Abstract
The manuscript collection of the Aceh Museum contains over 1,500 volumes written in Malay, Acehnese and Arabic, and covers a wide variety of subjects, including literature and the Islamic sciences. Among the highlights of the collection are works by great Acehnese writers and scholars such as Hamzah Fansuri, Syams al-Din al-Sumatrani and Abd al-Rauf al-Sinkili. This article describes the development and scope of the collection, and the steps taken by the Aceh Museum to raise public awareness of the value of manuscripts as a tangible legacy of the great intellectual heritage of Aceh, especially following the devastating tsunami of 26 December 2004.
1This article is based on two papers: ‘The manuscript collections of the Aceh Museum’, presented at the ASEASUK Annual Conference in Liverpool, 20–22 June 2008, and ‘Warisan budaya Aceh: dampak gempa dan tsunami, dan upaya rekonstruksi/rehabalitasi dan pemeliharaannya’ (The cultural heritage of Aceh: the effects of the earthquake and tsunami, and efforts at reconstuction/rehabilitation and preservation), presented at a meeting convened by Wadah at the Indonesian Embassy, London, on 27 June 2008. Extracts from the second paper were translated by A. Gallop.
Notes
1This article is based on two papers: ‘The manuscript collections of the Aceh Museum’, presented at the ASEASUK Annual Conference in Liverpool, 20–22 June 2008, and ‘Warisan budaya Aceh: dampak gempa dan tsunami, dan upaya rekonstruksi/rehabalitasi dan pemeliharaannya’ (The cultural heritage of Aceh: the effects of the earthquake and tsunami, and efforts at reconstuction/rehabilitation and preservation), presented at a meeting convened by Wadah at the Indonesian Embassy, London, on 27 June 2008. Extracts from the second paper were translated by A. Gallop.
2Ed. note: A list of titles of these manuscripts is published in Mukhtar (Citation2011: 64-72).
4The other collections are those of Ali Hasjmy, Adnan Hasyim, H.Harun and Syamsul Anwar.
5See references at the end of this article.