitors that the quiet hall standing closed most of the year in the middle of the neighborhood is part of a living network spanning the entire region.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Thôn An Nhơn, xã Xuân Hải, tỉnh Khánh Hòa
- Getting there
- The village is located in An Nhơn hamlet (known in Cham as palei Mblap Klak), Xuân Hải commune, Khánh Hòa province, on the plain north of Phan Rang. Because the Sang Magik sits amid the residential neighborhood rather than on the village edge, visitors should ask local residents for directions and specify the Bàni sanctuary rather than Islamic Mosque 103 in the same hamlet.
- Coordinates
- 11.6444, 108.9905
This is the house of worship of a specific community rather than a tourist attraction, and the sanctuary stays closed for nearly the entire year. Visitors are expected to ask local residents before entering the compound, dress modestly, remove shoes before stepping into the hall, and refrain from bringing food or drink inside. During the month of Ramưwan and the Suk Yeng festival, rituals inside belong to the clerics, so visitors should remain outside and not take photographs without permission. Because the hamlet contains two houses of worship belonging to two different religious systems, visitors should not apply the customs of one to the other or ask one community to speak for the affairs of the other.
Nearby places in the library
VIIContribute To This Page
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Góp ảnh, thông tin hoặc video cho Thánh đường Bàni An NhơnEveryone is welcome to enrich this page: a photo you took, a detail the page misses, a short video. Every contribution is read and answered.
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?Quick Questions
Where is the An Nhơn Bàni Mosque?
It is located in An Nhơn hamlet, Xuân Hải commune, Khánh Hòa province, on the plain north of Phan Rang. The Cham call the village palei Mblap Klak, meaning Old Mblap, and call the sanctuary Magik Haluw Mblap Klak. It is one of the seven Bàni Sang Magik of the former Ninh Thuận region.
Why does An Nhơn hamlet have two mosques?
Because the hamlet is home to two Cham communities following two distinct Islamic traditions. One is the Cham Bàni community with its Sang Magik, and the other is the Cham Islam community with Islamic Mosque 103, An Nhơn (Al Noor, which published studies record as built in 1964 or 1968 and renovated in 1995). Standing about two hundred meters apart, they are two completely separate institutions.
How do Cham Bàni and Cham Islam differ?
Cham Islam follows orthodox Sunni practice, in which believers pray five times daily, the entire community fasts throughout Ramadan, and the mosque stays open year-round. Cham Bàni entrusts the five religious duties to the clerical order on the village's behalf, preserves grave-sweeping and ancestral meal offerings, and opens its Sang Magik only during festival seasons.
What does palei Mblap Klak mean?
It means Old Mblap. Mblap is the ancestral name of the settlement area, while Klak means old and Baruw (or Birau, Bahrau) means new. An Nhơn is the old village, and Phước Nhơn is the newer village that branched off from it, known in Cham as palei Mblap Baruw. Some documents spell the name Pamblap Klak or Pamblap A Lhak, which are orthographic variants of the same name.
What is the Suk Yeng festival of the Cham Bàni?
It is a festival held at the sanctuary on a Friday once every three years, rotating sequentially through the seven Bàni villages of the region (Thành Tín, Văn Lâm, Phú Nhuận, Lương Tri, An Nhơn, Phước Nhơn, and Tuấn Tú), one village per week. Presided over by the Chief Cleric and Acar clergy, it features ceremonial drumming, scripture recitation, and offerings. Some sources transliterate the name as Suk Yơng.