The Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem is a Malay-language hikajat (prose romance) that presents itself as a chronicle of the sultans of Atjeh. Although Atjeh is not, in the strict linguistic sense, Malay-speaking territory — its language is, in Hooykaas’s words, “verwant met het Achter-Indische Tjampa” (related to the Cham of mainland Southeast Asia) — the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem “kan met enige goede wil tot de Maleise lectuur gerekend worden” (can with some goodwill be reckoned among Malay literature), and is included in Hooykaas’s survey of Malay literature. The text is, in Hooykaas’s reading, a Malay prose reworking of the Atjehnese mid-seventeenth-century epic *Hikajat Malém Dagang* — and is, in that sense, a Malay window onto the Atjehnese chronicle tradition.
Relationship to the Hikajat Malém Dagang
Hooykaas characterises the relationship bluntly: the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem is “niet eens oorspronkelijk Maleis” (not even originally Malay), but is “een ietwat droge proza-omwerking van de Atjehse midder-roma-in-interzee Hikajat Malém Dagang” (a somewhat dry prose reworking of the Atjehnese mid-seventeenth-century epic Hikajat Malém Dagang). The Malay adapter has, in Hooykaas’s judgement, not preserved the Atjehse humor of the original — the Atjehnese wit is “menigmaal verloren gegaan” (often lost) — but “ook zo is dit geschrift nog zeer wel de moeite van het kennisnemen waard” (even so, this writing is still very much worth knowing).
The events narrated in the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem, Hooykaas judges, “moeten op feiten teruggaan, maar zijn schier tot onherkenbaarwordens toe aan opsmuk onderhevig geweest” (must go back to facts, but have been subjected to embellishment almost beyond recognition). The text contains, however, a real historical core — the marshalling of soldiers by the sultan on coastal campaigns, the diplomatic talent required for the mobilisation, and the kětika (auspicious-moment) consultations that feature so prominently in the original Atjehnese epic are, in Hooykaas’s reading, “niet historisch dan toch realistisch” (not historical but at any rate realistic).
The Fakih Madinah Episode
The Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem preserves a literary trace of the *Fakih Madinah* character of the Atjehnese tradition — the pawang (ritual specialist) who, in the original Atjehnese epic and in this Malay reworking, repeatedly consults the kětika (auspicious-moment tables) and forbids the battle for days on end until the favourable moment arrives. Hooykaas notes that this detail — a Fakih Madinah, “dit is: wetgeleerde uit Medina” (i.e. jurisconsult from Medina), serving as a pawang aboard a war-fleet — illustrates the way the older pre-Islamic pawang tradition persisted in the Atjehnese-Malay world, with the Islamic specialist taking over the ritual functions of the pre-Islamic priest. The same character recurs, under the Atjehnese form Pakeh Madina, in the Hikajat Malém Dagang itself.
Place in the Malay Literary-Historical Genre
Hooykaas places the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem in his chapter on Geschiedschrijving in het Maleis (Malay historiography) alongside the Sadjarah Malajoe, the Hikajat Raja-Raja Pasai, the Hikajat Marong Mahawangsa of Kedah, and the Tambō Bangkaholo — the cluster of Malay-language chronicles that, however legendary their content, present themselves as historical narrative. In this group the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem is the only one that is, properly speaking, a translation rather than an original Malay composition, and the only one whose subject is a non-Malay-speaking polity.
Edition
The Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem was published in a Balai Poestaka (B.P.) edition as “Soeltan Atjéh Marhoem, BP 448, f 0.30”. The slim volume (the price of thirty cents indicates a small book) made the text widely accessible in the late colonial period, alongside the better-known Malay chronicles of Pasai and Malacca.
Significance
For AcehWiki, the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem is significant as the Malay-language window onto the Atjehnese chronicle tradition — the only Malay hikajat that takes an Atjehnese sultan as its subject, and the only Malay chronicle that is, properly speaking, a translation of an Atjehnese original. Its relationship to the Hikajat Malém Dagang is the principal evidence for the literary exchange between the Atjehnese and Malay literary traditions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and its preservation of the *Fakih Madinah*/Pakeh Madina episode is the principal textual evidence for the survival of pre-Islamic pawang practice in the Islamicised Atjehnese court.
See Also
- Hikajat Malém Dagang
- Fakih Madinah
- Pakeh Madina
- Sadjarah Malajoe
- Hikajat Raja-Raja Pasai
- Over Maleise Literatuur (1947)
- Pasai
- Acheh
- 17th-century
Source
Over Maleise Literatuur, by Dr. C. Hooykaas, Hoogleraarte Batavia; Tweede Druk (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1947), chapter 11 (“Geschiedschrijving in het Maleis”), pp. 95-96; chapter 3 (“Enige notities over volksgeloof”), p. 22; Toelichting tot de Sadjarah Malajoe, aantekening bij 24/2, p. 237.
Soeltan Atjéh Marhoem, Balai Poestaka (B.P.) no. 448, f 0.30.