Some Malay mystics, heretical and orthodox
R.O. Winstedt’s 1923 article, published in the second issue of the inaugural volume of the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, surveys the doctrines of three seventeenth-century Islamic mystics associated with northern Sumatra — the heretical Hamzah Fansuri and Shams al-Din of Pasai, and the orthodox Nur al-Din of Aceh — drawing on a chapter of H. Kraemer’s Leiden doctoral thesis to trace the Neo-Platonic philosophical architecture beneath their Malay-language poetry and treatises. The article’s central concern is the theological fault line between a panentheistic mysticism that collapses the distinction between God’s essence and the created world, and an orthodox position that preserves divine transcendence while acknowledging the world’s dependent existence.
Summary
Winstedt frames the discussion around a question that had occupied Malay rulers since at least the mid-fifteenth century: the ontological status of the world in relation to God. The heretical mystics, whom Nur al-Din labels Wujudiyya after the followers of Ibn ‘Arabi, hold that Allah is the sole absolute Being (wujud mutlak) and that the phenomenal world is merely appearance (wujud wahmi) — a reflection in glass, a ripple on an otherwise still sea. Hamzah Fansuri, a traveller from Barus who moved between Aceh, Banten, Kudus, Pahang, and the Hijaz, and who was initiated into the Qadariya order, develops this position through the Neo-Platonic emanation scheme: from the immobile plane of Absolute Being (laut tetap) the world descends through six stages (martabat) to the material realm, only to return to its origin, so that the process “comes full circle.” Man occupies the turning point in this circuit; his spiritual essence (hakikat diri) is identical with Absolute Being, and the stage of gnosis (marifat) is the falling away of the veil between lover and beloved. Shams al-Din of Pasai, who died around 1630 and counted the Javanese Pangeran Bonang among his teachers, extends the schema with additional technical terms (ahadiyya, wahda, wahidiyya, ‘alam arwah, ‘alam mithal, ‘alam ajsam, ‘alam insan kamil) and employs the shadow-show (wayang) metaphor: all but God is the puppet, the hand that moves it being the only reality.
Against this stands Nur al-Din, a Rajput from Bikanir who arrived in Aceh in May 1637 and wrote polemical treatises condemning the heretical mystics as mulhid, zindik, kafir — heretics, freethinkers, and infidels — comparing their doctrines to Indian beliefs in incarnation and metempsychosis. For Nur al-Din the world possesses only metaphorical being (wujud majazi); it is the shadow of God as dependent on Him but not emanating from Him. His orthodox cosmogony, set out in Asrar al-insan, identifies the Spirit (ruh) in its multiple aspects — the Radiance of Muhammad, the First Intelligence, the Guarded Tablet, the Pen — as the first of created things (muhdath), not eternal (kadirn), thereby answering the Sufi problem that Sultan Mahmud of Malacca had once posed to Pasai. The visible world is perishable (fana); the intelligible world (‘alam al-amr) is imperishable (baki).
Winstedt’s method is to lay bare the Neo-Platonic scaffolding — Plotinus’s triad of Absolute, nous, and psyche, transmitted to the Muslim world through the “Theology of Aristotle” — that both the heretical and orthodox positions ultimately inherit, even as they diverge on the critical question of whether the emanation is a necessary unfolding of Being itself or a free act of creation.
Key Findings
- Hamzah Fansuri lived after 1636 A.D., the death of Sultan Iskandar Muda (posthumous title Marhum Makota ‘Alam), and was initiated into the Qadariya order under the spiritual authority of ‘Abd al-Kadir Jilani (p. 312).
- Shams al-Din ibn Abdullah al-Sumatrani is recorded as having died in 1630 A.D. (Codex 1332, fol. 17a) and named the Javanese Pangeran Bonang as one of his teachers (p. 317).
- Nur al-Din arrived in Aceh in May 1637 A.D. and is said to have returned to his native Ranir in Bikanir, Rajputana, seven years later (p. 317).
- The heretical position identifies God’s essence (‘ayn dzat) with His attributes (sifat) and holds that the word of creation (kun) merely raised what already existed potential in God’s “secret treasure” (kanz makhli); the orthodox position maintains that it is God’s knowledge (‘ilmu), not His essence, that embraces all things (p. 313).
- Nur al-Din’s orthodox answer to the Sufi problem is that the Spirit (ruh) is not eternal (kadirn) but the first of created things (muhdath), identified across multiple Koranic aspects — the Radiance of Muhammad, the First Intelligence, the Guarded Tablet, the Pen, the Mother of the Book (p. 318).
- The Neo-Platonic emanation framework, drawn from Plotinus (d. 269 A.D.) and transmitted via the “Theology of Aristotle,” provides the structural logic for both positions: the Absolute proceeds necessarily to nous and psyche, and the heretical mystics read this as ontological identity while the orthodox read it as dependent creation (pp. 314–315).
Conclusion
Winstedt’s definitive takeaway is that the Malay mystical tradition of the seventeenth century was not a homogeneous body of belief but a contested field in which a Neo-Platonic metaphysics of emanation had been absorbed and radicalised by figures like Hamzah and Shams al-Din into a panentheism that orthodox theologians like Nur al-Din judged theologically fatal — collapsing theism into monism and reducing the Creator to an idea. The article demonstrates that the dispute was not merely local or sectarian but engaged the same philosophical questions that divided Islamic thought more broadly, and that the Malay Peninsula had been drawing on these Sumatran and Javanese currents since at least the fifteenth century.
Context
- The article is explicitly a summary of a chapter from H. Kraemer’s 1921 Leiden doctoral thesis Een Javaansche Primbon uit de Zestiende Eeuw, supplemented with references to English-language works (Nicholson, O’Leary, Skeat) to make the material accessible to readers outside the Dutch-speaking scholarly world (p. 312).
- Primary manuscript evidence is drawn from Leiden University Library codices (Codex 2016, Codex 3374, Codex 1332, Codex 1960), catalogued by Juynboll and van Ronkel, alongside the Sejarah Melayu and the Bustan al-Salatin (pp. 312–318).