Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya in the “Lands Below the Wind” 223
given new meanings, e. g. lord or god (tuhan), worship (sembah-yang),
fasting (puasa) – to mention but a few. Yet the literary output of this
early phase of Islamization, which continued until the 16th century, was
not confined to tales and chronicles.^11 Rather, it covered a wide range
of genres, from law and theology to ethics and morality. It is to be
noted that by the 16th century the Malay language had become a lingua
franca in the archipelago.^12
By the latter part of the 16th and throughout the 17th centuries, mys-
tico-theological literature of remarkable profundity was flourishing.
Some of the best examples of such works, written in Malay but using
the Arabic script,^13 are those of the poet Ḥamza Fanṣūrī, who lived
during the reign of Sulṭān ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Riʿāyat Shāh (r. 1589–1604) of
Aceh. Ḥamza Fanṣūrī belonged to the Qādiriyya order and drew upon
the mystical doctrines of Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Jāmī (d. 1492) and ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (d. 1428).^14
Another important scholar was Shams al-Dīn al-Sumatranī (d. 1630),
who enjoyed the patronage of Sultan Iskandar Muda (r. 1607–1636)
and served as the shaykh al-islām of Aceh.^15 Al-Sumatranī is said to be
the one responsible for the popularization of the doctrine of “seven
grades of Being” (martabat tujuh) based on the teaching of the Indian
Sufi scholar al-Burhānpūrī (d. 1620), whose work al-Tuḥfa al-mursala
11 An excellent survey is given by Winstedt, Richard: A History of Classical Malay
Literature, in: Journal of Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 31 (1958),
pp. 1–261, esp. pp. 61–63, “From Hinduism to Islam”; reprint: Singapore 1961.
12 Kratz, E. Ulrich: Malay as Lingua Franca. A Historical Survey, in: Malay Lit-
erature 12 (1999), pp. 46–57; Awang, Omar: The Major Arabic Sources which
Determined the Structure of Islamic Thought in the Malay Archipelago Before
the Nineteenth Century A. D. in the Field of Law, Theology and Sufism, in:
Lutpi Ibrahim (ed.): Islamika. Esei-esei Sempena Abad ke-15 Hijrah, Kuala
Lumpur 1981, pp. 80–85.
13 Now it is generally known as Kitab Jawi or Kitab Kuning. See Bin Ngah, Mohd
Nor: Kitab Jawi. Islamic Thought of the Malay Muslim Scholars, Singapore 1983;
Matheson, Virginia and Hooker, Michael B.: Jawi Literature in Patani. The Main-
tenance of an Islamic Tradition, in: Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society 60/61 (1988), pp. 1–86; van Bruinessen, Martin: Kitab Kuning.
Books in Arabic Script Used in the Pesantren-Milieu, in: Bijdragen van het Konin-
klijk Instituut voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146 (1990), pp. 249–250.
14 For his life and legacy, see al-Attas, Seyd Muhammad al Naquib: The Mysticism
of Ḥamzah Fanṣūrī, Kuala Lumpur 1970.
15 See van Niewenhuijze, Christoffel A. O.: Samsu’l-Din van Pasai, Leiden 1945;
and Johns, Anthony H.: Nur al-Daqa’iq by Shams al-Din of Pasai, in: Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society 85 (1953), pp. 137–151.
Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University
Authenticated