E. Wieringa Dotting the dal and penetrating the letters; The Javanese origin of the Syair seribu masalah and its Bantenese spelling In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 159 (2003), no: 4, Leiden, 499-518 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 11:08:39PM via free access E.P. WIERINGA Dotting the dal and penetrating the letters The Javanese origin of the Syair seribu masalah and its Bantenese spelling In memoriam JJ. Ras (1926-2003), an exemplary philologist, convinced of the importance of Javanese for Malay studies A remarkable spelling A number of years ago, Drewes (1986:324-5) drew attention in this journal to a versified Malay version of the so-called 'Book of the Thousand Questions', that is, the well-known story of the Jewish scholar 'Abd Allah bin Salam of Khaybar who questioned the Prophet Muhammad about a wide spectrum of theological matters, ultimately embracing Islam after the Prophet had been able to answer all his questions in a satisfactory way.1 Drewes 'discovered' this text in Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343, belonging to the Van der Tuuk bequest. As Drewes duly noted, the Syair seribu masalah* in this manuscript is incomplete, consisting of two fragments, namely sheaf M, pp. 13-24 and sheaf N, pp. 1-10. The opening stanza of the first fragment reads (see Figure 1): 1 On the half-historical, half-legendary figure of 'Abd Allah b. Salam, see the entry in the first or second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Horovitz 1987:30-1 or Horovitz 1960:52). For an overview of bibliographical references, see Wieringa (1998a:187-8). A first version of this essay was presented at a meeting of Malaysian linguists at the KITLV, 1 November 2002. I am grateful to Julian Millie, Willem van der Molen, Titik Pudjiastuti, and Jan van der Putten for their suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. I also wish to thank J.J. Witkam, keeper of the Oriental printed books and manuscripts in the library of Leiden University, for his kind help in furnishing the illustrations. E.P. WIERINGA currently teaches Malay and Indonesian language and literature at the University of Leiden, where he also obtained his doctorate (on a Javanese subject). The second volume of his major Catalogue of Malay and Minangkabau manuscripts in the library of Leiden University is forthcoming. Dr Wieringa may be contacted at TCZOAO, PO Box 9515, NL-2300 RA Leiden, <[email protected]>. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 11:08:39PM via free access Figure 1. First fragment of the Syair seribu masalah in Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343, sheaf M, p. 13. Line 10a reads: 'dan yang mangikut jalan bënër pada Tuhannya'. The dotted dal in the word duduq can be found in line 3b (second word). Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 11:08:39PM via free access Dotting the dal and penetrating the letters 501 Bahuwa Rasulüllah salla 'llahu 'alaihi wa-sallam Pasuruh Allah pada sakalian Islam Dan barkata pada 'All 'alaihi as-salam Ini surat kita kapir suruh Islam2 In translation: The fact is that the Apostle of God, may God bless him and grant hitn peace, is God's Messenger to all Muslims. And he said to 'All, upon him be peace: 'This is our letter to the infidels, ordering them to embrace Islam'. After a few pages, however, we find a new beginning - not mentioned by Drewes (1986) - with the typical opening formula wa bi-hi nasta'ïnu bi-llahi (al-)'aliya (see Figure 2).3 The first fragment ends with the dimensions of the sky (roughly comparable to the Malay prose version in Djamaris 1994: 30), while the second piece starts with the question about the second langu (see Drewes 1986:325). This second part ends with questions pertaining to eschatology (see Drewes 1986:324-5 for a transliteration of the final two quat- rains). Drewes (1986:326) concluded that this syair could not be based upon a Malay prose version, but must have gone back to a Javanese rendition. His argument was that the occurrence of 'Alï in the syair could also be found in Javanese accounts, but not in the Malay ones, as stated by Pijper (1924:41, 68). Furthermore, he noted that 'Abd Allah confirmed the correctness of the Prophet's answers by declaring sadaqta, 'It is as you said', whereas Malay manuscripts use the corrupt term sidiq.4 There are, however, at least two more intratextual reasons in favour of assuming a Javanese origin. First, the name of the Jewish scholar in the Syair seribu masalah is given as Samud ibnu/ibni Salam or simply as Samud, fol- lowing Javanese tradition (Pijper 1924:69). Second, the number of questions is not one thousand, but 1,404, as in Javanese manuscripts (Pijper 1924:69- 2 Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343, sheaf M, p. 13. 3 Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343 M, p. 16, line 7a, where the last word seems to be spelled as alif-lam-'ain-lam-ya, but it looks as if the initial alif-lam was crossed out. On the prob- lematic interpretation of this invocation, especially the last word which constitutes its crux, see Braginsky (1993:37), who also refers to earlier explanations. 4 According to Drewes (1986:326), in Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 4001, the only Javanese rendering mentioned by Pijper (1924), 'Abd Allah's stereotypical reaction to the Prophet's answers is always couched in Javanese terms. The brief catalogue descriptions of Javanese manuscripts in other collections, such as in Poerbatjaraka (1950:68-74), Behrend (1990: 526, 542-3) or Behrend and Pudjiastuti (1997:196, where other manuscripts are also mentioned), do not allow a conclusion to be drawn on this point. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 11:08:39PM via free access Figure 2. New beginning of the Syair seribu masalah, opening with the conventional formula wa W-fci nasta'inu bi-llahi (al-)'aliya. Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343, sheaf M, p. 16. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 11:08:39PM via free access Dotting the dal and penetrating the letters 503 70).5 The orthography, too, points to a Javanese milieu. The purpose of this brief paper is to examine the spelling in the text somewhat more closely in order to examine its possible place of origin. Apparently, Van der Tuuk had mainly become interested in this text because of what he called its 'remarkable spelling'.6 The original manuscript, of which Cod. Or. 3343 sheafs M-N are a copy, belonged to the Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, and is nowadays kept in the National Library of the Indonesian Republic at Jakarta, where it is registered as ML 420.7 Van der Tuuk made an autograph copy of two poems from this manuscript, while he left the copying of the Syair seribu masalah to someone else with a more expert hand. The first poem is a religious text, featuring the warring kings Raja Lawwamah of Medina and Sultan Mutmainah of Mecca, but, contrary to what might be expected, it is not a Javanistic allegory of the so-called napsu termed Lawwamah (Arabic an-nafs al-lawwama, 'the blaming soul') and Mutmainah (Arabic an-nafs al-mutma'inna, 'the soul at peace').8 It is, rather, a vehicle for presenting a brief discussion of a number of religious subjects, focussing in the beginning on dhikr. The latter topic constitutes the main theme of the next poem, which Van der Tuuk himself also copied, namely an untitled syair on the performance of dhikr at various occasions. A third religious poem of six folios, situated in between them, in which the words were not 'penetrated' (read: vocalized), was not copied.9 For practical reasons, I will limit myself to a discussion of the Leiden copy. As Sutaarga et al. (1972:250) already noted more than thirty years ago, o 5 See, for example, Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343 M, p. 14, line 5: 'yaitu parkara yang ada dalem kitab kalam / saribu empat ratus ampat parkara kalam', and on p. 16, line 8a: 'mangataken saribu ampat ratus ampat parkara'. On p. 14, line 27b, however, we read 'saribu ampat ratus parkara adanya', which must be a mistake. 6 In Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343, sheaf M, p. 1, Van der Tuuk briefly described it as 'een 4to h[an]ds[chrift] toebehoordende aan het Bat[aviaasch] Genootsch[ap]', commenting that he copied its contents, because of the remarkable orthography ('hetwelk wij in zijn geheel overnemen wegens de opmerkelijke spelling'). 7 lts contents are rather inaccurately described in Sutaarga et al. (1972:250) as: 'Peperangan antara sultan Mutmainan [sic] melawan raja Lauamah di Madinah. Kemudian Mutmainah mengajarkan: sifat 20, iman kepada Tuhan, tauhid, dzikir. Terdapat pula petikan percakapan Rasulullah dengan kaum Tsamud [sic]'. It is omitted in Van Ronkel (1909), while it is merely listed in Behrend (1998:290) as 'Syair-syair Melayu'. 8 For the genre of Javanese allegories featuring Luwamah and Mutmainah, see Pigeaud (1970:294-295 (under Luwamah), 316 (under Mutma'inah), 319 (under napsu), and 332 (under Pafica Driya)). Iskandar (1999:170) wrongly identified this poem as a copy of the Syair sifat dua puluh, perhaps because he was misled by the line 'jadi syarat sifat dua puluh yang safi' (Leiden University Library Cod. Or. 3343, sheaf M, p. 3, line 17b). 9 Van der Tuuk writes: 'Hierop volgt een godsdienstig] Mal[eisch] gedicht van 6 inllandsche] blad- zijden, waarin echter de woorden niet gepenetreerd zijn.