Pranatan Islam, Cambridge University Library (Gg.5.22), sebelum 1609, #922 (Pendahuluan: Inggris)

Introduction

The Oldest Javanese Islamic Text at Cambridge University Library[1]

Majid Daneshgar[2] and Edwin P. Wieringa[3]

January 2024

Background

The manuscript CUL.Gg.5.22 can be considered as the oldest extant Javanese Islamic text kept at Cambridge University Library, and one of the first Javanese sources arrived in the UK.[4] It was one of the oriental manuscripts of Thomas Erpenius, renowned Dutch Arabist and Orientalist. Upon his death in November 1624, different groups of scholars and librarians were trying to purchase the Erpenius' collection through his widow, Jaecquemina Buyes.[5] Ultimately, and through the demand of George Villiers, The First Duke of Buckingham, also the next Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, his manuscript collection became a property of the British royal family in 1625.[6] But after the assassination of George Villiers in August 1628, it took a long time for his widow, Katherine Villiers, to find a permanent house for the collection. She donated the manuscripts to Cambridge University Library in Summer 1632.

Gg.5.22 covers three parts, (1) mainly dealing with Muslim law (fiqh), discussing the principal religious duties, followed by short sections on (2) divination, and (3) the principles of faith in the form of a catechism.[7] On its first folio the capital "S" on top of a floral painting suggests that it was already in the possession of Erpenius's mentor, Joseph Justus Scaliger. The letter "S" may refer to the way "Erpenius consistently added 'S' to indicate Scaliger's work [Kitab al-amthal]."[8] Assuming that the manuscript once previously belonged to Scaliger, the terminus ante quem could be established at 1609, the year of Scaliger's death.

Soon after the death of Erpenius, a handlist of his personal library was published, but the compilers had to limit themselves to a most tentative description of this volume:

Liber Indicus alijs characteribus ignotis, & magnam partem aliquo modo referentibus omega Graecorum, cum longis caudis, rectā deorsum tendentibus, in Fol.[9]

A book of Indian background with unknown characters, and a large portion of it somehow reminds us of the letter omega [Ωω] in the Greek language, with long tails, extending straight down on the right. In folio (large) size.[10]

For a very long time, the language and contents of this book would remain a mystery to Europeans. Since Gg.5.22 was part of Erpenius' Indian and East Asian items, including an incomplete Chinese book of medicine (CUL.Sel.3.273),[11] Jonathan Pinder, the first cataloguer of Erpenius' collection at Cambridge University Library, in consultation with Abraham Wheelock (d. 1653) and other English royal servants and possibly based on another old Javanese work in Leiden (Cod. Or.1928),[12] described the manuscript as a "Japanese Book" (Liber Japonica) with the classmark of A.β.4. As is clear from two Latin titles added to the manuscript after its arrival in England, knowledge of Asian languages was still quite poor in 17th- and early 18th-century Europe:

Front Matter: Liber Japonicus Charactin Japonica ('A Japanese book with Japanese characters') [added in England after 1625 when the collection was bought by George Villiers].

Back Matter: gg–5–22 ms. Japanicũ ('Gg.5.22 Japanese manuscript') [added after 1715, when the two-letter classmarks (like Gg.) were created]

Physical Features

As a very old Javanese Islamic manuscript, Gg.5.22 originates from the period of transition from Hindu-Buddhism to Islam. Although its provenance is unknown, it is most likely from Java's north coast (pasisir) where it must have come into the hands of a European and it was subsequently brought to Europe. It has been copied on Javanese paper called dluwang (or daluang), which is "hand-made from the beaten bark of the paper mulberry tree, Broussonetia papyrifera, called pohon saeh in Indonesia."[13]

The manuscript is loose and fragile, with a post-17th century British binding (possibly bound inside another book), beginning on page 39 and spanning 81 pages (pp. 39–119), followed by 9 blank pages—a total of 133 digital facsimiles including the front and back matter. It has been divided into four parts by a European using Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4), which can also be seen in other manuscripts of Erpenius (e.g., Ii.6.45, Ll.6.5). Apart from the capital letter "S" referring to the name of Scaliger, the first folio of the manuscript Gg.5.22 provides some other valuable information like traces of names and titles in Arabic scripts, but only legible under a microscope, and traces of an illuminated frame.

Content

As is common for Islamic texts, the opening page of the first part (p. 39) starts with Bismillahirrahmanirrahim and followed by sakèhing puji ing Allah, Pangeraning alam kabèh... (All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all worlds) which is a Javanese rendering of alhamdulillahirabbil'alamin. The term used for God is the Javanese word Pangeran (Lord), which in Modern Javanese became a standard term for a prince but here still has its pre-Islamic Old Javanese meaning, i.e. "the person one waits upon, the lord or master."[14] Recent epigraphical studies on 15th-century inscriptions found in Sumatra also demonstrates that the Malay term Tuhan (Lord/God), was used for a number of deceased females.[15] Hence, it can be said that the Javanese "Pangeran" and Malay "Tuhan" had different functions during the formative period of Islam in Indonesia.

Basic rituals and legal instructions of the relatively new faith are discussed in the first text (pp. 39–109), mentioning three Arabic books (kitab) as sources (p. 39), namely (1) kitab Muharar (known in Arabic as al-Muḥarrar or "The Carefully Edited Book"), (2) kitab Ilah (that is, Iḍāḥ fī l-Fiqh or "Elucidation of the Fiqh"), and kitab Sujjai, probably the compendium of Shāfi'i fiqh which was named after its author (Abū) Shujā' (d. after 1196 CE), whose legal treatises were also copied and translated into Malay, and on dluwang paper.[16] Intriguingly, these three well-known works are mentioned in the major Cĕnthini as the most authoritative textbooks of Islamic law.[17] The latter work was compiled in the early 19th century although partly from much older materials.

The first part of Gg.5.22 contains several revisions and marginal annotations, ending with the Arabic phrase والله اعلم بالصواب enclosed within Javanese punctuation marks. This phrase means: "and indeed, only Allah knows the truth."

Like the last part of the Malay manuscript Dd.5.37 in Erpenius' library, the next part includes a short divinatory text. It is about solar and lunar eclipses (pp. 109–111), followed by short fragments of a catechism (pp. 111–119). The signs of the heaven concerning the sun and moon are interpreted as "signs of the Lord" (tandha saking Pangeran). Compared to the episode on the same subject in the major Cĕnthini, the information is rather succinct. For example, a lunar eclipse in the third month of the Islamic calendar (Rabingulawal or Rabī' al-awwal) portends that many people will experience starvation, while the major Cĕnthini predicts many deaths but also many rains and storms. Interest in the occult sciences is testified in many Javanese manuscripts, being part and parcel of Javanese primbon (handbooks or notebooks). For example, a 16th-century primbon edited by Drewes contains a short divinatory text on involuntary muscular twitches.[18] The final text in Gg.5.22 is called kitab usul agama, that is the book on uṣūl al-ḍīn, dealing with the essential beliefs in Islam that every Muslim needs to know. This primer is in a "question and answer" (soal kalawan jawab) format, which is a catechism in the form of "if you are asked..." (lamun sira tinakonan...), "your answer [is]..." (sauranira...).