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Tuhfat al-Nafis

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Tuhfat al-Nafis

The Tuhfat al-Nafis is a Malay chronicle composed in the mid-1860s by Raja ‘Ali al-Haji of Riau, providing a continuous political history of the Malay Archipelago from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. The text traces the transition from the Johore Sultanate to the Riau-Lingga Sultanate, documenting the complex interplay between Malay aristocracy, Bugis military power, and European colonial intervention across the Riau-Lingga archipelago, the Straits of Malacca, and the western coast of Sumatra [1, pp. 285–286]. Its significance lies not merely in its chronological scope but in the distinctive political philosophy it articulates, its precise genealogical registration, and its role as a principal source for eighteenth-century Malay political history in the absence of indigenous chronicles from several key polities [2, p. 80], [3, p. 64].

Scope, Authorship, and Manuscript Tradition

The Tuhfat al-Nafis was composed on 3rd Sha‘ban 1282 A.H. (1865 A.D.), when its author determined to write what he named the “Precious Gift” [1, p. 286]. The author is almost certainly Raja ‘Ali Haji bin Raja Ahmad (Engku Haji Tua), grandson of the famous Raja Haji who died in 1784 at Teluk Ketapang fighting the Dutch from Malacca [1, p. 286]. He was also the author of the Salasilah Melayu dan Bugis, printed in Singapore, a work identical in style and containing some of the same material, and of a grammar, the Bustanu’l-Katibin, lithographed at Riau and Singapore in 1857 [1, p. 286].

Two manuscript copies are known. The first, the Maxwell manuscript, was bequeathed to the Royal Asiatic Society, London, by Sir W. E. Maxwell, K.C.M.G., and is described in Dr. C. O. Blagden’s catalogue as a folio of 228 leaves, dated A.H. 1307 [1, p. 285]. It was copied in 1890 A.D. at Klang by Shamsu’d-din bin Imam Musa of Larut (possibly Perak) from an original dated Monday, 17 Rajab, 1282 A.H. [1, p. 285]. The second is a copy made in 1923 A.D. from an older manuscript, kindly lent by Tengku Fatimah binti Sultan Abubakar of Johore; the author’s name is not stated in this copy [1, p. 285]. Dr. Blagden collated test passages between the two and found them to agree, except for verbal improvements typical of Malay copyists [1, p. 285].

A question of authorship has been raised by Amin Sweeney, who noted a pencilled annotation inside the Maxwell manuscript dated A.H. 1307 attributing the work to Raja ‘Ali’s father, and who observed the implausibility of both the Tuhfat and the Salasilah Melayu dan Bugis being completed within three months of each other in A.H. 1282 [4, p. 156]. Sweeney concluded that the Maxwell manuscript contains fewer corruptions than the 1923 text on which Winstedt’s published edition was based [4, p. 156].

The text is built upon four underlying source texts: the Peringatan Negeri Johor, the Siarah Selangor (the so-called Hikayat Negeri Johor), the Karangan Engku Busu, and the Siarah Siak [2, p. 80]. None of these originates from or represents the Terengganu court, a fact with significant implications for the text’s reliability as a source for that polity [2, p. 80]. The Peringatan Negeri Johor, a court notebook of the Bendahara family, ends in 1750 and thus provides no information for the period of Sultan Mansur Syah’s greatest influence [2, p. 87]. The Karangan Engku Busu, the most pro-Bugis of the sources, was copied in A.H. 1243 (1827) and reflects the bitter personal animosity of a Johor prince who had been captured by Raja Kecil in 1721 and who resented Sultan Mansur’s marriage of his daughter to Raja Ismail, son of Raja Kecil [2, pp. 89–91].

Political Philosophy and the Structure of Power

Timothy J. Moy’s comparative assessment of the Tuhfat al-Nafis against the Sejarah Melayu (Raffles MS 18) reveals a fundamentally different conception of political authority [3, p. 64]. The Tuhfat has no concept of “the state” as an abstract entity; its integrating force is upward-focused personal loyalty of a “feudal” type, running from a broad mass base through intermediate officials to the ruler [3, p. 64]. It makes no reference to the foundational pact between Sri Tri Buana and Demang Lebar Daun upon which the Sejarah Melayu builds its entire political ideology [3, p. 64]. Instead, the Tuhfat emphasises the ruler’s conduct as the determinant of the kingdom’s welfare, depicting catastrophes such as the fall of Singapura and the Portuguese capture of Melaka as divine retribution for specific acts of regal injustice [3, p. 64].

On the question of derhaka (rebellion), the Tuhfat is notably less strident than the Sejarah Melayu, treating the crime with a degree of ambivalence [3, p. 64]. Its most significant departure from the older tradition is its treatment of the 1699 regicide of Sultan Mahmud II, which effectively inverts the Sejarah’s principle that Allah alone executes punishment for regal injustice [3, p. 64]. The Tuhfat presents a conspiracy of senior nobles—the Bendahara, the Temenggong, and Indra Bongsu—whose collective consent legitimised the murder, and records that the Sultan cast his spear and killed his murderer, Megat Sri Rama [1, p. 287].

The text provides specific institutional data absent from or vague in the Sejarah Melayu. It identifies the first Bendahara, Tun Permata Muka Berjabar, as the brother of Sri Pekrama Wira, thereby establishing the Bendahara lineage as second only to the royal line in rank [3, p. 68]. It inserts a Raja Besar Muda between Iskandar Shah and Sultan Muhammad Shah, crediting him with instituting court protocols, royal regalia, and the positions of the four mentri and four bentara—a figure absent from the Raffles MS 18 [3, pp. 67–68]. The position of yang di-pertuan muda first appears in the text during the reign of Sultan Abdul-Jalil II (d. 1677 A.D.), initially held by his brother in Pahang, and developed throughout the eighteenth century into the direct overseer of the Johor-Riau kingdom [3, pp. 68].

The Tuhfat situates itself within the Macassar-Bugis historiographical genre, noted for its characteristic concern for precise chronology, genealogical registration, and source attribution—features that distinguish it from the Sejarah Melayu and lend it a degree of “Western” historiographical objectivity [3, p. 64].

The Bugis Ascendancy and the Riau-Lingga Sultanate

The chronicle’s primary subject is the political history of the Riau-Lingga archipelago from the late seventeenth century onward. It documents the rise of the Bugis through figures such as Upu Daeng Parani and Raja Sulaiman, who intervened to restore order after the assassination of Sultan Abdu’l-Jalil and installed Bugis leaders as Yam Tuan Muda, effectively shifting the balance of power from traditional Malay Bendahara to Bugis aristocrats [1, p. 288]. The chain-clad Bugis with blunderbusses (terakul pemburas) defeated Raja Kecil’s cannons and swords at Pulau Pengujan in 1721 A.D., a battle that took two days [1, p. 288].

The period is characterised by sustained internal strife. Raja Kecil’s repeated attacks on Riau, the murder of Sultan Abdu’l-Jalil while praying on his ship, and the subsequent flight of the royal family to Riau and later Lingga form the narrative backbone of the early sections [1, pp. 287–288]. The chronicle records that the Yam Tuan Muda was the one who first obtained gambir from Sumatra for Chinese to plant in Riau, so that Riau became very prosperous [1, p. 289].

Economic data from the period around 1735 A.D. indicates that a pikul of gambir could be bought for one unit and sold for 8 or 10 in Java; Javanese rice fetched 3 Bengal rupiah a pikul; a kati of silk cost 5 suku; a pikul of lac (embalau) 3 rial; and woven silk cloth of Siantan 3 rial a piece [1, p. 291]. The population of Riau at this time comprised 50 to 90,000 Malays, 8,000 Bugis at S. Timun, and 2,000 elsewhere, with 600 rajah and 80 chiefs (Orang Kaya) and merchants [1, p. 291].

The escalating conflict between the Malay-Bugis alliance and the Dutch East India Company culminated in the siege of Penyengat and the death of Raja Haji at Teluk Ketapang in 1784 A.D. [1, p. 292]. The Dutch buried him with royal honours in the Fort, “behind the Company’s fort,” and later permitted his son to remove him to Riau for burial on the southern hill of Bukit Penyengat [1, p. 292]. A treaty signed on board the Utrecht contained 26 sections and 3 supplementary sections, prohibiting Bugis from holding state office in Riau [1, p. 293].

The British takeover of Malacca and Singapore led to the division of the Johore Empire, with the Sultanate of Singapore emerging under the Temenggong while Riau remained under Dutch influence [1, p. 295]. The chronicle concludes with the deposition of Sultan Mahmud Shah in 1857, the installation of Sultan Sulaiman Badr-al-‘Alam Shah, and the Temenggong Abubakar establishing his authority in Singapore, signalling the end of the Riau-Lingga era as a sovereign power [1, pp. 301–303].

Source-Critical Assessment and Historiographical Debates

Barbara Watson Andaya’s 1976 source-critical study represents the most significant challenge to the Tuhfat al-Nafis as a vehicle for understanding non-Bugis actors in the Malay world [2, p. 80]. Andaya demonstrates that the text systematically distorts the character and actions of Sultan Mansur Syah of Terengganu (r. 1741–1793), a ruler whose fifty-year tenure made him the dominant figure in eighteenth-century Malay politics [2, p. 80]. The Tuhfat presents him as a treacherous and cowardly antagonist to the Bugis in order to legitimise the Bugis-descended community’s political position in Riau [2, p. 80].

The most compelling evidence for Andaya’s thesis comes from direct comparison with the Dutch VOC records. In the episode of the 1756 attack on Linggi, the Tuhfat portrays Sultan Mansur as a schemer who attempted to have Raja Haji arrested by the Dutch and launched the attack without Sultan Sulaiman’s knowledge [2, p. 94]. The VOC correspondence, by contrast, shows Sultan Mansur acting as Sultan Sulaiman’s authorised representative, mediating between factions, while it was the Dutch Governor who pressed for military action [2, pp. 94–96]. No Dutch document mentions any plan to arrest Raja Haji [2, p. 96]. This discrepancy reflects a broader pattern in which the Tuhfat externalises blame for Malay-Bugis conflict onto a single Terengganu figure, thereby preserving the narrative of a harmonious and mutually beneficial Bugis-Malay alliance in Riau [2, p. 80].

Andaya further demonstrates that the Tuhfat’s shorter version (Kon. Inst. 630) and Raja ‘Ali al-Haji’s expanded text share the same anti-Terengganu orientation, but that Raja ‘Ali’s additions are significantly more accusatory, inserting invented dialogue and implications of guilt absent from the source texts [2, pp. 96–98]. The capture of the English opium sloop Betsy at Riau in February 1782, arranged by the French captain Barbaron under a VOC-sanctioned privateering scheme, was the immediate trigger for the Dutch-Bugis war of 1784; Raja ‘Ali al-Haji, however, attributes the war’s true cause to Sultan Mansur’s alleged conspiracy with Captain Glass to spread disinformation in Riau [2, pp. 98–99].

Sweeney’s 1967 note documents at least nine specific factual errors in Winstedt’s summary of the Tuhfat, including misattributions of marriage partners, incorrect identification of who initiated the Selangor-Perak war, confusion over the ethnic identity of certain figures, and a misreading of kinship terms [4, p. 155]. These errors, while not undermining the text’s fundamental value, underscore the need for careful collation when using the Winstedt edition as a research tool [4, pp. 155–156].

Research and Documentation

The Tuhfat al-Nafis has been the subject of sustained scholarly attention within the Society’s journal since its first publication in 1932. Winstedt’s edition, which presented the Jawi text with a detailed English summary, established the text as the principal source for the political history of Riau-Lingga and the broader Johore sphere [1, pp. 285–303]. The edition relied on the Maxwell manuscript and the 1923 Johore copy, with Winstedt providing genealogical tables and cross-references to earlier publications in the Society’s journal [1, pp. 286–289].

The 1960s and 1970s saw a shift from editorial and descriptive work toward source-critical and comparative analysis. Sweeney’s 1967 note [4] and Moy’s 1975 comparative study [3] addressed the text’s internal consistency and its relationship to the Sejarah Melayu tradition, respectively. Andaya’s 1976 article [2] marked a decisive methodological turn, establishing a framework for evaluating the Tuhfat as a source for non-Bugis actors by cross-referencing it against Dutch VOC archives, English records from India House and the Straits Settlements, and the underlying Malay source texts held at Leiden University Library and the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde [2, p. 80].

The historiographical trajectory reflects a broader movement from treating the Tuhfat as an authoritative chronicle to interrogating its ideological commitments, its pro-Bugis orientation, and the specific mechanisms by which it constructs its narrative. Andaya’s work in particular demonstrated that the text’s pro-Bugis orientation extends beyond general sympathies to active fabrication and selective omission when dealing with figures such as Sultan Mansur Syah [2, p. 80]. Moy’s contribution shifted the comparative analysis away from the text’s primary subject—the Bugis-Riau political history—toward its Melaka-period summaries, demonstrating that even in its summarised sections the Tuhfat reveals a distinct political philosophy from the Sejarah Melayu [3, p. 64]. Together, these studies have established the Tuhfat al-Nafis as both an indispensable and a problematic source, one that must be read in conjunction with European archival material and the underlying Malay texts from which it was compiled.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. ‘Ali bin Raja Haji Ahmad Raja Haji and R.O. Winstedt (1932). A Malay history of Riau and Johore (Tuhfat-al-Nafis) JMBRAS 10(2): 1–320. Read on JSTOR
  2. B.W. Andaya (1976). An examination of the sources concerning the reign of Sultan Mansur Syah of Trengganu (1741–1795) with special reference to the Tuhfat-al-Nafis JMBRAS 49(2): 80–106.
  3. T.J. Moy (1975). The “Sejarah Melayu” tradition of power and political structure: an assessment of relevant sections of the “Tuhfat-al-Nafis” JMBRAS 48(2): 64–78. Read on JSTOR
  4. A. Sweeney (1967). Sir Richard Winstedt’s summary of the “Tuhfat ul-Nafis” JMBRAS 40(1): 155–156.