If you visit Phước Nhơn on an ordinary day outside the festival season, the first thing that greets you is not the sanctuary building but the scent of medicinal herbs. Roots, tree bark, and dried leaves are spread on tarpaulins across courtyards, packed into sacks, and loaded onto vehicles. This is the traditional herbal medicine village of the Cham, whose traders carry remedies across Vietnam and into neighboring countries while many houses stay locked for much of the year.
In the middle of the hamlet stands a long building washed in bright lime with flat walls, a two-sloped roof, and closed doors. That is the Sang Magik of the Bàni Cham. Villagers refer to their settlement not by its administrative name but by its Cham name, palei Mblap Baruw, meaning New Mblap, which branched off from Old Mblap, namely An Nhơn. And within this very same hamlet, only about a hundred meters away, stands a second house of worship belonging to a different Islamic tradition.
INew Mblap and two houses of worship in one hamlet
One distinction should be stated clearly at the outset because it is the most frequent point of confusion. Bàni is an indigenized form of Islam practiced by the Cham that took shape specifically in South Central Vietnam, and it is distinct from orthodox Sunni Islam followed by the Cham Islam community and Malay Muslims. Both share an Islamic root, yet their religious practice has diverged for centuries. The library records these differences neutrally as historical facts without ranking one form above the other.
The village name tells its origin directly. Mblap is the name of the old settlement area, Klak means old, and Baruw means new. An Nhơn is palei Mblap Klak, the mother village, while Phước Nhơn is palei Mblap Baruw, the daughter village that branched off. Written sources spell the name variously as Pamblap Baruw, Pamblap Biraw, or simply Pabblap for both settlements. All sources agree on the meaning of old and new, and this article uses the spelling Mblap Baruw for consistency.
Regarding the name displayed on the sanctuary itself, photographic documentation by Dr. Putra Podam on Champa.one shows that a pre-1975 sign once used the Vietnamese word for pagoda, reading Chùa Hồi Hồi Phước Nhơn, whereas the current Vietnamese sign reads Sang Mưgik Bà-Ni Phước Nhơn, accompanied on the facade by Arabic, Cham, and Latin inscriptions bearing the names of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. In recent years, members of the Bàni community have expressed differing views on how to render the name of their house of worship in Vietnamese. The library simply records the sign currently displayed without taking sides.
In Bàni doctrine, the supreme being is Po Awluah, meaning Allah. Scriptures are written in a modified Arabic script and memorized by the clergy for liturgical chanting. Alongside Po Awluah, Bàni followers continue to venerate ancestors and maintain nature deities within their ritual system.
The most visible divergence lies in how the Five Pillars of Islam are fulfilled. In orthodox Islam, those five obligations rest on each individual believer. In the Bàni tradition, they are entrusted to the clerical order to perform on behalf of the entire village. The Bàni clerical hierarchy comprises five ranks ascending from Acar (the entry rank) to Mưdin, Katip, Imâm (or Imưm), and finally Po Gru, the high master, though laypeople commonly refer to the entire clerical body as the Acar. This clerical order observes the fast during the holy month of Ramưwan on behalf of the village, while lay households tend ancestral graves, present offerings to deceased relatives, and observe household taboos.
In a village where many men travel far from home throughout the year, this arrangement carries a practical consequence, namely that the liturgical life of the village never breaks even when lay villagers are away on the road. The clerical order remains in the village and fulfills the entire ritual calendar.
Historically, Islam reached the kingdom of Champa via maritime trade routes around the ninth to tenth centuries. Over the following centuries, that early Islamic layer blended with indigenous beliefs and the existing Brahmanical tradition to form the Bàni religion seen today.
Published figures show that the former Ninh Thuận province had around 29,700 Bàni Muslim followers living across 12 hamlets in 6 communes within four former districts, namely Ninh Hải, Ninh Sơn, Ninh Phước, and Thuận Nam. Seven of those hamlets have their own Sang Magik, namely Văn Lâm, Phú Nhuận, Thành Tín, Lương Tri, An Nhơn, Phước Nhơn, and Tuấn Tú. Community surveys record that Phước Nhơn has nearly 6,500 Cham residents, making it one of the most populous Cham settlements in the region and, together with An Nhơn, the largest center of traditional Cham herbal medicine in the former Ninh Thuận province.
The most common misunderstanding in Phước Nhơn lies right on the ground inside the hamlet. Visitors hearing that the hamlet has a mosque often assume there is only one. In fact, there are two sanctuaries belonging to two distinct Islamic branches.
The first is the Bàni Sang Magik, the subject of this article. The second is Phước Nhơn Islam Mosque 102, known in Arabic as Masjid Jamiul Muslimin, founded between 1962 and 1964 depending on the source (the Representative Board of the Islamic Community of Ninh Thuận Province records 1962 with a major reconstruction in 1993, a 2005 study by Tạ Long and Ngô Thị Chính records 1963, and a 2007 work by Nguyễn Hồng Dương records 1964). Regarding the congregation of that orthodox mosque, a 2018 report recorded around 617 followers, whereas a September 2019 field survey by Chu Văn Tuấn recorded 245 households with roughly 750 followers on a 2,400-square-meter compound. That masjid serves the Cham Islam community practicing orthodox Sunni Islam, where the doors open year-round and believers pray five times daily.
The two sanctuaries stand only about a hundred meters apart, even closer together than the pair in An Nhơn. Anyone who visits only one sanctuary and writes about the whole hamlet will miss half the picture. The library provides a separate entry for that orthodox masjid so readers can examine both side by side.
IIMblap Baruw village and the herbal medicine trade
The documents consulted by the library do not record a specific founding year for this Sang Magik, and the library states clearly that the date remains unrecorded rather than offering an unsupported number. Most Cham villages have no founding charter because the original structures were built of perishable materials and reconstructed periodically, so chronology was remembered through generations of clergy rather than stone inscriptions.
- 9th to 10th centuriesIslam reaches ChampaIslam arrives in the kingdom of Champa by sea along with merchants and artisans settling along the central coast.
- 15th to 17th centuriesFormation of the Bàni traditionEarly Islamic practice blends with indigenous beliefs and the existing Brahmanical layer to form the Bàni religion with its own clerical hierarchy and ritual calendar.
- UnrecordedBranching off from Mblap KlakPart of the older settlement branches off to establish a new village, forming the pair Mblap Klak and Mblap Baruw. Sources do not record the exact year of separation.
- Before the mid-20th centuryPerishable Sang Magik structureAccording to scholarly accounts, Bàni Sang Magik halls were originally built with thatched roofs, bamboo walls, and earthen floors, rebuilt cyclically rather than erected in permanent masonry.
- 1962 to 1964Orthodox Islam mosque founded in the same hamletPhước Nhơn Islam Mosque 102 (Masjid Jamiul Muslimin) is established (sources record 1962, 1963, or 1964, with a major renovation in 1993), marking the presence of two Islamic traditions within the same hamlet.
- Later decadesRebuilt in durable materialsMost Bàni Sang Magik buildings were reconstructed in brick with tile or corrugated metal roofs, preserving the traditional layout while changing only the materials.
- From 2010Cultivating medicinal plants in home gardensThe provincial Traditional Medicine Association launches a project to conserve Cham medicinal plants and herbal knowledge in An Nhơn and Phước Nhơn, with thirty households registering and twenty-four households cultivating forty-three plant varieties across nearly 1,000 square meters of home gardens.
- PresentOne of the seven regional sanctuariesPhước Nhơn stands as one of the seven Bàni Sang Magik sanctuaries of the former Ninh Thuận region, participating in the rotating seven-village Suk Yeng cycle.
The traditional herbal medicine trade here deserves to be documented in historical terms because it shapes the annual rhythm of the entire village. Published surveys report that Xuân Hải commune has around 1,200 households practicing herbal medicine, concentrated most heavily in An Nhơn and Phước Nhơn hamlets, with thirteen to fourteen herbal wholesale dealers and roughly 1,500 residents from the two villages traveling across Vietnam and neighboring countries to sell medicinal remedies.
Regarding the exact number of medicinal plants, published sources differ noticeably. A survey published in Saigon Times (reprinted by Tuổi Trẻ) records that Cham healers here use 679 medicinal plants and ingredients belonging to 324 species across 78 plant families to treat 90 ailments. Meanwhile, articles in Heritage World (Thế giới Di sản) and Dân Việt newspaper record around 300 species across 97 plant families yielding roughly 600 medicinal ingredients. Both groups of sources agree on the figure of 677 traditional prescriptions recorded in writing. The library notes both sets of figures transparently without discarding either source.
IIIWhat the Sang Magik looks like
Visitors accustomed to picturing a mosque as a grand structure with a large dome and tall minaret as in the Middle East find a different architectural form here. A Bàni Sang Magik is a long rectangular hall with flat masonry walls and a two-sloped roof, without a large dome or towering minaret, standing right among village homes.
In Phước Nhơn, the close proximity of the Sang Magik to an orthodox masjid makes the contrast between the two traditions clearer than almost anywhere else. Yet that contrast does not lie in the building shell, because both are solid masonry halls oriented toward Mecca. The difference lies in the rhythm of use.
A single long hall without central dividing pillars and an open floor without pews, statues, or paintings. Clerical seating is arranged by rank in horizontal rows facing the prayer wall.
The clergy face the qiblah toward the Kaaba in Mecca, which from Vietnam is due west. Because Bàni and orthodox Islam share this mandatory rule, orientation does not distinguish the two buildings.
The Sang Magik remains closed for most of the year, opening only during the month of Ramưwan and scheduled festivals on the Cham calendar, in sharp contrast to an orthodox masjid open daily.
Beside the main hall stand a kitchen and resting quarters, because during the month of Ramưwan the Acar clerics reside inside the compound and take all their meals on site.
The current Vietnamese sign reads Sang Mưgik Bà-Ni Phước Nhơn, while the gate and facade display the crescent-and-star symbol alongside inscriptions bearing the names of Allah and Muhammad. The library records the sign as currently hung.
Originally built with thatched roofs, bamboo walls, and earthen floors. Since the second half of the twentieth century, most have been rebuilt in brick with tile or metal roofs and bright limewash while keeping the original layout.
One detail of architectural scale is worth noting. Because the Bàni tradition entrusts liturgical duties to the clerical order, what a Sang Magik needs to accommodate is not a daily crowd of lay worshippers, but a resident group of clerics living on site for a month. Its layout therefore prioritizes ranked clerical seating, cooking facilities, and sleeping quarters rather than a vast congregational prayer floor. In a populous village like Phước Nhơn, this is immediately apparent because the hall is modest relative to the village population, having never been designed to hold the entire village at once.
IVThe lie of the land and orientation
One point should be stated plainly before reading further. Islam does not teach feng shui, and neither does the Bàni tradition. The direction of worship inside a Sang Magik is fixed by the qiblah toward the Kaaba in Mecca, which from Vietnam is west. That is a mandatory religious precept rather than a geomantic choice, and the builders had no option to orient it otherwise.
The observations below are strictly a comparative reading provided by the library for readers familiar with traditional Vietnamese geomancy, not a teaching of the faith nor a factor considered by those who built the sanctuary.
First is the siting of a daughter village. In traditional Vietnamese geomancy, when a new settlement branches off from a mother village, settlers look for water, road access, and open ground for expansion. Here, the newer village lies just north of the older village along the same flat plain, unseparated by any wide river or high ridge, meaning it is distinct yet connected. In traditional terms, that is a favorable disposition for a daughter settlement, far enough to form an independent palei with its own Sang Magik, yet close enough for the two villages to share kinship ties and a single herbal trade.
Second is a paradox to traditional geomantic eyes, namely a densely populated village whose residents are mostly away from home for much of the year. Classical geomancy measures a village's vitality by how many people stay gathered on its land and often reads outward migration as dispersing qi (tán khí). In Phước Nhơn the opposite holds true, as traveling afar to trade herbal medicine sustains the village economically while families return home faithfully for the ritual season. The library notes this contrast to show that a single traditional yardstick cannot measure every way of life.
Third is two houses of worship in one hamlet. When traditional geomancy sees two sanctuaries standing a hundred meters apart, it immediately looks for directional clashes or competition for vital energy. Here that problem does not arise because both sanctuaries face west toward Mecca rather than confronting each other, and each follows a different calendar rhythm, with one open five times daily and the other opening seasonally. What traditional geomancy might view as a tense configuration is resolved naturally through distinct liturgical schedules.
Finally, there is the westward orientation viewed through traditional eyes. In the Five Phases framework, the West corresponds to Metal, autumn, and inward gathering, and traditional Vietnamese houses rarely favor facing west because of the hot afternoon sun. Here the westward orientation is maintained neither for climate nor for terrain, but because Mecca lies to the west, a religious precept upheld alike by two different Islamic communities within the same hamlet.
VRamưwan in a village of long-distance traders
Ramưwan is the greatest annual holy month of the Bàni Cham, calculated according to the Cham calendar and therefore falling on different Gregorian dates each year. In Phước Nhơn, this month carries an added social weight felt more strongly than in farming villages, as it is the season when the entire village returns home. Herbal traders working in distant provinces and abroad wrap up their trips in time to join family grave tending and ancestral offerings.
| Stage | Participants | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Returning home | Distant herbal traders | Before the holy month begins, villagers selling herbal medicine across provinces and abroad return to the village, a vital real-life stage of Phước Nhơn's ritual season. |
| Grave tending | Families and clans | Families visit clan cemeteries with cakes, fruit, and betel to invite ancestors home, an indigenous ritual layer absent from orthodox Ramadan. |
| Ancestral meal offering | Individual households | Families set out offering trays indoors, presenting one vegetarian tray and one non-vegetarian tray for each deceased relative. |
| Clergy enter the Sang Magik | Acar clerics | Clerics perform purification rites and take up residence inside the sanctuary, fasting and praying on behalf of the village while the sanctuary doors open. |
| Strict fasting phase | Acar clerics | Sources differ on its length, with some recording the first three days and others recording fifteen to sixteen days during which clerics neither eat nor drink before sunset and do not return home. |
| Village-wide abstinence | Households | Throughout the clerics' strict fasting phase, village households refrain from slaughtering animals and maintain communal harmony. |
| End of fast and departure | Entire village | At the end of the month, clerics leave the sanctuary and its doors close again, while villagers gradually set out once more on their herbal trading routes. |
Beyond Ramưwan, Phước Nhơn is also part of the Suk Yeng ritual cycle, a Friday sanctuary ceremony held once every three years that rotates sequentially across the seven Bàni villages of the region. The 2025 season opened in Thành Tín at the end of October and closed in Tuấn Tú in mid-December. Some Vietnamese sources transcribe the name as Suk Yơng, referring to the same ceremony romanized differently.
The clearest differences from Ramadan in orthodox Sunni Islam rest on two points. First is who observes the fast, which in orthodox Islam is every adult believer whereas in Bàni practice it is the clerical order fasting on behalf of the village. Second is ancestral veneration, where grave tending and inviting ancestors home form the mandatory opening of Ramưwan. In Phước Nhơn, both practices unfold just a hundred meters from an orthodox masjid, a coexistence the hamlet has lived with for decades.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Thôn Phước Nhơn, xã Xuân Hải, tỉnh Khánh Hòa
- Getting there
- The village is located in Phước Nhơn hamlet, Xuân Hải commune, Khánh Hòa province, on the northern plain of Phan Rang a few kilometers from An Nhơn village. The Sang Magik sits in the middle of the residential hamlet, while Phước Nhơn Islam Mosque 102 stands about a hundred meters away as a separate orthodox institution.
- Coordinates
- 11.6607, 109.0009
This is an active house of worship of a specific community rather than a tourist attraction, and the sanctuary remains closed for almost the entire year. Visitors should ask permission from villagers before entering the compound, dress modestly, remove footwear before stepping inside the hall, and bring no food or drink inside. During the month of Ramưwan and the Suk Yeng festival, liturgical rites belong to the clergy, so visitors should remain outside and refrain from photography without permission. Because the hamlet is home to two houses of worship belonging to two distinct Islamic traditions, visitors should not conflate the customs of one with the other or debate the wording on the sanctuary sign with local residents.
Nearby places in the library
VIIContribute To This Page
Contribute photos, information or video for Phuoc Nhon Bani Mosque
Góp ảnh, thông tin hoặc video cho Thánh đường Bàni Phước 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 Phước Nhơn Bàni Mosque located
It is in Phước Nhơn hamlet, Xuân Hải commune, Khánh Hòa province, on the plain north of Phan Rang. The Cham call the village palei Mblap Baruw (New Mblap) and the sanctuary Magik Haluw Mblap Baruw, while the current Vietnamese sign reads Sang Mưgik Bà-Ni Phước Nhơn.
Why does Phước Nhơn hamlet have two mosques
Because the hamlet is home to two Cham Muslim communities following different traditions. One is the Bàni Cham community centered on the Sang Magik, and the other is the Cham Islam community centered on Phước Nhơn Islam Mosque 102 (Masjid Jamiul Muslimin), founded between 1962 and 1964. Standing about a hundred meters apart, they are two completely independent institutions.
How are Phước Nhơn and An Nhơn related
They form a mother-and-daughter village pair. An Nhơn is palei Mblap Klak (Old Mblap) and Phước Nhơn is palei Mblap Baruw (New Mblap), which branched off from the older settlement. Lying on the same plain, both share the traditional herbal medicine trade and each hamlet has both a Bàni Sang Magik and an orthodox Islam masjid.
What is special about the Phước Nhơn herbal medicine village
It is a long-standing center of traditional Cham herbal medicine. Published surveys record around 1,200 herbal-medicine households across Xuân Hải commune and roughly 1,500 traders from Phước Nhơn and An Nhơn selling remedies across Vietnam and neighboring countries. While sources differ on the exact plant count (324 species with 679 ingredients versus 300 species with 600 ingredients), both record 677 written prescriptions.
How do the Bàni Cham observe the fast of Ramưwan
Unlike orthodox Ramadan where the entire adult community fasts, in Bàni practice the clerical order resides inside the Sang Magik and observes the fast on behalf of the entire village, while lay households tend ancestral graves, offer meals to deceased relatives at home, and observe household taboos.