Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature: Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis
The book investigates lines of connection and shared literary heritage between the Persianate and Malay-Indonesian worlds over many centuries. Majid Daneshgar provides a critical and comparative study of Persianate-Malay stories, with specific focus on Durr al-Majālis, or Pearl of Gatherings – a classical Islamic text produced by Sayf Zafar (late thirteenth–mid-fourteenth centuries CE), a writer and scholar of Central Asian background, during the Delhi Sultanate.

The book illustrates how the Durr al-Majālis contains various legal, theological-philosophical, metaphysical, chivalrous and mystical accounts. In addition, it traces how the book travelled beyond the so-called ‘Balkans-to-Bengal’ borders and was copied, translated and annotated across Eastern Africa, Eastern Turkistan, Mongol-dominated China, Arabic-speaking Egypt and South East Asia. It demonstrates how this Persian collection of stories shaped the idea of Islam, Islamic teachings and stories across the Muslim World, and in the Malay-Indonesian World in particular.

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Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature: Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis
The book investigates lines of connection and shared literary heritage between the Persianate and Malay-Indonesian worlds over many centuries. Majid Daneshgar provides a critical and comparative study of Persianate-Malay stories, with specific focus on Durr al-Majālis, or Pearl of Gatherings – a classical Islamic text produced by Sayf Zafar (late thirteenth–mid-fourteenth centuries CE), a writer and scholar of Central Asian background, during the Delhi Sultanate.

The book illustrates how the Durr al-Majālis contains various legal, theological-philosophical, metaphysical, chivalrous and mystical accounts. In addition, it traces how the book travelled beyond the so-called ‘Balkans-to-Bengal’ borders and was copied, translated and annotated across Eastern Africa, Eastern Turkistan, Mongol-dominated China, Arabic-speaking Egypt and South East Asia. It demonstrates how this Persian collection of stories shaped the idea of Islam, Islamic teachings and stories across the Muslim World, and in the Malay-Indonesian World in particular.

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Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature: Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis

Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature: Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis

by Majid Daneshgar
Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature: Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis

Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature: Text, Translation and Commentary of the Durr al-Majalis

by Majid Daneshgar

Hardcover

$165.00 
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Overview

The book investigates lines of connection and shared literary heritage between the Persianate and Malay-Indonesian worlds over many centuries. Majid Daneshgar provides a critical and comparative study of Persianate-Malay stories, with specific focus on Durr al-Majālis, or Pearl of Gatherings – a classical Islamic text produced by Sayf Zafar (late thirteenth–mid-fourteenth centuries CE), a writer and scholar of Central Asian background, during the Delhi Sultanate.

The book illustrates how the Durr al-Majālis contains various legal, theological-philosophical, metaphysical, chivalrous and mystical accounts. In addition, it traces how the book travelled beyond the so-called ‘Balkans-to-Bengal’ borders and was copied, translated and annotated across Eastern Africa, Eastern Turkistan, Mongol-dominated China, Arabic-speaking Egypt and South East Asia. It demonstrates how this Persian collection of stories shaped the idea of Islam, Islamic teachings and stories across the Muslim World, and in the Malay-Indonesian World in particular.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781399537575
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 05/31/2025
Series: Gibb Memorial Trust
Pages: 720
Product dimensions: 6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Majid Daneshgar is Associate Professor of Area Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Japan. He is the former Munby Fellow in global bibliography at Cambridge UniversityLibrary in association with St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and George Grey Scholar at Auckland Libraries, New Zealand. He has frequently published on Islamic studies, orientalism, Persianate-Malay literature and manuscript studies. His main monographs are Studying the Qur’an in the Muslim Academy (Oxford UniversityPress, 2020), Tantawi Jawhari and the Qur’an (Routledge, 2018; Arabic translation 2023), and several co-edited volumes such as Malay-Indonesian Islamic Studies (Brill, 2023), Islam and Science in the Future (Zygon, 2020), Deconstructing Islamic Studies (Ilex-Harvard UniversityPress, 2020), Islamic Studies Today (Brill, 2017) and The Qur’an in the Malay-Indonesian World (Routledge, 2016). He was also awarded the Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Union, the Best Publication Prize 2022 (FRIAS), and nominated for the Most Inclusive Teacher Award at the University of Otago, New Zealand in 2015.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Transliteration Format
Table of Figures
List of Tables
Preface


Part A: On Literature, Context and Text
1. Introduction
Durr al‑Majālis in Southeast Asia
The Persian-Malay Network: Historical Ties between Muslims
Persian Phonology in Malay Language
Persian Origin of Malay Islamic Literature

2. Durr al-Majālis: Origins and Identity
Reception of the Text
Bibliographical and Biographical Details

3. Transregional Circulation
Durr al-Majālis in Punjabi
Durr al-Majālis in Pushto
Durr al-Majālis in Bengali (and in Bengal)
Durr al-Majālis in Turkic Languages and Contexts
Durr al-Majālis in the Arabic Zone
Durr al-Majālis in Kurdish

4. Islamic Themes and Novelty
Belief and Doctrine
Philosophical Theology
Occultism and Magic
About the Prophets
A Killing Story of Sunnis and Shīʿīs, and the idea of de-Shīʿitisation
Dialogue

5. Persianate-Malay Islamic Stories: A Comparative Analysis
On Persian-Malay Muslim Literature
Shared Islamic Stories in Persian and Malay
Close Similarities

6. A Critical Persian Edition and Critically Edited Translation of Durr al-Majālis
Persian Edition
English Translation
Formation

Part B: Persian Edition and English Translation
Persian Edition
English Translation

Part C: Appendices
Appendix A: A Description of Select Persian-Language Manuscripts
Appendix B: A Description of Select Translated Copies
Appendix C: A Description of Select Printed Volumes
Appendix D: Personal Digital Collection

Bibliography
Index
Persian Preface

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