Representation of the Turkic–Turkish Theme in Traditional Malay Literature, with Special Reference to the Works of the Fourteenth to Mid-Seventeenth Centuries

Abstract

The Turkic–Turkish theme, a significant phenomenon of traditional Malay literature during its entire Islamic period (the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries), still remains a long-neglected subject in Malay studies. To start filling this gap, this chapter discusses the importance of this theme in Malay literature, offers a chronological–topical grouping of the relevant texts and presents a detailed survey of the earliest group of texts, dated from the late fourteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. This group includes learned compositions, epic narratives and tales translated from Persian and Arabic, in which either Turkic characters figure or the action takes place in Istanbul. By associating the Turkic–Turkish theme with such issues as Islam, proselytism, holy war, Caliphate, and relations between the ruler and his subjects, these early, often fictitious, pieces of literature laid a foundation for the domination of political topics in the later, more deeply indigenised, groups of texts.