Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain

bibliography

text notes

list of words

Bibliography

title:		Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain
edition:		Hj. Khalid Muhammad Hussain (ed.), Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, 2nd edn, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa, 1986.
manuscript:		Cod.Or.1696, Leiden University Library.
dates:		text:  before 1600  (predates Sejarah Melayu);    manuscript:  about 1830.
provenance:		text:  unknown;    manuscript:  copied by Muhammad Cing Sa`idullah, General Secretariat, Batavia
words:		118322 words.
references:		to the pages (1-351) and lines of the printed edition.

 

Editorial notes and bibliography

This text of the Iskandar story belongs to the shorter, but perhaps older, Sumatran version.  The transcription available for this project is drawn from a nineteenth-century manuscript from the Batavian scriptorium.  The oldest manuscript dates from 1713, but is too poorly preserved to be usable.

This situation presents a nice example of the difficulties of assigning dates to Malay texts.  The text is clearly old (the beginning section of Sejarah Melayu is a paraphrase of the Iskandar story).  Yet the copy we use here has some modern features.  For instance, Raja Qilas is referred to as the "Governor" of Byzantium (gabenor Rom).

References:

•  E.P. Wieringa (ed.) Catalogue of Malay and Minangkabau Manuscripts in the Library of Leiden University ..., vol.1, p.40 gives a reproduction of the illuminated opening pages of the manuscript.

•  Liaw Yock Fang, Sejarah Kesusasteraan Klassik, rev. ed., Singapura: Pustaka Nasional, 1982, pp.143-148.

•  R.O. Winstedt, A History of Classical Malay Literature, 2nd ed., Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1969, pp.85-86, 92-95.

 

Preparation

Added:  June 2004

The Dewan Bahasa 1986 edition was scanned for the MCP in Canberra using Recognita™ OCR.