Hikayat Marong Maha Wangsa; or Kedah Annals. .J. Sturrock
A.J. Sturrock’s 1916 edition of the Hikayat Marong Maha Wangsa (Kedah Annals) presents the foundational chronicle of Kedah’s royal house, composed during the reign of Sultan Maadzam Shah in the late seventeenth century. The text constructs a mytho-historical genealogy linking Kedah’s sultans to divine and giant ancestry, culminating in the kingdom’s conversion to Islam through a Baghdad shaikh. Sturrock, a Straits Settlements civil servant, published the full Malay text with minimal editorial intervention, making this the first complete printed edition of the annals.
Summary
The Hikayat Marong Maha Wangsa (also titled Salalatu’s Salatin, “the conduct of all kings”) is a royal chronicle that frames Kedah’s origins within a cosmological narrative set in the age of Prophet Solomon. The founding hero, Raja Marong Mahawangsa, is a giant of divine parentage who, while escorting the prince of Rum to marry the Chinese princess, battles a colossal bird that has abducted the bride to Pulau Langkapuri. After the fleet is destroyed and the prince washes ashore, the princess nurses him in a cave; their union is sanctioned by Solomon, who dispatches jin to marry them. Marong Mahawangsa then establishes a settlement he names Langkasuka, which is subsequently renamed Kedah Zamin Dzuran. His son, Raja Marong Mahapodisat, divides the realm among four children, sending them to found Siam, Perak, Petani, and a fourth territory, thereby creating a dynastic network across the Malay world (pp. 37–64).
The middle section of the annals traces successive rulers through a cycle of virtue and tyranny. The most dramatic episode involves Raja Besiong, a king afflicted with a compulsion to consume human hearts and blood, who is eventually overthrown by the four ministers after an eight-day siege of his city. His infant son is identified as the rightful heir by the magical elephant Gemala Johari, summoned from Petani at the behest of the King of Siam, and is formally installed by a Siam minister who also defeats the invading Raja Kelana Hitam (pp. 68–91). This narrative reinforces the political reality of Siam’s suzerain influence over Kedah’s succession.
The final and most historically significant section narrates the kingdom’s conversion to Islam. A shaikh named Abdullah, a student from Baghdad, is led by Iblis on a tour of all the devil’s evil deeds across the world. Upon reaching Kedah, he confronts the king in his bedchamber, exposes the satanic deception, and instructs the ruler and his court in the kalimah shahadat. The king, formerly Raja Phra Ong Mahawangsa, is renamed Sultan Mudzalpal Shah, all idols are destroyed, and a mosque is established. The text then records the arrival of Islamic legal texts from Aceh and concludes with a genealogical list of Kedah sultans extending to Sultan Ahmad Tajal Din Halim Shah (pp. 95–123).
Key Findings
- The text was composed by an unnamed fakir at the direct commission of Sultan Maadzam Shah ibni Sultan Mudzalpal Shah, who requested a chronicle of “the conduct of all Malay kings with their customs” for the benefit of future generations (p. 37).
- The founding kingdom was initially named Langkasuka (from the joy and feasting during its establishment) and subsequently renamed Kedah Zamin Dzuran by Raja Marong Mahawangsa before his departure for Rum (pp. 46, 59).
- The four sons of Raja Marong Mahapodisat established: benua Siam (after a 200-day march), Perak (named for the silver arrow indra sakti that fell on the site), Petani (named for the keris Lela Mesani placed before the female ruler), and a fourth territory that remained under the youngest son in Kedah (pp. 61–64).
- The conversion narrative places the event in the period immediately following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina, asserting that the Quran’s revelation extinguished all prior religions, magics, and idolatries (p. 95). The king’s new name, Sultan Mudzalpal Shah, was chosen by Shaikh Abdullah for use in the Friday khutbah (p. 114).
- The genealogical list at the text’s close records the succession from Sultan Mudzalpal Shah through Sultan Maadzam Shah, Sultan Muhammad Shah, Sultan Mandzapar Shah, Sultan Mahmud Shah, Sultan Sulaiman Shah (marhum Naka), Sultan Mahidin Shah Mansur Shah (marhum Sena), Sultan Dia Mukaram al-Din Makram Shah (marhum Ilir), Sultan Ata Ullah Muhammad Shah (marhum Bukit Pinang), Sultan Muhammad Jiwa Zin ala’l-Din Maadzam Shah (marhum Kèyangan), Sultan Abdullah al-Makram Shah, Sultan Dia Udin Maadzam Shah, and finally Sultan Ahmad Tajal Din Halim Shah (p. 123).
- The annals record that the King of Siam exercised a formal role in Kedah’s succession, dispatching a minister (Menteri Kelaham) to defeat the usurper Raja Kelana Hitam and to install the rightful young king with a royal charter (pp. 83–91).
Conclusion
Sturrock’s edition preserves a text that functions simultaneously as a dynastic legitimization, a political treatise on the proper conduct of kingship, and a conversion narrative. Its overarching thesis is that Kedah’s royal authority derives from an unbroken line of divine and giant ancestry, validated by the cosmic order (Solomon’s decree), confirmed by supernatural agents (the elephant Gemala Johari), and ultimately sanctified by Islam. The annals were composed to serve the reign of Sultan Maadzam Shah by anchoring his authority in this layered tradition of sacred kingship.
Context
- A.J. Sturrock (F.M.S., Straits Settlements Civil Service) published this as a straightforward textual edition with no substantive introduction, commentary, or translation. His role was that of a colonial administrator facilitating the print dissemination of a Malay royal manuscript, consistent with the JSBRAS’s early-twentieth-century practice of publishing primary sources for scholarly use.
- The text draws on no identifiable single manuscript source in Sturrock’s edition; the colophon and internal references suggest it was copied from a court manuscript dating to the reign of Sultan Maadzam Shah (r. 1641–1699), making it one of the earliest extant Malay chronicles of a peninsular kingdom.