1 Numerous written versions of the Sejarah Melayu exist. This analysis is based on the oldest surviving recension Raffles MS 18. This version is dated to 1612, but its content was very likely written, according to R.O. Winstedt, ‘at least eighty years before 1612’. The text traces the history of Malay rulers until Sultan ‘Alauddin Ri‘ayat Syah II, who ruled Johor in the 16th century. See Winstedt, R.O., ‘The date, author and identity of the original draft of the Malay Annals’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 16, 3 (1938): 34Google Scholar. On the variant versions, see Roolvink, R., ‘The variant versions of the Malay Annals’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 123, 3 (1967): 301–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chambert-Loir, Henri, ‘The history of a history: The variant versions of the Sulalat al-Salatin’, Indonesia 104 (2017): 121–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chambert-Loir, Henri, ‘One more version of the Sejarah Melayu’, Archipel 94 (2017): 211–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adam, Ahmat, The Sejarah Melayu revisited: A collection of six essays (Petaling Jaya: SIRD, 2020), pp. 51–60Google Scholar. In this article, English quotations from the Sejarah Melayu are taken from C.C. Brown's translation. Published in 1952, archaic spellings in Brown's translation are modified for readability and consistency. Some adjustments are made with reference to Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail's romanised transliteration published in 1998. Romanised Malay quotations are also provided, either in parentheses or in footnotes, for the convenience of readers. Brown, C.C., ‘The Malay Annals translated from Raffles MS 18’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 25, 2–3 (1952): 5–276Google Scholar; Sejarah Melayu: The Malay Annals (MS Raffles No. 18, new romanised edition), ed. Cheah Boon Kheng and Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1998). In the following, Brown's English translation and Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail's romanised transliteration will be respectively cited as ‘Malay Annals’ and ‘Sejarah Melayu’.

2 Leyden, John, Malay Annals (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1821)Google Scholar; Ismail, Ibrahim bin, ‘The printing of Munshi Abdullah's edition of the Sejarah Melayu in Singapore’, Kekal Abadi 5, 3 (1986): 13–21Google Scholar.

3 Kheng, Cheah Boon, ‘Ketidakadilan raja dan keruntuhan kerajaan Melaka: Pengadilan moral dalam Sejarah Melayu’, in Kekerasan dalam sejarah: Masyarakat dan pemerintah, ed. Ahmad, Qasim (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1993), pp. 66–91Google Scholar; Kheng, Cheah Boon, ‘The rise and fall of the great Melakan empire: Moral judgement in Tun Bambang's Sejarah Melayu’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 71, 2 (1998): 104–21Google Scholar.

4 de Josselin de Jong, P.E., ‘The character of the Malay Annals’, in Malayan and Indonesian studies: Essays presented to Sir Richard Winstedt on his eighty-fifth birthday, ed. Bastin, John and Roolvink, R. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), p. 240Google Scholar. See also Yunus, Umar, Sejarah Melayu: Menemukan diri kembali (Petaling Jaya: Penerbit Fajar Bakti, 1984), pp. 11–17Google Scholar; Cheah, ‘The rise and fall of the great Melakan empire’, p. 110.

5 In Malay: ‘Bahawa hamba minta diperbuatkan hikayat pada hari pertuturan segala raja-raja Melayu dengan isti‘adatnya supaya didengar oleh anak cucu kita yang kemudian dari kita dan diketahuinyalah segala perkataan syahadan beroleh faedahlah mereka itu daripadanya.’ Malay Annals, p. 12; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 65–6.

6 Sweeney, Amin, Reputations live on: An early Malay autobiography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. viiiGoogle Scholar; Sweeney, Amin, A full hearing: Orality and literacy in the Malay world (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

7 Proudfoot, Ian, ‘From recital to sight-reading: The silencing of texts in Malaysia’, Indonesia and the Malay World 30, 87 (2002): 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also van der Putten, Jan and Azhar, Al, eds, Di dalam berkekalan persahabatan—In everlasting friendship: Letters from Raja Ali Haji (Leiden: Department of Languages and Culture of South-east Asia and Oceania, University of Leiden, 1995), pp. 62, 161Google Scholar.

8 Malay Annals, pp. 49–52; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 117–20.

9 Wolters, O.W., The fall of Srivijaya in Malay history (London: Lund Humphries, 1970), pp. 80–82Google Scholar.

10 The ‘history of Singapore,’ Wolters observes, ‘might have been fabricated as a substitute for the inglorious period when Malayu-Jambi succeeded Srivijaya-Palembang.’ Ibid., p. 81.

11 O.W. Wolters, ‘A note on the capital of Srivijaya during the eleventh century’, in Essays offered to G.H. Luce by his colleagues and friends in honour of his seventy-fifth birthday, vol. 1, ed. Ba Shin, Jean Boisellier and A.B. Griswold (Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1966), p. 228; Wolters, O.W., ‘A few and miscellaneous pi-chi jottings on early Indonesia’, Indonesia 36 (1983): 51–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paul Michel Munoz, Early kingdoms: Indonesian archipelago and the Malay Peninsula (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006), pp. 167–9; John N. Miksic and Geok Yian Goh, Ancient Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 397–9.

12 Wolters, The fall of Srivijaya, p. 81. See also Charles Bartlett Walls, ‘Legacy of the fathers: Testamentary admonitions and the thematic structure of the Sejarah Melayu’ (PhD diss., Yale University, 1974), pp. 66–9.

13 Malay Annals, pp. 114, 153–4; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 200, 249.

14 Malay Annals, p. 113; Sejarah Melayu, p. 199.

15 Malay Annals, p. 185; Sejarah Melayu, p. 289.

16 Malay Annals, p. 26; Sejarah Melayu, p. 86. It is probable that the scribe avoids these descriptors for fear of repercussion. Additionally, committing violence against disloyal subjects is permitted under the traditional laws of Melaka. Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, ‘Kekerasan pada zaman Kesultanan Melayu Melaka: Penelitian berdasarkan Sejarah Melayu’, in Qasim Ahmad, Kekerasan dalam sejarah, pp. 39, 54–5.

17 In the Sejarah Melayu, an act of killing could appear reasonable, so long as the severity of violence is commensurate with the gravity of one's crime. Violence, then, is a moral definition, and is concomitant with injustice. Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, ‘Kekerasan pada zaman Kesultanan Melayu Melaka’, p. 48.

18 Brown, ‘Introduction’, in Malay Annals, p. 8; Josselin de Jong, ‘The character of the Malay Annals’, pp. 235–41; Virginia Matheson, ‘Concepts of Malay ethos in indigenous Malay writings’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 10, 2 (1979): 351–71; Cheah, ‘The rise and fall of the great Melakan empire’, pp. 104–21; Chambert-Loir, ‘The history of a history’, pp. 131–60; Alan Chong, ‘Premodern Southeast Asia as a guide to international relations between peoples: Prowess and prestige in “intersocietal relations” in the Sejarah Melayu’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 37, 2 (2012): 87–105.

19 J.H. Walker, ‘Autonomy, diversity, and dissent: Conceptions of power and sources of action in the Sejarah Melayu (Raffles MS 18)’, Theory and Society 33, 2 (2004): 213–55; J.H. Walker, ‘Patrimonialism and feudalism in the Sejarah Melayu (Raffles MS 18)’, in The politics of the periphery in Indonesia: Social and geographical perspectives, ed. Minako Sakai, Glenn Banks, and J.H. Walker (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009), pp. 39–61.

20 Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, ‘Kekerasan pada zaman Kesultanan Melayu Melaka’, p. 46.

21 Ibid., pp. 48–50.

22 Syed Hussein Alatas, ‘Feudalism in Malaysian society: A study in historical continuity’, Civilisations 18, 4 (1968): 582.

23 Sejarah Melayu, p. 66; Malay Annals, p. 12. Elaborating on the characteristic of ‘profitable’ court writing, G.L. Koster and H.M.J. Maier acutely contend: ‘The Malay textual heritage, in describing what the world looked like, simultaneously prescribed what it had to be like.’ G.L. Koster and H.M.J. Maier, ‘A medicine of sweetmeats: On the power of Malay narrative’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 141 (1985): 447. See also Nancy Florida, Writing the past, inscribing the future: History as prophecy in colonial Java (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995).

24 The following summarises events precipitating the fall of Singapura and the birth of Melaka. See Malay Annals, pp. 49–52; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 117–20.

25 The word ‘betis’ denotes two different meanings: the shin or calf; or, the name of a tree with a hard trunk (Payena utilis). The double meaning of the word is first noted by Roger Tol, who contends that C.C. Brown's translation of ‘betis’ as ‘leg’ had resulted in subsequent misinterpretation of the swordfish attack. Roger Tol, ‘The persistent misinterpretation of the swordfish attack on Singapore’, Indonesia and the Malay World 35, 102 (2007): 247–52.

26 The specific word being used to describe this punishment is ‘perjenggikan’, meaning ‘to expose’. But numerous spelling variants or other words exist in other editions, thus the nature of this punishment is subject to debate. W.G. Shellabear's edition writes ‘sulakan’, meaning ‘to impale’; A. Samad Ahmad's edition writes ‘percanggaikan’; Muhammad Haji Salleh's edition writes ‘diperjangkangkan’; Muhammad Yusoff Hashim's Siak edition uses ‘percacakan’ instead, meaning ‘to erect upright’; while Ahmat Adam's relatively recent edition, based on the Krusenstern manuscript, writes ‘perjangkikan’. What remains consistent throughout is Sang Ranjuna Tapa's reaction claiming that his daughter was being unfairly shamed (‘diberi malu’) because of the punishment. See Malay Annals, pp. 51, 218; Sejarah Melayu, p. 118; W.G. Shellabear, Sejarah Melayu (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 68; A. Samad Ahmad, Sulalatus Salatin (Sejarah Melayu), 4th ed. (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1986), p. 69; Tun Seri Lanang, Sulalat al-Salatin ya'ni perteturun segala raja-raja, ed. Muhammad Haji Salleh (Kuala Lumpur: Yayasan Karyawan; Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1997), p. 48; Tengku Said Ibni Tengku Deris, Sejarah Melayu (Sulalatus Salatin): Versi Siak, ed. Muhammad Yusoff Hashim (Melaka: Kolej Universiti Islam Melaka, 2015), p. 52; Ahmat Adam, Sulalat u's-Salatin yakni per[tu]turan segala raja-raja (Kuala Lumpur: Yayasan Karyawan, 2016), p. 94.

27 René Girard, Violence and the sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), p. 12.

28 Ibid., p. 12.

29 In regards to the female subject, however, Girard remarks an exception: ‘In many cultures women are not considered full-fledged members of their society; yet women are never, or rarely, selected as sacrificial victims. There may be a simple explanation for this fact. The married woman retains her ties with her parents’ clan even after she has become in some respects the property of her husband and his family. To kill her would be to run the risk of one of the two groups’ interpreting her sacrifice as an act of murder committing it to a reciprocal act of revenge.’ Notwithstanding this exception, Girard's elaboration strangely corresponds to the narrative in the Sejarah Melayu. While the concubine is the subject being scapegoated, it is her father, Sang Ranjuna Tapa, who directly causes the fall of Singapura. Unlike the persecutions of Tuan Jana Khatib and the child, incriminating a female subject indeed leads her family to reciprocate the violence in pursuit of revenge. Ibid., pp. 12–13.

30 The Malay ruler's profound fear of competition is exemplary of Girard's ‘mimetic rivalry’. Ibid., pp. 169–92.

31 While Taussig's formulation is rooted in encounters between the coloniser and the colonised, this article considers the wider appeal of the space of death beyond colonialism—the space of death as an expression of power asymmetry between ruler and ruled. Without pretence, the Sejarah Melayu is a by-product of absolute power relating a legitimation narrative that relies on, in Taussig's words, ‘creating an uncertain reality out of fiction, a nightmarish reality in which the unstable interplay of truth and illusion becomes a social force of horrendous and phantasmic dimensions’. It is not too difficult to gauge how the Sejarah Melayu develops this ‘epistemic murk’ through the creative weaving of history and ideology in its depictions of violence. Michael Taussig, ‘Culture of terror—space of death: Roger Casement's Putumayo report and the explanation of torture’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 26, 3 (1984): 492.

32 Michael Taussig, ‘History as sorcery’, Representations 7 (1984): 94.

33 The aesthetic of violence that Taussig evokes in his formulation seems to coincide with Tony Day's understanding of power's intrinsic relation with beauty in Southeast Asia. Rather than identifying violence as an instrument of power whose legitimate use is monopolised by the state in a Weberian sense, Day sees violence as the very device that brings into existence the idea of the state. Tony Day, Fluid iron: State formation in Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002).

34 Ibid., p. 252.

35 Achille Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, trans. Libby Meintjes, Public Culture 15, 1 (2003): 14.

36 Malay Annals, pp. 26–7; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 86–7.

37 Leonard Y. Andaya, Leaves of the same tree: Trade and ethnicity in the Straits of Melaka (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), p. 71; Maziar Mozaffari Falarti, Malay kingship in Kedah: Religion, trade, and society (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2013), pp. 69–95.

38 Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, p. 20.

39 Ibid., p. 14.

40 Ibid., p. 25.

41 Brown's rendition is suggestive: ‘the queen was looking out of the window and Tuan Jana Khatib saw her’. Malay Annals, p. 49; Sejarah Melayu, p. 117.

42 Brown simply translates this as ‘a man of Pasai’. The Tuhfat al-Nafis writes of him as ‘ulama aulia Allah’, which connotes the status of sainthood. Malay Annals, p. 49; Sejarah Melayu, p. 117; Virginia Matheson Hooker, Tuhfat al-Nafis: Sejarah Melayu-Islam (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1991), p. 130.

43 To quote the Malay passage in full: ‘Maka ada sebatang pinang hampir istana, maka ditilikkan oleh Tuan Jana Khatib, menjadilah dua batang pinang itu.’ Malay Annals, p. 49; Sejarah Melayu, p. 117.

44 Referring to this exact account in the Sejarah Melayu, R.J. Wilkinson defines ‘tilek’ as ‘Observation; careful ocular examination or notice—as distinct from a mere casual look; looking at anything with a purpose, usually with the idea of prophecy or second sight.’ Wilkinson deems Tuan Jana Khatib's action as a passive one, writing that he ‘observed the splitting of the pinang trees’. R.J. Wilkinson, A Malay–English dictionary (Singapore: Kelly & Walsh, 1901), p. 210.

45 Anthony Reid, ‘From betel-chewing to tobacco-smoking in Indonesia’, Journal of Asian Studies 44, 3 (1985): 531.

46 Ibid., pp. 531–2; Dawn F. Rooney, Betel chewing traditions in South-East Asia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 34–9.

47 Haji Awg Asbol bin Haji Mail, ‘Dibalik tersurat, apa tersirat: Pentafsiran sejarah alam Melayu menurut Hamka’, paper presented at Seminar Nusantara Buya Hamka, Institut Alam dan Tamadun Melayu, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, 8–9 Dec. 2011, p. 16. On the manner in which court writings are diplomatic, restrained, yet playful with words and parables, see Koster and Maier, ‘A medicine of sweetmeats’, pp. 444–5; Henk Maier, We are playing relatives: A survey of Malay writing (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004).

48 In Malay: ‘Budinya Tuan Jana Khatib! Lagi diketahuinya isterinya kita menengok, maka ia menunjukkan pengetahuannya!’ Malay Annals, p. 49; Sejarah Melayu, p. 117.

49 In both episodes, Pasai's exact answers are not cited since they are sacred and esoteric in nature, harbouring knowledge of veritable secrecy, not to be simply divulged. Malay Annals, pp. 100–102, 154–5; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 183–5, 249–51. See also H. Overbeck, ‘The answer of Pasai’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11, 2 (1933): 254–60.

50 In Malay: ‘jikalau seperti surat dari Pasai, dijemput dengan selengkap alat kerajaan’. Malay Annals, p. 55; Sejarah Melayu, p. 124.

51 R. Roolvink, ‘The answer of Pasai’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 38, 2 (1965): 129–39. See also Amin Sweeney, ‘The connection between the Hikayat Raja2 Pasai and the Sejarah Melayu’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40, 2 (1967): 93–105.

52 In Malay: ‘Pada zaman itu sebuah pun negeri tiada menyamai Melaka melainkan Pasai, Haru; tiga buah negeri itu, tuha muda pun rajanya, berkirim salam juga. Tetapi orang, barang dari mana surat datang, dibacakan “sembah” juga.’ Malay Annals, p. 98; Sejarah Melayu, p. 180.

53 In Malay: ‘kita menyuruh janganlah bersurat sudah, kita suruh hafazkan pada utusan’. Malay Annals, p. 154; Sejarah Melayu, p. 250.

54 Manuel Lobato, ‘“Melaka is like a cropping field”: Trade management in the Strait of Melaka during the sultanate and the Portuguese period’, Journal of Asian History 46, 2 (2012): 231–2; Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya, A history of early modern Southeast Asia, 1400–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 152. See also M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian trade and European influence: In the Indonesian archipelago between 1500 and about 1630 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), pp. 33–4.

55 Ernst Ulrich Kratz, ‘Yang tersurat dan yang tersirat: Historicity and historical truth’, Archipel 60 (2000): 32.

56 Vladimir Braginsky, The heritage of traditional Malay literature: A historical survey of genres, writings and literary views (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004), p. 489.

57 In Malay: ‘Tuanku, budak itu jikalau sudah besar, nescaya besarlah akalnya. Baiklah ia kita bunuh.’ Malay Annals, p. 50; Sejarah Melayu, p. 118.

58 Michael G. Peletz, ‘Neither reasonable nor responsible: Contrasting representations of masculinity in a Malay society’, Cultural Anthropology 9, 2 (1994): 148–9.

59 Tol, ‘The persistent misinterpretation’, p. 250.

60 Peletz, ‘Neither reasonable nor responsible’, p. 148.

61 Italics original. J.L. Massard, ‘The new-born Malay child: A multiple identity being’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 58, 2 (1985): 71.

62 Brown's translation is slightly modified here: ‘But when this boy was executed the guilt of his blood was laid on Singapura.’ Blood is never mentioned in Malay: ‘[ … ] tatkala ia akan dibunuh itu, maka ia menanggungkan haknya atas negeri itu.’ Malay Annals, p. 50; Sejarah Melayu, p. 118.

63 Abortion, for instance, is gravely tabooed because the fetus has a soul and would curse the guilty mother. Massard, ‘The new-born Malay child’, p. 72.

64 ‘Bad death’ has been described as ‘the death of one whose youthfulness belies the likelihood of a conscious and voluntary renunciation of life’. Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, ‘Introduction: Death and the regeneration of life’, Death and the regeneration of life, ed. Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 16.

65 Jonathan Parry, ‘Sacrificial death and the necrophagous ascetic’, in Death and the regeneration of life, ed. Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 83.

66 Brown, ‘Commentary’, in Malay Annals, p. 218.

67 Jane Drakard, Sejarah raja-raja Barus: Dua naskah dari Barus (Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama; Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 2003), pp. 178–80, 216–21. Other texts include the Salasilah Berau. Anton Abraham Cense, De kroniek van Bandjarmasin (Santpoort: C.A. Mees, 1928), pp. 174–5. See also Virginia Matheson, ‘Strategies of survival: The Malay royal line of Lingga-Riau’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 17, 1 (1986): 36.

68 In Malay: ‘Tidak aku guna katakan nanti orang jadi marah kepadaku.’ Drakard, Sejarah raja-raja Barus, p. 179.

69 Ibid., p. 179.

70 Ibid., pp. 216–8.

71 The chief persuades the king to put the child to death in the following lines: ‘Ya Tuanku Syah ‘Alam adapun selama todak sudah habis mati sebab oleh budak kecil itu, melainkan tiada saya berhati senang sebab saya pikir jikalau umurnya kiranya panjang niscaya dianya jadi keraja'an karena bicaranya terlalu tajam sekalian yang tuha-tuha dibarikan kanjal sebab dianya sangat ber'akal. Adapun sepanjang pikiran saya baiklah nyawanya kita hilangkan supaya senang akhir kemudian.’ Ibid., p. 220.

72 Examples can be multiplied. In the Hikayat Hang Tuah, the swordfish incident takes place in Inderapura. Hang Kadim, the son of Hang Jebat, plays the gifted child implicated in the case. Like the snippet in the Sejarah Melayu, his death is a result of envy and fitnah circulated by court officials. When Melaka knows of Hang Kadim's death in Inderapura, they immediately send the military to take over Inderapura. While this account is less demonstrative of the supplanting of the old with the new, violence has nevertheless enabled the reordering of power. The unjust execution of the child legitimises Melaka's expansionist desire. See Kassim Ahmad, Hikayat Hang Tuah (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1964), pp. 415–24. For a comparison between the Sejarah Melayu and Hikayat Hang Tuah, see T. Iskandar, ‘Some historical sources used by the author of Hikayat Hang Tuah’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 43, 1 (1970): 38–44.

73 Girard, Violence and the sacred, pp. 174–5.

74 Girard also highlights the figure of the child as one who has ‘not yet undergone the rites of initiation’, making it more expedient for adults to scapegoat a child. Ibid., pp. 12, 174.

75 Michael Peletz, Reason and passion: Representations of gender in a Malay society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 225–56.

76 Jane Drakard, A Malay frontier: Unity and duality in a Sumatran kingdom (Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 19, 98–9.

77 Stephen C. Headley, Durga's mosque: Cosmology, conversion and community in Central Javanese Islam (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004), p. 508.

78 Virginia Matheson, ‘Concepts of state in the Tuhfat al-Nafis’, in Pre-colonial state systems in Southeast Asia, ed. Anthony Reid and Lance Castle (Kuala Lumpur: Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1975), p. 19.

79 Jan van der Putten, His word is the truth: Haji Ibrahim's letters and other writings (Leiden: Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies, Universiteit Leiden, 2001), p. 66.

80 On the intimate relations between fitnah, envy (dengki), jealousy (iri hati or cemburu), and vengeance (dendam) in Malay literature, see Amida Abdulhamid, Persoalan dendam dalam sastera Melayu (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya, 2004), pp. 102–33.

81 Timothy Moy believes that ‘she was exposed publicly, quite possibly naked, and probably not done to death at all’. Timothy J. Moy, ‘The “Sejarah Melayu” tradition of power and political structure: An assessment of relevant sections of the “Tuhfat al-Nafis”’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 48, 2 (1975): 72.

82 In Malay: ‘Jikalau sungguh sekalipun anak hamba ada berbuat jahat, bunuh ia saja-saja; mengapalah maka diberi malu demikian?’ Malay Annals, p. 51; Sejarah Melayu, p. 118.

83 On the relations between violence and malu, see Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, ‘Kekerasan pada zaman Kesultanan Melayu Melaka’, pp. 52–4. See also A.C. Milner, Kerajaan: Malay political culture on the eve of colonial rule (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982), pp. 106–7.

84 The female is inextricably tied to the baser human passions: ‘Kerendahan mertabat wanita dari kaca mata pengarang Sejarah Melayu berkait rapat dengan sikap materialistik mereka, fungsi seksual yang mereka mainkan dan keupayaan mereka memukau lelaki sehingga tergugat kestabilan sosial dan politik sesebuah negeri’. Sharifah Zaleha Syed Hassan, ‘Identiti dan citra wanita berasaskan Sejarah Melayu’, in Kedudukan dan citra wanita dalam sumber-sumber tradisional Melayu, ed. Sharifah Zaleha Syed Hassan and Rashila Ramli (Bangi: Institut Alam dan Tamadun Melayu, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1998), p. 28. See also Noor Azah Catherine bt Abdullah, ‘Archetypes of ideal men and dreamed women in Leyden's translation of The Malay Annals’ (PhD diss., Universiti Putra Malaysia, 2006).

85 Malay Annals, pp. 158–60, 165–7, 171; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 256–7, 264–6, 272.

86 Malay Annals, pp. 103–4; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 186–7.

87 Cheah Boon Kheng attends to the women's role in Malay historical sources and summarises that women ‘were capable of great guile, manipulation and ruthlessness which could produce deadly results’. In spite of his almost positive evaluation, the monarchical and feudal patriarchy within which the scribe operates tends to portray the female subject as a secondary character or as interference. Cheah Boon Kheng, ‘Power behind the throne: The role of queens and court ladies in Malay history’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 66, 1 (1993): 2.

88 Malay Annals, p. 47; Sejarah Melayu, p. 113.

89 In Malay: ‘Hei bapaku, bahawa aku kedatangan suatu pekerjaan yang termusykil, dan hilanglah budi bicaraku karena tertalu-talu oleh nafsuku, dan binasalah pekerjaanku sebab terkeras hawa nafsuku.’ Malay Annals, p. 47; Sejarah Melayu, p. 113.

90 To Sultan Malik al-Mansur, the minister said: ‘I pray your Highness, go not. There may be trouble’. In Malay: ‘Jangan tuanku berangkat, kalau fitnah.’ Malay Annals, p. 47; Sejarah Melayu, p. 113.

91 ‘But Saidi Semayad [the minister] did not approve, for he was an old minister and of wide experience and he realised that trouble was inevitable.’ In Malay: ‘Pada Saidi Semayad tiada berkenan padanya karena ia menteri tuha lagi tahu pada segala pekerjaan, tiada dapat tiada fitnah juga.’ Malay Annals, p. 47; Sejarah Melayu, p. 113. The state of seniority, or ‘tuha’, once again is by itself an indication of ‘akal’, virtue, and intellect, which explains precisely why, in our previous account, a child with ‘akal’ is regarded as transgressive and is executed.

92 In Malay: ‘Karena perempuan seorang, maka saudaraku kuturunkan dari atas kerajaannya, dan menterinya pun kubunuh.’ Malay Annals, p. 48; Sejarah Melayu, p. 115.

93 Equally amusing to note here are the subtleties contained in the name of the father ‘Sang Ranjuna Tapa’. ‘Ranjuna’ is a localised spelling of ‘Arjuna’, the heroic warrior from the epic Mahabharata, whereas ‘Tapa’ means ‘meditation’. The distinct Javanese sound to the father's name is no accident too, as he would later become an agent for Majapahit. Perhaps reminiscent of Tuan Jana Khatib, Sang Ranjuna Tapa appears to be a man of learning and reason. The paternal figure here emerges as yet another authority attempting to regulate the flow of his daughter's nafsu.

94 The text does not specify the crime she is being accused of committing, but the context of the passage sheds light on the nature of her misconduct. That her punishment entails that she be ‘publicly exposed at one end of the market’ (perjenggikan di ujung pasar) is indicative of a crime that could bring shame to her. Malay Annals, p. 51; Sejarah Melayu, p. 118.

95 The Sejarah Melayu's thematic focus is ‘not the greatness of the Melaka Sultanate’, as Cheah Boon Kheng pointedly remarks, pace Brown, ‘but injustice’. Cheah, ‘The rise and fall of the great Melakan empire’, p. 111; Brown, ‘Introduction’, in Malay Annals, p. 8.

96 Cheah, ‘The rise and fall of the great Melakan empire’, p. 111.

97 Ibid., pp. 112–14.

98 Walls, ‘Legacy of the fathers’, pp. 62–9; Cheah, ‘The rise and fall of the great Melakan empire’, p. 119; Tol, ‘The persistent misinterpretation’, pp. 250–51.

99 Cheah, ‘The rise and fall of the great Melakan empire’, p. 117; Chambert-Loir, ‘The Sulalat al-Salatin’, pp. 151–2.

100 Malay Annals, p. 50; Sejarah Melayu, p. 118.

101 Malay Annals, p. 52; Sejarah Melayu, p. 120. Even Sultan Mahmud Syah, one of the most detested rulers in the Sejarah Melayu, reigns for 48 years, having relocated his centre of power from Melaka to Muar, to Pahang, and to Bintan, before he dies in Kampar. See Malay Annals, p. 193; Sejarah Melayu, p. 298.

102 Malay Annals, p. 27; Sejarah Melayu, p. 87.

103 Malay Annals, p. 27; Sejarah Melayu, p. 87.

104 Kessler, Clive S., ‘Archaism and modernity: Contemporary Malay political culture’, in Fragmented vision: Culture and politics in contemporary Malaysia, ed. Kahn, Joel S. and Wah, Francis Loh Kok (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992), pp. 146–7Google Scholar.

105 Ibid., p. 147.

106 Girard, René, The scapegoat, trans. Freccero, Yvonne (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 Benjamin, Walter, ‘Critique of violence’, in Reflections: Essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writings, ed. Demetz, Peter, trans. Jephcott, Edmund (New York: Schocken, 1978), p. 287Google Scholar.

108 Peletz, Reason and passion, p. 205. See also Douglas, Mary, Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966)Google Scholar.

109 Taussig, ‘Culture of terror’, pp. 467–8; Taussig, ‘History as sorcery’, pp. 94–5.

110 Malay Annals, pp. 50–51; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 117–19.