Master scribes : Husin bin Ismail, Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsyi, their handwriting and the Hikayat Abdullah - article ; n°1 ; vol.61, pg 115-138

Roger Tol

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Archipel - Année 2001 - Volume 61 - Numéro 1 - Pages 115-138
Roger Tol
Cet article traite de deux éminentes personnalités du monde des Lettres malaises, qui ont travaillé en étroite collaboration à Singapour, dans les années 1830 et 1840. Le premier, Abdullah bin Abdulkadir connut le succès comme la gloire dès le début de sa carrière. Son autobiographie, Hikayat Abdullah ainsi que ses autres œuvres sont toujours lues et appréciées à l'heure actuelle. Le second, le Bugis Husin Bin Ismail - sans doute le scribe le plus productif en manuscrits malais - demeure beaucoup moins connu. Un examen de leur graphies respectives pourrait conduire à résoudre l'énigme des «deux» Hikayat Abdullah conservées aujourd'hui en Nouvelle-Zélande.
Cet examen est basé sur une prometteuse technique d'analyse des graphies enjawi qui devrait apporter des éléments nouveaux dans le débat sur l'identification de celles-ci.
24 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: ARCHIPEL0
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 130
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Roger Tol
Master scribes : Husin bin Ismail, Abdullah bin Abdulkadir
Munsyi, their handwriting and the Hikayat Abdullah
In: Archipel. Volume 61, 2001. pp. 115-138.
Résumé
Roger Tol
Cet article traite de deux éminentes personnalités du monde des Lettres malaises, qui ont travaillé en étroite collaboration à
Singapour, dans les années 1830 et 1840. Le premier, Abdullah bin Abdulkadir connut le succès comme la gloire dès le début de
sa carrière. Son autobiographie, Hikayat Abdullah ainsi que ses autres œuvres sont toujours lues et appréciées à l'heure
actuelle. Le second, le Bugis Husin Bin Ismail - sans doute le scribe le plus productif en manuscrits malais - demeure beaucoup
moins connu. Un examen de leur graphies respectives pourrait conduire à résoudre l'énigme des «deux» Hikayat Abdullah
conservées aujourd'hui en Nouvelle-Zélande.
Cet examen est basé sur une prometteuse technique d'analyse des graphies enjawi qui devrait apporter des éléments nouveaux
dans le débat sur l'identification de celles-ci.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Tol Roger. Master scribes : Husin bin Ismail, Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsyi, their handwriting and the Hikayat Abdullah. In:
Archipel. Volume 61, 2001. pp. 115-138.
doi : 10.3406/arch.2001.3615
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/arch_0044-8613_2001_num_61_1_3615Roger TOL
Master scribes : Husin bin Ismail, Abdullah
bin Abdulkadir Munsyi, their handwriting and
the Hikayat Abdullah *
This article deals with two prominent persons in the world of Malay let
ters who worked closely together in Singapore in the 1830s and '40s. One of
them, Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsyi gained recognition and fame right
from the start during his lifetime. His autobiography, Hikayat Abdullah, and
other writings are enjoyed up until the present. The other person, the
Buginese Husin bin Ismail - possibly the most productive scribe of Malay
manuscripts ever - is far less well known. An examination of their handwrit
ing styles may lead to solving the puzzle of " two " Hikayat Abdullah now kept in New Zealand. This is based on a
promising technique for investigating jawi handwriting, which it is hoped
will contribute to the discussion on jawi handwriting identification.
Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsyi and Husin bin Ismail
For malaici there is actually no need to introduce Abdullah bin
Abdulkadir Munsyi, this great man of letters, who was born in 1797 in
* This article is a slightly revised version of a paper presented at the XXXVIth International
Congress of Asian and North African Studies (ICANAS), Montréal, 27 August - 2
September, 2000. It is a pleasure to thank Ian Proudfoot, Henri Chambert-Loir, Tim Behrend,
Jan Just Witkam, Henk Maier, and Annabel Teh Gallop for their comments. As a matter of
course, all errors are mine.
Archipel 61, Paris, 2001 pp. 115-138 116 Roger Toi
Malacca and died 57 years later in Jeddah during the haj. From the age of 15
until his death he spent his life in close contact with British civil servants -
including Stamford Raffles - and missionaries, both and American.
He worked as a scribe during his whole career, started around 1815 as a
printer in Malacca, taught Malay to many foreigners, edited Malay classics
such as the Sejarah Melayu, and wrote his autobiography, the Hikayat
Abdullah. In all these activities he exercised enormous influence on his con
temporaries and left a heritage that is enjoyed until the present day. He is
most widely known for his Hikayat Abdullah which became a success right
from its first publication in 1849 - a lithograph in his own handwriting - and
has remained unique and pleasant reading ever since. Studies on his work,
life and influence still appear in all kinds of publications. The main sources
of information on this intriguing man are of course his Hikayat Abdullah,
published in a number of editions (i.a. 1953), the annotated translation by
Hill (first ed. 1955), the articles by Skinner (1978), Traill (1981, 1982) and
more recently Carroll (1999), Proudfoot (1999), and Ché-Ross (2000). (i) For
such a prolific scribe and author it is remarkable that manuscripts of the
Hikayat Abdullah have been discovered only quite recently in the United
States and New Zealand. None of the great Malay manuscript collections in
Indonesia, Malaysia, England or the Netherlands possess a manuscript con
taining the Hikayat Abdullah. The manuscripts in the USA are both copied
by Husin bin Ismail. The two New Zealand manuscripts in particular are of
interest. They are known only in the form of reproductions, one page pub
lished as early as 1874, the other two in 1984. Apparently no scholar has
ever seen the manuscripts themselves. Is it possible to establish whether we
are dealing with Abdullah's autograph or autographs ?
One of the most interesting and productive 19th century scribes is Husin
bin Ismail, who lived and worked in the Singapore area, c. 1830-1865. He
was a Buginese from the Wajoq area and was also active as teacher of Bugis
to foreigners, in the same way as Abdullah taught Malay. Abdullah and
Husin must have been close colleagues, who worked in the same environ
ment of merchants, civil servants and missionaries. Both were employed at
the Mission Press in Singapore, which was in operation from 1834 to 1843.
He was active not only as a copyist of Bugis texts, as I have shown in an ear
lier paper (Toi 1997), but produced also a large number of Malay
manuscripts, at least two of them very early copies of the Hikayat
1. As early as 1964 a bibliography of publications on Abdullah appeared (Yahaya Ismail
1964).
Archipel 61, Paris, 2001 Master scribes 117
Abdullah. (2) In both respects he is quite exceptional. Very few scribes are
known to have copied texts in different languages. Furthermore the number
of Malay manuscripts copied by Husin that have survived is remarkable by
any standard ; there must be at least one hundred. In addition the results of
his work are found in a number of public collections scattered over the
globe : Jakarta, London, Cambridge (UK), Washington, and Cambridge
(USA). A thorough search in Leiden will most probably also reveal other
manuscripts copied by him, possibly in the Klinkert collection.
In letters written by the missionary C.H. Thomsen in Singapore between
the years 1827-1832, he relates his exploits in learning Bugis. He makes
mention of having met " a man who understands the Bugguese language
well, he is at present employed in transcribing books", a "Bugis Teacher",
"a man was engaged, a few M.S. procured and transcribed by him, he also
translated two Pamphlets from Malay into Bugis ".(3) Without a doubt this
Bugis teacher of Thomsen is Husin bin Ismail. The picture then is that
Thomsen employed Husin for the Singapore Institution and the Mission
Press, mainly for copying Malay manuscripts and translating Malay
manuscripts into Bugis. The were probably procured by
Abdullah, who had been working as a copyist for many years. Both were
employed also as teachers ; Abdullah as a teacher of Malay, and Husin as a
teacher of Bugis. When Alfred North in 1836 succeeded Thomsen in
Singapore, he kept using them as copyists and collectors. (4)
Manuscripts of the Hikayat Abdullah
Although the first lithographic edition of the Hikayat Abdullah appeared
in 1849 in Abdullah's own handwriting, no autographs of his autobiography
are known to exist. As becomes evident from the discussion of the Hikayat
Abdullah manuscripts discovered in the USA, they form copies very close to
the original draft finished in 1843. However, since Husin copied both, we
still do not have possession of the (or an) autograph.
The Malay manuscripts in the collection of the Library of Congress form
one package with the manuscripts now in the Houghton Library of Harvard
2. Husin signed his Bugis regularly with "Guru La Uséng", "Husin the teach
er". In his notes enclosed in the Library of Congress manuscripts, the missionary Alfred
North regularly calls him "Husin, a learned Bugis at Singapore".
3. Fragments of these letters from Thomsen to the London Missionary Society are published
by Noorduyn 1957 : 248-49. See also Milner 1981.
4. Cf. the following sentence from a letter written by the missionary John Stronach in 1841,
as quoted in Milner 1981 : 114, on Abdullah : "(Mr. North here has had him 5 years in his
Thomsen)." North left Singapore in 1843. employment and he was regularly employed by
Archipel 61, Paris, 2001 118 Roger Toi
University and were originally collected in Singapore by Alfred North for
the famous Wilkes Exploring Expedition in January-February, 1842. The
manuscripts were sent in two batches. The first came to the USA on board
one of the ships of the expedition and via the Smithsonian Institution ended
up in the Library of Congress. The second was sent when the Singapore mis
sion where North was working closed down in 1843. This shipment was
directed to the main library of the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Boston. The