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Three Malay historical writings in the first half of the seventeenth century

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Three Malay historical writings in the first half of the seventeenth century

T. Iskandar’s 1967 article in the JMBRAS examines three foundational Malay historical texts composed in the first half of the seventeenth century—the Sejarah Melayu, the Hikayat Aceh, and the Bustanus-Salatin—arguing that each differs fundamentally in purpose, structure, and literary model, and that their authorship and textual transmission can be clarified through careful manuscript comparison and awareness of the broader Islamic literary milieu of the period.

Summary

Iskandar’s central concern is to resolve competing claims about authorship and to situate each work within its political and literary context. For the Sejarah Melayu, he challenges R. O. Winstedt’s long-standing argument that Tun Bambang, rather than Tun Seri Lanang, was the true author. By comparing the Shellabear edition with Raffles Ms 18 (which he judges to be the earlier version on linguistic grounds), and by noting that the name “Raja Dewa Said” in later manuscripts is likely an accidental reduplication of dewasa itu, Iskandar reconstructs a coherent reading in which the Bendahara—Tun Seri Lanang—receives the commission directly from the Raja di-Hilir. He reinforces this with a passage in the Bustanus-Salatin (Book II, ch. 12) that explicitly attributes the Sejarah Melayu to “Bendahara Paduka Raja,” and with the Dutch Admiral Verhoeff’s report confirming Tun Seri Lanang’s survival until 1624. The work, Iskandar argues, was conceived as a Johore political response to the Acehnese Tajus-Salatin of 1603, serving to vindicate the legitimacy of the Johore royal house at a moment of vulnerability to both Portuguese and Acehnese pressure.

The Hikayat Aceh receives a different kind of analysis. Iskandar proposes that the author was Shamsuddin Pasai, the Wujudiyah mystic and court adviser to Iskandar Muda, though he concedes the evidence is circumstantial. More significantly, he identifies the Persian Akbarnama—Abul-Fazl’s history of the Mughal emperor Akbar, compiled between 1596 and 1602—as the literary model for the work’s extended glorification of Iskandar Muda’s youth. The parallel details (miraculous dreams during the mother’s pregnancy, feats of strength at specific ages, the killing of a wild animal at twelve) are too close to be accidental. He rebuts B. Parnikel’s dismissal of this hypothesis by arguing that the simplification of a sophisticated foreign model into a “naive” local narrative is a well-established pattern in Malay literary borrowing, comparable to the adaptation of the Mahabharata in the Arjunawiwaha or the Sanskrit Ramayana in the Hikayat Seri Rama.

The Bustanus-Salatin of Nuruddin ar-Raniri is treated as the most ambitious of the three works in scope, comprising seven books that range from cosmogony to the history of Aceh. Iskandar traces Nuruddin’s biography—born in Rander on the Gujarat coast, pilgrim to Mecca in A.H. 1030, arrival in Aceh on 31 May 1637, death in Gujarat on 21 September 1658—and situates the work as a deliberate attempt to supersede both the Tajus-Salatin as a mirror for kings and the Sejarah Melayu and Hikayat Aceh as historical narratives, with the patron Iskandar Thani positioned at the centre of a universal history.

Key Findings

  • The Sejarah Melayu was commissioned on 12 Rabi’ul-awal A.H. 1021 (13 May 1612) during the reign of Sultan ‘Ala’ud-din Ri’ayat Shah of Aceh, while the Johore court was in captivity there; the work was likely completed by 1615 (pp. 38–42).
  • Raffles Ms 18, judged to be the earliest surviving manuscript on linguistic grounds, omits the name Tun Seri Lanang entirely, whereas the Shellabear edition (1909) includes it along with an Arabic exordium copied word-for-word from the Bustanus-Salatin, which was not compiled until 1638—evidence that the author’s name was a later interpolation by a copyist (pp. 39–41).
  • The Hikayat Aceh exists in only three manuscripts, all derived from Cod. Or. 1954 in the Leiden University Library; the preface is lost and the text ends abruptly on page 281 (p. 46).
  • The Akbarnama of Abul-Fazl was begun in 1596 and completed (or interrupted by the author’s murder) in 1602; Iskandar identifies specific parallel episodes—dreams during pregnancy, the hero’s age at various feats, the killing of a wild animal at age twelve—as evidence of direct literary dependence (pp. 49–50).
  • Nuruddin ar-Raniri arrived in Aceh on 6 Muharram A.H. 1047 (31 May 1637) carrying two Malay works, the Durrat al-Fara’id and the Hidayat al-Habib; during his seven-year residence he produced fourteen religious works, thirteen in Malay, and was commissioned by Iskandar Thani in 1638 to compile the Bustanus-Salatin (pp. 43–44, 52).
  • The Bustanus-Salatin is divided into seven books containing a total of 42 chapters; Book II alone has thirteen chapters covering prophets, Persian, Byzantine, Egyptian, Arab, Delhi, Malacca-Pahang, and Acehnese rulers (pp. 51–52).

Conclusion

Iskandar’s definitive takeaway is that the three works, though often grouped together as “Malay historical writings,” are fundamentally distinct in genre and intent: the Sejarah Melayu is a political chronicle with a normative message for future generations, the Hikayat Aceh is a royal biography modelled on Persian court literature, and the Bustanus-Salatin is a universal history that simultaneously functions as a mirror for kings. Their differences reflect the different political needs of their patrons—Johore’s need to assert dynastic legitimacy, Aceh’s court under Iskandar Muda’s desire for personal glorification, and Iskandar Thani’s ambition to position his lineage within world history.

Context

  • The article draws on the Raffles manuscript collection (Mss 18, 39, 80), the Shellabear edition (1909), Cod. Or. 1954 (Leiden), and the Leyden University Library holdings, alongside secondary scholarship by Winstedt, Hooykaas, Voorhoeve, Drewes, and Roolvink.
  • Historiographically, the piece represents a transitional moment in Malay studies: it engages directly with Winstedt’s textual criticism while introducing comparative literary analysis (the Akbarnama hypothesis) that would become more standard in subsequent decades of Indonesian and Malay historiography.

References