Abdullah al-Misri (b. late 18th century – d. early 19th century) was an Arab-Malay writer. He witnessed first hand the consequences of the Dutch East India Company going bankrupt in 1799; broad changes occurred such as when its possessions were taken over by the Dutch Crown, resulting in massive political change. The Dutch enterprise in Indonesia changed from a mercantile enterprise into a colonial state.^[1]

Background

Born in Palembang, Sumatra, his family were originally from Kedah. His ancestors were from Ottoman-ruled Egypt which meant he was dissimilar to most creoles who were of Hadrami descent. According to the Tuhfat al-Nafis, he was close to the creole Hadramis, especially the al-kadris and rulers of Pontianak.^[2] In the early 19th century he was at a time in Besuki, East Java. His cousin Shaykh Abdurrahman, was the maternal grandfather of Usman bin Yahya, an important Islamic scholar of Indonesia.^[1]

Writings

His writings closely quotes the Quran. One of his works writes about the issues of social hierarchy of his day,^[2] he was critical of the social hierarchy where people of wealthy and powerful lineage put themselves ahead of others.^[1] His writings mock the excessive pride of family lineage of Arabs in the Malay world and expanded on inequality on the lives of the Arabs in the archipelago.^[2]

One of his famous writings were the Hikayat Mareskalek (The Story of Mareskalek), where he criticized the aggressive rule of Herman Willem Daendels (1808–1811).^[1]

References

Sources

• Mandal, Sumit. 2017. Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 23–42
• Tagliacozzo, Eric. 2009. Southeast Asia and the Middle East: Islam, Movement, and the Longue Durée. Stanford University Press.