The article addresses interlinear translation from Arabic to vernaculars as practised in the Indonesian-Malay world up to the 20th century. Drawing on the example of a manuscript of a popular Islamic creed, it discusses interlinear translation as a specific form of paratext, which, crossing linguistic borders, mediates between the text and its readers. The manuscript is a copy of the doctrinal treatise Umm al-barāhīn (‘Mother of arguments’) by Abū ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Sanūsī al-Tilimsānī (d. 1490), originating from Palembang, Sumatra, and dated to 1843. Digitised by the DREAMSEA project, it is catalogued with the number DS 000800001. The copy represents a graphic example of a multi-layered manuscript containing a text and a variety of paratexts, i.e. translations and commentaries, that was typical of Malay Islamic manuscript culture. The article focuses on the interlinear translation from Arabic to Malay found in the manuscript and explores the paratextual features of this writing practice, discussing the power relations between the source text and its translation and attempting a description of interlinear translation as a regionally specific type of paratext at a certain stage of its historical development. Building on Gérard Genette’s questionnaire for paratextual elements, the author defines spatial, temporal, functional, and other features of interlinear translation, pointing to its ability to control and shape the readers’ reception of the text. Keywords: interlinear translation, paratext, bilingual manuscripts, Malay manuscripts, Arabic manuscripts, Islamic manuscripts, Umm al-barahin.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a revival movement of classical Javanese (Kawi) literature arose in the royal courts of south Central Java. As part of this revival, Old Javanese literary works were rewritten in Modern Javanese, giving Javanese people at that time renewed access to their literary heritage. The paper deals with a specific manuscript, Add MS 12279 in the British Library, which contains Modern Javanese word-for-word and line-for-line “translations” inserted between lines of the Old Javanese epic poem Bhāratayuddha. The unique structure of the manuscript reveals the translation strategies used to address the challenges of balancing the transmission of meaning with the modernization of language. Exploring the interpretation of the Old Javanese work in modern Java sheds light on the entwinement of the different languages (Old Javanese and Modern Javanese), different religions (Hindu and Islam), and different times (ancient and modern).

This article investigates the translation tradition of surau communities in the Minangkabau world, with a focus on interlinear translation. With its prominent role in the Islamization of the region, the surau held an important historical function as a vital centre for the production, teaching, learning, and preservation of Islamic manuscripts—mostly composed in Arabic, while those written in Malay are filled with rich Arabic concepts, vocabulary, and technical expressions. As such, translation emerges as an integral aspect of engagement with the manuscripts, supporting both comprehension and instruction. Focusing on the manuscript collection of Surau Simaung in Sijunjung, West Sumatra, the study explores two central questions: first, the role and positioning of Arabic and Malay within the translation practices of surau manuscripts; and second, the origins of grammatical literalism, a feature often associated with interlinear translation in the surau tradition. This study shows that translation practices in the surau were diverse, encompassing holistic, running-sequential, and interlinear paradigms. Among these, occasional interlinear translation predominates, revealing a distinctive form of grammatical literalism rooted in the Arabic linguistic structure, reflective of post-classical scholarly practices. Rather than producing idiomatic Malay renderings, surau scholars pursued rigorous grammatical engagement with Arabic texts, transforming translation into a tool of learning and inquiry. Translation was not primarily about finding lexical equivalents in Malay but was fundamentally an exercise in textual analysis. It served as a vernacular expression of the post-classical Islamic intellectual project—translation in form, textual analysis in substance. Keywords: Surau, Minangkabau, translation, literalism, textual analysis

This article explores the historical trajectory of the Javanese word utawi within the tradition of interlinear translation of Arabic Islamic texts from the 16th to the 19th century. While in contemporary usage—particularly within pesantren communities where this translation practice has largely survived—utawi serves as a marker of the mubtadaʾ (subject) in nominal sentences, earlier evidence reveals a more layered history. Based on close philological analysis of manuscripts, the study demonstrates that in the 16th and 17th centuries utawi was primarily employed to render the wāw al-istiʾnāf, an Arabic particle that signals the beginning of a new sentence or clause. Only gradually, especially during the 18th century, did utawi become stabilized as a marker of the mubtadaʾ, a pattern that continued into the 19th century and even today. This diachronic shift highlights not only the changing role of a single lexical item but also broader pedagogical and linguistic transformations in the Javanese Islamic tradition. By tracing these developments, the article contributes to a more precise understanding of the internal mechanics of interlinear translation and proposes that patterns of utawi usage can serve as valuable indicators for the dating of otherwise anonymous manuscripts. Ultimately, this study situates utawi as both a linguistic key and a historical witness to the intellectual practices that shaped Islamic learning in Java. Keywords: utawi, Arabic-Javanese interlinear translation, pesantren, Islamic manuscript culture, mubtadaʾ, wāw al-istiʾnāf.

Interlinear translations have been known in Indonesia’s Islamic communities since at least the late 16th century with extant evidence in the form of manuscripts pointing to their ongoing popularity in the following centuries. Such translations encompass important works composed in Arabic and rendered in the languages of the archipelago, and they touch upon key fields of knowledge, among them Islamic law, theology and grammar. But has this textual abundance been matched by the range of scholarly writings produced about this phenomenon? This paper asks if and how interlinear texts from Indonesia were studied by scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It does not attempt to offer an exhaustive survey but rather raises questions about how interlinear translations were perceived and points to possible trends that have helped shape the scholarly context for the Textual Microcosms project, currently exploring interlinear translation across the Indonesian-Malay world. Keywords: Indonesia, Java, Interlinear translation, colonial scholarship, pesantren

The article looks into two manuscripts containing copies of a thematic Arabic-Malay vocabulary titled al-Jadwal fī kalām al-ʿArab (A list in Arabic speech). Originating in mid-19th-century West Sumatra, the manuscripts are housed in the Leiden University Library with the numbers Or. 3231(8) and 3233(2) and belong to the collection of Dutch linguist Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk (1824–1894). The vocabulary features a list of Arabic words arranged in thematic sections and provided with Malay equivalents below the line. Starting with God’s names and words describing the natural world, it proceeds to sections dealing with human society and everyday life. The article discusses the encyclopaedic nature of such an arrangement and addresses the pedagogical functions of this thematic dictionary as a tool for teaching and learning Arabic as a foreign language in the Indonesian-Malay world. Juxtaposing two versions of the same text, it questions the modes of this text’s transmission and reasons for employing an interlinear model of translation in a dictionary. Considering the divergences between the two manuscripts as well as different misspellings they contain, the article argues that the interlinear Malay translations were transmitted separately from the Arabic wordlist. Keywords: Arabic-Malay lexicography, West Sumatra, dictionary, interlinear translation, Islamic education