Article Review

Contrubution of Malay Scholars in Islamic Civilisation

The article written by Dr Che Razi Jusoh entitled was definitely a breath of
fresh air in the world of Academic writings. This kind of topics were rarely
touched by writers in the field of Islamic Civilisation. This article explore how
the Islamic Scholars in the Malay Archipelago played a vital role in the rise and
continuity of Islamic Civilisation especially in the Malay region. However, the
article only focuses towards the contribution of Muslim Malay Scholars in the
field of literature and how it guided the Malay way of thinking for almost 300
years!
To summarise the article, we need to understand the main ideas that were
presented by the writer. The writer first mentioned that Malay literature was
easily Islamized from Hindu culture and tradition. Then, the writer explained how
the oral tradition was gradually develop into writings with the introduction of
jawi. The impact of colonialization on Malay Literature by the western power
was also discussed. The whole article later on describes a long list of contributions
by the Malay Scholars in literature. Whereas the writer first describe the scholar
then comment on their famous work. The article ended with a short conclusion
by the writer..
First, the writer presented us two ideas of how Malay literature can be divided.
Siti hawa state that there are four types of religious lliterature while R.O Winstedt
divided it into hikayat and sastera kitab. This is interesting because it showed us
that the world of Malay writings is extremely wide and deep. There are more to
explore and discover. But for the sake of this article, the writer solely focus on
the Sastera Kitab, commonly known as Kitab Kuning.
I agree with the writer that brings the idea of Syed Naquib Al Attas in the article.
Worth to mention that Syed Naquib Al Attas is a huge figure in Malay modern
era. The idea that Hinduism has no real impact on malay society is a thing to
ponder. We can clearly see that none of Hinduism kitab reaches us to this day,
and none of its ideas and teaching effected the Malay way of life in the modern
age. Therefore we can easily conclude that there were no real kitab literature
during the time of Hinduism at it peaks that governs the way Malay think and live
their lives.
I also agree with the writer that there are 3 phases of Malay literary tradition or
culture. In the early stage of Islam, the only method of da’wa that were suitable
of that time was by oral tradition. Paper was not a common commodity, therefore
the spread of Islam to the people was done orally. Writings did occur, but limited
towards the people of the castle and the family of the kings and certain scholars
who were close to the kings. Worth to mention also, the distribution of literally
writings at that time also circulated at the pondok institute.
The article continues by explaining about how the jawi scripts was used and
how the Malay literature was divided into two, the prose and the poetry. It was a
great idea to raise the attention of the reader about the difference between these
two. It shows that the Malay scholars are creative in expressing their way of
da’wah towards the people. Some prefer to do poetry, and some prefer to do it
prose, so long as the Islamic message reach its audience. The author herself said
“The purpose of the content in each kitab is to teach people about religion”.
Indeed, there are more than one way to teach people about religion.
There is another point that raise my interest, which is when the writer mentioned
there are certain area of Islamic sciences that were limited in the Malay literature
which is tafsir Quran, hadith literature and Islamic history. Many of the scholar
prefer to wrote things like usul din, fiqh and tasawwuf. This shows us, how the
Malay scholar wrote based on the priority on that time.
The article then talks about how the Malay writings was appreciated. It was
quite disturbing to know that no one ever made a commentary on Al Raniri work.
Only after Al Attas wrote about it, then the idea of Al Raniri became relevant in
our society. This is a huge issue that need to be lighted upon. How many more
works that seem to be lost that are waited for us to discover? The ideas that waited
to be decipher?
I totally agree for the writer to list down the names of prominent Muslims
scholars right after she mentions about the issue with Al Raniri. It is a huge deal
for us readers to know and recognize them and maybe do a research about them.
The effort made by the writer to list it down in two pages worth an applause. The
love and passion are uncountable.

Keyword
Dr Che Razi Jusoh / sastera kitab / Hinduism / oral tradition / pondok institute /
jawi / prose and poetry / Limited / Commentary