Open AccessTrusting in God: Religious Inscriptions on Malay Seals
Author(s) -
Annabel Teh Gallop
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
studia islamika/studi islamika
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.149
H-Index - 9
eISSN - 2355-6145
pISSN - 0215-0492
DOI - 10.36712/sdi.v28i1.15075
Subject(s) - malay , archipelago , legend , arabic , seal (emblem) , history , theme (computing) , religious life , expression (computer science) , literature , intension , ancient history , genealogy , religious studies , art , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology , computer science , programming language , operating system
Malay seals – which can be defined as seals from Southeast Asia with inscriptions in Arabic script – date from the 16th to the 20th centuries, and originate from all parts of Nusantara. The inscriptions on Malay seals serve to identify the seal owner through his (or her) name or title, often accompanied by a pedigree, date, and place name. About one-third of all Malay seals also include a religious legend, usually in the form of a pious expression, a supplication to God addressed by His Beautiful Names (al-asmā’ al-ḥusná), or a quotation from the Qur’an. This article demonstrates a striking degree of uniformity in the religious expressions found in Malay seals from all over the archipelago. Over half of these can be characterized as variations on a theme of al-wāthiq billāh, ‘he who trusts in God’, but at the same time, there are also distinctive regional associations in different states in the archipelago with certain preferred phrases.