Over Maleise Literatuur — “On Malay Literature” — is a Dutch-language survey of Malay letters by Dr. C. Hooykaas, Hoogleraarte Batavia (Professor at Batavia), published in its second edition by E. J. Brill in Leiden in 1947. The work is a synthetic overview of the whole field of Malay literature — from proverbs and folk-belief through the hikajat romances, the chronicles, the pantun and sja’ir, the Islamic exemplum literature, and the modern Indonesian-language writing — and is a key secondary source for the AcehWiki corpus on the literary-historical connections between the Malay-speaking world and the sultanate of Atjeh. Hooykaas himself, in his introduction, notes that he had “never been able to stay on Sumatra or Malacca” — his synthesis was built on the printed scholarship of Overbeck, Rassers, van Ronkel, Rouffaer, Wilkinson and Winstedt, and on the texts themselves.
Genre and Method
The book is a handboek — a textbook — written in three years while Hooykaas was teaching at Batavia. It is organised into twenty-two chapters of thematic synthesis (proverbs, folk-belief, the pantun, the sja’ir, Hang Toeah, historiography, the hikajat, the Indian epics, the Pantja-tantra, the Amir Hamzah cycle, the Iskandar romance, the Muslim “mirror for princes”, the moderns), followed by two appendices: an extensive running commentary on the Sadjarah Malajoe (the Toelichting tot de Sadjarah Malajoe), and a bibliography of Malay texts and scholarship. The method throughout is the comparative one — Hooykaas constantly triangulates a Malay text against its Indian, Persian, Arabic, or Javanese analogues, and against the secondary literature.
Aceh-Related Content
The book’s significance for the AcehWiki corpus lies in the density of its Atjeh-related material. Hooykaas treats, at varying length, the following Atjeh-connected subjects:
- The Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem — a Malay prose reworking of the Atjehnese mid-seventeenth-century epic Hikajat Malém Dagang, of which Hooykaas observes that, while Atjeh is not Malay-speaking territory (Atjehnese being “verwant met het Achter-Indische Tjampa”), 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).
- The Hikajat Malém Dagang itself — the Atjehnese epic, of which the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem is “een ietwat droge proza-omwerking” (a somewhat dry prose reworking); Hooykaas notes the Atjehnese humour of the original is largely lost in the Malay adaptation, and that the kětika (auspicious-moment) consulting attributed to Pakeh Madina (= Fakih Madinah) is a real feature of the Atjehnese-Malay world.
- The Sadjarah Malajoe (Sejarah Melayu, the Malay Annals) — Hooykaas devotes the entire first appendix (some ninety pages) to a running commentary on the text, and treats in the body of the book the Bendahara (Tun Sri Lanang)‘s authorship, the 1612 date of composition, the 1613 Atjehnese attack on Batoe Sawar that interrupted the work, and the subsequent captivity of the Bendahara and his patron Sultan Alā’uddīn Ri’āyat Shāh III in Atjeh.
- The Tādj us-Salāṭīn (Crown of Kings) — the Muslim “mirror for princes” composed in Atjeh in 1607, of which Hooykaas provides a chapter-by-chapter summary.
- The Boestan oes-Salāṭīn (Garden of Kings) — written in Atjeh in 1638 by Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī at the command of Sultan Iskandar II, of which Hooykaas gives a detailed chapter-by-chapter synopsis, singling out the historical chapter (II) on “the vorsten of Atjéh and the godsdienstleraars daar te lande, voorgangers en tijdgenoten uit 16de en 17de ceuw” as, in his judgement, often more reliable than the Sadjarah Malajoe itself.
- The sultanate of Pasai — Hooykaas treats Pasai as the older, pre-Atjeh centre of Islamic learning on Sumatra’s north coast, the place from which Malacca repeatedly sought theological instruction in the fifteenth century, and the polity that in the early seventeenth century had to bow to the “machtige Atjéh” of Iskandar Muda (Mahkota ‘Alam).
- The Hikajat Raja-Raja Pasai — the Malay chronicle of Pasai, which Hooykaas treats in his chapter on historiography alongside the Sadjarah Malajoe and the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem.
- The conquest of Tjampa and the flight of one of its princes to Atjeh — Hooykaas notes, in his commentary on the Sadjarah Malajoe (chapter XXI), that “Tjams en Atjehs vertonen sterke samenhang” (Cham and Atjehnese show strong connection), and that the Sadjarah Malajoe itself records the flight of a Tjampa prince to Atjeh where he “grondvest daar het vorstelijk geslacht” (founds the royal dynasty there).
- The Hikajat Malim Déman — Hooykaas notes that this romance is shared by Malay, Menangkabau, Batak, and Atjehnese tradition, with the Atjehnese Hikajat Malém Diwa — “in zijn aantrekkelijke eenvoud” (in its attractive simplicity) — preserving the greatest resemblance to the Malay version.
- The folk-tale cycle of “Pandir” — Hooykaas records that the Atjehnese Pa’ Pandië or Si Gasiën Mēsēkin shares many traits with his Malay, Batak, Gayo, Menangkabau and Sundanese cousins, and cites C. Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers on the Atjehnese tradition.
- Atjehnese sja’ir — Hooykaas records that sja’ir’s on contemporary-historical themes (the “histoire contemporaine” satirically sung) come from “Atjeh en Baros” as well as from the Straits of Malacca, Batavia, and Borneo.
- The Boestan oes-Salatin’s chapter on Atjehnese history — Hooykaas, in his synopsis of the Bustan, singles out the historical chapter (II.m) on “the vorsten of Atjéh and the godsdienstleraars daar te lande” as containing, with its reliably-dated material, occasional information that “the preference blijken te verdienen boven de voorstelling van de SM” (proves to deserve the preference over the representation of the Sadjarah Malajoe).
- The genealogy of Malacca’s sultans — Hooykaas’s third appendix (“De Vorsten van Malakka en Djohor”) gives a detailed genealogy in which the 1613 and 1615 Atjehnese attacks on Batoe Sawar, the captivity of Sultan Alā’uddīn Ri’āyat Shāh III in Atjeh (where he died at Pasai), the marriage of his half-brother to a sister of Sultan Iskandar Muda, and the 1587 Atjeh-Portuguese treaty are all set out in chronological order.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Over Maleise Literatuur is significant as a synthetic Dutch-language survey that places the literary-historical connections between Atjeh and the Malay-speaking world within a single comparative frame. Hooykaas’s treatment of the Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem as a Malay reworking of the Atjehnese Hikajat Malém Dagang, his treatment of the Tādj us-Salāṭīn and the Boestan oes-Salāṭīn as Atjehnese-composed “mirrors for princes”, his treatment of Pasai as the older rival centre of Sumatran Islamic learning that Atjeh displaced, his treatment of the Atjehnese Hikajat Malém Diwa as the closest cousin to the Malay Hikajat Malim Déman, and his treatment of the Sadjarah Malajoe’s composition-history against the backdrop of the 1613 Atjehnese attack on Batoe Sawar — all make his book a key secondary source for any AcehWiki entry on a Malay text or literary tradition that touched Atjeh.
See Also
- Sadjarah Malajoe
- Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem
- Hikajat Malém Dagang
- Hikajat Raja-Raja Pasai
- Tādj oes-Salatina
- Bustanu’s-Salatin
- Sultan Iskandar Muda
- Pasai
- Fakih Madinah
- Bendahara Sri Lanang
- Batoe Sawar
- Djohor
- Malacca
- 1947
- 1612
- 1613
- 1638
Source
Over Maleise Literatuur, by Dr. C. Hooykaas, Hoogleraarte Batavia; Tweede Druk (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1947). Copyright 1947 E. Brill, Leyden, Holland. Printed in the Netherlands.