Arab Street is the name of a road and neighborhood in
Singapore. There are two explanations behind the name. The first one is that
the area was owned by an Arab merchant, Syed Ali bin Mohamed Al Junied and that
it was the site of an Arab kampong, hence the name Arab Street. The Chinese
referred the street as jiau a koi Javanese, in the view of the Javanese who
used to be the majority inhabitants of the area. Spices, textiles, basketry
items and songkoks are sold along this row of shop houses with five-foot way at
Arab Street. In Tamil, Arab Street is known as pukadai sadkku (flower shops
street), because of shops selling homegrown flowers, lime and other goods sold
by Javanese women. In 1889, a huge fire occurred.
