(18 Oct 2021) The British Library holds a small but important collection of about 120 manuscripts written in the Malay language and the Jawi (Arabic) script, originating from all over maritime Southeast Asia. These Malay manuscripts have always – in theory – been accessible publicly in the reading rooms initially of the British Museum and…
(3 May 2021) In 2013, through the generous support of William and Judith Bollinger, the British Library embarked upon a five-year project, in collaboration with the National Library Board of Singapore, to digitize materials in the British Library of interest to Singapore. The project initially focused on Malay manuscripts, early maps of Singapore, and archival…
(22 January 2018) If you are in Singapore – or anywhere near – grab the opportunity to visit the exhibition Tales of the Malay World, at the National Library of Singapore, before it ends on 25 February 2018. The biggest international exhibition of Malay manuscripts ever held, the display of over a hundred Malay manuscripts…
(11 October 2017, Kuala Lumpur, (Bernama) The National Library of Malaysia (PNM) will launch the database for the Master Catalogue of Malay Manuscripts next year in a bid to uplift the status and provide intellectual evidence of the greatness of Malay civilisation, said PNM director-general Nafisah Ahmad. She said this would be the first database…
(6 February 2017) Abdul Samad (ca. 1704-1789) from Palembang in south Sumatra (‘Abd al-Ṣamad al-Falimbānī) was the most prominent and influential Malay religious scholar of the 18th century, who spent most of his life studying, teaching and writing in the Arabian peninsula. From references in his own works we know he was living in Mecca…
(10 April 2015) The prestige of a royal house in the Malay archipelago rested in no small part on claims of descent from illustrious ancestors. At the most deep-rooted level, myths of origin in Malay texts drew on beliefs of unity between the earth and sky, symbolised by the marriage between a prince who descended…
(20 February 2015) Codes of law (undang-undang) and legal digests (risalah) are amongst our most valuable indigenous historical sources on the Malay world, for the rules designed to regulate life provide us with a wealth of information on the societies in which the texts were composed: expected standards of behaviour, and – as well illustrated…
(London/Singapore, 19 August 2013) At the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) 2013 meeting, Roly Keating the British Library’s Chief Executive signed an agreement with Mrs Elaine Ng the Chief Executive Officer of the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore to put an extensive range of materials of interest to Singapore online. The project will…