O Munshi e Dilemas Malaios

I have bought a Jawi book today. Two books in fact. One is a book about sufism, the other a book by Sheikh Dawud Al-Fatani from the old Pattani sultanate, now a collection of more or less restless provinces in South Siam/Thailand (one of which retains the old name of the sultanate). They are restless for several complex reasons (their Malayness is often named as one of the reasons though things are in fact more complex than an invocation of ethno-nationalism would assume). He is supposed to be the most famous scholar in the old sultanate. In fact, the sultanate was for a long time a hub of Islamic learning with a reputation far beyond its borders. He was born there some time during the eighteenth century and then went to the Hejaz where he must have died some time around the mid-nineteenth century. He was incredibly prolific and widely respected as a scholar among students from Southeast Asia in Mecca at the time. He of course belonged to a sufi brotherhood and his works are therefore read by adherents of sufism.

Those books are my first Jawi books (besides a virtual copy of Hikayat Abdullah in Jawi version in my computer). Both have been published in Malaysia, though the latter is a reprint from what is clearly an old edition. The book on sufism has a Rumi edition - escrita latina. The bookshop in fact had a couple of books on sufism that were sold in both the Jawi original and a Rumi transliteration. Al-Fatani's book is only in Jawi however. Jawi has had a strange fate in Mahathir's Malaysia. It used to be fairly widespread, differently to Indonesia - where it seems to have petered out already in the colonial era thanks to Dutch efforts. There, according to historian Abdur-Razzaq Lubis in Penang, who is very knowledgeable about such things in a country where knowledge about Indonesia is some times as thin as knowledge about Brazil, tells me that the nationalist movement in Sumatra and Indonesia as a whole demanded that Rumi should be used instead of Jawi. After all, the postcolonial nation-state is supposed to be lay and not Malay. I am told that Jawi's close association with sufism has meant it has fallen into disuse. People learn it at school (at least those who go to a religious school) but I guess not perhaps many would read a Jawi book outside of Kelantan or the south of Thailand (where Jawi still lingers on. In fact I myself saw Jawi signs as far north as Songkhla and Hatyaai). 

Whatever the truth about Jawi the bookshop where I bought the books is exceedingly interesting. Just as similar traditional Muslim bookshops in Athlone, Cape Town, and in Ernakulam, Kerala, the bookshop on Jalan Munshi Abdullah sells books as well as clothes and other items. The books are religious even when they are literary. There is an amazing array of them. They are also all in Malay though there are a couple of books entirely in Arabic. However, the bookshop does not have a copy of any of Munshi Abdullah's works. These can only be found - in English translation - in specialized and expensive bookshops such as Kinokuniya in KLCC in Kuala Lumpur. As a couple of museums in Melaka proclaim, Munshi Abdullah was not only from Melaka, but was also the pioneer and father of modern Malay literature. The bookshop is in fact located exactly on Jalan Munshi Abdullah, one of the main streets in town.

Malay is supposedly not valued in Southern Siam/Thailand as the national language is Siamese/Thai. That is a pity. However, across the border, it is the sole official national language. I wonder what will be the fate of a language whose speakers read mostly religious books, school books, or else cinta books - these last are the sugary romances sold in many larger bookshops (the shop on Munshi Abdullah did have a couple of such books but they were very Islamic in character). A friend and publisher, Amir, has reminded me that motivasi books also have a share of the market. Granted, the shop was a shop for religious books. In Melaka. No Kinokuniya therefore. All the same, it is difficult not to ponder on the irony of a Malay bookshop in Melaka - located on Jalan Munshi Abdullah - not having copies of the Munshi's works. The shop however stocks hundreds and hundreds of religious books and related literature. Incidentally the Munshi eventually became the Mufti of Singapore and was therefore the highest Islamic authority in that colonial outpost. In fact, his last work was a travelogue which included his trip to Hejaz, where Mecca is. He left it unfinished because he died there. The travelogue actually includes also a trip to Kelantan, where Al-Fatani's book was published. Kelantan and Pattani had historically close relations, especially as when Pattani went under because of Siamese pressures many scholars found refuge in neighbouring Kelantan (who would eventually however also become a Siamese vassal until the British wrested it from Siam about a hundred years ago).

I wonder whether the libraries in town will have copies.

The very recently deceased Malay scholar Amin Sweeney was in fact an Englishman who came to Malaysia to fight the communist insurgency in the 1950s, then converted to Islam and became a leading Malay scholar. One of his many invaluable services to Malay scholarship was actually compiling a scholarly edition (in Rumi) of all of Munshi Abdullah's works in three large volumes. They were published in Jakarta a couple of years ago (Amin Sweeney had moved there from Malaysia years ago). There is no small irony in the fact that the complete works of Malaysia's pioneering Malay author, born and bred in Melaka, were edited and published in Jakarta by a converted Englishman with the use of French funds. Also, Sweeney's recent death means a major scholar has gone from a field that seems hard put to train new scholars of high caliber.

The complete works of the Munshi are not available for sale in Malaysia. Kinokuniya stocks British, American, Australian, Japanese as well as Chinese books, besides local publications but they don't stock Indonesian titles no matter how important these might be. As a consequence, Lubis had to import the three volumes directly from Jakarta with the help of friends there. It was therefore in his library on Jalan Aceh that I first made the acquaintance of the complete works of the Munshi.

As a foreigner who is new to the turf, I don't know what to make out of all this. I also wonder whether anybody does.



Bibliografia:


Abdullah, Munsyi & Sweeney, Amin & Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient.  2005  Karya lengkap Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi, disunting oleh Amin Sweeney. Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (bekerjasama dengan Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient), Jakarta (three thick large volumes).

منية المصلي ، شيخ داود الفطاني ، حزانه الفطاني ، كوالا لومفور،٢٠٠٧  

علم تصوّف ، حاج زين العارفين عباس،  فستاك امان برس،  كوتباهارو، ١٩٩٤