The Malay Fiqh Manuscripts at the National Centre for Malay Manuscripts: A Pilot Survey

Abstract

The National Centre for Malay Manuscripts, under the National Library of Malaysia safeguards a large number of Islamic Malay Manuscripts whose contents have yet to be studied and explored. They cover numerous knowledge fields such as literature, history, religion, medicine, laws, constitutions, as well as amulets and tips. In terms of religious genre, Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) seems to dominate even though the manuscripts in this field have not been categorized yet, as in the case for others. A researcher must scan the title, table of contents or some of the descriptions provided in the catalogues before he could determine the field of a certain manuscript. This proves to be challenging especially for those who lack the basic knowledge in Islamic disciplines. Therefore, this paper will discuss the identification of Fiqh manuscripts that exist at the Centre, the sub-fields as well as some reviews on selected manuscripts related to the field. The research method used is document analysis while scanning and collecting data. Then it was analysed using content analysis and comparative method to separate it from other knowledge fields. This initial study found that there exist a large number of manuscripts related to Fiqh in various sub fields such as ibadah (worship), muamalah (commercial transaction), munakahah (marriage) and jinayah (crime and punishment). This proved that Islamic scholars in Malay Archipelago have significant contributions in Islamic Fiqh. Therefore, further studies on Fiqh can be carried out based on the classical works of the Islamic scholars in Malay Archipelago.