A New Acquisition of Malay Manuscript by Leiden University Library

Picture: page of Sejarah Patani preserved in UKM Malaysia

Leiden University Library is one of the largest institutions in the world, which preserve old manuscripts, including those refer to the Southeast Asian regions (Nusantara), especially the Malay-Indonesian world; the collection is even larger than those of the Indonesian National Library (Perpusnas) in Jakarta has. If we could find, for example, 1000 Arabic Indonesian manuscripts in Perpusnas, Leiden University Library has 5000 of it...!

As far as their manuscript collection, the amount of manuscripts preserved here always increase. On the last 7 December 2006, for example, the Leiden Library issued a press release on the acquisition of a new Malay manuscript, which contains the Sejarah Patani (the History of Patani). It’s said that the Leiden Library has purchased this manuscript in August 2006 from the collection of Mr. Tuan Azahar Wan in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

According to the Leiden Library, The relationship of this prose text with the Hikayat Patani (Hikayat Patani. The story of Patani, edited with translation by A. Teeuw and D.K. Wyatt, The Hague, 2 vols., 1970) still needs to be investigated.

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