Article

The “Sejarah Melayu” tradition of power and political structure: an assessment of relevant sections of the “Tuhfat-al-Nafis”

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The “Sejarah Melayu” tradition of power and political structure: an assessment of relevant sections of the “Tuhfat-al-Nafis”

Timothy J. Moy’s 1975 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society offers a comparative assessment of the Tuhfat al-Nafis—a mid-1860s Bugis-Malay chronicle composed by Raja Ali al-Haji in Riau—against the Sejarah Melayu (Raffles MS 18), focusing on how the former handles power, political hierarchy, genealogical legitimation, and ideological legitimation. Moy argues that the Tuhfat presents a “real” political world grounded in personal loyalty and pragmatic governance, in marked contrast to the Sejarah Melayu’s ideological and didactic framework, and that its most significant departure from the older tradition is its treatment of the 1699 regicide of Sultan Mahmud II, which effectively inverts the Sejarah’s principle that Allah alone executes punishment for regal injustice.

Summary

Moy’s analysis centres on the early sections of Bab I and the opening of Bab II of the Tuhfat al-Nafis, which contain a summarised account of the Melaka sultanate lineage from Sri Tri Buana through Sultan Mahmud II (d. 1699). He situates the Tuhfat within the Macassar-Bugis historiographical genre, noting its characteristic concern for precise chronology, genealogical registration, and source attribution—features that distinguish it from the Sejarah Melayu and lend it a degree of “Western” historiographical objectivity. The author acknowledges the text’s pro-Bugis bias, particularly its distortion of the “Siak history” source, but judges this to be outweighed by its overall accuracy, especially when compared to the Sejarah Melayu.

The article’s central analytical move is to contrast the two texts’ conceptions of political authority. The Tuhfat has no concept of “the state”; its integrating force is upward-focused personal loyalty of a “feudal” type, running from a broad mass base through intermediate officials to the ruler. It makes no reference to the foundational pact between Sri Tri Buana and Demang Lebar Daun upon which the Sejarah Melayu builds its entire political ideology. Instead, the Tuhfat emphasises the ruler’s conduct as the determinant of the kingdom’s welfare, depicting catastrophes (the fall of Singapura, the Portuguese capture of Melaka) as divine retribution for specific acts of regal injustice. On the question of derhaka, the Tuhfat is notably less strident than the Sejarah Melayu, treating the crime with a degree of ambivalence and, in the case of the Mahmud II regicide, presenting a conspiracy of senior nobles that runs directly against the Sejarah’s didactic tenor.

Moy also contributes specific genealogical and institutional data absent from or vague in the Raffles MS 18, including the identification of the first Bendahara as the brother of Sri Pekrama Wira (thereby establishing the Bendahara lineage’s royal blood), the insertion of a Raja Besar Muda between Iskandar Shah and Sultan Muhammad Shah, and the emergence of the yang di-pertuan muda as a new powerful position dating from the reign of Sultan Abdul-Jalil II (d. 1677).

Key Findings

  • The Tuhfat identifies the first Bendahara, Tun Permata Muka Berjabar, as the brother of Sri Pekrama Wira (Sri Tri Buana’s successor at Singapura), establishing the Bendahara lineage as second only to the royal line in rank (p. 68).
  • The Tuhfat inserts a Raja Besar Muda between Iskandar Shah and Sultan Muhammad Shah, crediting him with instituting court protocols, royal regalia, and the positions of the four mentri and four bentara—a figure absent from the Raffles MS 18 (pp. 67–68, 77).
  • The yang di-pertuan muda first appears in the text during the reign of Sultan Abdul-Jalil II (d. 1677 A.D.), initially held by his brother in Pahang (d. 1087 A.H. / 1676 A.D.), and developed throughout the 18th century into the direct overseer of the Johor-Riau kingdom (pp. 68, 76 n. 20).
  • Sultan Mahmud II was killed in the period 29 July–26 August 1699 (Safar 1111 A.H.); the Bendahara succeeded him as Sultan Abdul-Jalil III on 3 September 1699 (8 Rabi al-Awal 1111 A.H.) (p. 75).
  • The Tuhfat gives Bendahara Tun Habib’s date of death as 7 Muharram 1109 A.H. (26 July 1697), and identifies his son as the successor who conspired in Mahmud’s assassination (p. 68).
  • The Tuhfat attributes the Portuguese capture of Melaka explicitly to Sultan Mahmud I’s unjust slaughter of Tun Mutahir Bendahara Sri Maharaja and his family, writing: “maka datang-lah qada’ Allah Ta’ala ia-itu datang-lah Peringgi melanggar Melaka itu” (p. 72).

Conclusion

Moy’s definitive takeaway is that the Tuhfat al-Nafis, while sharing the Sejarah Melayu’s basic political vocabulary, fundamentally reorients the legitimating framework from ideology to practice. The Sejarah Melayu constructs an abstract political order anchored in the Sri Tri Buana–Demang Lebar Daun pact and the mystical concept of daulat; the Tuhfat replaces this with a pragmatic account in which the ruler’s personal conduct determines the kingdom’s fate, and in which the 1699 regicide—presented as a collective act of senior nobles rather than a divinely ordained punishment—exposes the limits of the Sejarah’s didactic tradition when confronted with the “real” political world of Johor-Riau.

Context

  • The article draws on the Winstedt (1932) Jawi text of the Tuhfat al-Nafis and Virginia Matheson’s unpublished 1973 paper “Concepts of State in the Tuhfat al-Nafis” (later published in MBRAS Monograph 6), as well as the Raffles MS 18 edition of Winstedt (1938) and the Shellabear MS of the Sejarah Melayu.
  • Moy’s contribution lies in shifting the comparative analysis of the Tuhfat away from its Bugis-Riau political history (the text’s primary subject) toward its Melaka-period summaries, demonstrating that even in its summarised sections the Tuhfat reveals a distinct political philosophy from the Sejarah Melayu.

References