Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature

by | Jun 22, 2026 | Featured, History & Geography, New, Religion & Philosophy

Featured, History & Geography, New, Religion & Philosophy

Author: Majid Daneshgar
Year: 2025
ISBN: 9781399537599
Language: English
664p, H240 x W170 (mm) 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Transliteration Format
Table of Figures
List of Tables
Preface

Part A: On Literature, Context and Text
1. Introduction
Durr al‑Majālis in Southeast Asia
The Persian-Malay Network: Historical Ties between Muslims
Persian Phonology in Malay Language
Persian Origin of Malay Islamic Literature

2. Durr al-Majālis: Origins and Identity
Reception of the Text
Bibliographical and Biographical Details

3. Transregional Circulation
Durr al-Majālis in Punjabi
Durr al-Majālis in Pushto
Durr al-Majālis in Bengali (and in Bengal)
Durr al-Majālis in Turkic Languages and Contexts
Durr al-Majālis in the Arabic Zone
Durr al-Majālis in Kurdish

4. Islamic Themes and Novelty
Belief and Doctrine
Philosophical Theology
Occultism and Magic
About the Prophets
A Killing Story of Sunnis and Shīʿīs, and the idea of de-Shīʿitisation
Dialogue

5. Persianate-Malay Islamic Stories: A Comparative Analysis
On Persian-Malay Muslim Literature
Shared Islamic Stories in Persian and Malay
Close Similarities

6. A Critical Persian Edition and Critically Edited Translation of Durr al-Majālis
Persian Edition
English Translation
Formation

Part B: Persian Edition and English Translation
Persian Edition
English Translation

Part C: Appendices
Appendix A: A Description of Select Persian-Language Manuscripts
Appendix B: A Description of Select Translated Copies
Appendix C: A Description of Select Printed Volumes
Appendix D: Personal Digital Collection

Bibliography
Index
Persian Preface

This book investigates lines of connection and shared literary heritage between the Persianate and Malay-Indonesian worlds over many centuries. Majid Daneshgar provides a critical and comparative study of Persianate-Malay stories, with specific focus on Durr al-Majālis, or Pearl of Gatherings – a classical Islamic text produced by Sayf Zafar (late thirteenth–mid-fourteenth centuries CE), a writer and scholar of Central Asian background, during the Delhi Sultanate.

The book illustrates how the Durr al-Majālis contains various legal, theological-philosophical, metaphysical, chivalrous and mystical accounts. In addition, it traces how the book travelled beyond the so-called ‘Balkans-to-Bengal’ borders and was copied, translated and annotated across Eastern Africa, Eastern Turkistan, Mongol-dominated China, Arabic-speaking Egypt and South East Asia. It demonstrates how this Persian collection of stories shaped the idea of Islam, Islamic teachings and stories across the Muslim World, and in the Malay-Indonesian World in particular.

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