THE LAW RELATING TO SLAVERY AMONG THE MALAYS.
[Among the papers which were printed and laid before Parliament in 1882 on the subject of Slavery in the Protected Native States was a minute by Mr. W. E. MAXWELL, then Assistant Resident, Perak, in which the existing system was described, an emancipation scheme was proposed, and a translation of the Malay law relating to Slavery was promised. Mr. MAXWELL having now presented to the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society his extracts from the Perak, Pahang and Johor Code, transliterated and translated, these are here printed for the first time, and are fitly prefaced by the official minute above referred to. (See Parliamentary Papers, C.—3429, p. 16.) That portion of it which deals with the emancipation scheme is omitted, the liberation of slaves and debtors in Perak having long since been effected. The native law, though no longer in force in the southern portion of the Peninsula, is probably not dis similar to that which is still carried out in some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, more or less remote from European influence and authority.]
THE institution of slavery as it exists among the Malays, in places where it has not been abolished by European influence, is a national custom which they have in common with other Indo-Chinese races, and it is a mistake to suppose that it is the offspring of Muhammadan law and religion, the introduction of which among the Malays is of comparatively modern date.
Muhammadan law has, however, largely influenced Malay custom respecting slavery, and Arabic terminology is noticeable in many of the details incidental to the system. So far from being identical with the slavery lawful among Muslims in Egypt, Arabia, etc., the Malay institution is, in some respect, completely at variance with it, and in this particular, as in many others, there is a never-ending struggle between the hukum 'adat, the "customary law" of the Malays, and the hukum shar‘a or "religious law" of the Koran. Muhammadan priests,
