Amin Sweeney

ABDULLAH BIN ABDUL KADIR

MUNSYI: A MAN OF BANANAS AND

THORNS

Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi is best known for his memoirs, labelled by somehis autobiography, the Hikayat Abdullah. The missionary, Alfred North, encour-aged him to write his life story, a first in Malay, and it has been assumed thatAbdullah, working in a new genre, was relatively faithful to the conventions ofthe genre; that at the very least, he was attempting to produce a tolerably straight-forward account of his life and times. Both his admirers and detractors, though see-mingly at odds, saw Abdullah’s work as a mouthpiece for British values. It did notoccur to scholars that Abdullah might possess his own agenda, and that his workingin a foreign genre did not necessarily produce what those scholars assumed it did.This has produced a blinkered understanding of what Abdullah was about. Hissupreme aim was to enhance his own image and stature. Production of ‘historical’facts was sometimes a secondary concern. ‘Fiction’ and ‘nonfiction’ were not yetestablished conventions in his literary milieu. He worked under major constraints,for his livelihood depended on not alienating patrons and future patrons, yet hedevised ways to air views critical of the powerful. Here he was much more concernedwith Islamic issues than ethnic ones.

Maka sekaliannya itu adalah seperti perkataan Melayu:‘Mulut disuap pisang dan pantat dikait onak’

I was delighted to receive an invitation to write something for this collection ofessays to celebrate Nigel Phillips. We have been friends for 42 years, which datesus a tad, for we were reasonably adult when we first met. As the editor of thiscollection is aware, it has not been easy for me to decide on a topic. At first,I thought ‘The Structure of Malay Poetry’, with a focus on Minangkabau. Butno, I’m no specialist on Minangkabau culture, even though marriage and adoptioninto the Caniago clan did seem to provide instant credentials as an expert! So, Ithought, why not develop a paper I once wrote on ‘Malay Studies as a Life Style’? Ibegan, but soon realised that the paper would not be appropriate in a celebration.The likely effect on the reader would be an attack of deep depression. . . So, thethird choice, by what might seem to be purely accidental great good fortune,

Indonesia and the Malay World Vol. 34, No. 100 November 2006, pp. 223–245

ISSN 1363-9811 print/ISSN 1469-8382 online # 2006 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/13639810601130101

coincides with what I have been working on since retirement: Munsyi Abdullah!However, this choice is not really accidental, for in the early seventies, Nigel andI worked together to produce a translation of the Kisah Pelayaran Ibrahim Munsyi.This was an account of the voyages of Abdullah’s son, Ibrahim. Co-authoring withNigel was a delight never encountered again in more than thirty years! Everythingwas done by snail mail, of course, but proceeded remarkably smoothly. I hope heconcurs!

Nevertheless, writing about Ibrahim Munsyi required our attention to thewritings of his father, Abdullah, who seemed so moralistic and preachy. It was,therefore, extremely satisfying to read Ibrahim’s account of his father’s annualvisits to Melaka, for this depicts Abdullah as a great fun lover who splurged allthe money he saved in Singapore on pleasure trips and entertaining people to foodand drink, to the accompaniment of constant music and pantun singing.1

Of course, in interpreting his writings, we must recognise that this ‘biological’Abdullah may be of interest only if discrepancies are perceived between the man offlesh and blood and the authorial ethos created in the text. In fact, very little isknown about the life of Abdullah the man, as opposed to the Abdullah created inhis texts. This may seem surprising in view of the close relationship that Abdullahclaims with prominent persons such as Stamford Raffles, William Farquhar,Lady Sophia Raffles and Thomas Newbold. Yet none of these personages evermentioned Abdullah in print; neither is he referred to in their letters. A fewshort notices are known from Governor Butterworth and the missionariesAlfred North and Benjamin Keasberry. Indeed the only physical description ofAbdullah comes from J. T. Thomson, a friend from circa 1846, who wroteabout him with sympathy and respect, even translating parts of the HikayatAbdullah. Yet Thomson provides little information about Abdullah that is notprovided by Abdullah himself.

Considering then what a shadowy figure Abdullah is ‘historically’ – meaningrealistically how little his European contemporaries wrote about him – it is sur-prising to observe the inexorable list of writings, mainly in English and Malay,which presume to expound on the life of Abdullah. A friend recently asked mewhy, in my opinion, has no one ever attempted to write a biographyof Abdullah. The answer has to be that the astute realise such a task to bewell-nigh impossible, and the obtuse imagine that such a task is superfluous, forAbdullah already produced one about himself! Sadly, the latter notion reignssupreme. Scholars who should know better cheerfully trundle out Abdullah’spronouncements about himself as somehow ‘fact’, unaware, it seems, that anautobiography, memoir, or basically any account of a slice of one’s own life isa creation. And what autobiography is not a self-aggrandising creation? I havewritten interminably about this issue, and shall limit myself to one particularlyilluminating example of what not to do, for it illustrates the still prevailingmodus operandi. Traill (1981: 43) cites an example from the Hikayat Abdullah,where Abdullah depicts himself replying to ‘the criticisms of his neighbours to

1See Sweeney and Phillips 1975: 26–27. See also Sweeney 2006: xvi–xvii.

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whom he had shown a Malay version of the Bible lent to him by Milne’. Accordingto Traill’s translation, Abdullah says:

. . . and can this book ruin our Faith? What is the meaning of Faith? As far as Iknow, the meaning of Faith is Belief, and supposing I were to read a thousandbooks on other religions, and do not believe in them, do I lose my Faith? . . .

Traill’s conclusion is:

This is pretty good from a young man of about twenty years old, speaking to the‘old hands’.

Of course, ‘this’ is not from a 20 year-old man, but rather from the authorial ethos ofa 46 year old recreating himself as the young protagonist of his account. Abdullah’swritings tell us much about the author in the text, and the development of that author.However, one should be extremely wary of accepting as some kind of historical factwhat Abdullah as protagonist is made to say and do by the authorial Abdullah. Thesame is true of using Abdullah’s writings about the past as historical source materialin general without a prior close reading of those writings. One may pardon historianswhose only access to Abdullah is via translation, for it must now surely be politicallyincorrect to discriminate against the linguistically ‘special’. Indeed let us grant ageneral amnesty to historians, who, we shall permit ourselves to imagine, areprimarily concerned with the referentiality of a text. But no such lenience may beaccorded to scholars of Malay literature! It is they who should have been squarelyconfronting the text, seeking to understand its internal dynamics, rather than skirt-ing it and following the gaze of the author to things outside the text. Of course,referentiality won hands down, with the result that what could pass as ‘literary’ find-ings have been meagre indeed, the consensus being ‘innovation’ and particularly‘realism’, leading to Cyril Skinner’s declaration in 1959:

Agak pada tempatnya juga jika Abdullah dinamakan ‘bapa sastera Melayu moden’,kerana di dalam karangan-karangannya ada anasir yang tidak terdapat di dalamkarangan-karangan sebelumnya

(Skinner 1959: 2)

If Skinner hoped to make his metaphor convincing, it would have surely made moresense to seek out the metaphorical offspring rather than merely looking over hisshoulder at the past. Then, with Hooykaas (1961: 53–54), he might have createda metaphorical wife to participate. . .

While a considerable number of colonial scholars were especially enthralled withthe Hikayat Abdullah, a wide range of Malay opinion was particularly offended, and jus-tifiably so, by the Kisah Pelayaran Abdullah ke Kelantan. A. H. Edrus (1960) devoted awhole book to the subject. Abdullah might have been alarmed to learn that his littletravel journalwhich ‘could be bought atMrNorth’s house’was transformed into a spear-head of British propaganda for the delights of colonialism, to be rammed down thethroats of generations of Malay schoolchildren in 19 reprints. In the Malay press thereemerged two points of view, one accepting the notion of Abdullah as father of Malayliterature – or actually, and more importantly, as social critic – the other of Abdullah

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the tali barut, the ‘stooge’ of the English. With few exceptions – one being KassimAhmad’s perceptive introduction to his 1960 (and 1964) edition of the two KisahPelayaran Abdullah, another Taib Osman’s (Mohd. Taib 1974) discovery of an editionof the Ceretera Kapal Asap – little movement was made away from the double-headedformula of Father vs Stooge.This is not surprising, for the apparent controversy reflectedmore the concerns of Malay society around the time of independence. Indeed, if therewas movement, it was rather to other, more current concerns. Thus, for example, inAugust 1996, an international conference was held, entitled ‘Seminar AntarabangsaMunshi Abdullah Sempena Perayaan 200 Tahun Munshi Abdullah’, to discuss therelevance of Munsyi Abdullah to the present concerns of Malaysian society. So we hadAbdullah as a global thinker, Abdullah as an Islamic missionary, and the like. The advan-tage of such an approach is that little serious attention to Abdullah’s writing is required.Indeed, the latest developments indicate that in Malaysia and Indonesia, ‘MunsyiAbdullah’ has become a formulaic cluster of erroneous old chestnuts. One need lookonly at four recent publications, which present themselves as the cutting edge. Thesections on Abdullah are deplorable, on a par with the dozens of dreadful little schooltextbooks published in Indonesia from the 1950s onwards.2

As noted above, both those who saw Abdullah as a major innovator and those whoconsidered him a British stooge focused attention upon only two of his works. And evenin the case of those who promoted him as a major innovator, that attention was less thanintense. One of the most alarming examples is Winstedt’s confusing the Syair SingapuraTerbakar with the Syair Kampung Gelam Terbakar, based upon what could have beenonly a very perfunctory reading of the Hikayat Abdullah. No less remarkable is that,in the 20-odd years between the two editions of Winstedt’s History of (Classical)Malay Literature, he did not, apparently, become aware of this glaring error.3

An intensive study of the whole range of Abdullah’s works would hopefully havedemonstrated more than the paltry observations such as that Abdullah’s writing dis-played ‘realism’, a convention that scholars saw as some absolute value, and whichthey tended to confuse with reality.4 The ‘lively descriptions’ and ‘vivid pen por-traits’ also presented as hallmarks of his innovativeness are praises long accordedto the Sulalatu’s-Salatin. Essentially, Abdullah’s supporters for fatherhood havedone him a great disservice. Their observations based largely on one text, theHikayat Abdullah, have reduced Abdullah to a frozen icon as effectively as thosewho dubbed him a stooge. But let us not waste our righteous scorn further uponindividual predecessors, for we have a bigger fish to fry: the latest edition of the Ency-clopaedia Britannica, which says it all for them, and more!

An American missionary, Alfred North, seems to have encouraged Abdullah in1837, on the strength of a lively account published in that year of North’s experi-ences on a voyage up the east coast of Malaya, to embark on the story of his life.Completed in 1843, under the title Hikayat Abdullah (‘Abdullah’s Story’), it was

2See Sweeney 1987: 286–94. The four publications are Sastra Melayu Lintas Daerah, EnsiklopediSastra Indonesia, Indonesian Heritage Series and The Encyclopedia of Malaysia. They are discussed inSweeney 2006: xxi–xxiii. A fifth, of a similar standard, is Siti Aisah Murad (1996).3See Sweeney 2006: 31–36, 65–66.4See Sweeney 2005: Pandangan Umum.

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first published in 1849; it has been reprinted many times and translated intoEnglish and other languages. Its chief distinction – beyond the vivid picture itgives of his life and times – was the radical departure it marked in Malay literarystyle. In contrast to the largely court literature of the past, the Hikayat Abdullahprovided a lively and colloquial descriptive account of events and people with afreshness and immediacy hitherto unknown.

More lively accounts and vivid pictures. But best of all, the attention of the writer ofthis piece is so single-mindedly focused upon the Hikayat Abdullah that he finds itexpedient to have North take Abdullah’s place on a voyage to Kelantan in 1837and publish a lively account of it the same year, doubtlessly taking the wind out ofAbdullah’s sails when he took a similar voyage in 1838 and published anotherlively account in the same year. Only the latter account has survived!5 And, bythe way, the writer of the entry must have dreamed up 1837 as the year Northencouraged Abdullah to write his memoirs. According to the Hikayat Abdullah,the year was 1840. Still, the Britannica writer is nothing if not fair. He acknowledgesother views of Abdullah. However, the Munsyi is not to be labelled a brown-nosingstooge of the British. With commendable phlegm, the writer concedes only thatcertain nationalists have treated Abdullah ‘with some caution’:

Abdullah’s criticisms of his own society, and his eagerness to embrace standardsset by the West (though he remained a staunch Muslim), have caused him to betreated with some caution by a more recent generation of nationalists, but hecontinues to be widely acknowledged as the father of modern Malay literature.

It would have been useful to be told which society was Abdullah’s ‘own’. But hispaternal stature is maintained. Oh, and the Britannica writer has Abdullah die inJeddah. He died in Mecca.

In the following, I intend to provide a survey of the Abdullah, or better,Abdullahs – in the text, of course – that I have come to know over the pasteight years. Abdullah’s first work was a relatively long narrative poem, the SyairSingapura Terbakar. According to the author, it was written in 1830. It was litho-graphed only in 1843. Copies are known to exist only in Leiden and – recentlyrediscovered by Ian Proudfoot – in the Houghton Library of Harvard University.Prior to being published in the Karya Lengkap Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyiseries (Sweeney 2006), this work had never been studied. Wilkinson clearly hadaccess to a copy; Winstedt did not.

This work will surprise both father and stooge factions. Abdullah presentshimself simply as an anak Melaka. The syair is mainly concerned with recountingthe experiences of the Melakan Baba Chinese who suffered losses in the fire. Theauthor clearly has an intimate acquaintance with Baba culture, making liberal useof Baba terms unlikely to be understood by most speakers of Malay. Indeed, whenthe syair opens, Abdullah is residing in the home of Baba Ghee Ho, prior to

5As there is not exactly a glut of irony on the market in these times, and as Nigel may not be myonly reader, one should perhaps point out that North never went to Kelantan and the only accountof a voyage to Kelantan is that of Abdullah in 1838.

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Chinese New Year. And then the inferno. Abdullah mentions 32 Babas by name. Thesyair – but not Abdullah in person – even follows the delegation of Babas reportingthe disaster to business associates and family in Melaka. The convincing portrayal(I avoid ‘lively description’!) of events in Melaka, unwitnessed by Abdullah person-ally, reveals a flair for writing fiction displayed on occasion in the Hikayat Abdullah.And I do not mean that as criticism.

What of praise for British values? None. Abdullah provides snapshots of thefoibles of persons of a variety of origins. Sarkies, an Armenian, knocks back awhole bottle of arrack; Mr Frazer, his limbs atremble, strives in vain to save hisbarrel of, yes, arrack again. Baba Kim Swee is so confused that, in his efforts tosave his property, he ends up laundering his merchandise in the Bras Basah river.Bawa Sab lies on his back, eyes closed, intent on dying with his wealth. Affirmativeaction cameo appearances!

And what does Abdullah have to say about the government? Read on:

Demikianlah hal negeri gobarRaja Singapura tiadalah keluarPecahlah ke mana2 itu khabarOrang yang menengar pun tiadalah gemar.

The ‘raja’ referred to has to be the Resident Councillor, Kenneth Murchison. Assumingthat this verse is not an interpolation (though apparently circulated in manuscriptform, the syair was printed only in 1843), we have here a remarkably blunt criticismof an incumbent official. Yet, in its context, this is by no means out of place.Abdullah repeatedly refers to the brutal behaviour of the security forces and twicedepicts himself intervening to save Chinese from being mistreated. On threeoccasions he mentions, with sympathy, the plight of Chinese merchants whobemoan their indebtedness to British trading companies.

It has become something of a cliche to laud Abdullah for his skills as a journalist.Few people seem to be aware of when and why Abdullah came to be regarded as anews reporter. It is assumed that the travel journal of his voyage to Kelantan andhis Hikayat Abdullah demonstrate his journalistic abilities. Yet memoirs are hardlybreaking news! J. T. Thomson (1874: 231) was the first to dub Abdullah a journalist:‘His sangfroid in the confusion, and under his fever, is amusing. By his own account,he was a true Times reporter’. He was, of course, referring to Abdullah’s accountof the 1830 fire. Yet even Thomson does not mention the syair; he is referring toAbdullah’s account in the hikayat. In my estimation, the Syair Singapura Terbakaris a splendid piece of journalism. And, I would submit, it was intended as journalism.At the time, there was but one newspaper in Singapore, the Singapore Chronicle, pub-lished twice a month. One reason I shy away from the use of ‘vivid descriptions’ and‘lively accounts’ to praise Abdullah’s writing is that these phrases are always used as aside swipe at Malay literature before Abdullah. But here one may use this praise as aside swipe at the Singapore Chronicle, for Abdullah’s account is infinitely superior tothe narrow, biased coverage presented in that paper for its readership of ‘Londonshopkeepers’ (apologies to J. T. Thomson). This and ‘much, much more’ asAmerican anchor persons always say, is available in the second volume of theAbdullah series!

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Then things changed. In 1836, Alfred North arrived in Singapore. He was anAmerican Protestant evangelist of limited tolerance, as one conditioned by theeuphemistic discourse of the Orde Baru might say. Ian Proudfoot, referring toentries in North’s diary, notes in a personal communication:

The criticism that this (i.e., Muslim services are conducted in Arabic) ‘degradesthem to a level with papists’ is severe criticism from North, who elsewhererefers to the Roman Catholic chapel as ‘here for the use of the Beast’.

Abdullah began working for North as teacher and translator. A remarkable symbiosisseems to have developed between the two men. North encouraged Abdullah to writeon his own account, and thus not merely as a collaborator in and writer of Gospeltranslations. Abdullah’s interest in writing a journal during his voyage to Kelantanwas encouraged by North and the result, Kisah Pelayaran Abdullah ke Kelantan, waslaunched by him into print. This was a revolutionary development in Malay litera-ture. Of course, North’s motives were not entirely altruistic. The kisah waswritten in two stages. North wrote in a letter (October 1843):

On his return he showed me a meagre outline of the occurrences of the trip, andwished to know what sort of matter European travellers are accustomed to intro-duce into such journals. I took some pains to inform him; he re-wrote the whole,and made a variety of remarks on the manners and customs of the inhabitants ofthe east coast, as I had suggested.

The result was a tissue of contradictions, for there was no attempt to reconcile thetwo stages. Thus, firstly, we have an account of the voyage where Abdullah and hisparty enjoy the hospitality of various Malay rajas, who seem, by Abdullah’s ownaccount, to have treated him very decently. Then there is the revision, which islargely presented as Abdullah’s musings. Here we are regaled with all the negativestereotypes about Malay rulers cherished by those members of the European commu-nity in Singapore who dreamed of ‘intervention’. Here, of course, the evangelicalProtestants, who always followed the flag, were in the forefront. The Kisah PelayaranAbdullah ke Kelantan was something of a triumph for North. It provided him with alegitimised version of gripes about ‘Malays’ and praise for the British, actuallywritten by a ‘real’ Malay, which could be employed as topoi. And of course, theywere, as we see, for example, in the Ilmu Kepandaian Orang Eropah and in the colla-borative part of the Ceretera Kapal Asap, where there are repeated references tomaterial in the kisah (Sweeney 2005: 8; 2006: 245–49).

The last-named work, the Ceretera Kapal Asap, is in two parts. The first is anaccount of Abdullah’s visit to the steamship Sesostris, written at the request ofNorth who wished there to be an account explaining steamships to Malays. Onemight expect that Abdullah would not write this piece for a European audience,who would likely not appreciate having European technology explained to them inMalay! Yet the audience implied is but ostensibly Malay; the piece is, in fact, a rhe-torical tour de force, a ‘mini hikayat’ intended as a model of propriety, an exemplar ofall that is patut (fitting) for the guidance of those seeking to master the finer points ofMalay composition – people such as the friend who asked Abdullah to write the piece!

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The second part of the Ceretera Kapal Asap is a collaborative effort, with Northproviding the main argument and Abdullah the language.6 The piece provides anaccount of the various uses of steam for a Malay audience – North was alwaysoptimistic that his works would be read by Malays – but his main thrust becomesobvious in the last six pages, where he himself becomes unconscionably ‘steamedup’ about all things Arab! Arabs are responsible for all the woes of the Malays,even providing them with pornography. Their greatest wickedness, however, isforcing Malays to study books in a language they do not understand. Yes, we areback to the league of papists and the Beast! North is attacking the study of theQur’an in Arabic.

What is of interest here is not North’s capacity for bigotry, but rather imaginingAbdullah’s reaction as he is required to write in Malay this virulent attack on the raceof his Arab forbear, Sheikh Abdul Kadir, and the study of the Qur’an. But let usremember that this was 1841, and he had begun writing his Hikayat Abdullah.Here, the record is put straight: Abdullah is extremely positive about Arabs;indeed his own birth was possible only because of the blessing of an Arab saint,Habib Abdullah. And Abdullah dwells happily and at length on his Qur’an studies.Abdullah is thus able to define his attitude towards the views of his employer,North, without having to refer to them directly. And North may continue to bepraised to the skies as his ‘good friend’.

It is in the Hikayat Abdullah that Abdullah acquires a voice that is sufficientlysubtle to be tolerable for himself and acceptable to his mentors. A more respectabletitle for this article might well be ‘A Subaltern Learns to Speak’, but as Nigel tends tosee through pretentiousness, I trust he will prefer my equally chic post-modernistallusion to bananas and thorns. It is in the Hikayat Abdullah that the Munsyi displayshis capacity for muslihat.7 No longer do we encounter the blunt criticism of incum-bent high colonial officialdom contained in the Syair Singapura Terbakar of his pre-North-Keasberry days. Neither are we subjected to the naive promotion of colonialprejudices acquired from North which fills the pages of the Kisah Pelayaran Abdullahke Kelantan. The former work being unknown, it was largely the uncritical adherenceto Northian values of the latter which led to Abdullah’s being dubbed a tali barut orstooge of the British. Cursory reading – unfortunately the norm – of the HikayatAbdullah has often supported that negative view among readers in Malaya (sub-sequently Malaysia). Undeniably, Abdullah does his share of ‘toadying’, the splendidterm used by Proudfoot (2000a: 64) to describe the Munsyi’s musings to the galleryprior to meeting Americans (and his future employer North) for the first time. Thiswas carefully crafted, highly disingenuous toadying, and as Proudfoot (2000a: 69)stresses, ‘We never catch Abdullah in an unguarded moment.’ This should notdeter us, for if a little toadying were enough to earn the soubriquet ‘stooge’, then

6‘Translation’ was apparently an oral process, for Abdullah, according to his friend John TurnbullThomson, had no control over written English: ‘He spoke broken English, but could not write,nor had Abdullah a critical knowledge of English’ (Sweeney 2006: 245).7Muslihat is often translated as ‘cunning’, but that gives it a somewhat negative connotation,whereas it is neutral until given a context. The master of muslihat is mousedeer, the little creaturewho humbles the great. But where is he now when we need him?

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what of the modern Malaysian mass media? But let us move on, lest I undermine myargument further!

While Abdullah repeatedly proclaims his freedom of expression under theBritish flag, it was a relative freedom. He was clearly subject to the constraints oftwo employers, first North and then Keasberry, without whose support hiswriting would never have been printed. Yet he acquired much skill in negotiatingthese constraints. In the matter of religion, for example, this staunch Muslimwalked a tight rope between Christianity and Islam, keeping carefully to thecommon ground shared by both religions. Thus, throughout his career he did notonce mention the name of the prophet Muhammad in his writings8; he did,however, succeed in voicing theological reservations in the guise of linguisticarguments.9

The skill required by Abdullah to express his views is revealed by a comparisonof the manuscript version of the Hikayat Abdullah, completed in 1843, with theprinted edition, lithographed in 1849. It seems that many of his opinions did notpass muster with Keasberry and his coterie. The manuscript version providessome refreshingly offensive remarks about certain of the missionaries. Forexample, Mr. Evans did not fare well! He is described as ‘brutal and withoutfinesse in all his actions, lacking patience, inattentive to his studies’, and unfriendly.‘As a result of all this, most people did not take him to be a clergyman, imagining himrather to be more like a sailor . . ..’10 Another example concerns Abdullah’s doubtabout the future of the Singapore Chamber of Commerce. He remarks that ‘. . . itstill exists in Singapore to the present time, but I see that it is becoming increasinglyenfeebled and in my estimation it will eventually cease to exist’.11 Remarks such asthese disappeared in the printed version. After all, in this colony of shopkeepers, itwould have been more acceptable to disparage Queen Victoria rather than their holyshrine to commerce! And the repeated attacks on missionaries with no ability tolearn Malay needed to be toned down considerably by Keasberry, who oversawthe printing of the hikayat.

But these examples from the manuscript version are merely odd thorns and Iprovide them to illustrate the level of subterfuge needed for a critique of a particu-larly illustrious figure, supreme icon of the shopkeepers, to survive in print. And thatpersonage was Stamford Raffles himself! Doubtless, Abdullah admired Raffles, but itwas not the kind of fawning hero worship assumed by those who dubbed him a stoogeyet failed to offer his work a careful reading. The quality which most impressedAbdullah in Raffles seems to have been his capacity for subterfuge, cunning and

8In the account of his pilgrimage, he did mention the prophet Muhammad, but of course,Keasberry took care of that! See Sweeney 2005: 7, 79, 259–60.9This is discussed at length in the third volume of the Abdullah series.10‘. . . pembengis dan barang sesuatu perbuatannya tiada dengan lemah lembutnya; dan lagi kurang sabar-nya dan kurang bertekun ia belajar. . . Dan lagi yaitu tiada beramah2an dengan orang. Maka adalah sebabsegala kelakuannya yang tersebut itu, kebanyakan orang yang tiada mengenal akan dia paderi; pada sangkaorang seperti orang pelayaran . . .’11‘Maka adapun pekerjaan itu adalah jalan dalam negeri Singapura sampai pada masa ini, akan tetapikulihat adalah makin lama makinlah lemah adanya. Maka pada sangkaku adapun muafakat itu dapatiadalama-kelamaannya kelak hilanglah juga.’

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subtlety. Indeed the title of this article echoes the adage which Abdullah applied toRaffles’s treatment of the Temenggung of Singapore: Mulut disuap pisang, buntut dikaitonak (The mouth is fed with bananas while the backside is stabbed with thorns).There is a pleasant irony in the fact that this is Abdullah’s own approach inwriting about Raffles.

As there are still those who imagine that Raffles was the patron who encouragedAbdullah to write his memoirs,12 it should be pointed out that the bananas were notintended for the biological Raffles, who had been dead 14 years when Abdullah wasinvited by Alfred North to write his hikayat. This was not an aspect of the so-called‘toadying’, which was directed towards mentors or potential mentors, and was apractical way of furthering his livelihood, still entirely normal in the Europe ofhis day. Abdullah wrote about the legendary Raffles for his implied audience, whichincluded such mentors. Abdullah’s claimed relationship with Raffles was his greatestcredential and he exploited it to maximum effect in his hikayat, which thus became apermanent testimonial in print to that credential. Abdullah does not merely providea detailed acknowledgement of all the bounties he has received from Raffles; hecreates dialogue producing ‘internal witnesses’ such as his prospective employersMilne, Thomsen and Newbold to demonstrate the importance of his Raffles connec-tion as a reference. Most striking of all is Abdullah’s focus on stressing to his readersthe close emotional bond between Raffles and himself. Indeed, Mr and Mrs Raffleswere like a father and mother to him.

This is not the place to discuss the nature of Abdullah’s implied audience, as thistopic is dealt with exhaustively and exhaustingly in the Karya Lengkap Abdullah binAbdullah Kadir Munsyi, vols. 1–3 (Sweeney 2005, 2006 and forthcoming). Sufficeit to say here that when he wrote for a European reader, the audience postulatedwas, obviously, Abdullah’s creation, reflecting on occasion a somewhat limitedunderstanding of even the common ground of European norms and mores, especiallywhen touching on matters outside the tutelage of the Reverend North and otherEuropeans with whom he worked closely. Thus, Abdullah’s final parting withMr and Mrs Raffles is likened to a son’s bereavement. Raffles cannot restrain histears, and as the ship sails off, their eyes are upon each other; Raffles’s last waveis for him. This is a poignant farewell, at least for those with a taste for melodrama.Unfortunately, as is the case in many historical novels, referentiality rears its uglyhead. Did you say Stamford Raffles? Yet read even as a purely literary creation,the sad parting with beloved European employer scene becomes a tad less convincingwhen repeated, for it acquires the flavour of a formula. Abdullah’s teary-eyed partingwith Newbold caught the attention of that most astute reader of the Hikayat Abdullah,J. T. Thomson (1874: 257), who remarks that ‘The sensations at parting aredescribed by Abdulla, no doubt, as they ought to be, but not as they were.’ Andeven a reader determined to accept the role of audience created and proferred byAbdullah may encounter some difficulty with the following if that reader has anyknowledge of Raffles outside the hikayat. There had been a previous sad partingwith Mr and Mrs Raffles – even then portrayed as being like a father and motherto him – prior to the invasion of Java. The difficulty is that Abdullah nowhereevinces any awareness of a major change in the Raffles household after Raffles’s

12See, for example, Indonesian Heritage Series, vol. 10, Language and Literature.

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arrival in Singapore. Perhaps those European women all looked the same to him! Buthe surely would have noticed that the woman who was like a mother to him hadchanged radically. One might have expected that Abdullah, as an informedinsider, would have heard about the widely-bruited death of Olivia Mariamne.Surely this would have prompted some written grief. But no, one surrogatemother segues seamlessly into the second. If I were not focused on Abdullah’swriting as literature, I might be inclined to pause dramatically at this point toinquire: Did Abdullah ever meet Raffles? I anticipate the reaction: just look at thedetailed descriptions he provides of Raffles’s everyday life. One might have toretort that Abdullah’s account of Farquhar’s founding Singapore was no less detailed,not to mention ‘lively’ and ‘vivid’!

This should suffice as a serving of bananas. What of the thorns? Abdullah’swriting indicates a genuine admiration for many aspects of Raffles’s character. Andhe certainly did not intend to bite the hand that fed him posthumously. But theodd thorn in the bum might be refreshing. I am concerned here with what survivedin the 1849 printed edition, as that is the version used by all commentators in printapart from Thomson, and their reactions concern us here. However, it is surely rel-evant to provide at least one example of a thorn that did not survive in the transitionfrom manuscript to edition. In the manuscript version, one reads about Mrs Raffles:

Maka adalah seolah2 kulihat hal kelakuannya dan usahanya itu: maka ialah yang me-megang pekerjaan suaminya itu dan ialah yang mengajar akan suaminya itu

In the 1849 edition (pp. 91–92), the teacher has been diluted into helpmate!

Maka adalah seolah2 kulihat hal kelakuannya dan usahanya itu: maka ialah yang me-megang pekerjaan suaminya itu dan ialah penolong suaminya itu.

Clearly, this rather obvious thorn did not suit Keasberry’s taste! North, who knewonly the manuscript version, seemed quite content with the comment. Americans!Indeed, in a letter dated November 1843, he provides a purported translation of thepassage in the hikayat. It reads:

I noticed that Lady Raffles was a woman of great talents, greater than her hus-band’s. If any difficult matter was laid before him, he would go to her foradvice, and abide by her decision.13

A much more effectively concealed thorn has remained hidden to this day. This maybe the best practical joke in Malay literature! Our Munsyi must be endlessly tickledto see generation after generation of scholars, colonial and beyond, trundle out his‘phrenology’ passage, which purports to interpret the meaning of Raffles’s facialfeatures and other corporeal attributes, and does so in the most glowing terms, ofcourse. Just before we see what is actually in that bucket poised precariously overthe door, let me warm up the audience with a quote from Hill (1955: 15), who

13It will be seen below that North’s ‘quotes’ are more likely to have been taken from whatAbdullah conveyed to him orally than from Abdullah’s text itself.

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provides a typical reaction to Abdullah’s passage. Hill first mentions various biogra-phies of Raffles. Then:

Yet the most intimate and pleasing portrait of the great man, as he appeared tothe eyes of a hero-worshipping yet discerning Asian, comes from the pen ofAbdullah. In a passage often quoted he mentions Raffles’s broadness of brow, asign of thoroughness; his projecting forehead, a sign of intelligence; his largeears, the mark of a ready listener.

Of course, Hill should have been more aware that the interpretation of the ‘hero-worshipping yet discerning Asian’ was not that of the 14 year old Abdullah-the-observer created as a younger version of the 46 year old writer of his memoirs,but that need not detain us here. Abdullah was a devotee of the Taju’s-Salatin. Inhis Kisah Pelayaran Abdullah ke Kelantan (Sweeney 2005: 153) he stresses:

. . .patutlah segala raja2 itu menaruh kitab Taju’s-Salatin (ertinya: Mahkota SegalaRaja2) dan menilik akan dia pada tiap2 hari dan mencari orang yang tahu danbelajar daripadanya dan menerima segala nasihat orang yang ‘alim. . .

Indeed, the advice proffered to Tengku Temena of Kelantan is taken by Abdullahfrom ‘Fasal yang Kedua puluh, pada menyatakan peri segala rakyat dengan raja dalamkerajaan itu’ of the Taju’s-Salatin. This is not surprising, for the work has beenenormously prestigious in the Malay world, and the author, clearly not lacking inself-esteem, mandates the Qur’an and his own book as the only suitable works tobe read.14 It so happens that this canonical work contains a section on ilmu kiafatdan firasat, which covers the spectrum of phrenology and more (see table). Thissurely must have been an authoritative source for Abdullah. Checking off Raffles’sattributes with their meaning in the Taju’s-Salatin must have been an informativeexperience for him. The majority of the attributes listed in his Hikayat Abdullahreveal a splendid assortment of character defects according to the ‘key’ in theTaju’s-Salatin! Thank God, at least, for the wide mouth, a sign of courage; thinlips indicating a good memory; those wide ears, a sign of prudence and again ofgood memory, but also a sign of a quick temper. As for the rest, well, that blondhair indicates a lack of character and a quick temper; the wide forehead is a signof hating and contentiousness; the cheeks indicate a lack of integrity; the taperingneck indicates cowardice in all things; the broad chest is a sign of inattention andlaziness; the sharp nose indicates weak character and mental confusion; the cast inthe left eye comes dangerously close to the Taju’s-Salatin interpretation of doublevision, which is a sign of the accursed. Abdullah at least wisely steered clear ofthe colour of Raffles eyes, for blue eyes indicate shamelessness, and they are theworst possible colour for eyes. Raffles? This does not help my own self-esteem!Abdullah clearly provided his own, much more positive readings of Raffles’s face.He may have hoped that none of those tuan-tuan would start poking around in theTaju’s-Salatin, aware that Abdullah appraised it so highly!

14Braginsky (2000) provides a perceptive and provocative analysis of this work. See also Braginsky2004: passim.

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Hikayat Abdullah, 1849: 81–82 Taju ’s-Salatin, 1827: 189–193

Dahinya luas, ‘alamat besar hematnya. Dahi yang luas yang tiada ada banyak uratdan banyak kerut padanya itu tandapembencian dan pembantahan

Dan rambutnya warna perang, ‘alamatberani.Dan telinganya lebar, ‘alamat banyakpenengaran.

dan rambut yang kuning itu kurang budidan segerah gusartelinga yang besar itu tanda budi daningat, tetapi segerah gusar dan segerahpula hilang gusarnya itu

Bulu keningnya lebat kening yang lebat bulunya itu tandapercintaan

dan matanya sebelah kiri ada juling2 air Bermula mata itu yang satu itu barangpada penglihatnya dua kelihatan danmata yang a‘war itu tanda celakadan mata yang biru itu tanda tiadamalu dan dalam ilmu kiafat dan firasatitu dikatakan terjahat daripada segalawarna mata itu yang ada biru

dan hidungnya mancung Maka hidung yang panjang dan mancungitu tanda kurang budi dan sarsar

dan pipinya cengkung sedikit pipi yang nipis dan kuning itu tandakejahatan pekerti

dan bibirnya nipis, ‘alamat pandaiberkata2,

bibir mulut yang tipis itu tanda ingat

dan mulutnya luas Mulut yang luas itu tanda beranidan lehernya jinjang leher yang panjang dan tirus itu tanda

penakut dan hamaqat dalam segala haldan dadanya bidang, Dada yang bidang itu tanda alpa dan

malas

Colonial scholars were entranced with Abdullah’s writings, for they dealt witheveryday events in a realistic fashion. That meant, of course, that they were referential,to the extent that Winstedt saw the Hikayat Abdullah as ‘the best record of Malayanevents of his period’ (Sweeney 2005: 11–14). Elsewhere, I have written at lengthabout the conventional nature of any distinction made between ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’. In the Malay world, with the semantic refilling of the word sastera to translate(in its form kesusasteraan) the Western concept of ‘literature’ as belles lettres, a distinc-tion arose between writing as an art and as a craft; literature was divided into clearcategories of ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’, whereas previously there had been acontinuum from ‘true’ to ‘not true’ with a very large area of ‘maybe’. For traditionalKelantanese dalang in the 1960s, the invention of new tales was not openly welcomed ascreativity; rather it was condemned as fabrication and lies (Sweeney 1989: 102; 1994:59–62). Yet new tales were produced notwithstanding.

Abdullah lived in a Malay literary world as yet undivided into fiction andnon-fiction. Rather there was a continuum from fact to fabrication. Both theTaju’s-Salatin and the Reverend North could agree on at least one thing: all the

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old hikayat were tissues of lies. But what of the realistic depiction of everyday eventswith all those lively and vivid descriptions in Abdullah’s writing? Colonial scholarstook this as evidence of impeccable referentiality; what Abdullah reported wasaccepted without question unless a reliable colonial source contradicted it.15 Orunless it portrayed British behaviour in ways that outraged accepted Britishstandards.

An episode that passed both these tests is Dari Hal Tengku Panglima Besar. Hill(1955: 16) tells us, ‘To Abdullah belongs credit for the only record of an episodein the preparations for the Java expedition, a minor affair in which Raffles foronce was outwitted’. The tale relates how a Siak prince, delegated to act as Raffles’ssecret envoy to Java, instead passed his time with a little recreational piracy aroundJambi until it was time to return to Melaka, bearing a forged letter purporting to bethe response from the Susuhunan of Mataram to Raffles’s missive. His perfidy is dis-covered and Raffles is humiliated in front of Lord Minto. Not such a ‘minor’ affairperhaps! But as Gallop (1994: 149) relates with some glee, ‘This is a lovely story,and even Raffles’s most ardent admirers must admit amusement at the sight of thegreat man tricked by the agent in whom he had professed such trust’. Gallop thengoes on to demolish Abdullah’s account in almost every respect, producing theletters that Tengku Panglima (actually Pengiran/Pangeran) Besar had written fromJava. She admits some trepidation at putting a damper on the hilarity: ‘At the riskof further ruining a good story, an examination of the paper of all the letters . . .’and she goes on to present unassailable evidence concerning paper and watermarks.

Had Hill been aware of all this, he would probably have dismissed Abdullah’saccount as a ‘blunder’; we shall see that was his approach on another occasionwhere Abdullah and ‘truth’ failed to connect. But this was no blunder, for heclaimed to be an eyewitness to some of the best parts of the story, a good deal ofwhich he acquired by eavesdropping at Raffles’s door! I also do not consider thatGallop ruined a good story; on the contrary she has cleared the way for us to lookat this episode in a new light: creative writing! The placing of this tale is brilliant.I have mentioned Abdullah’s admiration for Raffles’s craftiness. Here the great out-witter is outwitted, and in front of an illustrious audience: Lord Minto. Abdullahdemonstrates remarkable shrewdness in gauging his reader’s reaction. It clearlyhas not offended British taste. On the contrary, one sees that it is not only Australianswho relish cutting down the tall poppies. Those who use Abdullah’s detaileddepiction of everyday events as evidence of referentiality should read the Pangeran’s‘confession’. And one of the most memorable passages in Malay literature has tobe the wonderful portrayal of Raffles, limbs atremble and purple with rage,stamping his feet and shrieking out threats to blow the Tengku from the mouth ofa cannon.16 Then we see him writhing with embarrassment and completely humiliatedin the presence of Lord Minto. Is this a Taju’s-Salatin inspired interpretation ofRaffles? I visualise our narrator rubbing his hands with glee as he affirms hisconviction that Raffles would rather have lost $10,000 than suffer this mortification

15See further Sweeney 2005: 11–14.16In the manuscript version of the hikayat, Raffles addresses the Pangeran and the Tengku as lu.Sadly, this has been softened in the printed edition! Otherwise, the latter enhances the original,introducing new information such as, ‘Maka adapun nama kerisnya itu Si Hijau’.

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before his superiors. And then Abdullah has the splendid chutzpah to add one of his‘Nasihat’ passages, drawing out the moral to be learnt from Raffles’s supposednegligence!17

It seems that this tale earns Abdullah another first: it is the first ‘modern’detective story in Malay, with a splendid twist. The happy ending is for the narratoralone. If we treat this piece as a work of fiction, it moves the stigma of eavesdroppingto a fictional 14 year old. However, had Abdullah signalled that the piece was fiction,we might be more convinced that he understood the demands of British fair play. Butof course, that would nullify the thorn.

Still, this tale was well counterbalanced by others extolling Raffles’s guile and allround one-upmanship. An example is his divining the underlying meaning of theletter from the ruler of Siam, and his wily response, written by Abdullah, whoserole is not underplayed! However, Abdullah’s approval of Raffles’s capacity forduplicity should not be equated with unreserved moral endorsement. An exampleof the ‘bananas and thorns’ approach is Raffles’s devious approach to evicting theTemenggung from his home:

Dengan berbagai2 nasihat! Maka sekaliannya itu adalah seperti perkataan Melayu:‘Mulut disuap pisang dan pantat dikait onak’. Maka bahawa sesungguhnya dalamhati Tuan Raffles terlalu banyak fikiran; hendak dihalaukannya nyata2, nescayakelihatanlah jahatnya kepada Temenggung.

There is no ambiguity here. If Raffles were to evict the Temenggung openly, hisjahat-ness would doubtless become evident to the Temenggung. I leave the translationof jahat to the reader, as there are a hundred choices, some more damning thanothers, but even the mildest will carry a negative connotation. There is a tendencyfor commentators to read what they imagine Abdullah meant to write or ought tohave written, not what he actually wrote. Thus, Hill’s (1955: 155) translation,‘But if the Temenggung perceived this he would take it badly’ does not at allconvey what Abdullah wrote. Hill’s dangerously normative tendencies extend to cri-ticising Abdullah’s language when it does not accord with his Malayan Civil Servicelevel Malay. For example, he labels Abdullah’s use of pengapakan as ‘clumsy and uni-diomatic’ (Hill 1955: 277), whereas Abdullah’s usage is perfectly fine. Hill’s attemptto explain the meaning of the phrase and his translation of it are both erroneous.18

An important way of offering criticism for those whose writing is monitored bythe powerful is simply to relate an incident without commentary. This is a devicemuch used in traditional Malay literature. Indonesian readers were familiar with thisapproach during the Orde Baru period and well understood the interest in and seeminglyinordinate media coverage of Pinochet’s antics, and the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu

17Had this scene really happened, one may be sure that it would have found its way into Minto’sletters, for this was the kind of material which appealed to his sense of humour. One notes, too,that Farquhar and the Tengku engaged in protracted correspondence during the 1820s (Gallop1994: 155).18Hill’s arrogating to himself this ethos of superiority towards Abdullah is most repugnant. Thosewere the days! It has to be pointed out, furthermore, that Hill’s translation contains many moreerrors. The poor quality of much commentary on Abdullah derives from reliance upon Hill’stranslation. This is discussed in Karya Lengkap Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munsyi, vol. 3.

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in 1989. Abdullah also employed this device. When relating actions by Raffles whichhe supported, Abdullah tended to give strong endorsement. For example, he wasemphatic in his approval of Raffles’s ban on gambling and on bearing weapons; likewise,he thoroughly approved of Raffles’s proposal to have the children of the Sultan andTemenggung schooled in Bengal. However, incidents which are related withoutcomment merit scrutiny, especially when they concern Muslim sensibilities.

The first incident involves the treatment of the corpse of Sayid Yasin, the amokwho stabbed Farquhar and subsequently was killed by Farquhar’s son and a group ofsepoys. Raffles had the corpse of Sayid Yasin put in an iron cage and exposed topublic view. Abdullah well knew the sensitive nature of this affair, for the aftermathwas considerable and Sayid Yasin’s grave became a shrine and place of pilgrimage forlocal Muslims. Overall in his hikayat, Abdullah shows little respect for the Sultan, buthere, Sultan Husein is shown as the honourable party, requesting Sayid Yasin’s bodythat it might be given a decent Muslim burial. The incident occurred 20 yearsbefore Abdullah completed his hikayat, so Abdullah was fully aware of the mostdelicate aspects and chose not to ignore them. According to Hill (1955: 307) andMiller (1941: 195), ‘The ceremonial lustrations by the Sultan were calculated tocause an upsurge of popular feeling, as indeed they did.’ One wonders how theSultan’s thought processes became so transparent to Hill! Suffice it to say thatRaffles’s treatment of a Muslim, a sayid no less, was seen as an abomination byfellow Muslims. Abdullah does not shirk from depicting this in the most horrificterms: the corpse is left hanging for 10 to 15 days until only bones are left. Colonialsources claim that it was taken down after but three days (Hill 1955: 307).Wallahualam.

By way of contrast with the colonial spin-doctoring which noted that a man waspublicly gibbeted in chains after execution as late as 1832 in England (Hill 1955:307), or that Raffles intended this as ‘exemplary punishment’ (Wurtzburg 1954:625), let us not dwell on the fact that this was not England and that ‘punishment’is hardly apt for the already dead, but rather let us peruse the robust words of aman with convictions, Abdullah’s friend, J. T. Thomson (1874: 134):

The treatment of Syed Essen’s (¼Yasin’s) body was a piece of impotent revenge,which by its savageness and unmeaningness [sic] was calculated to create areaction in the ‘amoker’s’ favour

Yet there is a further postscript to this episode. Earlier it was observed that Abdullah’sreportage was accepted as fact by colonial readers unless, inter alia, it portrayedBritish behaviour in ways that did not accord with the British view of self. Ofcourse, such a notion as ‘the British view’ seems to imply some nonsensical monolithicweltanschauung, and that notion was demolished by Thomson’s robustness. Yet there isstill hope for my contention! Thomson, who in his writing shows great sensitivitytowards Abdullah’s arguments for Islam, suddenly, while commenting on thisepisode, takes issue with Abdullah’s ‘prejudices and proclivities as a Mahomedan’!And what was the trigger for suddenly rejecting Abdullah’s account? Well, Abdullah,who claimed to have been present, indeed to have been the first to come toFarquhar’s aid, had the temerity to relate that the gathered Europeans stabbed and

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hacked Sayid Yasin’s corpse into a pulp until it was unrecognisable. Thomson bristles(1874:134)19:

The barbarities that he ascribes to the British gentlemen composing the Euro-pean residents, I may emphatically state as without foundation, and totallyinconsistent with their character. This has been a mere rumour of fanatics.

There is more! Skinner (1983: 327) quotes this last passage of Thomson’s, but wronglyimagines that Thomson is criticising Abdullah for his account of the manner in whichRaffles treated Sayid Yasin’s corpse. No, Thomson was criticising Raffles there!

The second example of ‘criticism by selectivity’ has not enjoyed any measure ofthe publicity generated by the Sayid Yasin episode. It, too, concerns desecration ofMuslim remains. Raffles informs the Temenggung that the land occupied by theMalay cemetery is to be turned into a residential area. He requests that the Temeng-gung remove the remains of the dead. On hearing this, the Temenggung’s face changescolour (berubah warna mukanya). As he takes no action, Raffles orders company con-victs to clear and level the area. The bones of the dead are put into sacks andthrown into the sea. Actually, no comment is needed here; the incident occursjust three pages after the desecration of Sayid Yasin’s corpse, and the page after theaccount of Raffles’s duplicity in attempting to evict the Temenggung. And if a cueis needed, there is the internal audience: the Temenggung’s face changing colour.

Abdullah’s account of the founding of Singapore is a splendid piece of historicalfiction, rich in detail and convincing in its development. Essentially, Farquhar isgiven the credit, and well he deserves it in the context of this telling. With thereturn to Melaka of the Dutch imminent, Farquhar takes it upon himself to find anew location for a settlement and, with the pretext of rescuing an English lady cap-tured by pirates, sets sail. He reconnoitres Siak, Daik, the Karimuns and Johor. Aftera brief respite in Melaka to delegate authority prior to the Dutch takeover, hedecides to sail for Singapore, as he has long been a friend of Tengku Long sincehis Melaka days, and had apparently furnished him with a sum of money. It was atthat time that Tengku Long had promised to give over Singapore to the British. Fur-thermore, on his first trip, Farquhar had called at Riau to finalise the agreement withTengku Long. He now informs Raffles in Penang of his activities and Raffles contactshis superiors in Bengal. Farquhar and Raffles are allowed to found a settlement butthey must bear all the initial expenses personally. As Raffles is otherwise occupied,it is Farquhar who lands in Singapore and persuades the Temenggung to sign a provi-sional treaty, prepared by Farquhar, having assured him that Tengku Long hasapproved the surrender of Singapore to the British. Farquhar has tents erected anda well dug. He then raises the British flag near the shore. He climbs what becameGovernment Hill, fires off a twelve gun salute and raises another flag. The new settle-ment then suffers a plague of rats and centipedes. The news of the new settlement is

19I apologize beforehand, and acknowledge having already erased this footnote twice. However,Thomson’s words are too close to an outraged Monty Python denial I delighted in many years agoto be ignored. So, for Nigel: ‘I must emphatically state as without foundation, the outrageousaccusations of cannibalism in the Royal Navy. There have been absolutely no cases of cannibalismfor almost six months now’.

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received in Melaka. Food and other merchandise is exported from Melaka despite aDutch ban, and eventually hundreds of people make their way to Singapore seekingtheir fortune. Our narrator seems to have run ahead somewhat, for there is still nosign of Raffles! Abdullah always had problems with chronology. Nevertheless it isclear from the narrative that during the plague of rats, at least, Raffles has not yetappeared on the scene. Abdullah is reserving Raffles a special place for his greatestbanana and thorn performance yet and Abdullah’s thorny portrayal of it!

Abdullah provides a convincing account of Farquhar’s founding Singapore, pro-vided that one does not allow referentiality too firm a foot in the door of ‘historical’truth. There are, however, a few internal inconsistencies, perhaps deliberate. Rafflesseems to be all over the place during this episode; everywhere but Singapore! Thereare mentions of him being in Penang, Melaka, Aceh, Bengkulu and Bengal, but it isunclear where he is at any particular point in the narrative.

There is an apparent disjunction in this episode. During the plague of rats, itbecomes clear that the narrator is present. His first mention is of a cat attacked byrats at his house. Indeed, all the houses were full of rats. ‘And in Tuan Farquhar’stent it was the same thing’ so that Farquhar issued an announcement that a bountywould be offered for dead rats. Why is Farquhar still in a tent, when other inhabitantsare living in houses? Ah, slippage, the narrator is referring to a later period? But no,there is no mistake about his claim to have been present during those first days, for heremarks that never before in his life had he seen rats caught by liming with sap. Andsoon, the rats are all exterminated. However, a problem is that on page 212, Abdullahstates that he came to Singapore from Melaka with the Reverend Thomsen fourmonths after the founding of the settlement.20 It would be convenient to imaginethat the ‘I’ of the ‘founding’ episode was a fictional eyewitness narrator, and thatAbdullah reassumed his own voice as narrator only later. Yet Abdullah wouldsurely not create – and the average sane reader would not perceive – such a shiftwithout some signal, and there is none. A more likely explanation is at hand: inalmost all his writing, there are two tendencies so strong that they become oper-ational principles. Firstly, Abdullah’s narrative regularly features him as one of thedramatis personae, usually centre stage. Secondly, whether he was present or not atan event, his account of it usually has the flavour of eyewitness narrative. Conditionedthus, it would be a mere literary tic to insert oneself as a participant in that narrative.

Of course, commentators reading this episode as intended to be historically accu-rate have much to criticise! Hill (1955: 18), for example, declares that Abdullah’somission of Raffles from the original landing is ‘the most unhistorical blunder ofhis whole book . . . ’ and ‘His version of the story is a garbled one’. This criticismcould be valid only if Hill were able to establish that the biological Abdullah’smotivation was simply to produce an accurate account of what ‘really’ happened.Unfortunately, we have only his text, and it demonstrates that Abdullah rarely didanything ‘simply’. Yet out there in the real world, it is absolutely inconceivablethat Abdullah, who mixed with all manner of Europeans for decades and even dis-cussed Raffles with the Reverend North, could have been unaware that Raffles wasthere at the landing, and so forth. So I shall not bristle with Thomson, but rather

20It seems that this, too, was not ‘true’! The year 1822 was more likely. Abdullah would have stillbeen in Melaka if he were asked to design a seal there. See below.

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offer the suggestion that when Abdullah wrote his hikayat, he knew that, as the arche-typal ‘friend of Raffles’, what he had to say about his friend would be taken seriously,regardless of whatever games he might be playing, even if that included a founding ofSingapore less favourable to this Napoleon of the Straits. And to support me, I shallsoon produce the testimony of a man of the cloth.

Perhaps an aside is appropriate here to demonstrate Abdullah’s admiration for thedevious little man capable of humbling the great. In the hikayat, that man is Abdul Kadirbin Ahmad Sahib, a Muslim Indian of Melakan birth who so ingratiated himself withSultan Husein that they became ‘like father and son or like husband and wife’. TheSultan was besotted with this rogue who had complete control over him. TheSultan’s family and courtiers detested Abdul Kadir and attempts were made on hislife. The situation became so bad that the Sultan exiled himself to Melaka to be withAbdul Kadir who had fled there for his life. The point here is that the Sultan elevatedhim to the rank of ‘Tengku Muda Abdul Kadir bin as-Sultan Husein Syah’, and AbdulKadir requested Abdullah to design a ‘royal’ seal for him. Despite Abdul Kadir’s trulyoutrageous reputation, Abdullah conceives an instant liking for him. They are verymuch on the same wavelength! Abdullah smiles at the title for the seal and thinks tohimself, ‘One man begets him but he calls someone else father’. Abdul Kadir seesthe smile and simply says, ‘We both understanding the meaning of that smile!’ Thisdisplay of, and play with, humility and earthiness clearly impresses Abdullah. Yes,all those accusations may be true, but most important for Abdullah is the man’struly silver tongue. His brilliant skill with words could never be possessed by aMalay, only by aKeling (here, Chulia, Muslim Indian). So, be prepared for what follows!

Farquhar had founded Singapore but Raffles was needed to persuade Tengku Longto give his consent, for it was he who was to become sultan. The relevant passage(pp. 205–6) just has to be quoted. Here is Abdullah’s description of Raffles’sblandishments:

Lalu bercakaplah Tuan Raffles pada masa itu dengan tersenyum2 simpul serta muka manisdengan menunduk2kan kepalanya. Manisnya seperti laut madu. Maka pada masa itu jan-gankan hati manusia, jikalau batu sekalipun pecah2lah oleh sebab menengarkan perka-taannya itu serta dengan lemah lembut suaranya, seperti bunyi2an yang amat merdu akanmenghilangkan percintaan dan syak yang ada tersembunyi dalam perbendaharaan hatimanusia itu pun lenyaplah. Maka segala ombak waswas yang berpalu2an yang di ataskarang wasangka itu pun teduhlah. Maka poko’ angin yang amat kencang sertadengan gelap gulita itu pun seperti ribut yang besar akan turun, bahawa sekaliannyahilanglah sehingga teranglah cuaca. Maka bertiuplah angin yang lemah lembut, yangterbit dari dalam taman mahabbat. Maka sekonyong2 terbitlah bulan purnama empatbelas hari bulan, gilang-gemilang cahaya sehingga kelihatanlah tulus ikhlas TuanRaffles akan Tengku Long itu. Maka dengan seketika juga bertukarlah dukacitanya itudengan sukacita. Maka berseri2lah cahaya mukanya. Maka setelah dikerling olehTuan Raffles berubah warna mukanya, maka bangunlah Tuan Raffles dari kursinyaserta memegang tangan Tengku Long, dipimpinnya lalu dibawanya masuk ke dalam bili-knya serta ditutupkannya pintu bilik itu.

This is a truly extraordinary passage, oozing with irony. The purple prose is pre-cisely the flowery style that Abdullah condemns out of hand. One need but

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consult his Kebodohan Puji2an yang Tersebut dalam Surat2 Kiriman Orang Melayu,published in two versions of Ilmu Kepandaian Orang Eropah,21 which was producedin collaboration with Alfred North. Finally, North must have cracked a smile!The phoney language reflects the hypocrisy of Raffles’s blandishments.However, when Raffles sees that his language has had the desired effect, thetone changes. The sentence, Maka setelah dikerling oleh Tuan Raffles berubahwarna mukanya, maka bangunlah Tuan Raffles . . . is telling indeed. The wordkerling does not signify some kind of innocuous glance as Hill (1955: 303)would have it.22 It indicates a sidelong glance, cast when the viewer does notwish to turn his face towards the viewed for whatever reason, and tends tocarry a negative connotation. Thus, here, kerling is a furtive sidelong glance cal-culated not to be noticed by Tengku Long.

Lest there be those who are more convinced by European reports than Malaytexts, let us look again at North’s letter of November 1843. North remarks:

The account of Raffles’ labors in getting possession of the island of Singapore isbut a partial one; he told me he was afraid to write a full account, for fear theEnglish would be displeased to see Sir Stamford’s underhanded doings brought tolight.23

21See Gallop (1994: 233–5) for romanisations of both versions. See also Proudfoot (1993: 267)for details about the Ilmu Kepandaian Orang Eropah.22To my knowledge, the only comment on the passage to date is a note by Hill (1955: 303) on thephrase bulan purnama:

terbit-lah bulan pernama empat-belas hari bulan, a well known Malay metaphor for femininebeauty. As used here, however, it does not sound too blatant a cliche. In this short allegoricalpassage Abdullah tries to imitate the style of classical works like the Bustanu’s-Salatin (ca.1638).

This is a disturbingly condescending comment, especially considering that Hill has no idea whatAbdullah is about! ‘Does not sound too blatant a cliche’? It is meant to sound cliched. ‘Allegoricalpassage’? The Bustanu’s-Salatin contains no language which could remotely resemble a modelthat Abdullah might be trying to ‘imitate’ in this passage. Nuruddin must have turned inhis grave!23I would have much preferred it had Raimy Che-Ross (2002) not appropriated these materialswithout acknowledgement and without my permission. I sent him my transcript of the lettertogether with my comments on Raffles’s underhandedness and received his acknowledgementdated 19th July, 1999: ‘North’s letter arrived safe and sound – I’ve printed off a copy toread’. I also provided him with a xerox copy of the Houghton manuscript. It should further benoted that a copy of the Thomson manuscript has been safely in the possession of the MalaysianNational Archives since the early 1980s. The issue of intellectual property rights is discussed inVolume 3 of the Abdullah series.

The ‘discovery’ of this letter was unorthodox, for in early 1999, I found it in a copy of theHikayat Abdullah made for the National Library of Malaysia by the Houghton Library, HarvardUniversity, some years previously. In the same year, Dr Ian Proudfoot carried out a survey ofthe materials possessed by the Houghton Library and was able to examine the Houghton manu-script of the Hikayat Abdullah. He subsequently made known his findings (2000b). Both Proudfootand I were surely a tad surprised by our close to simultaneous ‘discoveries’! But he had theoriginal.

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North was Abdullah’s employer and mentor. It was he who encouraged Abdullahto embark on writing an autobiography. In outlining the materials he suggestedAbdullah address, he may conceivably have given himself more credit than deserved.In quoting from the completed hikayat, he may have been relying more on Abdullah’sdescriptions than on his own reading of the text.24 But there is no reason to doubtthis report of his discussion with Abdullah about Raffles’s conduct.

It is my hope that this article may dispel the notion that Abdullah was mainlya provider of lively descriptions dealing with everyday events, possessed a largevocabulary, gave a faithful portrayal of his times, and hero-worshipped theBritish in general and Raffles in particular. Abdullah’s writing has fallen victimto simplism. There has been little awareness of the constraints under which hewrote. He was entirely free, indeed encouraged, to criticise Malay rulers. Buthe was a British subject and his writing was monitored by the Europeans uponwhom his livelihood depended. Criticism close to home required complexityand subtlety, and Abdullah became a master of them. Simplism was incapableof appreciating this. Simplism was conditioned, so that Abdullah’s writing wasapproached not with a desire to read and learn but with an often condescendingpre-conviction that all was transparent and open to criticism for ‘blunders’,‘cliches’, ‘clumsy’ usages, and the like. Simplism lacked self-awareness of ignor-ance and unjustified arrogance. The result of all this is that there emerged a ten-dency not to read what Abdullah wrote but what he ought to have written, as hasbeen seen. Simplists conditioned by the Abdullah of convention will just knowthat Raffles’s departure from Singapore was marked by a sad farewell from anadoring populace. As Hill (1955: 19–20) tells us,

Abdullah graphically describes the spontaneous outburst of grief and affectionthat marked Raffles’s departure and the addresses of congratulation given himby members of the various communities. A multitude of all races lined theshore or sat in boats round his ship as it prepared to leave the harbour.

Now where was that again? Certainly not in the Hikayat Abdullah! Might the sub-altern be read? Abdullah merely says in eight words that the Raffleses went downto the boat that was to take them to their ship ‘accompanied by people of allraces; who knows how many’ (diiringkan oleh orang segala bangsa, entah beberapabanyak). Now that was a blunder, negating any possibility of interpreting whatAbdullah was about. The tumultuous farewell that Abdullah ‘graphically’ describesis for Farquhar, not Raffles. It ranges over five pages! Ah, another thorn for theRaffles posterior? Let us be aware that Abdullah is a creator here, not a merescribe jotting down events. Abdullah keeps the send off for Raffles a quiet andprivate affair. The text reveals that his aim is to demonstrate the depth ofhis relationship with Raffles. That being achieved, if the subsequent – andjuxtaposed – tumultuous and emotional farewell for Farquhar highlights the

24For example, North quotes Abdullah as follows: ‘Sir Stamford, I observed, was a man exceed-ingly diligent in this world’s affairs, but seemed to care nothing for the world to come.’ Thispassage is not found in any version of the Hikayat Abdullah.

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latter’s greater popularity, so be it. But Abdullah’s main goal here is not to slightRaffles; his target is Crawfurd, who is depicted as being amazed and feeling mostembarrassed for no one knew him, and he received no attention or respect. Yes,creators are omniscient, too.

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