Asian and African studies blog

Several posts on the Asian and African Studies blog have highlighted a variety of perceptions of worlds to come, from Zoroastrian visions of heaven and hell to Thai Buddhist depictions of future lives in manuscripts of the story of the monk Phra Malai. Reminders of the next world, dunia akhirat, are also found in Malay Islamic manuscripts, but painted with words rather than pigments, for there is no established tradition of illustration in Malay manuscripts.

Two Malay manuscripts in the British Library, Add. 12390 and Or. 6899, which have just been fully digitised, contain slightly variant versions of the Syair Makrifat, ‘Poem on Gnostic Knowledge’, concerning the need to strive in this life in order to reap rewards in the next. The Syair Makrifat is widely thought to be the work of the famous 17th-century Sufi writer and theologian Abdul Rauf from Singkil in north Sumatra, who studied in Mecca for many years before returning to Aceh to serve as Syaikh al-Islam to Sultanah Tajul Alam Safiatuddin Syah, the first queen of Aceh (r.1641-1675). However, Edwin Wieringa (2009: 19) has cautioned that Abdul Rauf never mentioned this poem as his own composition in his many other works of confirmed authorship, all of which are in prose.  


Syair Makrifat, a narrative poem on Islamic doctrine and the transience of worldly goods. The colophon shown above gives the date of copying as 24 Zulhijah, without specifying the year, and the name of the scribe and owner as Da’ut (wa-katibuhu Da'ut yang empunnya syair ini), with instructions to borrowers to take good care of the manuscript and to return it promptly. A scribbled note on f.1r has the date 1222 (AD 1807/8). British Library, Add. 12390, ff.22v-23r.

The version of Syair Makrifat in Or. 6899 ends on f.24r, exhorting borrowers to take care of the book:
‘Mister Umar is the owner of this book / anyone may borrow it
please treat it gently / and don’t let the pages come loose from the stitching’
Encik Umar yang empunya / sekalian orang boleh meminjamnya /
baik-baik sedikit menaruhnya / jangan diberi bercerai akan jaitannya
This manuscript also contains a second poem, Syair Dagang, ‘Ballad of the Wanderer’, which uses the itinerant trader of this life as a metaphor for preparations for the next life.  As Wieringa points out, the two poems are good stablemates as both concern the need to eschew wordly goods and instead look towards the afterlife.  The copy of Syair Dagang in Or.6899, said to have been composed by a man of Melaka, is incomplete, ending abruptly on f.28r on a salutory note:
‘Gold is a formidable material / very dangerous to hoard
if we just relax our guard for just a minute / it can inflict pain worse than a poisonous snake’
Emas itu sangat berbangsa / menaruh dia sangatlah bisa
jikalau lengah kita semena / sakitnya terlebih ular yang bisa


Malay manuscript containing two poems, Syair Makrifat on ff.1v-24r, and Syair Dagang on ff.24r-28r. British Library, Or. 6899, ff.1v-2r.

Although Malay manuscripts are not generally illustrated, manuscripts on Islamic mysticism and prayerbooks from Southeast Asia do sometimes have charts or drawings of the attributes of the next world.  A manuscript from Ambon in the Moluccas shown below, recently digitised through the Endangered Archives Programme, is in the form of a long scroll with detailed depictions of the stages of heaven, and similar Islamic manuscripts have been found in the southern Philippines. One manuscript from Mindanao annoted in Maranao portrays on one page the palatial mansion in heaven awaiting the woman patient enough to accept her husband’s taking another wife, while the facing page depicts the hovel in hell awaiting the woman who could not accept her husband’s second marriage  (Kawashima 2012: Fig.30).


Detail from a pictorial scroll depicting the heavens, from the collection of Said Manilet, Ambon.  Captions written vertically in the left margin give the name of each of seven gates (pintu), while a caption in the lower right margin describes these as the gates of heaven (ini pintu syurga). British Library, EAP276/9/17.

Further reading

Edwin Wieringa, ‘Syair berupa rintihan seorang penyalin tentang nasib malangnya: beberapa catatan mengenai BL Or. 6899 (Syair Makrifat dan Syair Dagang)’.  Kearifan lokal yang terkandung dalam manuskrip lama, penyunting Ding Choo Ming, Henri Chambert-Loir, Titik Pudjiastuti.  Bangi: Institut Alam dan Tamadun Melayu (ATMA), 2009; pp.15-30.

Kawashima Midori (ed.), The Qur'an and Islamic manuscripts of Mindanao.  Contributors Tirmizy E. Abdullah ... [et al].  Tokyo: Institute of Asian Cultures, Sophia University, 2012. (Monograph series; 10).

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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From the late 17th to the early 19th century, the most enduring British trading base in Southeast Asia was on the west coast of Sumatra at Bengkulu, referred to in contemporary English accounts as ‘Bencoolen’ and in Malay as ‘Bengkahulu’ or 'Bangkahulu'. After being ousted by the Dutch from Banten in west Java in 1682, the English East India Company established a ‘factory’ or trading post at Bengkulu in 1684, which lasted for nearly 150 years until it was exchanged for Melaka under the terms of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London in 1824.  

The history of the British presence in Bengkulu is recorded in 162 thick red leather-bound volumes of ‘Sumatra Factory Records’, held today in the India Office Records in the British Library. The story is a desultory one, for the hoped-for fat profits from pepper never materialised and the factory suffered from poor crop yields and even worse administration. Events are almost entirely reported from the English point of view, but very occasionally original Malay sources have survived, which help to give us a local perspective.  


Fort Marlborough, Bengkulu, showing the Government House and Council House.  Coloured aquatint with etching; drawn by Andrews, ca.1794-98; engraved by Joseph Stadler; published by William Marsden, 1799. British Library, P 329.

Among the Malay manuscripts in the British Library recently digitised is a letter (Add.4828*) sent to the commander of the 'Company' in Bengkulu, at the time Richard Farmer. Although the letter is undated and written in the name of Datuk Raja Kuasa, it is annotated in a contemporary English hand From Sultan Cutchell / No.213 / Janry 14. 1718, referring to Sultan Takdirullah Muhammad Syah of Anak Sungai, better known as Raja Kecil Besar (r.1716-1728) (Kathirithamby-Wells 1977: 37), under whom Datuk Raja Kuasa served as a minister. The writer assures the English of his good will and acknowledges the glue of the relationship – a shared interest in trade – but also refers to the slanderous rumours swirling round on all sides. As the letter is quite short, it will be reproduced in full below, with the Malay text followed by an English translation. In line with Malay epistolographic conventions, the letter starts with a religious invocation or heading (kepala surat).  

Qawluhu al-haqq
Bahawa ini alamat surat tulus dan fu(ad) ikhlas serta putih hati sel(agi) ada peridar cakrawala bulan dan matahari akan menerangi malam dan siang {dan siang} tiada berubah kepada Kompeni, iaitu dari pada Datuk Raja Kuasa, barang sampailah kiranya kepada Orang Kaya Komandar Bengkahulu. Adapun seperti hal mengatakan surat Orang Kaya sudah sampai kepada hamba, mengeratilah hamba seperti dalam surat Orang Kaya Komandar itu kata pada hamba jangan mendangar feritnah [i.e. fitnah] itupun hamba tiada bercarai dangan Kompeni, bicara hamba dan setia hamba tiada berubah pada Kompeni, karena Kompeni dagang kami pun Melayu dagang sama2, kita malu juga jikalau dibuwang kita sama2 malu dagang kita itupun jikalau kerja raja2 tiada hamba tahu dan tiada hamba peduli pada bicara raja itu, jangan Komandar mendangar feritnah orang lain kata surat hamba yang di{a}dangar oleh Orang Kaya.  Lagi kata Komandar dahu(lu) kepada hamba berkirim surat pada hamba juru tulis hamba diberi belanja empat rial sebulan sekarang satu pun tiada malu hamba kepada kata itu yang menyurat itu dari Bengkahu(lu) juru tulis anak hamba Encik Beruruk.  Jikalau kan diberi belanja suruh hantar pada m.l.l.a.d.w k.a.t.a.h.n pada hamba ke Pangatang tamat, jikalau ada tiada suruh tamat.

His Word is The Truth
This is an honest letter from a sincere and pure heart, and as long as the moon and sun revolve and light up night and day never shall it waver towards the Company, from Datuk Raja Kuasa, may it be conveyed to the Noble Commander at Bengkahulu.  I have received your letter and understood its contents, whereby you advise me not to pay any attention to the slander, and I assure you I will never be parted from the Company, my word and my loyalty remains firmly pledged to the Company, for the Company is for trade and we Malays too are equally for trade, we would be ashamed to break off relations, for our trade would equally suffer; if that is the decision of the princes then I know nothing of it, and neither will I heed it, so I beg the Commander not to listen to the slander in the letter said to have been written by me which has come to your attention.  Furthermore the Commander had previously informed me in writing that my scribe would be paid four rial per month, and I find nothing to be ashamed of in that, the one who wrote the news from Bengkulu was my scribe Mister Beruruk.  If you are planning to send the payment please send it to …. to me at Pangatang; the end.  But if not, not; the end.

Malay letter from Datuk Raja Kuasa to Richard Farmer, Deputy Governor of Bengkulu, recd. 14 January 1718. British Library, Add. 4828*, f.2v.


The letter was not placed in an envelope, but was folded with the address written on the outer side (Bahawa ini alamat surat dari pada Datuk Raja Kuasa barang sampailah kiranya kepada Orang Kaya Komandar Bengkahulu), and closed with a red wax seal. The letter was presented to the British Museum in 1767 by Mrs Rust, daughter of Governor Farmer. British Library, Add. 4828*, f.1r (detail) 

A number of early Malay letters from Bengkulu are known, scattered through the  Sumatra Factory Records or held in other institutions; none of the others  have yet been digitised, but all are listed below for reference.

Malay letters from Bengkulu to the East India Company (up to 1763)

1.     Letter from Tunku Baginda Raja Makota of Anak Sungai to the Orang Kaya Jenderal [Joseph Collett] in Bengkulu, [ca.1712-16]. Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk Record Office, 613/841. (Gallop 1994: 121).
2.     Letter from Datuk Raja Kuasa (conveyed by Sultan Kecil Besar of Anak Sungai) to Orang Kaya Komandar [Richard Farmer] in Bengkulu, [recd. 14 Jan 1718]. British Library, Add.4828*
3.    Letter from Pangiran Mangku Raja and Pangiran Sungai Hitam to the East India Company in Bengkulu, 17 April 1724. British Library, IOR: G/35/8, f.568A. (Bastin 1965: 57).
4.    Letter from Sultan Gandam Syah of Muko-Muko to the East India Company, [Sept. 1733]. British Library, IOR: G/25/8, f.577. (Gallop 1994: 129).
5.     Letter from Pangiran Mangku Raja and Pangiran Khalifah Raja to the East India Company at Fort Marlborough, Bengkulu, Nov 1733. British Library, IOR: G/35/8, f.369. (Bastin 1965: 59-60).
6.     Letter from Raja Mengkuta and Raja Gelumat and the 59 perbatin (perbatin yang kurang esa enam puluh) to the Governor of Bengkulu, [early 18th c]. Cambridge University Library, Add.285, no. 63.
7.    Letter from Pangiran [Makota] Raja of Silebar to Governor Roger Carter, 6 June 1763. British Library, IOR: G/35/13, f.58

Further reading

John Bastin, The British in West Sumatra.  Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1965.
A.T. Gallop, The Legacy of the Malay Letter / Warisan Warkah Melayu.  London: British Library, 1994.
J. Kathirithamby-Wells, The British West Sumatran Presidency (1760-85): problems of early colonial enterprise.  Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit University Malaya, 1977.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

Updated 12 July 2023 with thanks to Christopher Buyers for biographical notes on Datuk Raja Kuasa.

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I recently wrote on how to tell if a Malay manuscript is written on Chinese paper, instead of the more usual medium of European paper.  Another type of writing material sometimes used for Malay manuscripts, particularly those from Java, is Javanese paper called dluwang (or daluang), hand-made from the beaten bark of the paper mulberry tree, Broussonetia papyrifera, called pohon saeh in Indonesia.  In fact, dluwang is paper in all but name, as the technical definition of paper is a ‘matted or felted sheet, usually made of cellulose fibres, formed on a wire screen from water suspension’ (Encyclopaedia Brittanica), for dluwang is not made from fibres suspended in water and then dried in sheets.  Instead, a strip of the inner bark of the saeh tree is cut out, soaked in water, and then pounded repeatedly and polished until the surface is smooth enough to write on (Ekadjati and McGlynn 1996).

Hikayat Mesa Taman Sira Panji Jayeng Kusuma, written in Malay on dluwang, and hence almost certainly from Java. Add. 12387, ff.4v-5r.

Dluwang is easy to recognize because of its highly distinctive brown, polished surface, with the woody fibres still very visible.  When well-made, the resulting paper provides a fine smooth writing surface which should last for centuries without degeneration.  However, poorly-made sheets of dluwang may be fibrous and of uneven thickness, sometimes with evident holes and knots, and can be very susceptible to insect damage. Dluwang has been used as a writing material in insular Southeast Asia for many centuries. The oldest known example is the Tanjung Tanah Code of Law, a manuscript from Kerinci in central Sumatra in Malay in a pre-Islamic Indic script, which is written on dluwang which has been carbon-dated to the 14th century.  The oldest dluwang manuscript in the British Library is a text on Islamic jurisprudence in Arabic and Javanese from the collections of Sir Hans Sloane (Sloane 2645) dated 1623/4, which is still in excellent condition today.

The Tanjung Tanah manuscript, written on dluwang in the 14th century. Reproduced courtesy of Uli Kozok.

More recently, certainly from the 18th century onwards, there is no evidence that dluwang as a writing material was produced outside the island of Java, and so the use of dluwang in a manuscript is a very strong indication of a Javanese origin. This allows us to track the travels of manuscripts such as a copy of a Panji story (Or. 11365) which is said to have been presented by Tengku Khalid, Bendahara of Kelantan, but which must have originated in Java as it is written on dluwang. It is perhaps hardly a coincidence that most of the Malay literary manuscripts in the British Library written on dluwang contain stories from the Javanese Panji romances, popular since the 14th century. In this cycle of stories Panji, also called Raden Inu Kertapati, prince of Kuripan or Janggala, is betrothed to Princess Candra Kirana of Daha, who disappears on the eve of their wedding. Panji undergoes many adventures on his journeys while seeking his beloved.


A Panji story, probably Hikayat Cekel Waneng Pati. British Library, Or.11365, f.26r (detail).

Beginning of a Panji story, about the Maharaja of Jengolo, written in Malay in romanized script. British Library, Or.16446, f.1r (detail).

Dluwang is made through the same process as tapa or bark cloth, traditionally the main source of clothing in the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Tapa was first described in European sources by Captain James Cook, who collected samples from Tahiti in 1769 during his first voyage of exploration.

‘A girl bringing presents to Captn Cook’, wearing a ‘dress’ consisting of a large quantity of tapa cloth bound about her waist, intended as a gift for Cook.  Drawn by John Webber and engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi, from Cook’s Third Voyage (1776-1780). British Library, Add.23921 f.48.

Further reading

Edi S. Ekadjati and John H. McGlynn, ‘Daluang: traditional paper production’, in Illuminations: writing traditions of Indonesia, ed. Ann Kumar and John H. McGlynn. New York: Weatherhill; Jakarta: Lontar; 1996; pp.116-117.

Uli Kozok, Kitab undang-undang Tanjung Tanah: naskah Melayu yang tertua. Jakarta: Yayasan Naskah Nusantara, 2006.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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In a previous blog post I wrote about a Malay manuscript of the Hikayat Hang Tuah belonging to a prominent Chulia (south Indian Muslim) merchant from Kedah, Bapu Kandu, who had settled in Penang in the late 18th century. Bapu Kandu, also known as Hakim Long Fakir Kandu, was the patriarch of a family of Malay scribes whose output is well represented in the British Library. One of Kandu’s younger sons, Ibrahim, was employed by Thomas Stamford Raffles and was responsible for much of Raffles’s diplomatic correspondence in Malay. Kandu’s older son, Ahmad Rijaluddin, is primarily known for his travel account of a visit to Calcutta, a journey made in late 1810 in the company of the Penang businessman Robert Scott.  

Ahmad Rijaluddin’s narrative, which he entitled Hikayat Perintah Negeri Benggala, ‘An account of the state of Bengal’, is dated Ramadan 1226 (September/October 1811).  The text is known today from a unique manuscript in the British Library, Add. 12386, probably the author’s autograph, which has now been digitised and can be read online. The manuscript has been edited by Cyril Skinner (1982), whose elegant translations are quoted in the extracts below.


Opening pages of the manuscript: ‘This is a narrative of the state of Bengal as it was at the time I, Ahmad Rijaluddin, son of Hakim Long Fakir Kandu, left my homeland to visit it.  I have composed this narrative for the benefit of posterity, commiting it to writing in the year 1226, in the year dal awal, in the month of Ramadan’. (Inilah hikayat diceterakan perintah negeri Benggala tatkala masa zaman senda Ahmad Rijaluddin ibn Hakim Long Fakir Kandu belayar / membuang diri ke Benggala.  Maka dikarang hikayat ini meninggal akan zaman diperbuat surat pada sanat 1226 tahun dal awal bulan Ramadan.)  British Library, Add. 12386, ff.1v-2r.

As Skinner notes, although the content of Ahmad Rijaluddin’s account is something new in Malay writing – a descriptive eye-witness account of foreign lands – the literary conventions in which he was reared envelop and permeate the text. Just as traditional Malay narrative accounts of historical events were composed centripetally around the figure of the raja, the sovereign of the state, in Ahmad’s text the omnipresent focus of the work is the English raja in Calcutta: Lord Minto, Governor-General of Bengal (1807-1813). A great king must have a fitting abode, and Ahmad accords the already impressive three-storied Government House, Calcutta, four more levels as would befit a great palace in a Malay epic: ‘Now I shall tell you how splendid the residence of Lord Minto is. The surrounding wall, which looks most impressive, is of multicoloured stone … within which has been constructed a very handsome palace, as high as a mountain, built in seven tiers (Sebermula maka tersebutlah keelokan rumah baginda Raja Lord Minto itu. Maka diperbuatnya pagar dengan batu pancalogam terlalu amat indah2 rupanya … maka di dalam pagar itu diperbuatnya sebuah istana terlalulah indah2 rupanya dan lagi besarnya seperti sebuah gunung rupanya diperbuatnya tujuh tingkat) (Add. 12386, ff.8r-8v; Skinner, pp.40-43).


Government House in Calcutta, home of the Governor-General of Bengal, a watercolour by Edward Orme after James Moffat c. 1804. British Library, WD 476.

Ahmad Rijaluddin describes in great detail the sights seen in Calcutta – the specialist bazaars for gold, pearls, beads, cloth, metalwork and even artificial flowers made from the pith of the sola plant (bunga-bungaan diperbuat dengan kayu lampung yang bernama sola seperti kertas yang amat putih); the street entertainers (orang bermain aneka bagai) with snakes, monkeys and bears, as well as acrobats – all with the conventionalised expressions of astonishment and delight appropriate for a traditional Malay hikayat. But one of the main calls on his attention, a subject to which he is drawn over and over again, is the sheer variety of courtesans on display in brothels, of all shapes and sizes. In one winding lane near the shipyards, ‘on the ground floor live the poor and ugly whores; on the second floor live the whores who are not bad-looking, and on the third floor live the very pick of the whores, really lovely creatures, like angels from heaven’ (pada tingkat yang di bawah itu adalah jalang yang miskin dan kurang rupanya, dan tingkat yang kedua adalah tempat jalang yang pertengahan rupanya duduk pada tempat itu, adalah pada tingkat yang ketiga di situlah tempat jalang asal nuri terlalulah indah2 rupanya seperti bidadari turun dari kayangan rupanya) (Add.12386, f.14r; Skinner, pp.56-57). A particularly elegant lane called Bhatiar Kana was occupied by high-class brothels filled with captivating occupants: ‘In the afternoon the women come out on to the top-floor balcony to take the air, wearing robes of white flecked with gold … they sit there singing songs in voices as sweet as aeolian harps … anyone catching sight of them at this time – even a scholar with a beard ten cubits long – would fall madly in love with them’ (Maka adalah pada masa tatkala hari waktu asar maka keluarlah ia duduk berangin pada atas tingkat tinggi itu ada yang memakai kain putih diseram dengan air mas … maka duduklah ia bernyanyi maka suaranya terlalulah amat merdu seperti buluh perindu … maka tatkala masa itu jika alim janggut panjang sepuluh hasta sekalipun jika terpandang menjadi gila berahi) (Add.12386, f.42r; Skinner, pp.130-131).


Ahmad Rijaluddin’s descriptions of the courtesans of Bhatiar Kana. British Library, Add. 12386, f.42r (detail).

Ahmad Rijaluddin was soon torn away from the contemplation of such delights, for he appears to have joined the British expeditionary fleet which set off from Melaka in June 1811 to wrest Java out of Napoleanic hands.  Ahmad’s narrative - which may have been written up during the sea passage - ends neatly but abruptly on the brink of the attack on Batavia (which took place in August 1811).  A final pair of decorated frames in the manuscript has been left empty, and Skinner wonders if this signifies that the author did not survive the expedition.

Further reading

Ahmad Rijaluddin’s Hikayat Perintah Negeri Benggala. Edited and translated by C. Skinner.  The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. (Bibliotheca Indonesica; 22).

Khoo Salma Nasution, The Chulia in Penang: patronage and place-making around the Kapitan Kling Mosque, 1786-1957. Penang: Areca Books, 2014.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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My last few posts, on documents from the Muslim sultanates of the southern Philippines, have highlighted the diverse linguistic landscape. The treaties signed by Alexander Dalrymple with the sultanate of Sulu in the early 1760s were written in English and Malay or Tausug. In Mindanao, during the visit by the British sea captain Thomas Forrest in 1775, the Raja Muda of the sultanate of Maguindanao and his father Fakih Maulana wrote to King George III and the East India Company in Malay, the letters being penned by Fakih Maulana himself. In fact, as noted by Forrest during his eight-month stay in Maguindanao, the main medium for both oral and written communication was the Maguindanao language, and Fakih Maulana consulted royal genealogies written in Maguindanao.  Presented below are two letters in Maguindanao, one of which is from Fakih Maulana, written three decades before Forrest's visit.

Map of the Philippines, from Carta Hydrographica, y Chorographica delas Yslas Filipinas, Manila, 1734. British Library, Maps.K.Top.CXVI.37.

On the basis of inscriptions in the top-left corners of the first pages, both letters are addressed to Don Pedro Zacarias Villareal, an admiral and later sergeant major, and from 1755, Governor of Zamboanga (information from R. Orlina). He  was dispatched to Zamboanga in 1731, where Maulana Jafar Sadik, sultan of Tamontaka, requested Spanish assistance in quelling a rebellion by his nephew Malinog. After Jafar Sadik was killed in an attack by Malinog's forces in 1733, Zacarias came to the aid of his son Muhammad Amiruddin Hamza (Fakih Maulana). Following Malinog’s death in 1748, Fakih Maulana emerged as paramount chief of Maguindanao, as he himself  recounted to Forrest.

The letter from Fakih Maulana, Or.15510 A, consists of four densely-written pages, and concludes with a statement of the date, 20 Rabiulawal 1159, equivalent to 12 April 1746. Although the writer is not identified in the letter itself, in the bottom left corner of the last page is impressed an eight-petalled round lampblack seal, inscribed in Arabic, al-mutawakkil `alâ Allâh huwa al-Sultan Muhammad Syah Amiruddin fî balad `âlam Mindanâwî, ‘He who entrusts himself to God, he is the Sultan Muhammad Syah Amiruddin, of the state in the land of Mindanao’, and the signature in Latin characters, Jamdsa, represents 'Hamza' in Spanish orthography. In the letter Fakih Maulana refers disparagingly to Malinog, and recounts a complex operation to recover booty that had been seized.

The last page of a four-page letter in Maguindanao in Arabic script, from Sultan Muhammad Syah Amiruddin of Maguindanao (Fakih Maulana), 1746. British Library, Or. 15510 A, f.2v.

The second letter, Or. 15510 B, is just one page long, with a final line, written in Malay, giving the year as 1159 (1746/7 AD). The octagonal seal on this letter is inscribed, al-mu'ayyad billâh Sultan Muhyiuddin ibn al-Sultan Diauddin, ‘He who is supported by God, Sultan Muhyiuddin, son of the Sultan Diauddin’. It is often difficult to link up formal regnal names given on Islamic seals from the Philippines with royal titles referred to in other historical sources, and this sultan has not yet been positively identified, as the name of the sender is not given in the text of the letter itself.  The letter does however refer to the ruler of Buayan, a realm inland from Maguindanao which was the stronghold of Malinog. 

Letter in Maguindanao and Malay from Sultan Muhyiuddin, 1159 (1746/7).  British Library, Or. 15510 B.

The two letters in Maguindanao reproduced here have just been fully digitised. In written form, Malay, Tausug and Maguindanao all use the modified form of the Arabic script called Jawi, with five additional letters representing sounds not found in Arabic.  The main difference is that while vowels are rarely indicated in Malay with diacritical marks, Tausug and Maguindanao are always fully vocalised.

One distinctive aspect of the diplomatics of both letters deserves mention. Throughout the Islamic world, in letters and documents written in Arabic script, irrespective of language, the lines of writing are generally arrayed against the left-hand edge of the paper, leaving a margin along the right-hand side – as indeed was the case in the Tausug and Malay documents discussed above. In these two letters, however, the text block is sited on the right-hand side of the paper, leaving a wide margin on the left; an exceptionally unusual arrangement for documents in Arabic script, and it is possible that Spanish influence may have led to this particular format.

For information on the contents of the two letters I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help of Roderick Orlina, Darwin Absari and Nasrudin Datucali.

Further reading:
Thomas Forrest, A voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas 1774-1776.  2nd ed., with plates.  London, 1780.
Cesar Adib Majul, Muslims in the Philippines.  Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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Sermons in the Malay world

In my last post I wrote about the East India Company sea captain Thomas Forrest’s eight-month stay in the sultanate of Maguindanao, on the west coast of the island of Mindanao, from 5 May 1775 to 8 January 1776. During this visit, Forrest forged close relations with the Raja Muda (Viceroy) and his father Fakymolano (Fakih Maulana), the former sultan of Maguindanao. On arrival in Maguindanao, Forrest had to tread delicately due to the evident rift between the reigning Sultan Fakharuddin (r. 1755-c.1780), who was the younger brother of Fakih Maulana, and the Raja Muda. Acting on the sage advice of his Bugis guide Tuan Haji, while ensuring that he paid respects to the Sultan, Forrest allied himself with the court of the Raja Muda, and lodged in his fort.  

On his departure in January 1776, Forrest carried with him two letters: 'I then took respectful leave of Raja Moodo.  He delivered to me the two letters already mentioned; one to his Majesty, the other to the Company, with the presents.  Nobody knew what they were, but himself and his father Fakymolano, who wrote the letters' (Forrest 1780: 290).  The two letters, written in Malay, are now held in the India Office Records in the British Library. Although unpublished, their presence was not unknown: the letter to King George was exhibited (probably in the form of a colour slide) in a talk on ‘The archives of the Honourable East India Company’ by William Foster at the Royal Society of Arts in London in 1923, described as ‘a letter in Malay, from the Sultan of Mindanao (the most southerly of the Philippine Islands), to George III, offering an alliance, offensive and defensive, and promising facilities for British trade in his country’.


Letter in Malay from the Raja Muda of Maguindanao and his father Fakih Maulana to King George III of Great Britain, 5 Rabiulakhir 1189 (5 June 1775). British Library, IOR: H/128, pp.496-497.

William Foster’s summary accurates reflects the content of both letters, which are indeed essentially the same. However, Fakih Maulana’s statesmanship is evident in the difference of nuance between the two letters. That to the king is more conventional in tone and pays compliments to the renown of the British name, pre-empting Napoleon’s famous characterisation of the English as ‘a nation of shopkeepers’ by stating, ‘the Spanish are constantly interfering in our [religion] – the Dutch are all for taking over our government – but the English just want to trade.’  The epistle to the Company, on the other hand, is rather more brisk and business-like. While the letter to the king states ‘I agree to help the Company against its enemies and in return I ask the Company to assist me in Maguindanao’, that to the Company states ‘I agree to help the Company against its enemies in the land of Maguindanao, but I do not agree to help beyond Maguindanao’. 

Turning from the content to the form, the letter is not a typical royal Malay letter, not least in that it was written by Fakih Maulana himself rather than by a professional palace scribe. His erudition is alluded to in the title by which he was commonly known, the Arabic Faqīh Mawlāna, ‘Our Lord the Legal Expert’, but his handwriting is workaday rather than stylish. The opening words are fully in accordance with standard Malay protocol: Surat ini dengan tanda puti hati datang dari  …, ‘This letter comes in all sincerity from …’. Thereafter, however, the language used is colloquial rather than courtly, evoking the vocabulary of commerce and daily communication throughout the archipelago rather than of its courts, for example in the emphatic use of the possessive punya in the Raja Muda’s claim to be effective sovereign of the state: Saudarah kita Fakharuddin sultan sekarang tuah suda lapas perinta di semuanya dia punya pesisir dalam tangan Raja Muda punya tangan, ‘Our brother Fakhruddin, the sultan, is old and has relinquished his rule over all his coastal possessions into the hands of the Raja Muda’. In layout the letter is also untraditional: there is no religious letter heading or kepala surat as is commonly found at the top of most formal Malay letters. Many of the lines are presented in new paragraphs, and dashes are employed at the end of sentences, although traditional Malay in Jawi script did not employ punctuation or paragraphing. Occasionally words in Maguindanao, the local language of the state, are interspersed in the Malay text, such as labi, meaning 'especially' or 'in particular', which appears to be used here as a cognate for the Malay word lagi, 'moreover', to introduce a new clause in the letter.  At the end, both letters are dated 5 Rabiulakhir 1189, equivalent to 5 June 1775, indicating that the letters were written not long after Forrest's arrival in Maguindanano, but were only delivered to him on his departure.

Lampblack seal impression of the Raja Muda of Maguindanao, inscribed in Arabic: wa-tawakkal `alâ Allâh huwa âmîr al-umarâ` Muhammad Azimuddin, ‘And trusting to God, he is the prince of princes, Muhammad Azimuddin’. British Library, IOR: H/134, p.77.

The full names of Fakih Maulana Muhammad Amiruddin and the Raja Muda Amir al-Umara Muhammad Azimuddin Kibad Shahrial, inscribed in Arabic and Latin script at the end of their letter to the Directors of the East India Company.  British Library, IOR: H/134, p.77.

In the event, despite the warm relationship that had developed between Forrest and the Raja Muda and Fakih Maulana, the East India Company made no further overtures to Maguindanao. The Raja Muda eventually acceeded fully to the throne of Maguindanao in around 1780, and ruled until 1805 (Majul 1999: 28).

Further reading:
Thomas Forrest, A voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas 1774-1776.  2nd ed. London, 1780.
William Foster,  The archives of the Honourable East India Company.  Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, January 1924, 4: 106-113.
Majul, Cesar Adib, Muslims in the Philippines.  2nd ed. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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Thomas Forrest (1729-1802) was a British sea captain who spent half a century plying the waters of the Malay archipelago, mostly in the service of the East India Company.  In 1775 Forrest undertook a voyage from his base at Bengkulu in west Sumatra to survey the north coast of New Guinea, sailing via the East India Company settlement on the island of Balambangan off the north coast of Borneo, which had been granted by the Sultan of Sulu following negotations with Alexander Dalrymple in the early 1760s.  

On the return journey Forrest spent eight months, from 5 May 1775 to 8 January 1776, in the sultanate of Maguindanao on the west coast of the island of Mindanao in the present-day southern Philippines, where he was courteously hosted by the Rajah Moodo (Raja Muda or Viceroy) and his father Fakymolano (Fakih Maulana).  By his own account Forrest spent nearly every evening with the Raja Muda and Fakih Maulana, discoursing in Malay on a wide range of subjects, and his resulting book, A voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas 1774-1776 (first published in London in 1779), includes a valuable description of the social, cultural, political and economic life of Maguindanao in the late 18th century.


Thomas Forrest, fronstispiece in Voyage from Calcutta to the Mergui archipelago (London, 1792).

While in Maguindanao, Forrest received news that the Company base at Balambangan had been sacked by the Sulus, and he therefore made good use of his time in Maguindanao to survey the coast and the land, looking out for another suitable site for a trading post.  The second, improved, edition of his book, issued in London in 1780, includes numerous maps and charts of Mindanao and other places surveyed on his voyage.

Plate 18 in Forrest’s book is a map entitled ‘Part of Magindano, from Tetyan Harbour to the Island Serangani', which includes not only coastal features surveyed by Forrest himself, but also a detailed trajectory of the great Pulangi river up to its source, with a note of settlements along its banks, extending far beyond the limit of Forrest’s own explorations.  Forrest's source of information is elucidated in the opening of Chaper II of Book II of his work, ‘Geographical Sketch of Places on the Banks of the Rivers Pelangy and Tamontakka, by Tuan Fakymolano’, in which Forrest notes that  ‘the chart of these countries and rivers, drawn by Fakymolano, is deposited in the British Museum’ (Forrest 1780: 186).  This map of the main rivers and riverine settlements of Maguindanao is now held in the British Library as Add. 4924, and is an exceptionally rare example of a map produced within the Malay world. The rivers, with tributaries and channels, were drawn in black ink and captioned in Arabic script with the names of settlements by Fakih Maulana himself, with transliterations and some comments in English in a lighter brown ink by Forrest.  The map, which must have been produced in 1775, has just been fully digitised and can be studied in high resolution here.  


Map of Maguindanao, drawn by Fakih Maulana for Thomas Forrest, 1775. British Library, Add. 4924.

Detail from Thomas Forrest's map of 'Part of Magindano' ( Forrest 1780: Plate 18), showing the river Pulangi, based on Fakih Maulana's map.

Fakih Maulana's account of riverine settlements in Maguindanao (Forrest 1780: 185, detail).

When Forrest left Maguindanao in January 1776 to sail on to Sulu and Balambangan, he carried with him two royal letters in Malay from the Raja Muda and Fakih Maulana, to the king (then George III) and the East India Company.  These letters will be discussed in my next post.

Further reading:

Thomas Forrest, A voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas 1774-1776. Dublin, 1779.

Thomas Forrest, A voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas 1774-1776. 2nd ed. with plates. London, 1780.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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Alexander Dalrymple's Treaties with Sulu in Malay and Tausug

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When the East India Company began to look for a base in the Philippine islands in order to gain access to the China trade, attention focussed on the Sulu archipelago, lying east of the northern tip of Borneo. In January 1761, the Scottish hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808) arrived on the island of Jolo, the seat of the Sultan of Sulu, charged with the task of negotiating for a trading post for the Company. The then ruler of Sulu was Sultan Muhammad Muizzuddin, also known as Bantilan. He was the younger brother of Sultan Azimuddin I, who at the time of Dalrymple’s visit had been in exile in Manila since 1748 because of local opposition towards his policy of friendship towards Spanish Jesuit missionaries. Following the death of Muizzuddin in 1763 and the brief accession of his son, Sultan Muhammad Azimuddin II, Dalrymple was instrumental in helping Sultan Azimuddin I (usually referred to in European-language sources as ‘Alimuddin’) to return from Manila to Sulu and re-accede to the throne in 1764, where he ruled until his death in 1778.  


Alexander Dalrymple, in a painting of c.1765 attributed to John Thomas Seton (c.1735-1806). Copyright National Museums of Scotland.


A mosque in Sulu, from Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, 1844.  British Library, 10001.d vol.5, opp. p. 354.

Between 1761 and 1764 Dalrymple negotiated and signed four major treaties with successive sultans of Sulu, leading to the establishment of an East India Company trading post on the island of Balambangan in 1773. Most of the original bilingual treaty papers have survived in the India Office Records in the British Library: the first treaty of 1761 was in Malay and English; the second treaty of 1763 was also originally in Malay and English, but only the Spanish translation of the Malay has survived; and the third and fourth treaties of 1764 were in Tausug (the main language of Sulu) and English.


First Sulu Treaty of 28 January 1761, signed between Sultan Muhammad Muizzuddin of Sulu and Alexander Dalrymple for the East India Company. British Library, IOR: H/629, pp.456-457.

The English texts of the Treaties are well known, but the Malay and Tausug texts, written in Arabic script, have never been studied, and a close examination inevitably reveals a number of differences with the English text. A typical example is the English text of the first Treaty of 1761, which in clause 1 states that the British shall be granted ‘perpetual’ possession of the ground for their settlement, a word which is absent in the Malay version. But perhaps the most poignant aspect of this Treaty is the addendum found on the reverse of the Malay page: a strong rejection of the sale of opium, and a tight control on arms.  This clause – which is unnumbered and does not appear in any published English version of the treaty – appears to have been included at the request of the Sulus, judging from the detailed exposition in four lines of Malay, ‘The aforementioned trade goods prohibited by His Highness Sultan Muhammad Muizzuddin are opium, while no kinds of arms, big or small, may be sold to to anyone, even to the children and grandchildren of His Highness the Sultan, without the express permission of His Highness the Sultan; only His Highness the Sultan may buy these goods,’ compared with the laconic one-line English translation ‘Opium is contraband & arms & ammunition to any but the Sultan’.  Yet Dalrymple himself apparently strongly supported this prohibition; the culprit responsible for later developing the Sulu trade in opium and arms was the unscrupulous John Herbert, chief of the East India Company post at Balambangan, who was also responsible for a massive fraud against the Company itself which led to the financial collapse of the Balambangan settlement.


Addendum to the first Sulu Treaty of 28 January 1761, banning the sale of opium and restricting the sale of arms, in Malay with brief English translation: Maka adapun dagangan yang dilarangkan Paduka Seri Sultan Muhammad Muizzuddin yang telah tersebut itu iaitu apiun, dan demikian lagi segala alat senjata besar kecil tiada boleh dijual kepada orang lain, jikalau pada pihak anak cucu Paduka Seri Sultan sekalipun jika bukan izin daripada Paduka Seri Sultan, hanya Paduka Seri Sultan yang membeli jua adanya. Opium is contraband & arms & ammunition to any but the Sultan.  British Library, IOR: H/629, p.455.

The first Treaty is also notable for high standard of the formal Malay language used, and its proficient calligraphy. An unusual aspect of the diplomatics of the treaties is that when the various royal Sulu seals were stamped across two pages, the two sheets of paper were first folded along an inner vertical margin, with the seal applied across the folds, resulting in an impression of two halves when the paper was flattened out.  The East India Company seals on the same documents, however, are simply stamped on the flattened sheet of paper. This peculiar method of sealing is not found in any other Muslim kingdom in Southeast Asia. Interestingly, the only other Islamic seal impression known displaying the same characteristic of having been stamped across the folds of a document, yielding a two-part impression, is the iconic seal impression of the Mughal emperor Babur, found on what is possibly the oldest surviving original Mughal document, a land grant dated 1527.


A second copy of the Malay text of the first Sulu Treaty of 28 January 1761, ratified in September 1761by 24 nobles of Sulu listed on the right-hand page. British Library, IOR: H/629, pp.460-461. 

Further ratification of the first Sulu Treaty of January 1761, signed in Manila on 20 November 1761 by Sultan Muhammad Azimuddin I. This document was probably obtained by Dalrymple, who appears to have been in Manila from 9 November-1 December 1761 (pers.comm., Andrew Cook).  British Library, IOR: H/629, p.459.


Dalrymple’s third Sulu Treaty, in Tausug and English, signed between Sultan Muhammad Azimuddin I of Sulu and Alexander Dalrymple for the English East India Company, Jolo, Sulu, 2 July 1764.  British Library, IOR: H/629, p.488-489.


Dalrymple’s fourth Sulu Treaty, in Tausug and English, signed between Sultan Muhammad Azimuddin I of Sulu and Alexander Dalrymple for the English East India Company, Jolo, Sulu, 28 September 1764. British Library, IOR: H/629, p.pp. 495–502.

Further reading:
Allen, J. de V., Stockwell, A. J., and Wright, L. R., A collection of treaties and other documents affecting the states of Malaysia 1761-1963.  London: Oceana, 1980. 2 v. [The Sulu treaties are published in v.2, pp.371-388.]
Cook, Andrew S., Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808), hydrographer to the East India Company and the Admiralty, as publisher : a catalogue of books and charts.  Ph.D. thesis, University of St Andrews, 1993.
Costa, H. de la, ‘Muhammad Alimuddin I, Sultan of Sulu, 1735-1773’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1965, 38 (1):43-76.
Majul,Cesar Adib, Muslims in the Philippines.  Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999.
Warren, James Francis, The Sulu Zone 1768-1898.  Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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