malay and islam?
Bismillaah
alhamdulillah today i managed to complete a set of readings for an upcoming tutorial session. it’s for malay studies and we are covering the malay world. there are lots of writings on sejarah melayu we had to read to dissect and introduce us to this topic.
firstly, we were introduced to the beginning of the malay world, how melayu came about. sources have cited that the malay world originated from palembang, dating way back to the 7th century AD during the srivijayan empire.
then there were discussions on whether sejarah melayu or the malay annals is a factual account of the malaccan empire or merely a work of fiction. this is due to (as i understand it) sejarah melayu containing illustrious anecdotes which may seem very much, or even too colourful and imaginative. imaginations of what copyists thought of how the malaccan sultanate was or would be. this line between fact and fiction doubted the use of sejarah melayu as a factual historical source.
though there exists doubts as to whether sejarah melayu is a reliable source for historical events, there is no doubt that ethical and moral elements have been incorporated in the stories that are being told. an article has stated that the central theme of sejarah melayu is injustice. injustice of the rulers that led to the downfall of the malaccan sultanate to the portuguese. this is said to be because of the ruler’s unjust rulings that go against the islamic law or hukum syarak that rulers were supposed to abide by, lest the kingdom will be punished by God. that fate was what befell the malaccan sultanate under its ninth ruler who ruled with an iron fist.
another central theme i picked up while going through the readings was the characteristics that make a community, Malay. what does it mean to be malay? how are you classified malay? to answer this question, there are distinctive characteristics of the malay bangsa, or race/nation, that malays can identify themselves with. this covers the scope of customs, laws, traditions and religion. a common identity that is said to unify malays is the religion: islam. to be malay is to be muslim, and interestingly vice versa. i guess especially in this region of SEA, to embrace islam is also to embrace the malay culture. it was stated that embracing islam was to ‘masuk Melayu’. which was interesting. i remembered watching menantu international on suria and the daughter in law was a chinese revert who was getting accustomed to islam and the way of living in a malay household. she became increasingly frustrated that malay tradition and culture were being imposed on her, leaving her with barely enough space to practise her own traditions. in situations like this, have we taken the notion of Malay Islam too far? viewing from an alternate perspective, are all malays obliged to be muslims? is a malay still malay if he/she does not identify as a muslim?
on the topic of religion, the writers conceded that there are a lot of hindu and buddhist (more of hindu) influences in malay and islamic practices. which confused me also la so are these islamic practices based on hindu practices or islamic practices which are based off syarak PLUS hindu influences? looking from a religious and fiqh perspective it should be based on syarak, nas dalil the works. would be interesting to see how hinduism has influenced islamic practices, aside from cultural practices.
the topic of how islam arrived in SEA was also touched on briefly. it was indian muslim traders who arrived on the shores of this region and spread islam, not arab traders as i have always believed. thus the language sanskrit heavily influenced malay terms which refer to religious tings, such as syurga (heaven), neraka (hell) and agama (religion), instead of arabic words like jannah, jahannam and deen respectively. the indian influence was far greater than that of arab/chinese muslim traders. now that i think of this, was this also how hinduism largely influenced malay/muslim culture? then are we also equating indians to hinduism? HMM
to end this off, just wanna leave a saying cikgu A always repeated in class: adat bersendikan syarak, syarak bersendikan kitabullah.
loosely translated as culture is based off islamic laws, which are based off al-quran. again, implying that both are equal. would that be a fair statement for one who does not fit the religious bill?
das all for tonight, alhamdulillah im so glad i got to get stuff done. celebr8ing the little accomplishments :-) kidding it’s not smol it’s big yeh hahahaha xD
much luv.