174
second part of the hikayat do we meet a very garbled allusion to the tradition according to which the Prophet received as a gift from the then ruler of Egypt a beautiful concubine, Mariah al-Qibtiyyah (the Egyptian or Koptic).
The author of the story of Samaʾun has not however borrowed much more from this tradition than the name.
In the collection of Von de Wall[1] at Batavia, we find, in addition to a Malay copy of this story[2] translated from the Javanese, another copy which is written in Arabic. We must not however jump to the conclusion that the original was either the work of an Arab or even known at all in Arabia. The language of this Arabic copy clearly betrays the hand of a foreigner, nor are there lacking other like hybrid-Arabic products in the religious literature of the Eastern Archipelago.
The Achehnese version differs in details only from the Malay[3]. Seumaʾun is the son of Halét ((
Arabic characters)), a mantri (minister of state) of Abu Jhay (Abu Jahl), who here also appears as king of Mecca. While yet an unweaned infant Seumaʾun speaks and converts his parents to Islam. He slays a hero named Patian ((Arabic characters)) whose help Abu Jhay had invoked against the Prophet; he defeats an army of Abu Jhay that was brought against him to take vengeance for Patian's death; he converts a woman whom Abu Jhay had sent to decoy him, and gains possession of Abu Jhay's daughter who is there and then converted and becomes the wife of Seumaʾun.
Mariah, daughter of king Kōbeuti[4] who was established in the land of Saʾri, dreamed a dream in which she saw herself the destined bride of the Prophet. She secretly had these tidings conveyed to Muhammad, who thereupon asked her hand in marriage. The haughty refusal of this request by Kōbeuti gave rise to a war, in which Seumaʾun took the field as a general. The war ended with the conversion to Islam of most of the inhabitants of Saʾri, and Mariah was carried off to Medina.
- ↑ See Mr. L. W. C. van den Berg's Verslag pp. 15–16.
- ↑ In the Hofbibliothek at Berlin there are three copies (numbered Schumann V, 18, 19 and 20) of the story of Samaʾun in Malay, which similarly show clear tokens of a Javanese origin.
- ↑ Dr. Van der Tunk has given a short account of its contents in the Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut for the year 1866, pp. 357 et seq.
- ↑ Thus the word Qibti or Qubti is better preserved here than in the Malay version, which makes it into Baʾti.
