One interesting aspect of early Islamic print in the region is that books were made in a way that sought to reproduce the graphic form of the manuscript. As regards our topic of interlinear texts, Proudfoot notes that “for kitab in particular, lithography reproduced interlinear glosses, commentary and the like, using customary devices of text layout and script size to express hierarchies of textual authority.” (Proudfoot 1993: 45). Nico Kaptein (1993: 357), in his discussion of a 1853 printed copy of the Mawlid Sharaf al-Anām from Surabaya with a Malay interlinear translation, also very much resembling a manuscript, suggested that this was the oldest known printed book from the Dutch East Indies to be produced outside European-controlled circles. The fact that this pioneering book was interlinear could point to the importance of interlinear translations in manuscript form at the time, especially within the Islamic religious-pedagogical sphere, and the need to include, from an early stage, those same translations with their particular format in the evolving realm of the new print media.

As an example of this genre, and as a step towards considering interlinear translation in print, this blogpost briefly introduces a small printed book containing an Arabic to Malay interlinear translation, while a followup blogpost will delve into its content. The book is a kitab titled Maslaku al-akhyāri fī al-ad‘iyati wa al-athkār al-wāridatu ‘an al-nabī al-mukhtār (“The Path of the Righteous  regarding the Supplications and Remembrances Received from the Chosen Prophet”). As its title implies, it contains supplications (doa), chants of remembrance (dikir) and additional prayers attributed to the Prophet. The book carries no date, however on its final page appears a call to those “wishing to acquire books that are cheap and neatly printed to please get books from the book shop of Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co. Surabaya, as all book shops across Indonesia acquire their books from Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co. book shop in Surabaya-Java.” This appeal, which includes the designation “Indonesia,” indicates that the state had already been founded at the time of print, likely in the early 1950s.

Who was the book’s publisher? Sulaymān Mar‘ī, an Arab, was initially based in Surabaya and later (around the mid-1920s) moved to Singapore. He was a bookseller who for the most part carried out his printing offshore, much of it in Egypt. His offshore printing was “an immense technical advance” over the old Singapore lithographs (Proudfoot 1993: 45) and he also had an advantage over competitors in the Indies as the colonial government at the time levied import taxes on paper but not on printed books (van Bruinessen 1990: 233). Among the books he commissioned for sale in the Indies was the Qur’an, printed not in Egypt but in Bombay in 1928 (Hakim Syukrie 2023). Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co. closed down in the early 1980s (van Bruinessen 1990: 233).

Figure 1. Title page of the kitab Maslaku al-akhyāri fī al-ad‘iyati wa al-athkār al-wāridatu ‘an al-nabī al-mukhtār

The title page of the kitab is written mostly in Malay, with two exceptions: the title is in Arabic, as is the note at the bottom of the page stating that the book was “printed at the expense of Sulaymān Mar‘i and Co. Surabaya with the permission of Sayyīd Muḥammad bin ‘Aqīl bin Yaḥyā.” The writing, excluding the note about the publisher, is surrounded by a double-lined thin black frame and a large X shaped sign made up of four thin lines divides the page into four parts, two of which “face” the reader while a third “faces” the right side of the page and the fourth its left side (see Figure 1). This type of multi-directional writing on the page is reminiscent of many interlinear manuscripts in which the translation is written upside down or facing a different direction than the main text, or to which various notes are added on various parts of the page. The bi-lingual nature of the book is evident on this opening page in two ways. First, in the top section, the title itself is appended with an interlinear translation into Malay. Second, in the bottom and largest section there is an explanation about how many of the reward-bearing doa and dikir are often written in Malay mixed with Arabic that does not indicate correct pronunciation (unvocalized Arabic?), perhaps implicitly pointing to the main reason why a full interlinear translation of such texts was necessary, and presented in the kitab.

References:

Anonymous. Maslaku al-akhyāri fī al-ad‘iyati wa al-athkār al-wāridatu ‘an al-nabī al-mukhtār.

            Surabaya: Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co., no date.

van Bruinessen, M. “Kitab Kuning; Books in Arabic script used in the pesantren milieu;

Comments on a new collection in the KITLV Library.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en

            Volkenkunde 146, 2/3 (1990): 226-269.

Kaptein, Nico. “An Arab Printer in Surabaya in 1853.” BKI 149.2 (1993): 356-362.

Proudfoot, Ian. Early Malay Printed Books. A provisional account of materials published in the

Singapore-Malaysia area up to 1920, noting holdings in major public collections.

Kuala Lumpur: Academy of Malay Studies and The Library, University of Malays, 1993.

Syukrie, A. Hakim. “Pencetakan kitab-kitab Jawi di Bombay India Abad ke-19M.” Indonesia LivingQuran (7 April 2023).

https://hakiemsyukrie.wordpress.com/2023/04/07/pencetakan-kitab-kitab-jawi-di-bombay-india-abad-ke-19-m/

Accessed 8 September 2024.

Who was al-Wangarī? In the beginning of ʿAqīdat al-Wangarī, the author’s name is mentioned as Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Wangarī (see Figure 1). Several manuscripts in the National Library of France in Paris bear his full name (see Figure 2; cf. Figure 3) before the beginning of this work: qāla al-shaykh al-faqīh al-muḥaqqiq al-mudaqqiq al-naḥwī al-uṣūlī Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd b. Abī Bakr Baghyugh. This scholar, known as a jurist, grammarian and theologian, is most likely the descendant of a well-known Timbuktu scholar who originally came from Djenné, in present-day Mali, Muḥammad al-Wangarī al-Timbuktī al-Jinnawī (d. 1594), known as Baghayogho, whose manuscript library was cited by the celebrated Timbuktu historian Aḥmad Baba (d. 1627) (see Jappie & Diagne 2008).

Figure 2. Wangarī’s Creed in Maghrebi script. BnF Paris, Arabe 5602 ff. 402b-403a.

 Figure 3. Wangarī’s Creed in Maghrebi script. BnF Paris, Arabe 5484 f. 143a.

The transmission of Sanūsī’s works in Timbuktu can be well understood due to its geographical proximity to North Africa. But how did Timbuktu’s commentary on al-Sanūsī travel to Sumatra? Lebe Bandar, an unknown scholar and scribe in the early eighteenth century in the Sultanate of Aceh, wrote a prose commentary based on ʿAqīdat al-Wangarī, namely Al-Laṭāʾif al-nafsiyyah ʿalā naẓm al-ʿaqīdah al-sanūsiyyah (“The Psychic Subtlety Commenting on the Minor Creed of Sanūsī”). He noted that he learned of Wangarī’s text when he was in Medina at the end of the seventeenth century. This historical note corroborates the fact that the Hijāz was the most important transmission site of intellectual traditions to the Malay world. If we accept Lebe Bandar’s note, ʿAqīdat al-Wangarī very likely came to Aceh at this time, if not earlier, and this milieu encouraged the scholars in the  Sultanate of Aceh to study it closely, leading Muḥammad Zayn to compose his Bidāyat al-hidāyah in ‘the tongue of Jāwī/Malay” (lisān al-Jāwī). Bidāyat al-hidāyah was able to complement or even replace in popularity the theological works of earlier scholars such as Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānirī (d. 1658) and ʿAbd al-Raʾūf al-Jāwī al-Fansūrī (d. 1693).

Despite the popularity of Muḥammad Zayn’s commentary on al-Sānūsī’s work, ʿAqīdat al-Wangari continued to be recited, perhaps because the credal poem possessed a mnemonic function and was memorized up to the first half of the of the nineteenth century when the manuscript EAP329-1-95 was compiled. The single copy of this Arabic text with its Malay interlinear translation does not mean that it was not popular earlier, prior to the Dutch-Aceh War (1873-1904). It nevertheless at least testifies to an intellectual and textual connection between distant corners of the Islamic world at the time: Timbuktu, the Islamic learned culture far to the west, and Southeast Asia, the Islamic region far to the east.

Comparing three manuscripts—one from Aceh and the other two from the Maghreb  - which are currently kept in the National Library of France—the Acehnese manuscript lacks the indication of Wangarī’s full name at the beginning of the text as well as book divisions such as ‘introduction’ (muqaddimah), the ‘absolute attributes of God’ (mā yajib fī haqq mawlānā tabāraka wa taʿālā), and other Ashʿarī theological doctrines. The function of such subdivisions makes it easier for the readers to distinguish between the sections, thus they can skip from one to the other for subsequent perusal. The Acehnese manuscript differs from the two Maghrebi copies in the way in which the scribe copied it from other older manuscripts. Although the three manuscripts date back to ca. 1750-1850, they certainly have different stories. The history of texts and books is always fascinating when one considers their variants and translations. The Malay interlinear translation of ʿAqīdah al-Wangarī, as can be seen in Figure 1, itself attests to two types of interlinear translation: one is literal, word for word, and can be read throughout the text. The second is an irregular translation, which can be recognized already in the first line of the text:

Yaḥmadu rabbahu bi-khayri al-aḥmadi          al-Wangarī ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmadi

Sentiasa memuji oleh Wangari itu akan Tuhannya dengan sebaik-baik puji….

(“Always praised by the Wangari is his Lord with the best of praises”)

At the time when the translator wrote her/his translation, other explanatory elements were added above the words or in marginalia. While the Acehnese manuscript lacks Wangarī’s full name, for instance, the translator/scribe added the meaning of the word ‘al-Wankarī’ in the upper position or copied it from another text in Arabic and Malay: ayy al-mandūb [sic!; al-mansūb] ilā al-Wankarī, artinya dibangsakan negeri Wankari (i.e., “it refers to the territory of Wangarī”). An intriguing question that requires  further study  is how and why some  Arabic theological terms were partly translated  into Malay while others were left untranslated. This text opens a window to the rich tradition of Malay interlinear translation as practiced in Aceh and as found in the EAP Aceh collection, the books of which were used as part of an Islamic curriculum in the region. 

References:

Bruckmayr, Philipp. “The šarḥ/ḥāshiya Phenomenon in Southeast Asia: From al-Sanūsī’s Umm al-Barāhīn to Malay Sifat Dua Puluh Literature.” Mélange of IDEO 32 (2017).

Jeppie, Shamil and Souleymane Bachir Diagne (eds.). The Meanings of Timbuktu. Cape Town: South Africa (2008).

Olson, Caitlyn. “Beyond the Avicennian Turn: The Creeds of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Sanūsī (d. 895/1490).” Studia Islamica 115, no. 1 (2020): 101-140.

Zacky Khairul Umam was a postdoctoral researcher at “Mapping Sumatra’s Manuscript Cultures” project, SOAS University of London and is currently a lecturer at Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia.

I will explore the section appearing in the manuscript’s initial pages that speaks to the benefits of engaging with the stories of Muhammad’s prophethood and his attributes, benefits that extend to the textual community which encompasses those who wrote the texts, listen to, carry, keep or borrow them, or connect with them in various other ways. Such depictions are common in Javanese Islamic literature but here I wish to draw attention to the way reading this particular, small section in both Arabic and Javanese raises questions about the relationship between these two intertwined Islamic traditions. Due to the brevity of this blogpost and the need for further research my major aim here is to highlight such questions, not answer them.

First, a caveat: the manuscript seems to be missing several pages, as stated also on the DREAMSEA website, and unfortunately one or two pages are apparently missing at the start, after the opening page, so the section discussed is incomplete.

What is clear, however, is that those engaging with the stories related in the manuscript will be protected from various threats and harm. I’d like to suggest that the list of perils and the vocabulary used to name them in the Javanese interlinear translation of the Arabic text is reminiscent of one of Java’s famous poems, the Kidung Rumeksa ing Wengi (“A song Guarding in the Night”) attributed to Sunan Kalijaga, one of the nine apostles of Islam (J. wali) who is said to have lived in Java between the mid 15^th to mid-16^th centuries.

The Kidung, which has been classified as an invocation, a supplication, a mystical poem and a magic incantation (Arps 1996), was recited in the past not only in Java but also in Javanese exilic communities living as far away as colonial Ceylon (Ricci 2012) in order to ward off forces and beings lurking in the night, and it remains known and popular in some parts of Java in the present.

The protective role of the text (rumeksa) is phrased in similar terms in the Hikayat, also employing the verb reksa (to guard, protect, watch over), and nighttime is central to both: in the Kidung it is mentioned exclusively while the Hikayat mentions protection during both night and day.

A partial list of threats that reciting the Kidung and reading the Prophet’s stories will ward off includes the following: (the first word in each example appears in the Kidung, the second in the Hikayat, if the vocabulary is identical in both a single word is listed): fire (geni/ kobar), thieves (maling/begalan), harmful spells (guna/sihir), unlucky places (lemah sangar/enggon kang sangar), wild beasts (sato galak), jinn and devils (jim setan), all sorts of calamities (bilahi).

Even if the manuscript did not specifically evoke the Kidung for its audience (only speculation is possible here), the opening section of the Hikayat and the famous poem draw on a shared repository of images of looming dangers that need to be avoided, harnessed or overcome, and both offer protection from harm.

The Kidung Rumeksa ing Wengi has been studied and appraised repeatedly as a quintessential product of Javanese culture. Reading the interlinear text of the Hikayat with its tantalizing hints raises questions about potential inspirations for the Kidung: was it based in part on tropes from Arabic texts that were brought to Java from elsewhere? Or, conversely, perhaps the Arabic text appearing in the Cirebon manuscript was written locally rather than imported or copied from a foreign text in which case the Arabic telling would have been shaped by Javanese sensibilities about the natural and supernatural environments. I am not implying that “Javanese” and “Arabic” existed in separate, isolated spheres – far from it – and yet reading the Javanese between the Arabic lines powerfully resonates with the Kidung and other texts like it and invites us to think about possible relationships between the two manifestations of “the same text” we find on the page.

And perhaps we witness here not just a window to the well-known and oft-cited Kidung and its history but to the vast language of chants, spells and charms, to questions about the desired circumstances for employing them and their various intended forms of protection. Is this language related to, or rooted in Arabic textual sources and if so, how? Or was Arabic writing in Java shaped by old, perhaps pre-Islamic Javanese notions of reality and did these notions in turn affect the reading and interpretation of non-Javanese (especially Middle Eastern) Arabic texts? And, finally for now, how can the in-depth study of interlinear translation help us re-visit these questions?

References:

Arps, Bernard. “A Song Guarding at Night. Grounds for Cogency in a Javanese Incantation.”

In Stephen C. Headley (ed.), Towards an Anthropology of Prayer: Javanese ethnolinguistic studies (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 1996) 47–113.

Ricci, Ronit. “The Discovery of Javanese Writing in a Sri Lankan Malay Manuscript.” BKI 168.4

(2012): 511-518.

DREAMSEA project no. 0058_00010

https://www.hmmlcloud.org/dreamsea/detail.php?msid=2018

When a word is translated into Malay, there are numerous occasions where the Malay word serves a similar purpose as the first category mentioned above, i.e. to provide linguistic clarification, particularly when a word can have multiple linguistic functions. In an anonymous Adab al-mutaʿallim (“Ethics for the learners,” coded DS 0043 00014), for instance, at one point the word mā is translated below the line as تياد "tiada" (“no/none”). There are several functions of mā in Arabic, including as an interrogative word, a relative pronoun, a negative word, and more. The translation “tiada” in this text is intended to indicate its function as a negative particle rather than any of the other options.

In terms of translation model, Adab al-mutaʿallim (Fig. 2) is different from the other examples that we have discussed. Unlike the previous ones which contain occasional interlinear content, Adab al-mutaʿallim provides not only detailed translations of almost every Arabic word but also a relatively complete and meaningful sentence. The opening line of the text states: al-ḥamd lillāh al-ʿaliyy al-bārī, translated as “segala puji-pujian bagi Allah yang amat tinggi lagi menjadikan segala makhluk” (“All praise be to Allah the Most High, who created all creatures”)

Figure 2 Adab al-mutaʿallim, DREAMSEA DS 0043 00014 p. 5r

These various interlinear materials may have a connection to the visual and oral aspects of the texts and their teaching moments. Texts containing elaborate interlinear material like ʿAwāmil and Adab al-mutaʿallim, suggest that these texts are used for beginner learners. On the other hand, texts that contain a lesser amount of interlinear material are used for more advanced education. The presence of both Arabic and Malay inserts between the lines indicates that the actual teaching process was likely to incorporate a blend of Malay and Arabic. However, an intermediate learner would not need every word translated and glossed for them, thus producing a scarce interlinear text.

Figure 3 Sharḥ Khulāṣat al-alfiyya, DREAMSEA DS 0043 00017 p. 10v.

Having said that, it's crucial to avoid falling for visual impressions. A gloss to Khulāṣat al-alfiyya (DS 0043 00017), a popular treatise on Arabic grammar, displays highly dense interlinear contents and sidenotes (Fig. 3), but is certainly not intended for beginners. The copyist or reader of this text does not seem to be interested in translating the text but rather in gathering relevant opinions about certain words in the Arabic text from different sources. For example, upon explaining the opening word of the text, qāla (“he said”), it offers two similar glosses but with different wordings, most probably originating from two different sources. The sources in question are not named, thus warranting further research, but it is a case in point to see that the text is read at an advanced level.

In conclusion, the different kinds of material provided between the lines are, in some respects, pointers to the actual pedagogical setting in which these texts were used. A first glance at the visual aspects of a manuscript enables us to discern the levels of Islamic education that transpired within the community that used it, but only with a closer look at the interlinear contents can we gain a better idea about the learning process. The density of the interlinear inserts, the different materials offered between the lines, and the mixed use of Arabic and Malay point to the degree of readers’ familiarity with all the means that were necessary for understanding the texts and offer hints for gauging the reader’s educational level.

References

Azra, Azyumardi. 2003. Surau: Pendidikan Islam Tradisi dalam Transisi dan Modernisasi. Jakarta: PT. Logos Wacana Ilmu.

Bruinessen, Martin van. 1990. “Kitab Kuning: Books in Arabic Script Used in the Pesantren Milieu: Comments on a New Collection in the KITLV Library.” Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 146 (2/3): 226–69.

Hadler, Jeffrey. 2008. Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism. Itacha: Cornell University Press.

After its opening sentence the Kitab moves on to the formulaic “thus spoke the Prophet SAW,” with Muhammad speaking to his daughter Fatima but in fact turning to all women, reminding them of the duty to be devoted to God, His Messenger and their husbands. The Kitab then continues with a series of prohibitions on women: they should not be sinful towards their husbands, neither speak with anger nor make the husband sick at heart – all these behaviors being the distinguishing signs (A. ‘alāmah; J. tĕtĕngĕr) of a wicked woman.  The opposite characteristics are also enumerated. For example, the Prophet highlights God’s love for devoted and obedient wives who will gain all the fruit, clothes and palaces of paradise. 

The Kitab concludes with a tradition attributed to the Prophet’s wife Aishah about how a woman carrying her husband’s child will receive the rewards of one who fasts, prays day and night or fights a holy war. It is noteworthy that this text about and for women ends with a carrot, not a stick. We may also consider that it ends with mention of holy war: perhaps women’s lives are an ongoing holy war or holy struggle of sorts to live correctly, constantly facing the temptations and challenges that the authors of such texts expected them to overcome.

In considering the Kitab’s interlinear translation I will here highlight briefly a single aspect: voice.

Voices in the Kitab
On the surface the Kitab can be read as a long series of “dos” and “don’ts” addressed to women. Total dedication to one’s husband is portrayed as a religious obligation and an indication of faith in God and the Prophet. A closer look reveals that although this is indeed the general framework, and although the dominant figure whose words are cited is Muhammad, there is a variety of voices speaking throughout the Kitab’s pages. Whose voices are they and how were they mediated through translation? Here are two examples.
            After Muhammad states that women who obey their husbands will be welcome in paradise, paradise itself speaks, asking (Arabic followed by the Javanese translation that appears in between the lines):
Faqāla aljannatu ayna ḥabībī wa ayna dākhilī
Maka matur sawarga pundi ka2sih amba lan pundi kang amanjing ing amba
Paradise spoke: where is my beloved and where is the one to enter me?

The Javanese translation expresses a hierarchy not present in any form in the Arabic. Paradise is speaking to God using the verb matur (to speak) and referring to itself with the humble first person pronoun amba (“I,” literally slave, servant). As a site, paradise bears no title. When God responds His speech is depicted as follows:

Faqāla Allah ta‘āla                
Maka nagandika gusti Allah ta‘āla

For God, the verb ngandika (“speak” in a high register of Javanese) rather than matur is employed and He receives the royal Javanese title gusti. In this example the same verb for speech is employed in Arabic (qāl) for paradise and for God. Javanese, with its hierarchical structure and emphasis on honorifics, conveys nuance that emphasizes the difference between the two speakers through the verb, a self-deprecating pronoun and the addition of a title (Ricci 2023). The voice of paradise in Javanese is speaking from a lower status, conveying humility and deference.

Hell’s voice too is heard through direct speech in the Kitab, cited by Muhammad:

Alnnāru jahannama nādin                    min makānin ba‘īdin    
Naraka jahanam iku angundang2        saking anggon kang adoh
Hell beckons                                         from a place far away 

Ta‘ālū yā                                     nisā’  al‘āṣiyati         
Padha mareneha sira wadon     hai sakehe wadon kang padha duraka ing lakine
Come O                                      rebellious women

Wa ana juw‘un      wa ‘aṭshun          
Lan isun iku luwe  lan dahga isun        
As I am hungry and thirsty

Here is found another characteristic of Javanese interlinear translation: expansion. Various elements that are “built-in” to Arabic verbs or nouns, for example the plural form, need clarification in Javanese (e.g. ta‘ālu - “come!” - is translated as padha marenehe). The Arabic ‘āṣiyati, “disobedient, rebellious” in the feminine form is translated by wadon kang padha duraka ing lakine, highlighting that the women mentioned are rebellious in a specific realm – towards their husbands. This suggests that Javanese women reading the Kitab or listening to it being read and translated had access to a set of clarifications that didn’t leave much room for speculation or misunderstanding.

Additional voices speak out in the Kitab. The interlinear translation helps us assess how, through particular translation strategies, the translator understood these voices, differentiated among them and characterized them. Furthermore, the Kitab offers us a chance to consider, on a small scale, the gendered dimensions of Islamic interlinear manuscripts. Considering the centrality of the stories and messages offered in such didactic texts, and of the pedagogical settings in which they were read, the gendered aspects of interlinear translations are worthy of further research.

References:

https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP211-1-4-37

Some scholars argue that after Tarjumān, no translation activity was found until two centuries later, and the need for translation was already fulfilled by Tarjumān. This assumption may not be accurate because (1) several translation manuscripts have been found from those centuries, and (2) the need for a Qur’an translation in the Malay language might not have been as urgent as it is suggested. In fact, from the past until now, Indonesian Muslims who study Islamic sciences have generally used Arabic-language books from an early age.

During my childhood, once I had learned how to read the Qur’an, the next step was to acquire knowledge of the essential sciences of Islam, such as Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and Aqidah (theology). It was typically achieved by studying simple Arabic-language books like Safīnatun Najāh, rather than reading books written in local languages such as Javanese or Malay. Consequently, it became the norm to rely on Arabic books for a comprehensive understanding of the Qur’an, making Tafsīr al-Jalālayn more popular than Tarjumān in this regard. For Muslim students, reading Arabic-language books holds more legitimacy than reading books in local languages.

This assumption is supported by the widespread use of Tafsīr al-Jalālayn as the standard reference for comprehending the Qur’an in various Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) across Indonesia. An example that illustrates how Javanese individuals accessed the Qur’an is a Jalālayn manuscript dating back to the 18th-20th century which was digitized by the Endangered Archive Project (EAP) from Pondok Pesantren Langitan in Tuban, East Java. The EAP has collected numerous similar Jalālayn manuscripts from pesantren in Ponorogo and suraus (Islamic assembly places) in West Sumatra.

This EAP061/1/105 is not a complete Jalālayn manuscript. This volume only includes Surah al-Baqarah to al-Ahqaf, consisting of 461 folios. Based on similar manuscripts, it can be assumed that there is a separate second volume from this manuscript, which may contain Surah Muhammad to Surah al-Fatihah. The arrangement, used in most Jalālayn manuscripts in pesantren including EAP061/1/105, differs from the arrangement of surahs in the Qur’an, which usually starts from al-Fatihah and ends with al-Nas. Manuscripts that start from al-Baqarah and end with al-Fatihah reflect the division of manuscripts based on the author’s order.

As known, Jalālayn is a tafsīr book written by two individuals, Jalaluddin al-Mahalli and his student, Jalaluddin al-Suyuthi. When writing this tafsīr, al-Mahalli started from Surah al-Kahf to al-Nas. When he intended to complete it from the beginning of the Qur’an, he passed away after completing just al-Fatihah and 26 verses of Surah al-Baqarah. The tafsīr writing project was then continued by al-Suyuti, who rewrote it from al-Baqarah, omitting the 26 verses of al-Mahalli’s version, until completing Surah al-Isra. Unlike this manuscript, the current printed version of Jalālayn usually starts from al-Fatihah.

As seen in Figures 1-2, the strategy used by Javanese Muslims to “translate” the untranslatable Qur’an is by translating the Jalālayn. The Jalālayn manuscript itself consists of two texts. The red text represents the verses of the Qur’an, while the black text represents the Jalālayn interpretation. Using two different colours for the Qur’an text and the interpretation is not unique to Indonesia. Several manuscripts from the Middle East also use the same approach.

Javanese individuals employ interlinear translation when working with the Jalālayn. The translation is rendered in black ink and appears smaller in this manuscript. While the Qur’an text and the Jalālayn interpretation are written in naskh script, the Javanese interlinear translation is penned in riq’ah script. This specific writing style, known as “makna gantung” or “makna gandhul” (hanging meaning), is commonly observed in Java. The language utilized in this manuscript is Javanese.

This translation of makna gantung, as shown in manuscript EAP061/1/105, was written by a student in a pesantren. They provided translation notes based on what their teacher (kiai) recited. As seen in Figure 2, the hanging translation by these students is done for both the Qur’an text (red) and the Jalālayn text. It can also be observed that the student leaves some words untranslated. The words left without translation are usually words whose meanings were already known.

Manuscripts like Jalālayn, as shown here, are evidence that the scarcity of Qur’an translations until the 20th century is mostly due to Javanese people who chose to become users of the Arabic language in their study of Islam. Because, in any case, the Arabic language is in their eyes more authoritative than other languages. The motivation to master Arabic is higher than the need to read translations.

Figure 2. Jalālayn manuscript from Pondok Pesantren Langitan, Tuban, Indonesia. Endangered Archives Programme EAP061-1-105, p.3.

Source:

Jalālayn manuscript from Pondok Pesantren Langitan, Tuban, Indonesia. Endangered Archives Programme EAP061-1-105. https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP061-1-105

The exemplar to be discussed here is from colonial Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). The original Arabic text was copied in Colombo in 1891. The small manuscript measuring 15x10 cm and containing 98 pages includes, besides the Arabic text, a Malay interlinear translation. On the cover are written in black ink the title and the owner’s name: Muhammad Mu‘in al-Din ibn Baba Yunus Saldin (known as M.M. Saldin). According to a note in Malay on the manuscript’s second page the manuscript was gifted to the owner by encik Junus Tumurtu, who, as clarified by a brief note in English on the inner cover, was his maternal grandfather who presented the manuscript to him in 1910. [1]It was later inherited by Mrs. Jayarine Sukanthi Iyne, M.M. Saldin’s granddaughter, and is presently in the possession of her family in Colombo. It was digitized as part of the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme (“Digitizing Malay Writing in Sri Lanka,” EAP609) and is listed as item EAP 609/5/4, available at https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP609-5-4

The manuscript is in very fragile condition, with some pages falling out and the binding loosely connected. It is illuminated on its first two and last two pages in red, green, blue, brown and black, with flowers, leaves, buds and geometrical designs framing these pages (see Figure 1). All other pages exhibit a simple, double-lined frame in red ink. The Arabic is written in black ink while the Malay is written in a lighter shade of gray and a smaller unvocalized script, known across Southeast Asia as jawi and in Sri Lanka as gundul. The hand of the Arabic text and the translation is not the same. On the initial five and a half pages, written in poetic verse in which all lines begin with “assalamu ‘alaika,” only the second half of the lines is translated, beyond the first instance (which includes the translation “salam atasmu hai Muhhmad.” The translation is written with a slant beneath each straight Arabic line, sometimes extending beyond the end of the line and red frame, especially in the pages’ bottom lines (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: A page from the Maulid al-Nabī Sharaf al-Anām where the extension of the translation beyond the frame is visible.

The manuscript offers testimony to the ongoing connections between the small diasporic Malay community in colonial Ceylon and the Indonesian-Malay lands to the southeast. Not only was the Sharaf al-Anām among the most popular mauluds in that broader region but it was also selected for translation via the interlinear method, most often into Malay, in different sites across it, including Aceh, Java, Makassar and Patani from the 18^th century onwards. Composed in part-prose, part-poetry it stands out among numerous interlinear translations from the region that are more prescriptive and less narrative in nature. A comparison among such interlinear translations of the same devotional Arabic text reveals both local particularities and a strong standardizing impulse, the understanding of which will require much further research. Preliminary findings point to the Ceylon translation in some ways resembling a Javanese interlinear translation of the Maulid more than it resembles other Malay interlinear translations of the text. For example, both the Ceylon exemplar and one from Java (British Library, MS. Or 16873) add titles (that do not appear in Arabic) to various figures depicted in the narrative and they also tend to clarify details (e.g. inserting a name into the translation rather than employing ‘ia’ or ‘nya’ which translate the Arabic pronominal suffixes more precisely) where other Malay translations do not. These similarities may reflect the strong demographic and cultural Javanese element within the broader, diverse diasporic community that over time came to be designated as “Malay.”

References:

Maulid Sharaf al-Anām. British Library MS. Or. 16873

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?index=23&ref=Or_16873

Maulid Sharaf al-Anām. EAP 609/5/4 https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP609-5-4

Ricci, Ronit. Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon (Cambridge: Cambridge

      University Press, 2019).