OK. After some two weeks of hiatus here's a story of an academic lecture...
Monday 8th August 2016. I headed for a certain section of the Humanities Building at UIA or IIUM, International Islamic University of Malaysia campus in Gombak, Kuala Lumpur.
Here at a conference room named after a prominent ancient Muslim scholar, the lecture has started.
Titled "The Malays : Their Origins, Migration and Travels" it was scheduled to start at 11am. But I arrived at close to 11.30.
Still I was practically whisked to take a seat at the fore, in front of tens, maybe 20 or more Malaysian scholars who are professors. It is an honour as the person giving the lecture is a senior high-ranking professor who personally invited me to come via Whatsapp... after having known each other for some time due to my rather active participation in intelectual discourses over the last few years.
Back to the lecture. I understand it was still in the first section when I arrived...
The speaker, Professor Dato' Dr Md. Salleh Yaapar was then talking about how the Malays were already popular in China during the Tang Dynasty rule (618-907AD). This should correspond to the time the Srivijaya empire became the main ruling power in the Malay world. For the record Salleh is a professor of comparative literature and ombudsman at USM, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He is also a distinguised fellow at Centre for Malay World & Islamic Civilisation (under IIUM) and chairman of the board of governors of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
The popularity is reflected by an ancient Chinese romance writing depicting what he mentioned as a very able Malay martial artist fighter stamping his mark in China. Salleh said the word Kunlun (referring to a foreign region) in Chinese writings actually refer to the Malay archipelago. That Malay character has sparked other writings, even comics and movies up till this day...
The lecture then move to what is termed as pre-history of the Malays. Here, effort is made to explain and debunk old theories which say the Malays originated from southern China.
To be clear the Malays here does not just refer to the Malays we know inhabiting Malaysia or even Indonesia. It actually refers to a big major race with branches that became the indigenous island people and such inhabiting area so large that it practically covers most of the Indian and Pacific oceans!
OK. I won't comment so much now. Let the slides speak for itself...
Mainly what Salleh has to say reflected studies such as that has been voiced by Profesor Stephen Oppenheimer of the Oxford University especially through his book "Eden in the East - The Drowned Continent of South East Asia" first published in 1998. For the record, this is the 1,551 article in this blogspot...
That there was a time when South East Asia used to be a huge land mass to the lower sea level at the time rendering the current Melaka Straits and South China Sea as dry land. This huge continent was the home of the ancient Malays. Abrupt rise of sea level lead to the formation of current land mass as some of the Malays abandoned to home by ships to finally settle at faraway islands anf such...
