Introduction of Hikayat: The Aceh traditional literature

A modern hikayat performed by Muda Balia, the foremost master of Hikayat in Aceh. Video source.

The Aceh sultanate is a powerful kingdom for many centuries (c.1528–1903), heir to the earliest Islamic sultanates in Southeast Asia, Pasai and Pereulak. Also seen as the successor of the Melaka Sultanate that fell to the Portuguese in 1511, where traders refuged their business and brought Aceh became the major economic and cultural centre linking traders and Muslim scholars from the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia.

Aceh possesses a rich literary tradition, both written and oral. The oral story-performance genre includes many forms, such as hikayat (epic poems), haba, kisah, hadih maja (morality stories) and calitra (imaginary stories).

Hikayat was derives from Arabic word Hikayah which meaning story, fable or myth. The hikayat term were using to replace the older Acehnese terms “meuratôh” which have the same meaning. It seems marking a transition from hinduism/buddhism influence culture toward islamic arts. So to said, hikayat was the Islamisation form on older poem tradition heavily influenced by hinduism/buddhism, as saw in the Hikayat Seri Rama which is a Malay adaptation of the Hindu Epic Ramayana.

Hikayat considered as a successful strategy for Islam spreading in southeast Asia, as its translated into various language.

Hikayat Prang Sabi, image credit of Tropenmuseum

Aceh has developed its literatures based on the archaic language of Pasai, which in literacy can be classified as Pre-Classical Malay, as opposed to the Classical Malay of such eighteenth-century works as the Hikayat Hang Tuah or the Sejarah Melayu. History noted the Aceh's Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah defeated Samudra—Pasai in 1524 and annexed the country. Its sultan who later escaped to exile in Portuguese Malacca but its legacy, the Muslim-Malay culture, lived on and continued to develop further in the Sultanate of Aceh.

Through Pasai annexation, the Aceh literatures heavily linked to Persian. The account of Ibn Battuta testifies to the close relationship between the courts of Pasai and Delhi, of which the court language was Persian. Persian literature was predominantly translated into Malay during the heyday of Pasai.

According to Teuku Iskandar, hikayat were written in the Arabic scripts developed from the system of writings achieved by adapting Arabic script to the Persian language. The way Arabic script is used in rendering Persian literature into Malay shows that this script had already been transformed fro Persian use. For phonemes not found in the Arabic alphabet, new letters were created by adding a dot or dots to the existing Arabic letters. This script later called the Jawi alphabet.

The old manuscript from Aceh, written in Jawi alphabet. Image credit of Rumoëh Aceh

It's difficult to trace back the earliest form of hikayat, due to manuscripts available rarely, even discovered yet. However, based on oldest literature discovered, it noted that Hamzah Fansuri (d. c. 1590?) was the earliest scholar who writes hikayat in malay. His works specially on Islamic mysticism heavily influenced by Ibn Arabi's doctrine of Waḥdat al-Wujūd popular in Persia and Mughal India during the 16th century.

Since Fansuri works, more hikayat written whether in Malay or even Acehnese language, in various theme reflecting the social condition at time, as such debate and rivalry between Islamic school of thoughts which weakening the Aceh kingdom, anti European colonial resistance, and even modern form of hikayat on Aceh human rights violation and development issues.

The most well-known hikayat are the Hikayat Aceh, the Hikayat Malem Dagang, Hikayat Pocut Muhammad and, the most notorious and well-documented, the Hikayat Prang Sabil (the Epic of Holy War) by Tgk Cik Pante Kulu.

A hikayat recitation featured by violin, performed by Fuady Keulayu. Video source.