Malaysian history

Assessments of Singapore’s history invariably revolve around Sir Stamford Raffles’ arrival in 1819. Before this date – we’ve been earlier told – “nothing very much appears to have happened in Singapore”. Pre-1819 Singapore was a sleepy, historically insignificant fishing village, little more than the “occasional resort of pirates”.
This ambitious book, co-written by four of Singapore’s foremost historians, offers an assertive re-evaluation of that view, firmly situating Singapore’s starting point seven hundred years ago. Drawing on a multi-disciplinary range of archival, textual and cartographical records, as well as the latest archaeological discoveries, the authors cast a singular historical trajectory for Singapore over the past seven centuries, animating its history like never before.
Written in a compelling and accessible manner, and richly illustrated with more than 200 artefacts, photographs, maps, art works and ephemera, this volume builds upon the foundations of an earlier book, Singapore: A 700-Year History. Extensively rewritten to incorporate ground-breaking research findings, Seven Hundred Years: A History of Singapore widens the historical lens and offers a vital new perspective on the story of Singapore.

The Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), one of the earliest conflicts of the Cold War, remains understudied despite the voluminous literature produced by specialists on the topic. Most of these works have focused primarily on unpacking the lessons offered by the Emergency in the realm of counterinsurgency at the expense of explorations of the conflict as a lived experience. This article explores how the historiography on the Emergency has changed over time, focusing on how it has been studied primarily in terms of its political and military implications with the key debate emerging over which strategy and tactics ultimately led to British victory. One school of thought argues that success was a consequence of British forces embarking to win “hearts and minds” rather than focusing on traditional warfare. Newer works have challenged this discourse, suggesting instead that the Emergency was won through strict and oftentimes violent “population control.” While these approaches have been integral to furthering understandings of the Emergency, the overwhelming focus on the military aspects of the Emergency has resulted in a number of gaps in the field, which this article highlights before concluding with discussions on how these gaps might be addressed.

Donna Amoroso's Traditionalism and the Ascendancy of the Malay Ruling Class in Colonial Malaya has formed one of the most influential analyses of the conservative political development of colonial and post-colonial Malaya. Central to her work was the category of "traditionalism", through which she exposed the way in which the invention and reinvention of traditions by the British colonial state laid the groundwork for the reproduction of monarchical and aristocratic power under colonial rule, creating the foundations for the "traditional" nature of the subsequent nationalist movement. In this piece I wish to argue that the process described by Amoroso can be best understood in terms of Antonio Gramsci's notion of the passive revolution of capital, a theory of conservative political, social and economic transformation under conditions of capitalist development. Expanded in the Indian (and post-colonial) case by theorists such as Partha Chatterjee and Sudipta Kaviraj, I will argue that this concept can, in the context of Malaya, form the basis for understanding Malaya's model of conservative nation-state formation, in particular highlighting the importance of three elements which Gramsci saw as central to the process of passive revolution: the state as an institution above class conflict, the coalition as a mediation between classes, and a molecular or gradualist theory of political and economic change.

The Sejarah Melayu (or Sulalat us-Salatin) is Maritime Southeast Asia’s pre-eminent Malay chronicle. A masterpiece of the genre, it constitutes a valuable window into Melaka’s past. As a historical source, however, consideration of its date of composition and authorship is important. Although many different manuscript versions of the Sejarah Melayu exist, to which could no doubt be added many more now lost, most scholars agree Raffles MS 18 is both the earliest and most complete extant version. Although its preface dates it to 12th Rabi’ul-awwal 1021AH (13th May 1612), and attributes authorship to a nobleman called Tun Bambang, in 1938 Winstedt postulated a much earlier date and different authorship. His theory, since widely accepted, hypothesized that Raffles MS 18’s text was written in c.1536 by a refugee from Melaka’s court. If correct, Raffles MS 18 would be a valuable historical source, directly traceable to Melaka itself. This paper, however, seeks to modify Winstedt’s conclusion. By re-examining Raffles MS 18’s narrative style and content, it argues that, if an earlier text did exist, it can only be identified with Raffles MS 18’s second half, which deals exclusively with Melaka’s final ruler, Mahmud Shah. The paper argues this detailed account of a single reign, probably prefaced with a royal silsilah, was given to Tun Bambang in 1621. He edited it and fleshed out Melaka’s earlier history with a collection of local legends, thereby creating the present text of Raffles MS 18. As a result, the latter is primarily – as its preface states – an early seventeenth century text attributable to Tun Bambang. Although this conclusion diminishes the Sejarah Melayu’s standing as an historical source, its account of Mahmud Shah and Melaka’s fall may still derive from a valuable primary text.

The names for the various Orang Asli populations of Peninsular Malaysia did not begin to achieve any recognisable similarity to current usage until the 1920s. Versions of the ethnonym ‘Temiar’, which identifies one of the largest of these populations, were first tentatively reported in the 1880s. At that time the people themselves were barely known to the outside world and were mostly referred to, if at all, by other names. The current spelling and pronunciation of the word ‘Temiar’ were not fully established until the 1950s, replacing a surprising variety of earlier written forms and pronunciations. A close examination of the latter throws light on the pre-modern relations holding between the Temiars and other populations. Etymological analysis, involving both Mon-Khmer and Austronesian sources, provides evidence that the earlier linguistic situation in the Peninsula was more complex than currently recognised. The Temiar language belongs to the Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic) stock, but it has long been in contact with one or more Austronesian languages. Investigation suggests two likely etymological sources for the word ‘Temiar’, both meaning ‘edge’ or ‘side’, and having forms similar to the Malayo-Polynesian (but non-Malay) *tambir or to Mon-Khmer *tbiar.

The origin of the British railway system in the Malay Peninsula can be traced to the laying of its first tracks between Taiping and Port Weld in Perak in 1885. It was to take another half a century before the network in the British protectorate reached in its fullest extent. Together with the technologies of the steamship and telegraph, the railway revolutionized transportation and communications in the nineteenth century. Its significance within the imperial framework is generally perceived to lie in accelerating economic exploitation and growth through the enhancement of existing infrastructure for agriculture, industry and trade. As some historians have noted, the development of railways in British Malaya was indeed closely connected to the tin and rubber industries and the emergence of an export economy situated on the western coast of the Peninsula.

Nonetheless, the railway functioned not just as a tool which served the colonial economy but also as an instrument of imperial rule in British Malaya as well. British imperial rule in the Federated Malay States (FMS) was consolidated through the establishment of a railway system that connected its constituent states together into a political unit; thus the Federated Malay States Railway (FMSR) facilitated the dissemination of British authority. As the railway became a site of imperial contestation and control over sovereignty in the Unfederated Malay States (UMS), the assertion of British dominance over the Peninsula railway facilitated the drawing of these states into the orbit of British imperialism. At the same time, the railway also became a cultural technology of rule as it diminished the indigenous political system of the kerajaan in the Malay states.

"Saya melihat dengan girang sudah ada usaha-usaha yang diarahkan untuk menuju kepada penulisan sejarah Aceh yang sebenarnya. Beberapa buku yang keluar pada waktu akhir-akhir ini sudah memperlihatkan kegiatan yang selayaknya harus mendapat pujian dan sambutan, baik yang merupakan buah tangan dari putera-putera Aceh sendiri, maupun oleh saudara-saudaranya dari daerah luar Aceh, yang saya hargakan tinggi."

– Penulis (Prof. Dr. Aboebakar Aceh)

The formation and popularity of bicycle clubs in Australia closely reflects the costs of purchasing a bicycle. In the 1860s it was largely a pastime for the rich and affluent, and by the 1890s it widened to include the middle classes. However by the turn of the twentieth century, with the rich and middle classes smitten with new motorized transportation like automobiles and motorcycles, opportunities to own a bicycle opened up for the first time to the working classes. As a result bicycle clubs flourished throughout the Australian social landscape. The decades following the Second World War saw growth in wealth and the growing affordability of personal motorized transportation. By the 1960s and especially in the 1970s, bicycle users turned away from the low tech bicycle towards the now affordable automobile. However by the 1990s and 2000s the bicycle acquired new meanings, practicalities and charm of bicycles were discovered yet again by new affluent professional classes.

Bukit Mertajam is a mirage of things, formerly a village and now a town as well as a parliamentary constituency of Penang. The history of the town was never well studied despite its strategic significance to not only the development of the state of Penang but also the entire Northern Malaya. This paper shall explore the evolution of this humble spice planting village to its expansion to a full township fit with public goods characterised by colonial administration. Bukit Mertajam, the " town at the foot of the mountain " , will be reconstructed with critical assessments of its positioning in relevance to the sequential eras of commercial planting-namely spice, sugar and rubber-and its derivations from the enterprise. Although seldom highlighted in the literature, the intermittent period of chaos during the Japanese invasion has also left its mark on Bukit Mertajam. The paper will highlight such condition and the town's stagnated development during the said reign. This town's experience throughout the entire Emergency period will also be accounted for. The transition period of the post-emergency and pre-independence era of Bukit Mertajam brings us yet to another illuminating threshold of the town's development. With the establishment of rural boards and town councils in Bukit Mertajam, the town can be said to have attained another stage of evolution, from a mere outdated agrarian town to a prominent central hub of Northern Malaya. As such, this paper seeks not only to showcase the administrative aspect of development of Bukit Mertajam but also seeks to trace the major contributions of these local authorities within the town until 1957.

The present paper explores the shifting roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits from the latter Middle Ages until the opening decades of the eighteenth century. In pursuing this task, I will develop a set of basic questions that historicize and problematize the roles, functions and understandings of the Straits across the centuries, and also tease out historical and historiographical paradigms shaping and underpinning the understanding of the region’s past. In pursuing this programme I will make use of a broad range of sources including chronicles and histories, letters and treaties, navigational instructions and travel literature, as well as (European) cartography of the 16th to 18th centuries. In order to gain deeper appreciation of the multi-faceted roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits across the longue durée, I  not only adduce and evaluate materials of European colonial origin, but importantly also heed special attention to sources of Asian origin in general, and specifically to materials that have originally been written in Arabic, Malay, Chinese and have been made accessible to the wider reading public in various contemporary translations. The modes of enquiry and the insights brought to paper here differ both in terms of scope and objectives from my earlier findings expounded in The Singapore and Melaka Straits published in 2010.

Decolonisation often involved picking from competing nationalist visions for the shape of the postcolonial nation-state. The visions which lost out are no less important for their impact on decolonisation and the nation-state, but they are often poorly understood. In Singapore, the rise of Singapore’s “progressive left” gave the opportunity and drove the timing for the merger of Federation of Malaya and Singapore in 1963, before its leadership was removed by Operation Coldstore. However, the nature of the progressive left – their values, motivations, and goals – has never been adequately understood. It is usually attributed to some degree of Communist subversion, and Operation Coldstore presented as the solution to a security problem. Using vernacular sources and newly declassified documents, this article analyses Singapore’s progressive left. It deconstructs the origin of the progressive left as a generational unit, reconceptualises the events of merger from their perspective, and re-evaluates their role and impact on the process of merger. In resituating the progressive left in the narrative of merger, it expands our understanding of Singapore’s decolonisation.

Political risk assessments are always provided by human input--country experts--at base.  This study compares an assessment of Malaysia's political risk by one country expert with the assessment of 35 knowledgeable Malaysians and foreign business people in Kuala Lumpur in 2014. Subjects are corruption, democracy, race, impact of Islam, and more.

113 13 mei yang lain: sejarah reaksi seni yang belum berkesudahan mark teh dari pelbagai jalur politik -termasuklah Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), People's Progressive Party (PPP), dan dua buah parti yang baru ditubuhkan, iaitu Democratic Action Party (DAP) dan Gerakan -selepas tempoh kempen yang hebat "yang penuh dengan sentimen-sentimen perkauman terhadap isu-isu bahasa, pendidikan dan kesamarataan". 5 Di peringkat negeri, Perikatan gagal menawan semula Kelantan dari PAS, hilang Pulau Pinang kepada Gerakan, dan tidak lagi memiliki majoriti mutlak di Selangor dan Perak. Di peringkat pusat pula, Perikatan nampaknya bakal kehilangan majoriti dua pertiga yang penting di Parlimen buat julung-julung kali sejak Merdeka, sementara menunggu keputusan pilihanraya Sabah dan Sarawak yang masih belum selesai.

This is a book chapter in an edited volume.

Abstract/introduction/overview is available in the file.

Wilson TV Tay, ‘Dimensions of Ketuanan Melayu in the Malaysian Constitutional Framework’, in Andrew Harding and Dian Shah (eds), Law and Society in Malaysia: Pluralism, Religion and Ethnicity (London: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2017).

Festival programme, includes curatorial notes, interviews & projects.  The Emergency Festival was co-curated by Fahmi Fadzil, Fahmi Reza, Grey Yeoh, Hariati Azizan, Mark Teh, Norman Teh & Wong Tay Sy, and took place 16-26 October 2008, at The Annexe Gallery, Central Market, Kuala Lumpur.

I have added an addendum of further references with a new annotation, updated most recently on 7 February 2023.
ORIGINAL ABSTRACT: A comprehensive account of linguistic studies (up to 2012) of the endangered Aslian (Peninsular Mon-Khmer) languages. Despite some excellent studies in recent years (not yet widely known to the general public), these languages remain insufficiently researched. The author proposes reasons for encouraging further study of these languages -- for their own sake, for what they can add to general linguistics, and for what they can tell us about the people who speak them in relation to their broader Southeast Asian situation. A survey of the current sociolinguistic situation of the Aslian languages is followed by accounts of their more significant phonological, morphological and semantic features. A full bibliography is provided, listing both published and unpublished writings on the languages.
[If you are especially interested in how at least one Aslian language works, see my papers "Aesthetic aspects of Temiar grammar" and "A new outline of Temiar grammar, Part 1", also available on this website.]

This article reconstructs the history of Kling Muslims' contribution to the religious and ethnic cosmopolitanism of sixteenth-century Ayutthaya. This study's argument is constructed based on an aggregate of written fragments about the Kling in both Portuguese primary sources and the wider academic literature. We reveal that, amongst the many ways in which Siam benefited from the Iberian invasion of Melaka in 1511, the dramatic geopolitical rupture of the invasion rerouted trade across the Bay of Bengal. As a result, Kling merchants began arriving in Ayutthaya in greater numbers via the new network of Siamese-controlled ports and portages. Moreover, this study demonstrates the utility of greater synergy among South Asian, Southeast Asian, Thai, and Malay Studies through focusing on the exonyms employed in primary and secondary sources. Finally, this article contends that Ayutthaya's ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism was impacted by the arrival of South Asian Muslims, referred to as Kling in the Malay World and Khaek in Siam, approximately one century before Persians arrived in greater numbers. This, among others, was an unintended result of Portugal's sixteenth-century interventions into, and alliances with, the Siamese.

Setelah mendapat kemerdekaan pada 31 Ogos 1957, maka wujud satu perasaan untuk menggabungkan wilayah-wilayah yang terdapat di sekitar Persekutuan Tanah Melayu di dalam sebuah persekutuan yang dikenali sebagai Malaysia. Hasrat penubuhan Malaysia telah diutarakan oleh Tunku Abdul Rahman pada 27 Mei 1961 di suatu majlis makan tengah hari Persatuan Wartawan-wartawan Luar Asia Tenggara di Hotel Adelphi, Singapura yang menyatakan bahawa perlu diwujudkan satu penggabungan atau penyatuan dari segi ekonomi dan politik di antara Persekutuan Tanah Melayu, Sarawak, Sabah dan Singapura.  Penggabungan ini bukanlah idea yang baru kerana pernah diutarakan oleh pihak British, “As early as Aug 1942 the FO and CO agreed on the desirability of a union of the Malay States, Straits Settlements and Borneo territories.”  Maka dengan melihat hasrat ini, pembawaan gagasan Malaysia telah dipanjangkan dan akhirnya Malaysia diwujudkan pada 16 September 1963 walaupun mendapat pelbagai halangan dan tentangan. Namun persoalan di sini, adakah tindakan kerajaan kolonial dengan memerdekakan Sabah dan Sarawak melalui pembentukan Malaysia adalah tepat?

The form of Islam normatively understood and practised in Malaysia, i.e. Malaysian Islam, has undergone myriad changes since the 1970s as a result of gradual Salafization. Powered by Saudi Arabian largesse and buoyed by the advent of the Internet, this new wave of Salafization has eclipsed an earlier Salafi trend that spawned the Kaum Muda reformist movement. Recent surveys suggest that there has been a rise in the level of extremism among Muslims in Malaysia. While the majority is far from being enamoured by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Wahhabi-Salafi doctrine that ISIS claims to represent in unadulterated form does appeal to many of them following the decades-long Salafization of Islam in the country. This tallies with media reports on increasing numbers of Malay-Muslim youth harbouring an attraction towards radical Islamist movements such as ISIS. Salafization, referring to a process of mindset and attitudinal transformation rather than the growth of Salafi nodes per se, is not restricted to individuals or groups identified as “Salafi”, but rather affects practically all levels of Malay-Muslim society, cutting across political parties, governmental institutions and non-state actors. It has resulted in Islamist, rather than Islamic, ideals increasingly defining the tenor of mainstream Islam in Malaysia, with worrying consequences for both intra-Muslim and inter-religious relations. Responses to the Wahhabi-Salafi onslaught from the Malay-Muslim ruling elite in Malaysia have been ambivalent, and have had weak counteracting effects on the Salafization process.

Kawasan Jenderam Hilir, Dengkil, Daerah Sepang, merupakan penempatan terawal di Negeri Selangor berdasarkan penemuan artifak-artifak purba bagi membuktikan perkara tersebut dan boleh dimanfaatkan bagi tujuan pembangunan arkeo-pelancongan di kawasan berkenaan.

Perkembangan media baharu yang hebat pada masa kini telah menyumbang kepada pendemokrasian maklumat yang boleh diakses oleh semua pihak berkepentingan. 1 Media baharu yang berbentuk digital menggalakkan komunikasi tanpa sempadan yang berbentuk interaktif melalui penggunaan Internet, blog, wiki, skype, sistem pesanan ringkas (sms) dan sebagainya. Telefon pintar, televisyen satelit, komputer contohnya berfungsi sebagai alat Walau pun bidang ini bermula sejak lewat tahun 1980-an tetapi mula mendapat perhatian meluas menjelang pertengahan 1990-an. Bidang ini amat popular terutama dalam kalangan institusi pengajian tinggi di Amerika Syarikat (AS) dan kemudiannya berkembang di Eropah termasuk Britain. Hampir kebanyakan universiti ternama di dunia mempunyai

Buku ini adalah koleksi dan catatan perjalanan lawatan pelajar-pelajar PISMP Ambilan Januari 2010 Institut Pendidikan Guru Kampus Pulau Pinang ke Muzium Arkeologi Lembah Bujang. Terbahagi kepada 5 bab utama yang akan membawa sidang pembaca bersama-sama kami menyelusuri catatan perjalanan kami yang menarik dengan keajaiban dan keistimewaan LEMBAH BUJANG.

Sistem pemilikan tanah adat Melayu sudah pun wujud sebelum penjajahan Kuasa-Kuasa Barat. Sistem pemilikan tanah tradisional tetap diamalkan walaupun berada di bawah pentadbiran Portugis dan Belanda selepas kejatuhan Kesultanan Melayu Melaka. Terdapat beberapa ciri penting yang ada pada sistem pemilikan tanah tradisional. Antaranya, Namun, menjelang abad ke-20, aspek tanah di Tanah Melayu mengalami perubahan yang dramatik. Perubahan sistem pemilikan tanah berlaku apabila Inggeris secara rasmi mengambil alih pentadbiran dari Sultan-Sultan dan menubuhkan sistem Residen di Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, dan Pahang mulai tahun 1874.

Sejarah Melayu tidak mengandungi tarikh-tarikh, tetapi terdapat kisah-kisah di dalamnya yang benar-benar berlaku. 1 Sejarah Melayu adalah nama gantian kepada nama asalnya Sulalatus Salatin, sebuah karangan yang telah "diperbaiki" daripada "Hikayat Melayu" yang lebih awal yang "dibawa" oleh orang dari Goa". Karya ini sebenarnya telah ditulis pada tahun 1612 oleh Tun Sri Lanang. (Rujuk Lampiran 1). Teks Sejarah Melayu juga amat terkenal dan ia mendapat banyak perhatian daripada para sarjana mahupun daripada dalam negeri atau daripada luar negeri. Berdasarkan pandangan tokoh iaitu Bottoms, beliau turut menekankan Sejarah Melayu adalah karya atau sumber yang penting. Beliau menyifatkan teks itu sebagai satu kumpulan data penulisan tentang sejarah orang-orang Melayu. 2 Penulisan esei ini adalah untuk mengupas sejauh manakah teks Sejarah Melayu ini dapat dianggap sebagai sebuah dokumen politik penting tentang kesultanan Melayu. Melalui teks Sejarah Melayu, anggapan sebagai sebuah dokumen politik yang terpenting pada zaman Kesultanan Melayu dapat dilihat daripada beberapa sudut yang telah ditekankan oleh penulis.

"This book offers annotated translations of documents touching on Dutch admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge and his voyage to Asia between 1605 and 1608. These translations are aimed at a contemporary English-speaking Asian readership interested in the early modern history of European trade, warfare and expansion in Southeast Asia with a focus on Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Researchers specialising in early European colonialism, international law, international relations, security studies, and diplomatic history will also find that the documents translated in this volume offer new and unfamiliar perspectives. Materlieff’s business acumen, military and diplomataic prowess as well as his vision of empire all have implications for examining not only European expansion into Southeast Asia, but also into other regions at large, including especially south Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Admiral Matelieff was a director of the Rotterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) formed in 1602. He was appointed fleet commander on one of the company’s first voyages to Asia. Matelieff’s mission was both commercial and military: he launched a major sea-borne attack on the Portuguese colony of Melaka, arranged for the signing of treaties with the rulers of Johor, Aceh and Ternate, and founded the first Dutch fort on the island of Ternate. His endeavours, however, to open the Chinese market for the Dutch company proved unsuccessful.
Following his return to the Dutch Republic in September 1608, Matelieff penned a series of memorials and letters. In these he advanced recommendations for changing the way the company organized its fleets and conducted business. More importantly he offered  his Dutch contemporaries a vision of empire in Asia. The materials contained in this volume offer important observations of a perceptive analyst who was also determined to grasp the political and economic structures of Asia, and also of inter-state relations in across this vast region. At a time of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, French and English engagement in Southeast Asia, Matelieff sought to critically assess and strategize on the ways in which Europeans were increasingly engaging with Asian polities and their rulers.

This book will be released for sale in Australasia and Europe in June 2014 and available in the Americas after September 2014
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This study investigated the influence of teachers’ competency in the teaching of History toward the students’ academic achievement in the subject. Three aspects which included the multiple skilled teaching strategies (KMST), the skill of learning evaluation (KMPP) and the skill of using ICT (KPTM) were studied. The study used survey research design to find out the influence of teachers’competency in the teaching of History on students’ academic achivement. Form Four students from a secondary school in Samarahan Disctrict, Sarawak were given the questionnaires. The sample involved 60 students (23 male and 37 female). Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for Windows (SPSS) Version 22 was used for data analysis.The study revealed that a majority of the History teachers mastered the multiple skilled teaching Strategies (KMST) and the skill of learning evaluation (KMPP). The t-test showed that the teachers’ skills did not differ in terms of gender but were significantly different in terms of the stream. Correlation analyses showed no significant relationships existed between teachers’ competency in the teaching of History and students’ academic achievement and the multiple skilled teaching strategies and the skill of learning evaluation except for the skill of using ICT. To conclude, action should be taken to upgrade teacher knowledge to improve teaching skill to produce excellent students who understand the importance of learning History in their daily lives.

Bahasa merupakan perkataan yang berasal daripada perkataan Sanskrit iaitu bhasha yang memberikan pelbagai maksud seperti peradaban, adab dan ihsan 1 . Ahli-ahli bahasa pula telah merumuskan bahawa bahasa ialah sistem lambing-lambang yang bersifat arbitrari yang digunakan oleh masyarakat sebagai alat komunikasi sesame masyarakat dan alat untuk mengidentifikasikan diri mereka 2 . Akan tetapi makna lain bagi bahasa juga membawa erti sebagai sistem membawa maksud serta sistem kognitif yang merujuk kepada pemilihan persepsi, kesan dan sensasi untuk membentuk sesebuah konsep dan pemikiran 3 . Pelbagai sumber telah dikemukan mengenai asal-usul Bahasa Melayu daripada berasalnya dari Asia Tengah hingga ke Nusantara 4 dan terdapat juga beberapa teori bahawa penulisan Bahasa Melayu telah di pengaruhi daripada beberapa bahasa asing seperti Hindu, Jawa dan Arab 5 . Sebelum kedatangan pengaruh Hindu, terdapat beberapa penulisan di jumpai di Rencong dan Lampung akan tetapi kegunaanya sangat terhad kerana agak sukar untuk digunakan semula untuk penulisan lain kecuali daripada tujuan asalnya 6 . Di dalam linkungan abad pertama, proses Indianisasi di Asia Tenggara seperti penubuhan kerajaan Funan dan Lin-Yi berlaku menyebabkan terdapat pengaruh Hindu di dalam beberapa aspek masyarakat seperti upacara keagamaan, kesenian dan kesusateraan berasaskan pengaruh Hindu 7 . Ini dibuktikan dengan peninggalan yang inskripsi pada 1380 Masihi untuk raja Sumatara Adityavarman yang mengandungi campuran bahasa Sanskrit Melayu dan Arab dan cerita Hikayat Perang Pandawa Jaya dan Hikayat Sang Boma mendapat inspirasinya dariapda Bharatayuddha iaitu sebahagian di dalam kitab Hindu Mahabharata 8 . Di dalam lingkungan abad ke-11 dan ke-16, pengaruh Islam di Alam Melayu terutamanya di sekitar Nusantara berkembang dengan pesat pendakwah Islam memperkenalkan sistem tulisan Arab atau Jawi bagi membantu muallaf membaca Al-Quran dengan lebih lancar dan memudahkan pembelajaran ilmu-ilmu lain juga seperti As-Sunnah tetapi pembelajaran secara formal hanya dijalankan oleh golongan atasan. Walau bagaimanapun, majoriti masyarakat pada zaman dahulu buta huruf kerana tidak lagi mempunyai kepentingan memahami penulisan, maka kisah Rasulullah S.A.W dan tokoh-tokoh Islam lain diceritakan melalui lisan. Walaupun Kerajaan China telah membuat penemuan tentang kertas pada 105 Mashi tetapi penggunaannya di Nusantara tidak menular dengan pesat sehingga sampainya pengaruh Islam dan sistem penulisan Arab 9 . Kemudahan menulis menggunakan kertas berbanding kulit haiwan, kulit kayu dan kitab-kitab yang dihasilkan dari Timur Tengah, Arab, Parsi dan India yang mula disebarkan di sekitar Nusantara menggalakkan lagi penghasilan karya sastera di Alam Melayu. Ini dapat dilihat dengan penghasilan hikayat seperti Hikayat Amir Hamzah 10 . Kesusateraan membawa maksud karya tulisan dalam bentuk prosa atau puisi yang mempunyai ciri keistimewaan yang tertentu. Ayat akar bagi Kesusateraan adalah sastera dan ayat asli sastera berasal daripada Sanskrit Shastera 11 . Menurut beberapa tokoh dalam mendefinasikan kesusateraan, Hashim Awang mendefinasikannya sebagai ciptaan seni yang menggunakan alat petuturan atau bahasa dan tulisan sebagai alat penyampainya manakala Muhammad Haji Salleh mengatakan bahawa ia merupakan karya-karya berupa cereka yang dicipta dengan perantaraan bahasa dan alatan-alatan yang datang bersamanya, yang tidak berbentuk laporan atau esei 12 . Di dalam Kesusateraan Melayu memiliki pelbagai pembahagian seperti persuratan, kitab, puisi dan lain-lain lagi. Menurut Herman J. Waluyo puisi merupakan bentuk karya yang mengungkapkan fikiran dan perasaan penyair secara imaginatif dan disusun dengan mengkonsentrasikan struktur fizik dan struktur batinnya manakala Mohd Taib Osman menyatakan puisi adalah satu bentuk komunikasi atau perhubungna dan Jakob Sumardjo pula mendefiniskan puisi sebagai ungkapan bahasa yang mempunyai kekuatan 13 Selain itu, Zainal Abidin Ahamd puisi ialah karangan berangkap yang khas dipakai untuk melafazkan pemikiran yang cantik dengan bahasa yang indah dan melukiskan kemanisan serta kecantikan bahasa. Manakala, menurut H.B Jassin pula, puisi adalah pengucapan dengan perasaan yang ada di dalamnya mengandungi fikiranfikiran dan tanggapan-tanggapan manakala M.S Hutagalung memberikan erti puisi sebagai menggambarkan sesuatu dan bukan menerangkan atau menceritakan 14 . Bagi puisi tradisional ia terbahagi kepada beberapa jenis genre puisi tradisional seperti Pantun, Syair, Gurindam, Rejang, Dikir/Zikir, Endoi, Ruba'I, Nazam, Masnawi, Ghazal, Berzanji, Qit'ah, Seloka, Talibun, Peribahasa Berangkap, Teromba, Perbilangan Adat dan Mantera. Puisi ini ia merupakan pencurahan jiwa apabila ingin merangkanya dan sesebuah puisi memiliki kepadatan dimana ia bersifat sugestif dan asosiatif 15 .Terdapat beberapa faktor yang menjadikan tradisi dalam kesusateraan lama iaitu, nama pengarang atau penulisnya tidak disebut iaitu hasil kesusateraan Melayu lama dianggap milik rakyat dan bukan milik keseorangan, pengarang takut apabila pihak pemerintah mengambil tindakan terhadapnya jikalau tulisannya tidak diperkenankan oleh raja. Selain itu, apabila sesebuah tulisan dicipta atas perintah raja namanya tidak ditulis kerana ia merupakan milik negara manakala penulisan bercorak pengajaran Islam pula tidak diletakkan namanya kerana hasilnya dianggap amal jariah dan bukan ingin mencari kemasyuran dan nama 16 . Antara tokoh-tokoh sasterawan adalah Pawang Ana dan Raja Haji Yahya yang menghasilkan karya-karya seperti Awang Sulung Merah dan Raja Muda serta Encik Amin pengarang syair Syair Perang Mengkasar. Manakala antara tokoh bagi sasterawan pula adalah Tun Seri Lanang penulis buku Sulalatus al-Salatin dan Hamzah Fansuri yang dianggap sebagai pencipta bentuk pengarangan syair dan antara hasil karyanya adalah Syair Dagang, Syair Perahu dan Syair Burung Pingai 17 . Makalah ini akan merungkai mengenai ciri-ciri sesebuah masyarakat yang berfikiran dinamik dan hubunganya dengan puisi tradisional serta penggunaan puisi ini di dalam kehidupan seharian masyarakat rumpun Melayu. 52 -Rogayah A. Hamid, Mariyam Salim, 2007, hlmn 193 53 -Mana Sikana, 1996, hlmn 65 54 -Muhammad Haji Salleh, 2006, hlmn 51 3.1 PUISI TRADISIONAL DIDALAM ASPEK AMALAN DAN KEPERCAYAAN Perkataan mantera jarang digunakan oleh masyarakat Melayu dan mereka sering menggunakan perkataan Jampi Serempah. Harun Mat Piah lebih gemar menggunakan mantera untuk merangkumi kesuluruhan bentuk atau jenis, seperti petikan ini. "Semua jenis pengucapan dalam bentuk puisi atau prosa, yang mengandungi tujuan dan konotasi magis, pengubatan dan perbomohan…merangkumi semua nama dan jenis pengucapan yang sama fungsi seperti…jampi, serempah, tawa, sembur, cuca, puja, sertungkal dan lain-lain" 51 . Dalam masyarakat yang bersifat tradisonal dimana amalan seharian begitu primitif kuasa mantera dianggap sangat bersangkut-paut dengan unsur-unsur magis. Di dalam budaya tradisional Hindu, rumus-rumus berentak atau chhandas ini adalah sebahagian daripada ujaran-ujaran di dalam kitab suci Vedas, maka dianggap secara langsung keluar daripada Brahman kepada Guru dan Rishis. Maka ia dianggap sebagai bahasa Dewa dan bahasa berentak atau bersajak pada padangan masyarakat dianggap sebagai bahasa Tuhan 52 . Jampi dan Mantera bukan sahaja pembentukan puisi melalui perasaan tetepi ia merupakan hubungan jiwa dengan sistem kepercayaan. Ia dibaca untuk memberi kesaktian terutamanya pada perubatan. Pawang dilihat sebagai manusia yang luar biasa yang mempunyai kuasa adikodrati dan merupakan manusia perngantaraan makhluk dengan yang ghaib 53 . Bagi memastikan sesuatu jampi itu bertambah mujarab suara seseorang yang mencakapnya juga perlu memliki nada suara yang memerintah dan kuat. Untuk mencapai ton suara itu, mereka ini juga dibantukan lagi dengan jampi yang berbeza, dan campuran minuman asam jawa, madu dan daun sirih. Suara yang jelas dan kuat serta merupakan berbeza daripada ton bunyi biasa dan penstrukturan ayat supaya berirama dan memiliki ayat-ayat sakti akan membolehkan seseorang itu secara langsung berkomunikasi dengan kuasa-kuasa lain. Apabila seseorang itu memiliki banyak jampi dan kepandaian dalam bidang ini mereka dianggap berilmu 54 . Jampi itu sendiri merupakan bentuk ilmu yang bersifat kudus dan tidak boleh diucapkan oleh sembarangan orang kerana ia sangat berkait rapat dengan kepercayaan masyarakat 55 . Garis pengukur bagi sesebuah jampi adalah teks ucapan terbina di daripada kata-kata atau ayat dalam bentuk puisi atau prosa berirama, kandungan teks memiliki konotasi magis atau berkaitan kuasa luar biasa, ayat membina teks di dapat melalui perguruan atau penurunan secara ghaib. Mempercayai dan meyakini sepenuhnya serta diamalkan atau dipraktikkan bersungguh-sungguh dengan memnuhi syarat yang ditetapkan dan yang terakhir digunakan untuk kegunaan tertentu sama ada baik ataupun sebaliknya 56 . Sistem kepercayaan melahirkan bentuk-bentuk pengucapan jampi dan ia dibukti melalui unsur-unsur magis, pemujaan, perubatan, kasih saying, pendiding dan perhubungan dengan psikologi manusia. Menururt W.W. Skeat. Masyarakat tradisional Melayu amat akrab dengan unsur mistik dan jampi lahir hasil interaksi antara alam luaran dengan dalaman 57 . Kewujudan pelbagai kepercayaan ini telah mempengaruhi hidup masyarakat rumpun Melayu tradisional. Dengan kewujudan pelbagai jampi bagi membantu mereka di dalam kehidupan mereka maka ini dapat dilihat dengan pembentukan jampi pantang larang memulakn tuaian padi. Hei Nur Pulih Cendana Pulih Jangan duduk ghalik di benua Keling dan benua China Kami nak sambut bawa balik ke jelapang buluh kami Di tempat yang sunyi Jangan duduk di sana sini Selepas membaca mantera tersebut, maka bermulah kerja diketam tujuh tangkai padi. Padi yang diketam itu perlu diselimuti dan waktu memulakan itu adalah pada waktu maghrib. Dalam perjalanan balik, mereka yang terlibat dalam upacara tersebut dilarang bercakap, walaupun menjawab sapaan dan mereka juga...

The Atlas of Maritime Silk Road Buddhism by Prof Lewis Lancaster contains a series of lectures he presented at the Department of Religious Studies for the University of the West in California.  These lectures give a description of the search for models that can deal with the study of how Buddhism spread from the Ganges Basin and established itself throughout the Southeast area of Eurasia.  In addition to the lectures, there are many images in the volume from the large museum exhibits that opened at the City University of Hong Kong and the Buddha Museum at Fo Guang Shan in Taiwan.  As part of the data collecting process, Prof Sarah Kenderdine from Lausanne, Switzerland secured a grant from the Australian Research Council to take 3-D and surround images from Buddhist sites tied to the maritime route from India to East Asia. More than three months of filming with camera crews in India, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Cambodia, and China resulting in a major collection of high density photographs, videos, and sound recordings.  These images were taken by Prof Jeffrey Shaw of Hong Kong and installed as museum exhibitions using 3-D and Virtual Reality that allow visitors to experience the art, architecture, and cultural features on the journey from the shores of India to China. This volume has now been produced by the Institute for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism at Fo Guang Shan to accompany the museum exhibits providing a description of the data used in filming and the research that helped create the story that is told about Maritime Buddhism.





















The Atlas of Maritime Silk Road Buddhism by Prof Lewis Lancaster contains a series of lectures he presented at the Department of Religious Studies for the University of the West in California.  These lectures give a description of the search for models that can deal with the study of how Buddhism spread from the Ganges Basin and established itself throughout the Southeast area of Eurasia.  In addition to the lectures, there are many images in the volume from the large museum exhibits that opened at the City University of Hong Kong and the Buddha Museum at Fo Guang Shan in Taiwan.  As part of the data collecting process, Prof Sarah Kenderdine from Lausanne, Switzerland secured a grant from the Australian Research Council to take 3-D and surround images from Buddhist sites tied to the maritime route from India to East Asia. More than three months of filming with camera crews in India, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Cambodia, and China resulting in a major collection of high density photographs, videos, and sound recordings.  These images were taken by Prof Jeffrey Shaw of Hong Kong and installed as museum exhibitions using 3-D and Virtual Reality that allow visitors to experience the art, architecture, and cultural features on the journey from the shores of India to China. This volume has now been produced by the Institute for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism at Fo Guang Shan to accompany the museum exhibits providing a description of the data used in filming and the research that helped create the story that is told about Maritime Buddhism.














The Atlas of Maritime Silk Road Buddhism by Prof Lewis Lancaster contains a series of lectures he presented at the Department of Religious Studies for the University of the West in California.  These lectures give a description of the search for models that can deal with the study of how Buddhism spread from the Ganges Basin and established itself throughout the Southeast area of Eurasia.  In addition to the lectures, there are many images in the volume from the large museum exhibits that opened at the City University of Hong Kong and the Buddha Museum at Fo Guang Shan in Taiwan.  As part of the data collecting process, Prof Sarah Kenderdine from Lausanne, Switzerland secured a grant from the Australian Research Council to take 3-D and surround images from Buddhist sites tied to the maritime route from India to East Asia. More than three months of filming with camera crews in India, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Cambodia, and China resulting in a major collection of high density photographs, videos, and sound recordings.  These images were taken by Prof Jeffrey Shaw of Hong Kong and installed as museum exhibitions using 3-D and Virtual Reality that allow visitors to experience the art, architecture, and cultural features on the journey from the shores of India to China. This volume has now been produced by the Institute for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism at Fo Guang Shan to accompany the museum exhibits providing a description of the data used in filming and the research that helped create the story that is told about Maritime Buddhism.

The Singapore and Melaka Straits are a place where regional and long-distance maritime trading networks converge, linking Europe, the Mediterranean, eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent with key centres of trade in Thailand, Indochina, insular Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan. The first half of the seventeenth century brought heightened political, commercial and diplomatic activity to this region. It has long been clear to both the Portuguese and the Dutch that whoever controlled the waters off modern Singapore gained a firm grip on regional as well as long-distance intra-Asian trade. By the early 1600s Portuguese power and prestige were waning and the arrival of the Dutch East India Company constituted a major threat. Moreover, the rapid expansion and growing power of the Acehnese Empire, and rivalry between Johor and Aceh, was creating a new context for European trade in Asia.

Drawing on maps, rare printed works, and unpublished manuscripts written in Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Latin, Peter Borschberg provides new information on the diplomatic activities of Asian powers, and shows how the Portuguese and Spanish attempted to restore their political fortunes by containing the rapid rise of Dutch Power in the region. Key documents, transcribed and translated into English for the first time, make up a series of appendices.

The product of more than two decades of research in European libraries, archives, The Singapore and Melaka Straits will be of great interest to readers in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where little is known about this pivotal pre-colonial period. It is also an invaluable resource for historians and other students of early modern Europe and of the European presence in Asia.
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Few authors have as much to say about Singapore and the old Johor capital Batu Sawar as Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge (c.1570-1632). This admiral of the Dutch East India Company sailed to Asia in 1605 and besieged Portuguese Melaka in 1606 with the help of Malay allies. A massive Portuguese armada arrived from Goa to fight the Dutch at sea, break the siege and relieve the Portuguese colony. During his Asian voyage and on his return to Europe in September 1608, Matelieff penned a series of letters and memorials in which he provided a candid assessment of trading opportunities and politics in Asia. He advised the VOC and leading government officials of the Dutch Republic to take a long-term view of Dutch involvement in Asia and fundamentally change the way they were doing business there. Singapore, the Straits region, and Johor assumed a significant role in his overall assessment. At one stage seriously contemplated establishing the VOC’s main Asian base at a location near the Johor River estuary. On deeper reflection, however, Matelieff and the VOC directors in Europe began to shift their attention southward and instead began to prefer a location around the Sunda Strait. This was arguably a near miss for Singapore two full centuries before Thomas Stamford Raffles founded the British trading post on the island in 1819. This book is aimed at students, researchers and general readers who are interested in the history of Singapore and Johor as well as in answering the question: Was Singapore’s potential as a strategic and commercial center not recognized before the arrival of the British?

This book has been published by the National Library of Singapore's Books SG site. It can be accessed as a non-downloadable e-book here:

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/printheritage/detail/422c9b10-422c-4c79-aa6c-f5d69044bda0.aspx?s=admiral

This study examines the role of visual print culture and popular printed artefacts in articulating, reflecting and disseminating dominant notions of national identity in Malaysia in the fifty years of its history as an independent nation (1957-2007) through three case studies – print advertisements, Wanita women’s magazine, and Lat’s cartoons.
This study is not an attempt to define the meaning or essence of Malaysian identity. On the contrary, it seeks to emphasise the constructed nature of national identity in Malaysia, by demonstrating how it has been dominated by hegemonic majoritarian cultural discourses at different eras and fluidly shaped by changing historical factors.
The project entitled Chronicling Malay/sian Identity as an allusion to the complex equations of racial politics, which direct and define the whole ambit of national culture in the country.
It aims to firstly establish the significance of visual culture and popular print media in the construction of Malaysian national identity, and secondly, to chronicle an undocumented and under-studied history of Malaysian national identity through the medium of visual print media.

This is chapter two of my published PhD thesis "Proclaiming the Peacemaker: The Malaysian Church as an Agent for Reconciliation in a Multicultural Society", Oxford: Regnum Books, 2012

From the Introduction:

The Malaysian church exists as a minority community in a multicultural context, where racial tensions are present and religious liberties are restricted. Given these sorts of challenges what shape should Christian mission take in Malaysia at this time? In particular, how are Malaysian churches to combine proclamation of the gospel with a ministry of peacemaking? These questions are explored in this book with the prior understanding that both proclamation and peacemaking are included in the mission God gives his church, and that both may be combined in the exercising of a ministry of reconciliation.

Malay-Muslim identity has been pivotal to the functioning of the modern nation-state that attained independence from Britain on 31 August 1957 as the Federation of Malaya and became Malaysia on 16 September 1963 with the incorporation of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore into the federation. Malay-Muslims constitute the majority of Malaysia's population, albeit not by an overwhelming percentage, and the definitive features, structures and conventions of the Malaysian state give them control of the major levers of power. Malay-Muslim identity is grounded in the Federal Constitution, but has undergone metamorphoses as a result of shifting boundaries in the conceptualization and praxis of Islam among Malay-Muslims. This article discusses some of the causes and ramifications of the contemporary essentialization of Islamic thought and practice in Malaysia. I argue that a sharia-centric Islamist bias, paradoxically, came close to uniting hitherto opposing sides of the Malay-Muslim religio-political divide during Najib Razak's administration (2009-18).

When for the first time the Portuguese landed on the Indian shores in the late 15th century, they soon realized that the great transoceanic trade was in the hands of the Gujaratis and that they were those who would be their main competitors in their ambitious scheme of diverting Asiatic trade to Europe by the way of the Cape. Barbosa and Pires, the two famous Portuguese authors of the early 16th century are full of praise for the extent of maritime trade in Gujarat whose inhabitants have acquired, according to Pires, the same commercial skills as the Italians and particularly the Genoese in Europe. In this paper we would like to scrutinize the accuracy of their testimony on trade relationships between Gujarat and the Malay world – the present states of Indonesia and Malaysia – and try to determine to which extent they had implications in the political and cultural fields.

The Flemish gem trader Jacques de Coutre visited Southeast Asia in the early 17th century, and his lengthy account of his experiences provides a glimpse of Singapore, Johor and the Straits of Melaka during an era for which little written material has survived. This special edition, which presents reworked highlights from the full translation, is designed to provide students, teachers and the wider public with a glimpse of this tumultuous region when it was still controlled by local rulers, and Western colonialism was just gaining a foothold. The author describes dangerous intrigues involving fortune hunters and schemers, as well as local rulers and couriers, adventures that on several occasions nearly cost him his life.
The manuscripts come from a bundle of documents preserved at the National Library of Spain in Madrid that includes De Coutre’s autobiography and several memorials to the Crowns of Spain and Portugal. Chapters from the autobiography have been excerpted from book I, which covers the writer’s life in Southeast Asia between 1593 and 1603. A glossary and list of place names provide information about officials, goods and places mentioned in the text that will be unfamiliar to readers of English.

The Dutch East India Company, also known by its historic initials VOC, was a chartered trading company that was active between 1602 and 1795. Formed by a merger of six smaller trading firms that traded in the East Indies and backed by a monopoly of trade, this proto-conglomerate emerged as a driving force in globalization, transregional investment, and early European colonization in Asia and Africa. The VOC operated as a profit-driven shareholder corporation and at the apex of its power, around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, maintained a series of factories and settlements stretching from Cape Town in Southern Africa, the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India, Bengal, to insular and mainland Southeast Asia and as far as Taiwan (Formosa) and Japan. Chartered companies possessed considerable investments and infrastructure outside Europe, especially with their administrative apparatus, contacts, business networks, and trading knowledge. This in turn laid the foundations for Dutch imperialism during the 19th century.
Keywords
early globalization, capitalism, international trade, Europe–Asia relations, Asian studies, diplomacy, colonialism, international law