Malay Manuscripts as Cultural Memory: Islamic Knowledge Transmission in the Malay-Indonesian World
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69552/mumtaz.v6i2.3967Keywords:
cultural memory, Islamic knowledge transmission, Malay manuscripts, codicology, textual criticismAbstract
This article examines Malay manuscripts as media of cultural memory in the transmission of Islamic knowledge in the Malay-Indonesian world. Rather than treating manuscripts only as philological sources, material objects, or historical documents, it asks how material form, textual patterning, and social use jointly stabilize knowledge across generations. The study employs a qualitative manuscript-based design integrating codicological description, philological and textual-critical reading, thematic coding, and Jan Assmann's cultural memory theory. Three analytically contrasting texts are purposively selected: Syair Dang Sarat, Hikayat Hang Tuah, and Hikayat Bayan Budiman. The analysis identifies three genre-specific memory regimes: ritual-poetic memory in Syair Dang Sarat, exemplary-political memory in Hikayat Hang Tuah, and dialogic-didactic memory in Hikayat Bayan Budiman. Comparison shows that Islamic manuscript epistemology is produced not by textual content alone but through the interaction of Jawi script, material support, recurrent formula, narrative structure, recitation, and circulation. Malay manuscripts therefore function as epistemic infrastructures that localize Islamicate knowledge while shaping moral pedagogy, authority, and communal identity. The study further argues that preservation should retain provenance, material and textual metadata, and evidence of use rather than treating digitization as image capture alone.
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