By the end of 2025, Malaysia plans to open direct flights from Russia, which will allow Russians to get to know this Muslim country better, where representatives of different faiths coexist in harmony. The spread of Islam in Southeast Asia from the 13th century contributed to the development of Malay writing, and with it the penetration of theological works and legends brought by merchants and preachers from the Middle East. Over time, these legends were transformed, intertwining with local folklore.
Malay stories about the military campaigns of the Prophet ﷺ go back to the Arabic "sira" - biographical collections, as well as oral traditions. However, moving into a different linguistic and cultural environment, they moved further and further away from the original source. Non-Arab storytellers rethought the plots, adding their own interpretations. Interestingly, many Malay legends have Shiite roots.
While religious and legal texts required strict adherence to the canon, the popular Malay genre of hikayat allowed for free handling of the material. This is how a unique “Islamic hikayat” was formed, where historical facts were often sacrificed for the sake of entertainment. For example, “The Tale of Raja Khandaq” refers to the Battle of the Ditch in 627, and “The Tale of Raja Lahad” to the Battle of Uhud. At the same time, toponyms in Malay stories turned into the names of characters opposing the Prophet ﷺ : from the Arabic “khandaq” - “ditch”, and Uhud became Raja Lahad (at the same time, this name is consonant with Abu Lahab).
The central figure of many hikayats is Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Rightly Guided Caliph. Under the influence of Shiite tradition, his image has acquired epic features: he is presented as an invincible warrior, wielding a magic sword and a flying horse. His nickname, “Lion of Allah”, is replaced in the Malay version by “Tiger of Allah”, a more familiar symbol of power in the region. Ali is here simultaneously a sage, a saint, and an indomitable fighter, whose fury is barely contained even by the heavens. In the “Tale of Raja Khandaq”, Gabriel appears to the Prophet ﷺ with the order to stop the battle “before Ali has killed all the infidels, otherwise there will be no sinners left in hell.”
As the Russian orientalist Lyubov Goryaeva notes in her work “Towards an Analysis of the Image of the Caliph in the Malay Narrative Tradition”, the battle scenes in the hikayats are striking in their exaggerated scope:
"His blows shook the sky, threatening to split the earth into pieces. When Ali gave a threefold cry, three thousand warriors fell dead. Snatching up the sword Zulfiqar, he saw how the blade stretched to the horizon. And then Ali began to cut down the enemies right and left, and the death toll was in the thousands."
The action takes place in a conventional Arabia, but with jungles and exotic animals of Southeast Asia. The style of the narrative is close to the Malay adaptations of ancient Indian epics, and Ali sometimes resembles the heroes of the Mahabharata. Malay hikayats are a bizarre fusion of Islamic stories and folklore, a striking example of the adaptation of Middle Eastern legends to local cultural soil.
The Hikayats vividly demonstrate the unique ability of the Malay tradition to reinterpret religious stories, organically weaving them into the epic heritage of the region. Through these narratives, the rich diversity of Islamic culture, one of the most powerful factors of globalization in the Middle Ages, is revealed. Overcoming the archaic contradictions of the ancient world with the help of intercultural dialogue, the young religion became a true civilizational breakthrough.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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