In the Acehnese Hikayat Raja Bada, the Malays personified the village of Badr — site of Muhammad’s first victory — as a beautiful prince named Badar. His father Handa’ (a personification of the khandaq, the defensive canal dug by the Prophet around Medina) is a powerful infidel king ruling men and jinns. Raja Bada and his father wage war on the Prophet and his followers, but all is decided by Ali’s bravery, and Yadib and his allies are defeated.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Raja Badar
Raja Badar (also Raja Bada) is a hero of the popular Islamic romances current in the Eastern Archipelago, mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese among the favourite figures of popular religious literature. He is named, together with Amir Hamzah (the uncle of the Prophet), Mohammad (ibnu’l) Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), and the hero Sam’un, as one of the protagonists of the Titanic wars and numerous love adventures whose stories “are such favourites in the Eastern Archipelago.”
Snouck Hurgronje’s notice occurs in the course of his discussion of the Indian influence upon the popular Islam of the archipelago. The stories of these heroes, he observes, are “all in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs.” It is “more particularly in British India that works of this sort are to be met with, nor is it possible that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia.” The conclusion he draws is that the popular Islam of the archipelago — in respect of its romances, its saints’ legends, and its festival customs — has been mediated chiefly through Hindustan, and only at second hand through the Arabic-speaking lands.
The figure of Raja Badar is a typical product of this Indo-Persian romance literature. Like his companions, he is a warrior of gigantic strength, a champion of Islam against the infidel, and the hero of innumerable amorous adventures; the historicity of his exploits is, from the point of view of sober Arabic tradition, altogether negligible. Such stories, Snouck Hurgronje proceeds, are not to be confounded with the more soberly transmitted legends of the Arab historians; they belong rather to the same class as “the absurd tales related of Husain and his companions, the martyrs of Kerbela,” which in their Indian form differ no less markedly from the Arabic tradition.
The mention of Raja Badar, together with Sam’un, is thus of interest less for any single Achehnese observance than for the picture it gives of the imaginative furniture of the Achehnese mind. The Achehnese, like other Muslim peoples of the archipelago, drew their popular religious reading from a body of romance literature that had taken shape in India and Persia; and the names of Raja Badar, Sam’un, Amir Hamzah and Mohammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah were as familiar to them as the names of the Prophet himself and his Companions. Such figures peopled the hikayat — the Malay and Achehnese recitations — that were read aloud in the meunasah and at private gatherings, and furnished the standard imagery by which the conflict between Islam and its enemies was imagined.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
In the Acehnese Hikayat Raja Bada, the Malays personified the village of Badr — site of Muhammad’s first victory — as a beautiful prince named Badar. His father Handa’ (a personification of the khandaq, the defensive canal dug by the Prophet around Medina) is a powerful infidel king ruling men and jinns. Raja Bada and his father wage war on the Prophet and his followers, but all is decided by Ali’s bravery, and Yadib and his allies are defeated.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Raja Badar
Raja Badar (also Raja Bada) is a hero of the popular Islamic romances current in the Eastern Archipelago, mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese among the favourite figures of popular religious literature. He is named, together with Amir Hamzah (the uncle of the Prophet), Mohammad (ibnu’l) Hanafiyyah (the son of Ali), and the hero Sam’un, as one of the protagonists of the Titanic wars and numerous love adventures whose stories “are such favourites in the Eastern Archipelago.”
Snouck Hurgronje’s notice occurs in the course of his discussion of the Indian influence upon the popular Islam of the archipelago. The stories of these heroes, he observes, are “all in conflict both with the history and the legendary tradition of the Arabs.” It is “more particularly in British India that works of this sort are to be met with, nor is it possible that they should have been disseminated to such an extent in any country closer to Arabia.” The conclusion he draws is that the popular Islam of the archipelago — in respect of its romances, its saints’ legends, and its festival customs — has been mediated chiefly through Hindustan, and only at second hand through the Arabic-speaking lands.
The figure of Raja Badar is a typical product of this Indo-Persian romance literature. Like his companions, he is a warrior of gigantic strength, a champion of Islam against the infidel, and the hero of innumerable amorous adventures; the historicity of his exploits is, from the point of view of sober Arabic tradition, altogether negligible. Such stories, Snouck Hurgronje proceeds, are not to be confounded with the more soberly transmitted legends of the Arab historians; they belong rather to the same class as “the absurd tales related of Husain and his companions, the martyrs of Kerbela,” which in their Indian form differ no less markedly from the Arabic tradition.
The mention of Raja Badar, together with Sam’un, is thus of interest less for any single Achehnese observance than for the picture it gives of the imaginative furniture of the Achehnese mind. The Achehnese, like other Muslim peoples of the archipelago, drew their popular religious reading from a body of romance literature that had taken shape in India and Persia; and the names of Raja Badar, Sam’un, Amir Hamzah and Mohammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah were as familiar to them as the names of the Prophet himself and his Companions. Such figures peopled the hikayat — the Malay and Achehnese recitations — that were read aloud in the meunasah and at private gatherings, and furnished the standard imagery by which the conflict between Islam and its enemies was imagined.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.