The Islamic Influences In Malay Manuscripts Writing:An Overview of Some Selected Manuscripts

Abstract

Malay manuscripts that have been produced in Malay Archipelago since 15^th century had experienced some improvements due to Hinduism-Buddhism and Islamic transnational religious movements. Main aims of this paperwork are (i) to study a brief history of Malay manuscripts writing and (ii) to identify the contribution of Islam in Malay Manuscript literature. This paper will try to shed Islamic influences on a few works that have been wrote by Malay scholars in old Malay manuscripts. Within the context of this study, qualitative methodology has been applied to reveal a diverse array of topics by gathering data from Malay manuscripts, books, paper works and website. As a result, Islam play a huge role and contribute a lot of changes in Malay manuscript’s writing by introducing a script and persuading intellectual development especially in producing various genres of Malay literature such as religion, hikayat (legends) history, law and Malay traditional medicine.

Keywords: Islamic, influence, Malay manuscript