https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0567-6627
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ABSTRACT
The article explores the involvement of bilingual texts comprising a source and its interlinear translation in Islamic educational practices in 19th- and 20th-century Sumatra. Such texts occur among the so-called kitab kuning, materials dealing primarily with the principles of Islamic faith, jurisprudence, and ethics that have been traditionally used for teaching in Indonesia’s Islamic schools. Written in classical Arabic, these texts are sometimes provided with translations to Malay or other languages between the lines. The article addresses two cases demonstrating occurrence of this practice in manuscripts containing Islamic doctrinal texts that were often used for teaching beginners: an anonymous versified ‘aqīdah originating from late 19th-century Aceh and a copy of Umm al-barāhīn by al-Sanūsī (d.1490), from Palembang of around the same period. The manuscripts under discussion appear to demonstrate different types of interlinear translation from Arabic to Malay, i.e. phrase-by-phrase and word-by-word. The article argues that both types combine literality with interpretation, which allows the assumption that interlinear translation was used as a tool for teaching both the Arabic language and the basics of Islamic doctrine.
ABSTRAK
Artikel ini meneroka penggunaan teks dwibahasa yang memuat teks sumber dan terjemahan antarbarisnya dalam praktik pendidikan Islam di Sumatera pada abad ke-19 dan ke-20. Teks-teks semacam itu terdapat di dalam kitab kuning, yaitu bahan ajar dasar-dasar agama Islam, fikih, dan etika yang secara tradisional digunakan untuk pengajaran di sekolah-sekolah Islam di Indonesia. Teks berbahasa Arab klasik itu terkadang disertai dengan terjemahan ke dalam bahasa Melayu atau bahasa lokal lain yang ditulis di antara baris. Artikel ini membahas dua kasus yang menunjukkan praktik itu dalam naskah yang berisikan teks doktrin ajaran Islam yang sering digunakan untuk mengajari para pemula: sebuah sajak akidah anonim yang berasal dari Aceh akhir abad ke-19 dan suatu salinan Umm al-barāhīn karya al-Sanūsī (w. 1490) yang berasal dari Palembang pada masa yang hampir sama. Dua naskah tersebut merupakan jenis terjemahan antarbaris dari bahasa Arab ke dalam bahasa Melayu yang berbeda, yaitu terjemahan ungkapan demi ungkapan dan terjemahan kata demi kata. Artikel ini berpendapat bahwa kedua jenis terjemahan itu menggabungkan literalitas dan interpretasi yang memungkinkan asumsi bahwa terjemahan antarbaris itu digunakan sebagai alat untuk mengajarkan baik bahasa Arab maupun dasar-dasar doktrin ajaran Islam.
Acknowledgements
This study was conducted as part of the ERC project ‘Textual Microcosms: A New Approach in Translation Studies’ under the direction of Ronit Ricci. I thank Prof. Ricci and the project members, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions. I also wish to thank Prof. Martin van Bruinessen, Dr Oman Fathurahman, Muhammad Nida’ Fadlan, and the staff of the National Library of Indonesia for granting me access to materials.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Technically, the manuscripts under discussion were created already in the age of print, which is believed to have started in the Islamic world around 1850 (Gelvin and Green Citation2013: 2). However, it appears to have taken much longer for printed texts to become widely available to teachers and students of traditional Islamic schools, so that handwriting continued to dominate their educational practices well into the 20th century. Disregarding the undisputable presence of print in Sumatra at the time of production of the manuscripts, they still represent epitomes of the region’s manuscript culture.
2 Hereafter Arabic is romanised according to ALA-LC system.
3 This dating being very vague, I take a risk of building my argument on an assumption that this latter manuscript was created rather in the first half of the indicated period, i.e. roughly around the same time as the former one.
4 Also known as Sultan Malikussaleh (d.1297). Samudera-Pasai sultanate on the northern coast of Sumatra was one of the first Muslim states in the region.
5 The renowned Dutch Orientalist Snouck Hurgronje (1857–1936) spent half a year in Mecca in 1885.
6 Al-Muqaddimah al-ājurrūmiyyah fī mabādi’ ‘ilm al-‘arabiyyah by Ibn Ājurrūm (1273–1323).
7 Al-Khulāṣah al-alfiyyah, rhymed book by Ibn Malik (c.1204–74)
8 Besides these two most widespread grammatical works, numerous commentaries on them and a variety of other texts were also in use in the Indonesian-Malay world (for more detail see Drewes Citation1971: 66–70; Bausani Citation1969) – however, they were not likely employed at the beginner level.
9 Tāj al-lughah wa-ṣaḥāḥ al-‘arabīyyah by Abū Naṣr al-Jawharī (d.1002/1010).
10 Completed in 1290 by Ibn Manẓūr (1233–1311/12).
11 Al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ by al-Fīrūzābbādī (1329–1414).
12 I am referring to the so-called Natural and Direct Methodists, for whom rejection of translation became a trademark (see Kelly Citation1976: 25–26; Wheeler Citation2013: 138–143).
13 This dependence results from a vocabulary gap, since ‘the number of words needed to read foreign-language books exceeds by several multiples the amount of vocabulary that is acquired by most foreign-language students’ (Blum Citation2008: 81).
14 Or rather the ‘blessing of knowledge’, which is also believed to be obtained through reverence for the teacher (Yahya Citation2009: 366).
15 The Arabic word kitab indicating books in Arabic script, irrespective of the language – as opposed to the word buku for those in romanised script (van Bruinessen Citation1990: 227).
16 Van Bruinessen (Citation1994: 132–133) does not find evidence for the existence of pesantren before the 18th century.
17 Kyai is a Javanese title for an expert in Islam, often the head of a pesantren.
18 See <https://www.hmmlcloud.org/dreamsea/detail.php?msid=1624> I also thank Dr Oman Fathurahman and Muhammad Nida’ Fadlan for providing me with access to a high quality digital copy of the manuscript.
19 A summary of the treatise’s contents can be found in Wensinck (Citation2008: 275–276), and an English translation of the text in Watt (Citation1994: 90–97). For an Arabic text see: Ḥāshiyah (Citation2015: 14–22).
20 It is also the second or third oldest known text of its kind (Che’ Razi Jusoh Citation2016: 26).
21 One of the major schools of Sunni Islamic theology, Ash’arism has gained a dominant position in the kitab kuning tradition (van Bruinessen Citation2012: 87).
22 Among the kitab kuning collected by van Bruinessen (Citation1989: pt. V.10; Citation1990: 265) in the 1980s, there are several editions of Umm al-barāhīn and commentaries on it. I also wish to thank Prof. van Bruinessen for sharing his working tables containing the list of his collection, which is currently housed in the Leiden University Libraries.
23 Hereafter Jawi is romanised according to the modern Indonesian spelling (1972).
24 The manuscript erroneously vocalises the verb as yataṣawwaru. Here and in some cases further I correct the diacritics in my transliteration.
25 The borrowed Arabic word mukalaf already implies the meaning ‘mature’. However, the translator adds a redundant Malay adjective.
26 A digital copy of this manuscript is accessible on Leiden University Libraries website: <http://hdl.handle.net/1887.1/item:3128072>. For more detailed descriptions see Witkam (Citation2019); Iankovskaia (Citation2024).
27 The two poems occupy pp. 208–216 of a multi-page manuscript titled Mawaiz al-Badiah Waghairiha (see its description under No. 643 in Ronkel Citation1909: 405). I thank the staff of the National Library of Indonesia for granting me access to a digital copy of the manuscript.
28 This metaphor has been inspired by the article by Bruckmayr (Citation2017); however, he uses the image of shadow in a completely different sense, describing commentaries as something being neglected, overshadowed. My comparison here is rather visual: translation lines resemble long shadows with their shape.
29 From this point onward the textual arrangement is reproduced according to the Leiden copy (there are slight differences with the Jakarta manuscript).
30 Al-Masīḥ al-Dajjāl, the Antichrist.
31 This replacement is not entirely correct, as the Isrā’ and Mi‘rāj are two different parts of the Prophet’s nocturnal journey.
32 Mother of Believers (Umm al-Mu’minīn) is a title referring to the wives of the Prophet Muhammad.
33 Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (767–820), one of the four great Sunni imams, founder of the Shaf‘i school (madhhab) of fiqh.
34 Mālik ibn Anas (711–95), founder of the Maliki madhhab.
35 Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal al-Dhuhlī (780–855), founder of the Hanbali madhhab.
36 Abū Ḥanīfah al-Nu‘mān ibn Thābit al-Kūfī (699–767), founder of the Hanafi madhhab.
37 Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (c. 874–936), founder of the Ashʿarite school of Islamic theology.
38 Al-Junayd al-Baghdādī, 9th-century Persian mystic and the father of the rationalist ‘Sober’ school of Sufism.
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Aglaia Iankovskaia
Aglaia Iankovskaia is a postdoctoral fellow at the ERC project ‘Textual Microcosms: A New Approach in Translation Studies’, Department of Asian Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her undergraduate studies in history and cultural anthropology were at St Petersburg State University and her master’s degree in medieval studies was from the Central European University in Budapest. During her PhD studies in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, she completed Arabic and Indonesian language courses in Morocco and Indonesia. Her doctoral thesis (2016) dealt with descriptions and perceptions of the Indonesian-Malay world in pre-modern Arabic geographies and travelogues. In 2017–21 she worked in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography as a junior research fellow, and since 2021 has been based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Aglaia’s research interests include history of cultural engagements between the Middle East and Indonesian-Malay world, as well as history and cultural anthropology of Sumatra. Email: [email protected]