The arrival and subsequent settlement of Islam in the Malay archipelago has to be one of the most remarkable instances of inter-civilisational dialogue and exchange in the history of the human race.

Islam's penetration pacifique into the Malay world brought about lasting changes and altered the socio-cultural landscape of the Malay people, but the process itself was highly complex and gradual.

What is more, the arrival of Islam to the region was not through force of arms, but rather via a process of accommodation and acculturation where the local genius of the people of the region shone through.

But it also has to be remembered that Islam's arrival to the Malay world took place during the pre-modern era when pre-modern subjects were not encumbered with a dialectical understanding of the Self and the Other.

This was a time when the world was not mapped out along clearly demarcated lines that divided between races, ethnicities and religions.

The first few centuries, after Islam's initial landfall, witnessed a rich and stimulating exchange between the new creed and the dominant ideas and belief-systems in the region - Hinduism, Buddhism and paganism.

It was during this period that these different worldviews (each with universalist claims of their own) came into close proximity with each other, and were made to interact.

Hardly a surprise, then, if the art and culture of the time reflected the hybrid and indistinct character of the moment.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the corpus of traditional Malay epics ( Hikayat ) that were written between the 14th and 17th centuries.

Emanating from the gilded world of the court, these Hikayat reflected the splendours of the past as well as the certainties of the present.

It is in the Hikayat that we see the changes that were taking place in the Malay world that was being rapidly reinvented thanks to the arrival of Islam and - not long after that - Western culture.

Different myths

One of the more interesting themes that pops up time and again in the Hikayat is the question of the arrival of Islam.

In texts such as the Hikayat Patani, Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai, Hikayat Syah Mardan (Hikayat Indera Jaya), Hikayat Inderaputera, Sejarah Melayu and others, we come across different myths and legends that tell of the coming of Islam to the Malay world in terms that can only be described as marvelous and fantastic.

The use of such narrative devices is not in itself all that surprising or irregular. After all, Islam's arrival was not an everyday event. It brought about a major paradigm shift in the Malay understanding of themselves, who they were and where they were located in the universal scheme of things. A new order of knowledge was being erected in place of the old.

But to suggest that Islam's arrival led to a complete and radical break from the past would also be twisting the facts of history a tad too far. For it is equally obvious that while Islam's impact was permanent, so was the enduring presence of the pre-Islamic Other.

This co-mingling between the past and present is something that comes across very clearly in many of the Hikayat we know. One such text is the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa , which is sometimes known as the Kedah Annals .

Hybrid text of a hybrid era

Like many other Hikayat , the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa itself is a highly eclectic piece of writing. Various linguistic, cultural and religious currents flow through it and the reader cannot help but listen to the chorus of different (at times competing and contesting) narratives that operate simultaneously.

The main characters themselves are a motley crew of rootless individuals: Merong Mahawangsa is the admiral of the fleet from the kingdom of Rum (Byzantine) which sets off to the east so that the prince of Rum may wed the princess of China. He is, we are told, the descendant of mortals and demigods (Indera and Dewas).

The opening episode of the Hikayat has Garuda (the winged steed of the Hindu God Vishnu) conversing with none other than Nabi Sulaiman (Solomon), a prophet of the Semitic tradition. Merong Mahawangsa finds himself stranded on the island of Langkapuri after his fleet is destroyed by the Garuda who has laid a bet with Solomon that he can stop the coming marriage and by doing so thwart the will of Allah.

Thus from the outset it is clear that the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa is a highly complex tale pregnant with different cultural influences. The presence of Hindu, Buddhist and pagan influences is clear to see, but the text was clearly written at a time when Islam had already taken root in the Malay world .

One of the main questions that the text tries to address, albeit in an oblique fashion, is the coming of Islam to this already fertile and over-determined world saturated with floating signifiers.

"Datanglah tuan Sheikh Abdullah anak negeri Yamani dibawa oleh Syaitan Iblis"

According to the Hikayat , Islam arrives in Kedah at the time of Raja Phra Ong Mahawangsa, whose reign is described as decadent and excessive. Like all good pre-Islamic rulers the Raja is a dipsomaniac and sybarite who obeys only his own will and desires.

An epicurean at heart, he leads a debauched and licentious life and pays little heed to the duties and responsibilities of state. (An easy thing to do when the coffers of state happen to be yours as well). Kedah then is described as being in a state of moral decay and financial ruin. The stage is thus set for Islam's timely arrival.

Narrative device

But Islam's arrival is not explained in accurate historical terms. Rather, the author of the Hikayat utilises the narrative device of an instrumental fiction instead. The Hikayat presents the coming of Islam through a complex and long-winding narrative that introduces a new character by the name of Sheikh Abdullah al-Yamani from Baghdad.

According to the Hikayat , there lived in Baghdad a wise and learned Muslim scholar by the name of Sheikh Abdullah al-Yamani (Abdullah of Yemen). Sheikh Abdullah had spent his entire life learning about religion and the law (Syariah) of Islam. But after mastering all that was to know, he desired to understand the nature of Evil and wished to meet the Devil himself. The Sheikh turned to his teacher (Sheikh Abdullah tua ) for advice, who in turn instructed him to meditate under a tree.

As he was meditating under the tree, the Sheikh was approached by none other than the 'Chief of the Devils' ( Penghulu Syaitan dan Iblis ). The Penghulu Syaitan offered to show Sheikh Abdullah the ways of evil, provided that the Sheikh abides by his rules and never intervenes when the Devil does what the Devil has to do.

The Sheikh complies with this condition, and they set off together. The Devil instructs the Sheikh to hold on to the end of his staff, and they both become invisible.

The Penghulu Syaitan takes the Sheikh on a journey across time and space. They cross several continents and the Devil shows the Sheikh how he wreaks havoc in the world: He sows doubt, fear and hatred in the hearts and minds of others, encourages them to murder and vice, starts numerous wars and conflicts (including marital conflict when he teaches the multiple (eight) wives of a rich merchant how to poison their husband and make him impotent so that they could have numerous affairs with other men) and so on.

Finally they both end up in Kedah, at the court of Raja Phra Ong Mahawangsa in Langkasuka. They arrive at dawn, just as the royal boozer was rousing from his slumber and recovering from his hangover from the night before. As the Raja reached for his cup of alcohol, the Devil pulled up his sarong and urinated in the royal chalice. When the Sheikh asked why the Devil was doing that, the Devil informed him that all alcohol had traces of his urine in it.

The Sheikh, obviously concerned about the niceties of courtly protocol, objects to the Devil's action and asks him to stop relieving himself in such an ungentlemanly way. On hearing the Sheikh's protest the Devil concludes that their contract is over as the meddlesome Sheikh had failed to live up to his promise to stay silent throughout their journey together. He pulls away his staff as he departs and the Sheikh immediately becomes visible again.

Caught unawares, the inebriated Raja is shocked to find an Arab standing before his bed. He asks the Sheikh to explain how he got there. (The reader is not told how the Sheikh from Yemen could speak Malay, but suspension of disbelief is one of the prerequisites of fiction.)

After hearing the Sheikh's story, the Raja is convinced that the Sheikh was telling the truth and declares that he will convert to Islam - a religion which forbids its followers to drink the Devil's urine, be they peasants or Kings. He summons his court and as soon as his four chief ministers arrive he addresses them thus:

'Hai saudaraku keempat, adapun beta suruh panggil saudaraku keempat ini, maka adalah pagi-pagi hari ini orang pun belum lagi jaga dari tidurnya, maka datanglah tuan Sheikh Abdullah anak negeri Yamani dibawa oleh Syaitan Iblis datang keperaduan beta sekali. Maka segala hal ehwal kerja kejahatan itu sangatlah gemarnya. Maka terlihatlah oleh tuan ini, maka ketakutanlah. Maka tuan itu pun ketinggalanlah susur kelambu beta, inilah yang menyuruh kita sekelian isi negeri Kedah ini membawa Shariat agama Islam yang diturunkan Allah ta'ala pada Nabi Muhammad Rasulullah hamba-nya lagi pesuruh-nya, ialah Nabi yang akhiru'l-zaman.' (pg. 102)

True to his word, the Raja converts to Islam (and is henceforth known as Sultan Mulzalfal Syah), stops drinking the Devil's brew and embarks on a radical interior design programme when he smashes every single idol in the palace (and the rest of the kingdom). But outward displays of new-found piety aside, the entire conversion episode in the Hikayat is worthy of closer analysis.

Speak of the Devil

It is interesting to note that it is Raja Phra Ong Mahawangsa who states that the coming of Islam to Kedah was thanks to the Devil himself ("Datanglah tuan Sheikh Abdullah anak negeri Yamani dibawa oleh Syaitan Iblis").

In this single line is contained a host of hugely complex and intricate questions of a theological and philosophical nature: The relationship between Good and Evil, the ambiguous character and status of the Devil who represents both valuable knowledge and all that is contrary to Goodness at the same time, and the necessity of Evil itself.

Such questions have been at the heart of Islamic as well as Christian theological debates for centuries, and similar questions were asked by Christian theologians in the Middle Ages who argued that Evil was a necessary component of Virtue, without which the latter could not by definition exist.

The Devil is also presented as someone who possesses knowledge (forbidden though it may be). What is more, it is the knowledge of the Devil that makes the Sheikh's own knowledge complete - thereby underwriting the idea that the Other is always a constitutive other and a necessarily condition for the fulfilment of the Self.

The relevance of the conversion episode to our concerns today is that it also shows how the arrival of Islam was post-rationalised by Malay-Muslim thinkers and writers in the past. The story of Sheikh Abdullah's miraculous journey with the Devil collapses the boundaries of time and space, and by doing so disrupts both the geographical and epistemological orders of the time.

The equivocal status of the Devil - as both messenger and impish miscreant - adds to the ambiguity of Islam's arrival even more. Can goodness come out of something that is bad? Can a deed remain virtuous if the means employed were less than so? And can the Devil help to do God's work?

These ambiguities (and many more like them) are forever recurring in the Hikayat of old. Unlike the dull and frozen texts of modern-day Islamist ideologues and preachers, the thinkers who penned the Hikayat of the past were individuals who understood the complexities of their age.

The ambiguity within their texts reflected the ambiguity of their times, but rather than erase these difficulties they emphasised them instead. They lived not in a world with fixed and impenetrable borders, but rather one where identities remained shifting, open and fluid.

Part II

will appear tomorrow.

Endnotes

Kedah annals

There are many different editions and versions of the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa , but the one edition that can easily be found in the local bookshops is the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa edited by Siti Hawa Salleh, published by Penerbit Universiti Malaya. Kuala Lumpur. 1970. (2nd ed. 1991).

Langkapuri

The location of Langkapuri is an important one. The reader is told that it was the land where Seri Rama and Raja Hanuman (of the Ramayana or Hikayat Seri Rama ) once lived.

But Rama and Hanuman have long since left and only the Garuda remains- as the last trace of the Hindu era of the past.

The Hikayat also mentions that in the past, the animals of the world could communicate with human beings, but this ability was lost when the new Prophet (Prophet Muhammad) came and brought with him the new teaching (Islam). Garuda therefore represents the final trace of the Hindu era, and the dialogue between Garuda and Solomon represents in narrative form the complex dialogue between Hinduism and Islam.

Malay world

The Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was probably written during the first half of the 17th century. It was written around the time when legal texts like the Kitab Undang-Undang Pelabuhan Kedah (1625) made their appearance and after Kedah was defeated by Aceh (in 1619) during the wars over the monopoly of pepper production in the region. By the 18th century it was well known in all the Malay courts of Kedah and Penang. (Hawa Salleh, 1991, pp. lviii-lix)