1Established in the early sixteenth century, the Banten Sultanate was subject to external interference from Dutch colonial powers from 1682 onwards. During the 1682 civil war, the Dutch allied with Abdul Kahar Abun Nasar (r. 1682-1687), better known as Sultan Haji, and supported his attempt to usurp the throne of his father, Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa (r. 1651-1682), who was strongly opposed to the increasing Dutch influence in the region (Tjandrasasmita 1967; Guillot et al. 1990: 53–57; Wessing 2014). Following the civil war, the Dutch effectively became overlords of Banten for the rest of the sultanate’s existence. There was one major rebellion against the Dutch, led by Kyai Tapa and Ratu Bagus Buang in the years 1750-1752, but following the failure of this rebellion the Dutch maintained an increasingly firm grip on the sultanate (Ota 2006: 59–74), until in 1808 H.W. Daendels, the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies at that time (1808-1811), claimed it as part of the Dutch colonial territories. In 1813, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (d. 1826), a British colonial official who acted as the Lieutenant Governor of Java from 1811 to 1816, forced the sultan to give up his throne, finally marking the end of the Banten Sultanate. Thereafter, the extended royal family was asked to leave the palace and moved to the village of Caringin, a coastal area in southern Banten. The Dutch then appropriated the sultanate’s property, including a large collection of Islamic books that formed part of the Banten royal library. The palace itself was destroyed in 1832, despite the efforts of the local Bantenese population to protect it (Boontharm 2003: 51–119).
2The impact of colonialism on this territory was very real. This article addresses one particular consequence of the abolishment of the Banten Sultanate: the effects of the colonial government’s appropriation of the property owned by the Bantenese royal family and state. I explore the impact of the loss of the Banten royal library because of the Dutch decision to transfer the Islamic book collection during the 1830s to the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences (Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, founded by the Dutch in 1778) in Batavia, now Jakarta. This library had a total of 116 Islamic books. The destruction of the palace following the abolition of the Bantenese kingdom brought an end to all activities that had traditionally taken place in the palace milieu. The palace was not just a centre of Islamic learning, where teachers and students met, but also provided them with access to textbooks and manuscripts of the royal library. One obvious impact of the transfer of the royal Islamic books collection to Batavia was that the local population lost access to the documents held in the royal library. This collection constituted an important cultural repository of knowledge that greatly contributed to the Islamic intellectual development of the whole archipelago.
3A secondary effect of the loss of this cultural archive was that the intellectual history of the region has also been lost to subsequent generations of scholars. This article thus seeks to reconstruct the development of Islamic intellectual history in this part of the archipelago through exploration of the books that once formed part of the Banten royal library, later held in the collection of the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences.
4Gallop and Akbar (2006), in their survey of the Islamic books collection from eighteenth-century Banten, first examined 13 Banten Qur’ans probably dated from this period. They confirmed the reception of Indo-Persian Islamic arts in the copied Qur’ans. My previous studies focused on the examination of some Banten Qur’ans with interlinear translations in Malay (Nurtawab 2020) and Javanese (Nurtawab & Syukroni 2023), and how these translation texts served Islamic pedagogical practices in the palace. In another study, I have analysed Qur’anic reading and verse numbering systems in three Banten Qur’ans that contain identical Malay translation texts (mss. A.51, W.277 and RAS Arabic 4) (Nurtawab 2023). A more comprehensive study of the Banten Royal library has been conducted by Peacock (2024), as part of his research on the Arabic literary culture developed in Southeast Asia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, using the whole collection as part of his primary sources.
5As it is clearly beyond the scope of one article to examine the entire contents of the library, here I will only address one aspect, that is the Qurʾan commentary in the collection. From my preliminary investigation, Qurʾan commentaries constitute a remarkable proportion of the volumes in the collection, an importance which could reflect the development of an advanced level of Qurʾanic studies within the palace milieu. In addition, many of the extant Arabic commentaries are large in terms of their physical size, a feature which seems to accord with local practice in the production of Qurʾans. Indeed, as noted by Gallop and Akbar (2006: 95–156), Qurʾans from Banten were made in a large size, uncommon anywhere else in the archipelago.
6In the final section of the article, I discuss two particular Arabic commentaries: mss. A.62 and A.63, which both bear the title Tafsīr al-Asrār (the commentary of secrets). To my knowledge, no Arabic commentary prior to the eighteenth century, bearing this title, seems to have been identified in the Islamic world. After examining a selection of pages from A.62, it is clear that this manuscript includes a work called ʿArāʾis al-Bayān by Ruzbihān al-Baqlī (d. 1209), a famous thirteenth century Sufi and Islamic scholar from Persia. It seems that the title Tafsīr al-Asrār, as written in the title page and the colophon, constitutes a local epithet for al-Baqlī’s commentary. The inclusion of al-Baqlī’s commentary as part of the Banten royal library collection shows that this book was used in the study of the Qurʾan, which raises several questions. First, who actually initiated the copying of this commentary? Second, what can we extrapolate from the existence of al-Baqlī’s commentary within the milieu of the Banten Sultanate in terms of relationships with Sufi scholarship in the wider Islamic world up to the eighteenth century? Third, why did the copyists of A.62 and A.63 apparently obscure the original title and author? The inclusion of al-Baqlī’s commentary in the royal collection might also cast some light on the historical role played by the Pakih Najimuddin (the most senior Muslim leader in the Banten Sultanate), and the development of the Kubrawi Sufi Order following the establishment of the sultanate in the early sixteenth century.
7After the civil war in 1682, the Banten Sultanate still held power over its territory, although its rulers were subject to Dutch approval, in return for which they received military support. In the following decades, various minor internal conflicts troubled the reign of Sultan Zain al-Arifin (r. 1733-1748). However, it was not until a major rebellion led by Kyai Tapa and Ratu Bagus Buang in 1750-1752 against the Dutch and the then ruling Sultana, Ratu Syarifa, that a truly dangerous situation was created in Banten. Realising that giving Ratu Syarifa the throne had caused political turbulence, the Dutch forced her to abdicate, instead appointing Sultan Regent Adi Santika, and later Sultan Zain al-Asyiqin (r. 1753-1777), to secure their commercial interests (Boontharm 2003: 52; Ota 2006: 59–74).
8The appointment of a new Governor General of the Dutch East Indies, H.W. Daendels, in the first decade of the nineteenth century can also be considered a crucial moment in terms of Dutch control over Bantenese territory. Daendels was disappointed by the Banten Sultanate’s failure to complete the Merak port project, which the Dutch intended to use to facilitate their trading activities in the area, and he blamed the sultan for his unwillingness to cooperate. As a result, Daendels delegitimised the sultan’s status by implementing a number of new, tighter regulations in 1808, one of which was the direct annexation of the Banten Sultanate. This involved moving the sultanate’s administrative centre to Serang, approximately ten kilometres south of the palace. In 1813, Raffles then completely dissolved the sultanate, forcing the sultan to give up his throne.
Fig. 1 – Map showing Surosowan Palace and the surrounding city of Banten, by Laurent Lusson, 1780.
Image in the public domain, Leiden University Library Collections (COLLBN 002-09-009)
- 1 For a detailed ground plan, see Guillot et al. 1990; Boontharm 2003; and Ueda et al. 2016.
9Ever since the sultanate’s beginnings, the centre of government had remained in the same place, Surosowan Palace (Fig. 1). The original palace was built during the reign of Maulana Hasanuddin (r. 1552-1570), but was burned down by Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa (r. 1651-1682) during the 1682 civil war. Rebuilt and fortified by Sultan Haji, the palace then underwent restoration and the construction of additional buildings during the eighteenth century.1 The royal library must have been in the palace complex, which also functioned as the region’s main centre of Islamic learning. Islamic teaching and learning activities were also conducted in the Great Mosque built next to the palace. In addition to the palace and the Great Mosque, there was another established centre for Islamic learning in a major mosque in the village of Kasunyatan, situated a few kilometres from the centre of government. Kasunyatan Mosque, which is still standing today, was built during the very early years of the sultanate, and Maulana Muhammad (r. c. 1585-1596), the third Banten Sultan, is said to have endowed it with various books for teachers to use as manuals of Islamic learning (Bruinessen 1995: 173–174). The landscape of Islamic learning in the Banten Sultanate appears to have remained stable for almost 300 years, and it seems safe to assume that the Islamic books that once formed part of the royal library must have circulated around these venues, to support their Islamic teaching and learning activities.
10Following the abolition of the sultanate in 1808 and the dethronement of the last sultan in 1813, Dutch colonial attention shifted to the palace’s furnishings, artworks, and other physical artefacts. Groot (2009: 272–274) provides a detailed historical record of how Banten royal property was acquired and moved to various other places during the 1830s, especially when it comes to those items that were transferred to the Bataviaasch Genootschap. On 9 October 1833, a government instruction was issued regarding the distribution of the royal goods and chattels. The General Secretariat (Algemene Secretarie) was ordered to handle all the manuscripts and documents. Meanwhile, the Bataviaasch Genootschap was given the responsibility of handling a number of items, including a complete set of musical instruments (gamelan), now among the collections of the National Museum at Jakarta. Some other items from the royal household, including an incomplete set of gamelan, were distributed to local residents. Residents of Batavia were also ordered to dispense with a number of other items from the royal collection, either by selling them or by burning the remains (ibid.: 272–274; Peacock 2024: 267–275).
11An instruction issued by the Dutch authorities on 9 October 1833, No. 13, refers to 116 Islamic books from Banten (Fig. 5). Based on a note dated 28 November 1835 in the last section of the document, book no. 21 (Tafsīr al-Baghawī) was sent to the Sultan of Tidore for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, another three books (nos. 23, 33 and 34), were transferred to the Bataviaasch Genootschap in 1833. All the other extant books (112 items), which had previously been kept at the Algemene Secretarie were finally transferred to the Bataviaasch Genootschap in 1835 (ANRI KBG 0095; see also Groot 2009: 272–274; Gallop and Akbar 2006: 141–143). In his analysis of these books, Groot (2009: 274) remarks that the history of the royal collection of Banten shows us how the Dutch colonial government resolved the problems that the political turbulence in the Banten Sultanate created for them, and the side effects their handling of the situation had on the local cultural heritage. It cannot be denied that their decision to move the royal library did, however, favour Batavia residents, for whom a number of Islamic manuscripts and many other antiques came to form a valuable part of their museum collection until today.
12We return now to the discussion of the Islamic manuscript collection held in the Bataviaasch Genootschap. A few years after the relocation process, an attempt was made to catalogue and identify the whole collection. In September 1839, W.R. van Hoëvell, a member of the Bataviaasch Genootschap, asked W.H. Medhurst, a specialist of Arabic, to arrange all the manuscripts from the Banten royal library in an appropriate order. For this purpose, all the manuscripts were transferred into an empty building in the English Church area so that Medhurst was able to supervise the process of identification. An interim note regarding the progress of this work can be found in the minutes of a Bataviaasch Genootschap meeting held in December 1939 (ANRI KBG 0095; see also Gallop and Akbar 2006: 143). Another project to catalogue the manuscript collection of the Banten royal library took place in the 1870s, undertaken by R. Friederich and L.W.C. van den Berg. This catalogue appeared in print in 1873, published by Bruining et Wijt, a publishing house based in Batavia. After independence, the collection of Islamic manuscripts from the former Banten royal library, together with thousands other manuscripts from various regions of the Indonesian archipelago, were merged to create the embryonic manuscript collection of the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia (Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, or PNRI).
13Although the process of transferring the Banten royal library collection is well-recorded in Dutch colonial documents, several manuscripts that probably came from this collection also found their way into private collections or the holdings of other institutions. For example, ms. W.277 and ms. W.278, which are Qurʾans that probably originate from eighteenth-century Banten, were at some stage part of the collection of Hermann von de Wall (1807-1873). His collection was handed over to the Bataviaasch Genootschap in 1873, at which point these two Qurʾan manuscripts were reunited with their other royal library holdings. Another such manuscript is ms. LUB Cod. Or. 5678, which is now part of the collection of Leiden University Library. This manuscript was previously owned by C. Snouck Hurgronje, who donated it to Leiden University in 1906 (Gallop & Akbar 2006: 96–97). A final example is ms. RAS Arabic 4, a Qurʾan with Malay interlinear translation that probably hails from eighteenth-century Banten. Presented by Admiral C.M. Pole Bart on June 19, 1830, this manuscript is now part of the Royal Asiatic Society of United Kingdom and Ireland’s collection.
14In this section, I emphasise the importance of looking at Qurʾans and Arabic Qurʾan commentary manuscripts as constituent parts of the Banten royal collection. Those who taught Islamic studies and copied Qurʾanic texts and Islamic works in the palace milieu were certainly a distinguished group of select scholars with a high profile in Islamic scholarship. To some extent, some of the calligraphers must have been familiar with the existing visual arts and material culture of the indigenous people. However, the various qualifications and skills that the manuscript copyists acquired must have been the result of intensive training, both in the palace milieu and/or from academic visits to the global centres of Islamic studies in the Arab and Indo-Persian worlds.
15In their analysis of thirteen Qurʾanic manuscripts from Banten (five of which were formerly part of the royal library collection), Gallop and Akbar (2006: 95–96) admit that the illumination of a manuscript is usually a dominant factor in assessing its aesthetic aspects. However, their examination of these Qurʾanic copies reveals an anomaly in that this aspect seems not to appear to play such a key role in the Banten manuscript tradition. When it comes to the calligraphy used in the manuscripts, the copies of the Qurʾan produced in Banten demonstrate a remarkable level of advanced techniques compared to those produced in other parts of the archipelago. Gallop and Akbar (2006) further indicate that a sophisticated level of Islamic arts was well-established in Banten, and it is also evident that many aspects of Bantenese calligraphic artistry were heavily influenced by developments in the Indo-Persian region. When it comes to the influence of Islamic art and scholarship from other regions, in the last two sections of this article I will build on their findings and elaborate on how Persian tafsīr scholarship also contributed to Qurʾanic exegetical discourse in eighteenth-century Banten.
16As mentioned above, the extant copies of the Qurʾan from Banten are often large in terms of their physical size, a tendency which is also true of Bantenese works of Qurʾan commentary, some of which also included translations. The most frequently translated Qurʾan commentary in the Bantenese palace milieu was certainly Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (henceforth, the Jalālayn), which was authored by two Egyptian scholars: Jalāl al-Din al-Maḥallī (d. 1459) and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505). Studies about Banten Qurʾans which include translations into Malay and Javanese have demonstrated the privileged position that this work played in these translation works (Nurtawab 2020: 169–189; Nurtawab & Syukroni, 2023: 19–36).
17The fact that the Jalālayn served as the main reference in the production of these interlinear translations of the Qurʾan is consistent with the significant number of Jalālayn manuscripts in the royal collection. Furthermore, as mentioned above, some of the copies of Jalālayn were made in a multi-volume, large format which in some ways corresponds to the characteristic format of the large-sized Banten Qurʾans. In these Jalālayn manuscripts, in addition to providing a translation of the Qurʾanic verses, the copyist[s] sometimes also included extra information relating to grammatical explanations, and added in symbols that serve as tajwīd signs.
18The existence of such extra information in the Jalālayn copies clearly shows that they were not only meant to offer instruction in tafsīr, as these copies also provided training in Qurʾanic recitation and the grammatical understanding of Arabic texts. While in other parts of the Islamic world this two-part commentary was usually produced in single-volume format, some of the copies of the Jalālayn produced in the eighteenth-century Banten Sultanate clearly involved a different visual imagination of how this work should look, as a large, multi-volume format was adopted.
19The first copy of the Jalālayn that attracted my attention is ms. A.55, which consists of five volumes (a-e). The manuscript is written on European paper in a very large folio format (48.5 × 34.5 cm). Each volume contains only one section (juzʾ, pl: ajzāʾ) of the Qurʾan. These five volumes thus comprise five ajzāʾ, that are juzʾ 1, 3, 4, 13, and 22, respectively. The other 25 volumes that presumably contain the other 25 ajzaʾ have not been found.
- 2 On kitab kuning, see Bruinessen 1990: 226–269.
20A.55a contains the texts of the Qurʾan and the Jalālayn, with Javanese interlinear translations of both Arabic works placed underneath the Arabic source text. The copyist has also included extra information on the grammatical points of each word written diagonally or vertically above the Arabic text of the Qurʾan, possibly indicating an attempt to provide information on grammatical aspects of the source text. In later developments, we know this practice—–locally known as loghatan (Javanese) or ngalogat (Sundanese)–—became very popular among students at traditional Islamic learning centres. When listening to the kyai’s reading of the kitab kuning (books in Arabic script used in the pesantren milieu), students took notes by writing specific symbols that designate grammatical points relating to each word read by the kyai.2 Likewise, this copy also contains symbols indicating the tajwīd, making it useful as a manual for learning how to read the Qurʾanic text aloud. The addition of all this extra information makes this copy of the Jalālayn among the most complete manuscripts in the collection in terms of text variations. Moreover, it is very large and offer the longest written extent in the entire collection (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 – A page of A.55a (the Jalālayn with Javanese translations), Collection of Perpustakan Nasional Republik Indonesia
Photograph by Ervan Nurtawab, 2024, courtesy of PNRI
21The way the various texts were written with different inks in A.55a is unusual. Usually, in the manuscript tradition, red ink is used to rubricate specific parts of the texts or to write text subjected to interpretation within the same work. Black ink is used to write standard text or for text that functions as a gloss for the text written in red. Therefore, in Qurʾan commentary manuscripts, the Qurʾanic text is conventionally written in red, and the commentary text in black. A.55, however, is an anomaly as the copyist used red ink to write the Jalālayn text, and black ink for the Arabic Qurʾanic verses, the Javanese interlinear translation, and the diagonal and/or vertical text explaining grammatical points. This oddity aside, the writing is neat and professional in appearance, and the manuscript also contains no trace of any users’ notes or scribbles, indicating that it may have been a master text, that is a reference to support pedagogical practice. Examination of the other four volumes reveals that the degree of paratextual information on grammatical points decreases, and that the text appears to be written with a more vertical alignment.
22Ms. A.59a-d are similar to A.55 as regards the use of different inks for different texts (Fig. 3): red ink for the Jalālayn text, black ink for the Qurʾanic text. This manuscript also contains Javanese interlinear translations, indicating that both manuscripts may indeed be related in terms of both their production and usage. However, the four volumes of this manuscript, listed in the catalogue by Friederich and van den Berg (1873: 68), do not comprise the entire Jalālayn text, indicating that A.59 may have originally been a complete work in five or six volumes. This is based on the fact that, for example, A.59a contains the Arabic texts of both the Qurʾan and the Jalālayn, along with interlinear translation in Javanese, from Sūrat al-Nisāʾ: 24 (juzʾ 5) to Sūrat al-Anfāl: 40 (juzʾ 9). Thus, volume a contains five sections of the Qurʾan (ajzāʾ 5-9).
Fig. 3 – The final pages of ms. A.59a (the Jalālayn with Javanese translation). Collection of Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia
Photograph by PNRI, 2016, courtesy of PNRI
23We now turn our attention to another Jalālayn manuscript from the collection, ms. A.56. This manuscript is of a smaller format (31.5 × 19.5 cm). In contrast to the items described above, here the use of different inks for the texts accords to the common practice: red ink used to rubricate the Qurʾanic text, which automatically acted as the source text, while the interpretive, Jalālayn text, is written in black. A.56 contains a number of scribbled notes written by readers (most likely students) that might guide us to an understanding of some of the tafsīr learning activities that used this work as a manual. The first thing of note is the fact that the manuscript is appended with a number of separate, scribbled words, placed diagonally below the Arabic text, that seem to have functioned as explanations of the grammatical points of certain words and to give Javanese translations of some words. There are also some marginalia, written diagonally in Arabic, that provide further commentary on the Qurʾanic verses (Fig. 4). With regards to the former, it is safe to assume that the activity of adding grammatical notes on the text being studied is a pedagogical practice that has existed in Banten—and, indeed, throughout the archipelago—since as early as the eighteenth century.
24Some of the Jalālayn manuscripts conform to a standard format. Two such examples are ms. A.57 (27 × 20 cm), and ms. A.58, both of which are multi-volume works. On the basis of the colophons found in both manuscripts, we can assume that their copying took place in the same year, 1153 H / 1740-1741 AD.
25We now turn our attention to Qurʾan manuscripts that contain interlinear translations. There are at least three Qurʾans that contain identical translations in Malay (mss. A.51, W.277 and RAS Arabic 4) and one containing Javanese translation (ms. A.54). Examination of the three Qurʾans with Malay translations reveals an interesting textual relationship. A.51 was written using a non-Ḥafṣ reading system, that is reading by the primary transmitters of the Qurʾan recitation methods (qirāʾāt) other than Ḥafṣ (d. 796). Ḥafṣ was and remains the most popular method used by the majority of Muslims, and provides more complex information regarding qirāʾāt options and the adoption of different numbers of verses from the recognised traditions. Both types of information are presented as marginalia.
Fig. 4 – A page of Tafsīr al-Jalālayn in A.56. Collection of Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia
Photograph by PNRI, 2016, courtesy of PNRI
26Qurʾans W.277 and A.51 are identical in terms of their translation texts and text layout. However, this is not the case with the writing of the actual Qurʾanic text: the copyist of Qurʾan W.277 attempted to change the Warsh/Qālūn qirāʾa used for copying Qurʾan A.51 to that transmitted by Ḥafṣ. Physically, Qurʾan W.277 also looks simpler, due to the elimination of extra information in the margins that is included in Qurʾan A.51. Meanwhile, it is possible that Qurʾan RAS Arabic 4, which is a single-volume Qurʾan, in which the copyist appears to have consistently applied the Ḥafṣ reading, might give us some insight into the ways these three manuscripts might be related. These possible close connections concern their copying processes and the ways they were used for teaching. In a previous study, I contend that Qurʾan RAS Arabic 4 might be the most recently created Qurʾan copy in the royal collection, as its copyist seems to have referred to both Qurʾans A.51 and W.277 (Nurtawab 2023: 11–19).
- 3 On the reception of the Jalālayn in translations found in Banten Qurʾans, see Nurtawab (2020: 181–1 (...)
27Qurʾan A.54 is also interesting in terms of its calligraphic style. As Gallop and Akbar (2006: 111) have noted, the Arabic calligraphy of this copy is not identical with that used in either Qurʾan W.277 or A.51, the respective styles of which were heavily influenced by Indo-Persian calligraphic arts. Meanwhile, the calligraphic style used in Qurʾan A.54 appears to have been influenced by the muḥaqqaq style. This indicates that there may have been several different ‘groups’ of calligraphers working for the kingdom, each of which developed his own preferences with respect to calligraphic style. However, despite their different preferences in Arabic calligraphy, the copyists of these three Qurʾans clearly agreed on the use of the Jalālayn as the bridge to facilitate understanding of the Qurʾanic text among Malay and Javanese speakers.3
28Apart from the Jalālayn manuscripts, the Banten royal library collection also includes a manuscript of Tafsīr al-Baghawī. As Friederich and van den Berg (1873: 69) noted, this manuscript is neatly written, most of the Arabic text is accompanied by interlinear translations in Javanese and is vocalised. The existence of a translation of a tafsīr manuscript other than the Jalālayn indicates that translation played a significant role in tafsīr scholarship in eighteenth-century Banten. Translation practices were developed not only to convey the meaning of the Qurʾanic text to Javanese speakers, but were also used to facilitate the comprehension of Arabic tafsīr works that were at that time considered important in the Islamic world in general. The choice of tafsīr works also confirms that the development of Banten Islamic scholarship in many ways followed global trends in Islamic intellectual development. With a high level of probability, we can say that Bantenese Islamic scholarship acquired the same level of academic excellence as that achieved by other great Islamic intellectual traditions, such as those developed in India or Central Asia, in which Arabic had to coexist with major local languages. In all of these milieus, the role of translation proves to be very important in bringing Arabic Islamic works to non-Arabic speakers.
29The last manuscript to be discussed in this section is ms. A.60, which comprises a gloss of the Jalālayn entitled Jamālayn li-l-Jalālayn by Nūr al-Dīn ibn Sulṭān Muḥammad al-Qārī (d. 1605). The colophon mentions that it was copied in 1178 H /1764 AD, and provides the name of its owner, Pangeran Ratu Abu al-Mafakhir. There is also a name written underneath that of Abu al-Mafakhir: Muhammad ʿAliyuddin. It seems likely that both names refer to a single person, Abu al-Mafakhir Muhammad ʿAliyuddin (r. 1773-1799), who probably initiated or ordered the copying of this commentary work. The year 1764 indicates that the manuscript copy was created ten years before the installation of Muhammad ʿAliyuddin on the throne, during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Arif Zayn al-Asyiqin (r. 1753-1773).
30The information provided in this colophon is illustrative of a common practice among the Bantenese intellectual elites, who were often invested in developing Islamic scholarship. They were responsible for ordering the copying of many Islamic works, and initiated translation projects of works that they considered important, and would therefore be accessible to those who had no access to Arabic. The majority of translated tafsīr works in the royal library were translated into Javanese, reflecting the fact that this language, which was the predominant language in the daily life of the Bantenese people, was used for educational instruction (Nurtawab 2020), as well as for court administration (Yakin 2016).
31I suggest that the Bantenese ruling classes and intellectual elites actively sought out knowledge of the most dynamic Islamic scholarship in the outside world, specifically in terms of the Southeast Asian region. One obvious example of this effort was their attempts to find out the details of a controversy over the Sufi teachings of two prominent Malay Sufi mystical figures of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Aceh: Hamzah Fansuri and Syamsuddin al-Sumatra’i (Al-Attas 1966; Peacock 2024: 58–111). Their very active participation in seeking to understand the realities behind this controversy was probably motivated by their desire to select what elements of Sufism they deemed proper to develop in the Bantenese palace milieu, especially in terms of the study of the Qurʾan. Indeed, it may well be that one manifestation of their interest in this area can be seen in the decision to include the text of ʿArā’is al-bayān, a Qurʾan commentary by the prominent thirteenth century Persian mystic, Ruzbihān al-Baqlī of Shiraz (d. 1209), in the royal library.
32In this section, I discuss the existence of two copies of al-Baqlī’s Sufi commentary in the Banten royal library. It is of particular significance because no other eighteenth-century copies of this work have been identified so far in other parts of the archipelago. It is already established that the Bantenese sultans welcomed the development of more normative Islamic scholarship, but they were also enthusiastic about Sufi discourses and religious practices, which led them to commission manuscripts of the Sufi approaches to and interpretations of the Qurʾan. Evidence of this interest is provided by the inclusion in the royal library of two manuscripts, both entitled Tafsīr al-Asrār, which were copied in the early and late eighteenth century.
Fig. 5 – The instruction No. 13, dated 9 October 1833. Tafsīr al-Asrār and four other Arabic commentaries comprise the first eight entries in this list of 116 Islamic manuscripts transferred from the Banten royal library to the Bataviaasch Genootschap
ANRI KBG 0095; photograph by Ervan Nurtawab, 2024, courtesy of ANRI. An annotated transcription of the whole list is provided by Peacock (2024: 415–431).
- 4 1527 AD is now the most likely year of his death. See Guillot and Kalus (2000, 2001), but also Brag (...)
33The bloody conflicts between the followers of two Malay Sufi mystics, Hamzah Fansuri (d. c. 1527)4 and Syamsuddin al-Sumatra’i (d. 1630), and their opponent, Nuruddin al-Raniri (d. 1658), that took place in seventeenth-century Aceh had a great effect on the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition in the region over the following decades. In Banten, both Sultan Abu al-Mafakhir (r. 1596-1647) and his successor, his son Sultan Abu al-Maʿali Ahmad (r. 1647-1651), for example, seemed to have been very interested in investigating this controversy, as they reportedly sought out information about it from Nuruddin al-Raniri himself (van Bruinessen 1995: 167–168). Another sure indication of the Bantenese elites’ interest in Sufism can be seen in their warm and enthusiastic welcome of a famous mystic and Islamic scholar from Makassar, Yusuf al-Maqassari (d. 1699), in the second half of the seventeenth century, and his subsequent integration into palace life for around sixteen years.
34As mentioned in the introduction, the Banten royal library collection includes two manuscripts that bear the title Tafsīr al-Asrār, that is A.62 and A.63. The latter is older, the year of copying being given as 1131 H / 1718-1719 AD, and consists of seven volumes (a-g). A.63 contains two texts: an Arabic text written in red ink and a Javanese text in black. The Javanese text functions as interlinear translation and is written diagonally in a smaller size underneath the Arabic. A.62 was copied at a later date, given in the colophon as 27 Shaʿbān 1196 H / 7 August 1782. In contrast to A.63, A.62 only contains Arabic text, which was written using two different colour inks: red ink for the Qurʾanic text, and black ink for the commentary. Apart from being identified in Friederich and van den Berg’s 1873 catalogue, to the best of my knowledge neither manuscript has ever been discussed in a scholarly work. Therefore, I will attempt to provide here some basic information on the work itself, and then ascertain the reason for the inclusion of these two manuscripts in the royal library collection, given the tendency of the royal court to agree with certain schools of Islamic thought, especially when it came to the study of the Qurʾan.
35Although the manuscripts were copied several decades apart, they are very likely related, in that the newer copy (A.62) may have been made based on consideration of the physical condition of the older (A.63), which is in much worse condition. One strong indication of a direct textual relationship is the fact that both manuscripts begin at the same point, with the same verse in Sūrat al-Baqarah, despite the fact that they use different wording. For example, the first page of A.63 bears the information:
Sūrat al-Baqarah […] saking wa-lakum fī al-qiṣāṣ ḥayāh yā uli al-albāb laʿallakum tattaqūn sūrat Ali ʿImrān Sūrat al-Nisāʾ Sūrat al-Māʾidah. Al-juzʾ al-awwal (Sūrat al-Baqarah […] from [the verse] wa-lakum fī al-qiṣāṣ ḥayāh yā uli al-albāb laʿallakum tattaqūn Sūrat Ali ʿImrān Sūrat al-Nisāʾ Sūrat al-Māʾidah. First Volume (see Figs 6a and 6b).
36Although the text of A.63 is still legible, the manuscript is damaged, and it seems very likely that at the time A.62 was copied in the late eighteenth century this was already the case. It is quite possible that, at the time, the royal library did not possess another copy of the text of Tafsīr al-Asrār to use as a master copy, and that the copyist of A.62 had to rely on A.63 for the re-copying process. This is why the copyist omitted the whole Sūrat al-Fātiḥah and verses 1-174 of Sūrat al-Baqarah. However, the reason why the copyist of A.62 omitted the Javanese translation of the Arabic source text and made the work more compact, in one volume, warrants further investigation.
Fig. 6a – A page from the beginning of A.63, showing a note that the text starts at Q. 2: 179.
Collection of Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia (photograph by PNRI, 2023, courtesy of PNRI).
Fig. 6b – The text in A.62 starts at Q. 2: 179, showing its resemblance to the title page of A.63 above.
Collection of Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia (photograph by PNRI, 2023, courtesy of PNRI).
37As Friederich and van den Berg (1873: 69–70) have observed, the use of corrosive ink badly damaged the paper used in A.63 and contributed to the manuscript’s decay, especially in volumes a and c. The main text in red is damaged to the extent that it is almost illegible. With support from the staff of the Perpustakaan Nasional Indonesia, my current investigation of all of the volumes (a-g) of this manuscript suggests that the majority of the pages in every volume were almost impossible to open, due to their sticky and corroded condition. Examination of the few folios that manage to be opened, thanks to the kind help of library staff, indicates that the Javanese text, written diagonally underneath the Arabic words, is relatively legible (see Fig. 7).
Fig. 7 – The beginning section of Tafsīr al-Asrar in A.63. Collection of Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia
Photograph by PNRI, 2023, courtesy of PNRI
- 5 Professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada.
38My investigation of selected folios from both A.62 and A.63 experienced a significant development in July 2023 when Walid Saleh5 suggested that I explore the links between Tafsīr al-Asrār and Tafsīr al-Sulamī, a pioneering work in the Sufi commentary tradition, and consult the various scholarly works of Gerhard Böwering and Alan Godlas so as to contextualise any links I might find against the general picture of Sufi tafsīr scholarship of the classical and medieval periods. This was, indeed, a fruitful suggestion: Godlas (2006: 352), for example, points out that Tafsīr al-Sulamī, which provides an esoteric interpretation of the Qurʾanic verses arranged on the basis of the traditional structure of the Qurʾan, includes a significant number of interpretations from previous Sufi commentators as well as al-Sulamī’s own exegesis.
39Based on my investigation of some selected folios of A.62, it became clear that several parts of the text are drawn from Tafsīr al-Sulamī. The fact that some other parts of the text proved not to be from al-Sulamī’s commentary brought me to the assumption that Tafsīr al-Asrar must originate from a later period. In this situation, I benefitted from Böwering’s observation (1995: 20): two centuries after al-Sulamī’s death, the thirteenth-century Persian Sufi mystic, Ruzbihān al-Baqlī (d. 1209), wrote a Qurʾan commentary entitled ʿArāʾis al-bayān fi ḥaqāʾiq al-Qurʾān, in which al-Baqlī quotes much of al-Sulamī’s work verbatim, while providing additional explanations. My analysis of some of the folios from the beginning and the end of the manuscript then revealed that A.62 Tafsīr al-Asrār is actually a copy of Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s ʿArāʾis al-Bayān. In other words, the title Tafsīr al-Asrār, as found in A.62, is a local name that has been applied to Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s Qurʾanic commentary.
40The fact that entire volumes of A.63 are badly damaged and impossible to open has forced me to rely heavily on the information on this manuscript provided by Friederich and van den Berg (1873). They state that A.63 consists of seven volumes, and that each volume possibly contains approximately five ajzāʾ. The last volume starts at Sura 50, and runs to the end of the Qurʾan, that is Sura 114 (Sūrat al-Nās) (Friederich & van den Berg 1873: 70). Based on this identification, it seems to me that it is very likely that apart from missing the first half of the first juzʾ, as indicated above (and as will be elaborated on later), this manuscript contains al-Baqlī’s Sufi commentary of the entire Qurʾan, with Javanese interlinear translation.
41It is thus possible to definitively conclude that the text of al-Baqlī’s Sufi Qurʾan commentary was included in the Banten royal library collection. This indicates that there must have been a demand for this book among those studying Islam in Banten, which in turn says something about the reception of this commentary in the sultanate. In this section, I examine the connection between demand for this commentary, in relation to traces of Kubrawiyya influence in the Banten Sultanate, and the position of Pakih Najimuddin, the title given to the highest Islamic leader in the palace environment, which van Bruinessen (1994) has assumed was coined in relation to the name of a specific person, the Persian scholar Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā (d. 1221). I will also suggest the possible reasons this particular commentary was copied under a different title, and with no clearly named author.
42A.63 was copied in 1131 H / 1718-1719 AD and, as discussed above, is older than A.62. The colophon found at the end of A.62 bears the date of its completion, that is 27 Shaʿbān 1196 H / 7 August 1782. We are therefore able to estimate that the copying of A.63 and its interlinear Javanese translation were carried out during the reign of Sultan Zain al-Abidin (r. 1690-1733). Meanwhile, A.62 was undertaken during the reign of Sultan Abu al-Mafakhir Muhammad ʿAliyuddin I (r. 1773-1799). Esteemed Islamic scholars had always been given senior positions in the Banten Sultanate, and during the reign of Sultan Zain al-Abidin two significant figures, Faqih Tajuddin and Sayid Umar, held particularly important positions for religious affairs. Faqih Tajuddin was appointed as faqih, or chief judge, and was reportedly one of the senior religious clerics of the kingdom. It is recorded, for example, that Fakih Tajuddin, Prince Muhammad Salim (one of Zain al-Abidin’s brothers) and a number of imams, took their places on the stage surrounding Sultan Zain al-Abidin during his coronation ceremony. In religious matters, the chief judge took a leading role in state ceremonies (Talens 1993: 338–339).
43Among the various groups of Islamic scholars that played an important role in the Banten Sultanate was one of Arab descent, the leaders of which bear the title Sayid. For most of Sultan Zain al-Abidin’s reign the leader of this group was Sayid Umar, who was one of the highest-ranking Islamic scholars at court, and whom the king sometimes consulted on political matters (ibid.: 345–346). In addition to homegrown religious scholars, the Banten Sultanate also invited Islamic scholars from the Middle East and India to visit the country, granting them a generous stipend. It seems most likely that this particular mix of indigenous Javanese scholars, Javanese scholars of Arab descent, and visiting scholars from the Islamic world were responsible for introducing new and relevant Islamic literature into early eighteenth-century Banten, including the text of A.63, Tafsīr al-Asrār.
44Meanwhile, A.62 was copied in 1782, during the reign of Sultan Abu al-Mafakhir Muhammad ʿAliyuddin I (r. 1773-1799). According to van Bruinessen (1995: 185), the sultan, who was known for his strong interest in Islamic studies, also held the title khalifa, which could mean that he was the leader of a Sufi order and had the authority to teach and guide its practice. For this reason, I assume that it is likely that the idea to undertake the copy A.62 came from the king himself.
45Our second question concerns the extent to which the existence of this Sufi commentary can provide us with information about the Sufi commentary tradition in Banten. To address this issue, we need first to return to the important position of qadi in the Bantenese court hierarchy, a position which was, as mentioned earlier, known locally as Pakih Najimuddin.
46Van Bruinessen (1994: 305–329; 1995: 194) posits that the title ʽPakih Najimuddinʼ might be derived from a combination of two words: pakih, derived from the Arabic word faqih meaning ‘expert in Islamic law’, and Najimuddin, which he suggests probably refers to the name of an important Sufi figure from thirteenth-century Central Asia, Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā (d. 1221). Van Bruinessen thinks that Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā’s teachings probably influenced the religious orientation of the founders of the Banten Sultanate, Sunan Gunung Jati and Maulana Hasanuddin. He further suggests that the name Najm al-Dīn was respected and, in later years, began to be used as a title for those who held the position of chief judge. Those appointed as Pakih Najimuddin, or chief judge, had various important responsibilities: as well as being the most senior Islamic scholar in the sultanate, the Pakih Najimuddin might be appointed as teacher to the royal princes, for example (Boontharm 2003: 294–295; Wain 2021).
- 6 Ruzbihān al-Baqlī al-Shirazī (d. 1209) and Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā (d. 1221) were both important Islam (...)
47Given the importance of the Pakih Najimuddin, it seems reasonable to explore a potential connection between his high status and the inclusion of al-Baqlī’s Sufi commentary in the Banten royal library collection. Along with other tafsīrs, this Qurʾan commentary was certainly used for teaching purposes and as a reference work for the study of the Qurʾan.6
- 7 However, Ruzbihān al-Baqlī is not to be confused with Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā’s teacher from Egypt, Ru (...)
48Sufi scholarship on the Qurʾan went through a ‘third phase’ (Godlas 2006: 355) between the early thirteenth and the mid-fourteenth century, a formative period out of which the various Sufi tafsīr schools emerged (Böwering 1995). The two most important schools of Sufi commentary that developed during this period were those of Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā and Muḥy al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240). Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā was Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s contemporary, and they may have had a scholarly relationship during their lifetimes.7
- 8 The fact that the seventeenth-century Bantenese rulers reportedly investigated the controversy of H (...)
49Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s Sufi teachings tend to have a close connection to that of his juniors, that is those within the circle of the Kubrawi schools, and certainly differ from those of the school of Muḥy al-Din Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240).8 Godlas (2006: 354–355) also indicates that there were similarities between Ruzbihān al-Baqlī and Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā when it comes to fiqh, as well as between the Sufi mystics within the Kubrawi tradition that followed the Shafi’i school. The close relationship between these schools, at least when it comes to exegesis, is also demonstrated by the clear influence of al-Qushayri’s Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt on their works (Godlas 2013: 86–92).
50It is possible that the existence of manuscript copies of Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s ʿArā’is al-bayān in the milieu of the Banten Sultanate, or more broadly in eighteenth-century Southeast Asia, may be an intrinsic legacy of the circulation of this work in the area in previous centuries. As Majid Daneshgar (2023) has shown, Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s ʿArāʾis al-Bayān was in use in the archipelago in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. If we accept van Bruinessen’s theory that the title ʽPakih Najimuddinʼ may be associated with the name Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā, it is not surprising that Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s Sufi commentary, which in many ways accords with the ideas held by the Kubrawi school, was influential in Banten.
51A.62 and A.63, which both contain Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān, raise two important points. Firstly, the very existence of this commentary in eighteenth-century Banten implies that Banten tafsīr scholarship was not confined to the mainstream Qurʾanic commentaries that were so formative to Qurʾanic exegetical discourse in pre-modern Southeast Asia: Tafsīr al-Baghawī, Tafsīr al-Khāzin, Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī and Tafsīr al-Jalālayn. Secondly, the fact that the ʿArā’is al-bayān was included in the eighteenth-century Banten royal library collection supports the conclusion that this work was in continual use in Southeast Asia since as early as the sixteenth century. Daneshgar (ibid.) presents evidence of how Persian scholars, including tafsīr scholars such as Ruzbihān al-Baqlī, played a significant role in the development of Qurʾanic exegetical discourse in maritime Southeast Asia during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In his examination of the Persian poetry anthology found in ms. Cod. Or. 7056, now kept at the Leiden University Library, Daneshgar (2021: 5, 69) states that Ruzbihān al-Baqlī is perhaps the best-known of the Persian Sufi mystics when it comes to Sufi Qurʾanic exegesis. He claims that the esteem in which this Qurʾan commentary was held in the wider Islamic world can be correlated with the degree to which it, as opposed to other works by Persian scholars, is quoted in manuscript anthologies of Persian poetry. Daneshgar (2020: 64) has also identified a decline in Persian influence on Islam in seventeenth-century Southeast Asia, but it is my assumption that esteem for Ruzbihān al-Baqlī’s ʿArāʾis al-bayān may, however, have still lived on in this region up to the late eighteenth century, especially within Banten courtly circles.
52Another issue is why the copyists of A.62 and A.63 seem to have hidden the original title of this work and the real identity of its author. It should be noted that the study of both manuscripts is limited to only a selection of accessible folios, especially in the case of A.63, due to its badly damaged condition.
53The first clue to try to answer this question can be found in the ways the copyists refer to the original author. The first page of the text of A.63 mentions “Kitāb tafsīr al-asrār min al-juzʾ al-awwal lil-syaykh al-imām al-ʿallāmah al-ahall al-akmal (The Book of the interpretation of the mysteries of the first juzʾ [of the Qurʾan] by the great teacher, the leader, the very learned, the most qualified, the most perfect)” (see Fig. 7). Meanwhile, the colophon of A.62 mentions:
Wa-qad waqaʿa al-firāgh bi-nuskhatihi tafsīr al-asrār min al-juzʾ al-akhīr bi-yad al-faqīr al-ḥaqīr al-rājī ilá al-ʿafw wa-al-ghufrān wa-al-riḍwān H-J H-B-Y-B B-N ʿ-A-R-F A-L-D-Y-N fī shahr Shaʿbān sabʿah wa-ʿishrīna yawm al-thalāth wa-ṣallá Allāh ʿalá sayyidinā Muḥammad wa-ālihi wa-ṣaḥbihi wa-sallam 1196 Hijrah
(And he finished writing the manuscript of Tafsīr al-Asrār in the hand of a poor and despicable person who hopes for pardon, forgiveness, and satisfaction, H-J H-B-Y-B B-N ‘-A-R-F A-L-D-Y-N in the month of Sha’ban, the twenty-seventh day, on Tuesday, may God’s blessings and peace be upon our master Muhammad, his family and his companions).
54The individually-written letters in this passage could be possibly read as ‘Hajji Habib bin ʿArifuddin,’ indicating the name of the copyist (see Fig. 8).
Fig. 8 – The final page of Tafsīr al-Asrār (originally the ʿArāʾis al-bayān of Ruzbihān al-Baqlī).
A.62, Collection of Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia (photograph by PNRI, 2023, courtesy of PNRI).
55The information given by the copyist of A.63 indicates that he greatly esteemed the author of the work he was copying: his chosen epithets, al-ahall al-akmal (the most qualified, the most perfect), indicate that the author was held in high standing. As for the given title of the text in both A.62 and A.63, Tafsīr al-Asrār, we can also assume that this choice of name may have something to do with the fact that al-Baqlī’s autobiography was entitled Kashf al-asrār. It seems very unlikely that the copyist of A.62 (and possibly, the copyist of A.63 too) were unable of investigating or identifying the original titles of the texts they copied. If we assume that the copyists deliberately attributed to the manuscript a title that alludes to al-Baqlī’s autobiographical work, Kashf al-asrār, the literal meaning of which (ʽthe disclosure of the mysteriousʼ) corresponds to the literal meaning of Tafsīr al-Asrār (ʽthe interpretation of the mysteriousʼ), this might help us to understand how the copyists of both manuscripts may well have used this title in an attempt to maintain a link between the copied texts and their original author. Further study of both manuscripts, and analysis of more folios, will certainly provide more insights into this and other issues and contribute to a better understanding of the significance of their position in the wider context of Qurʾanic exegetical activities in Southeast Asia. This may, however, prove too difficult a task to implement for A.63, given the badly damaged condition of entire volumes of this work.
56The Banten royal library, and the transferral of its entire collection to the Bataviaasch Genootschap in the nineteenth century, provide an obvious example of colonial governmentsʼ attitudes towards, and intervention in ownership of the properties belonging to the kingdoms that once existed in Southeast Asia. Careful examination of some of the major manuscripts that were once part of this collection shows that the Islamic intellectual tradition in pre-modern Southeast Asia possessed a well-established level of scholarship. When it comes to works on the Qurʾan and its exegesis, the list of available manuscripts clearly indicates the quality of Islamic studies, which is comparable to the academic accomplishments of centres of learning at the time in the wider Islamic world.
57Islam was one of the most important components in the cultural and intellectual development of the Banten Sultanate, and the Bantenese intellectual elites and ruling classes were actively involved in fostering and developing Islamic learning. This effort is reflected for example in the invitation of scholars from Arabia and India to stay in Banten at the sultanate’s expense, so that they might share their knowledge and develop their scholarship. It was common practice for members of the Bantenese elites to be attended by several qualified Islamic scholars, who accompanied them everywhere, and who also undertook Islamic pedagogical activities with students. Furthermore, when it comes to the manuscript legacy, we can see that Qurʾans and other Arabic works were reproduced with accompanying translations throughout the eighteenth century. In the homelands of their authors, many of these works were normally copied in one volume in the original Arabic, but in Banten these were transformed into voluminous manuscripts that contained considerable annotation as well as interlinear translation.
58In this article, I have also highlighted the important role played by the Jalālayn, which can be assumed from the large proportion of extant Jalālayn copies listed in Friederich and van den Berg’s catalogue. The Jalālayn appears to have been the most frequently copied work, in an expanded form that grew to encompass many volumes, in which copyists included interlinear translations in Javanese, information on the grammatical position of Arabic words and symbols indicating tajwid. The existence of such varied additions indicates that the copyists intended these texts to serve various purposes.
59Finally, it is important to emphasise the importance of the inclusion in the royal library collection of two Tafsīr al-Asrār manuscripts, A.62 and A.63, which prove to contain al-Baqlī’s Sufi exegesis on the Qurʾan. The existence of this work in eighteenth-century Banten demonstrates that Banten tafsīr scholarship was not restricted to those works that historically played a primary role in Qurʾanic exegetical discourse in pre-modern Southeast Asia, but also accommodated another tafsīr genre, that of Sufi exegesis. Furthermore, the inclusion of al-Baqlī’s commentary in the collection indicates that this work was in continual use in Southeast Asia from the sixteenth century onwards. Despite being marginalised, an interest in the use of Sufi approaches to the Qurʾan in this region persisted until at least the final years of the Bantenese kingdom in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
60An early version of this paper was presented in the SOAS workshop on “Colonialism and manuscript libraries of Island Southeast Asia,” at SOAS University of London on May 24-26, 2023. I would like to thank Mulaika Hijjas for the invitation and the participants of the workshop for their feedback and helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to the Leverhulme Trust and the University of Freiburg in Germany for making my trip to London possible. My thanks are also addressed to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and FRIAS-University of Freiburg for their support of this research. While writing this article, I have benefited greatly from fruitful discussions with Walid Saleh (University of Toronto) and Majid Daneshgar (Kyoto University). I am also grateful to Mulaika Hijjas and Alan Darmawan, as well as to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. My grateful thanks are also addressed to the staff of the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia (PNRI) and the Indonesian National Archives (ANRI) for their helpful assistance. I am also grateful to Helen Blatherwick for her editorial assistance. All errors and shortcomings are mine.