The history of Sumatra

by William Marsden

CONVERSION TO MAHOMETAN RELIGION.

The immediate subjects of this empire, properly denominated Malays, are all of the Mahometan religion, and in that respect distinguished from the generality of inland inhabitants. How it has happened that the most central people of the island should have become the most perfectly converted is difficult to account for unless we suppose that its political importance and the richness of its gold trade might have drawn thither its pious instructors, from temporal as well as spiritual motives. Be this as it may, the country of Menangkabau is regarded as the supreme seat of civil and religious authority in this part of the East, and next to a voyage to Mecca to have visited its metropolis stamps a man learned, and confers the character of superior sanctity. Accordingly the most eminent of those who bear the titles of imam, mulana, khatib, and pandita either proceed from thence or repair thither for their degree, and bring away with them a certificate or diploma from the sultan or his minister.

In attempting to ascertain the period of this conversion much accuracy is not to be expected; the natives are either ignorant on the subject or have not communicated their knowledge, and we can only approximate the truth by comparing the authorities of different old writers. Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller who visited Sumatra under the name of Java minor (see above) says that the inhabitants of the seashore were addicted to the Mahometan law, which they had learned from Saracon merchants. This must have been about the year 1290, when, in his voyage from China, he was detained for several months at a port in the Straits, waiting the change of the monsoon; and though I am scrupulous of insisting upon his authority (questioned as it is), yet in a fact of this nature he could scarcely be mistaken, and the assertion corresponds with the annals of the princes of Malacca, which state, as we have seen above, that sultan Muhammed Shah, who reigned from 1276 to 1333, was the first royal convert. Juan De Barros, a Portuguese historian of great industry, says that, according to the tradition of the inhabitants, the city of Malacca was founded about the year 1260, and that about 1400 the Mahometan faith had spread considerably there and extended itself to the neighbouring islands. Diogo do Couto, another celebrated historian, who prosecuted his inquiries in India, mentions the arrival at Malacca of an Arabian priest who converted its monarch to the faith of the khalifs, and gave him the name of Shah Muhammed in the year 1384. This date however is evidently incorrect, as that king's reign was earlier by fifty years. Corneille le Brun was informed by the king of Bantam in 1706 that the people of Java were made converts to that sect about three hundred years before. Valentyn states that Sheik Mulana, by whom this conversion was effected in 1406, had already disseminated his doctrine at Ache, Pase (places in Sumatra), and Johor. From these several sources of information, which are sufficiently distinct from each other, we may draw this conclusion, that the religion, which sprang up in Arabia in the seventh century, had not made any considerable progress in the interior of Sumatra earlier than the fourteenth, and that the period of its introduction, considering the vicinity to Malacca, could not be much later. I have been told indeed, but cannot vouch for its authenticity, that in 1782 these people counted 670 years from the first preaching of their religion, which would carry the period back to 1112. It may be added that in the island of Ternate the first Mahometan prince reigned from 1466 to 1486; that Francis Xavier, a celebrated Jesuit missionary, when he was at Amboina in 1546 observed the people then beginning to learn to write from the Arabians; that the Malays were allowed to build a mosque at Goak in Makasar subsequently to the arrival of the Portuguese in 1512; and that in 1603 the whole kingdom had become Mahometan. These islands, lying far to the eastward, and being of less considerable account in that age than subsequent transactions have rendered them, the zeal of religious adventurers did not happen to be directed thither so soon as to the countries bordering on the sea of India.

By some it has been asserted that the first sultan of Menangkabau was a Xerif from Mecca, or descendant of the khalifs, named Paduka Sri Sultan Ibrahim, who, settling in Sumatra, was received with honour by the princes of the country, Perapati-si-batang and his brother, and acquired sovereign authority. They add that the sultans who now reside at Pagar-ruyong and at Suruwasa are lineally descended from that Xerif, whilst he who resides at Sungei Trap, styled Datu Bandhara putih, derives his origin from Perapati. But to this supposition there are strong objections. The idea so generally entertained by the natives, and strengthened by the glimmering lights that the old writers afford us, bespeaks an antiquity to this empire that stretches far beyond the probable era of the establishment of the Mahometan religion in the island. Radin Tamanggung, son of a king of Madura, a very intelligent person, and who as a prince himself was conversant with these topics, positively asserted to me that it was an original Sumatran empire, antecedent to the introduction of the Arabian faith; instructed, but by no means conquered, as some had imagined, by people from the peninsula. So memorable an event as the elevation of a Xerif to the throne would have been long preserved by annals or tradition, and the sultan in the list of his titles would not fail to boast of this sacred extraction from the prophet, to which however he does not at all allude; and to this we may add that the superstitious veneration attached to the family extends itself not only where Mahometanism has made a progress, but also among the Battas and other people still unconverted to that faith, with whom it would not be the case if the claim to such respect was grounded on the introduction of a foreign religion which they have refused to accept.

Perhaps it is less surprising that this one kingdom should have been completely converted than that so many districts of the island should remain to this day without any religion whatever. It is observable that a person of this latter description, coming to reside among the Malays, soon assimilates to them in manners, and conforms to their religious practices. The love of novelty, the vanity of learning, the fascination of ceremony, the contagion of example, veneration for what appears above his immediate comprehension, and the innate activity of man's intellectual faculties, which, spurred by curiosity, prompts him to the acquisition of knowledge, whether true or false--all conspire to make him embrace a system of belief and scheme of instruction in which there is nothing that militates against prejudices already imbibed. He relinquishes no favourite ancient worship to adopt a new, and is manifestly a gainer by the exchange, when he barters, for a paradise and eternal pleasures, so small a consideration as the flesh of his foreskin.

TOLERANT PRINCIPLES.

The Malays, as far as my observation went, did not appear to possess much of the bigotry so commonly found amongst the western Mahometans, or to show antipathy to or contempt for unbelievers. To this indifference is to be attributed my not having positively ascertained whether they are followers of the sunni or the shiah sect, although from their tolerant principles and frequent passages in their writings in praise of Ali I conclude them to be the latter. Even in regard to the practice of ceremonies they do not imitate the punctuality of the Arabs and others of the mussulman faith. Excepting such as were in the orders of the priesthood I rarely noticed persons in the act of making their prostrations. Men of rank I am told have their religious periods, during which they scrupulously attend to their duties and refrain from gratifications of the appetite, together with gambling and cockfighting; but these are not long nor very frequent. Even their great Fast or puasa (the ramadan of the Turks) is only partially observed. All those who have a regard for character fast more or less according to the degree of their zeal or strength of their constitutions; some for a week, others for a fortnight; but to abstain from food and betel whilst the sun is above the horizon during the whole of a lunar month is a very rare instance of devotion.

LITERATURE.

Malayan literature consists chiefly of transcripts and versions of the koran, commentaries on the mussulman law, and historic tales both in prose and verse, resembling in some respect our old romances. Many of these are original compositions, and others are translations of the popular tales current in Arabia, Persia, India, and the neighbouring island of Java, where the Hindu languages and mythology appear to have made at a remote period considerable progress. Among several works of this description I possess their translation (but much compressed) of the Ramayan, a celebrated Sanskrit poem, and also of some of the Arabian stories lately published in France as a Continuation of the Thousand and one Nights, first made known to the European world by M. Galland. If doubts have been entertained of the authenticity of these additions to his immortal collection the circumstance of their being (however partially) discovered in the Malayan language will serve to remove them. Beside these they have a variety of poetic works, abounding rather with moral reflections and complaints of the frowns of fortune or of ill-requited love than with flights of fancy. The pantun or short proverbial stanza has been already described. They are composed in all parts of the island, and often extempore; but such as proceed from Menangkabau, the most favoured seat of the Muses, are held in the first esteem. Their writing is entirely in the modified Arabic character, and upon paper previously ruled by means of threads drawn tight and arranged in a peculiar manner.

ARTS.