'If not now, when?' Hillel, Pirke Avot, I 14. The text edition which I hereby submit to the reader has been my constant companion for much of the last nine odd years. But the relative stability of my main preoccupation contrasted sharply with my wanderings during this same span of time. In fact, for most of it I was more or less constantly on the move, trekking from the Nether lands to Australia and back again, then to the United States, with three excursioru; to Indonesia. On all these trips I carried my notes and kept working on this project, the conclusion of which continued to elude me. Even today I can hardly believe it is allover - and in fact it is not, as this volume will soon be followed by a companion containing a shortened English translation and dealing in much greater detail with the relationship between the Malay Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah, its Persian source and Muslim literature in general. I sincerely regret that technical and financial considerations have combined to make inclusion of the apparatus criticus in this edition impossible. A limited number of copies of this apparatus are avail able on personal application either direct from the author (C/o the Indonesian Department, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia), or from the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Stationsplein 10, Leiden, the Netherlands.

This book may be considered to be Volume II of the Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah, the text edition which appeared in 1975 as number 12 in the same series. When mention is made of "Volume I", it is the latter which is referred to. The present publication contains first and foremost an abbreviated translation of the Malay text. With regard to the rather repetitious and cliche-ridden character of the latter, it was believed that little was to be gained by a literal word-for-word translation. I hope that little essential has been left out and that the flavour of the original has percolated through to the English rendering ! For this purpose I have especially endeavoured to render many dia logues as 'verbatim' as feasible. The translation has been accompanied by notes whose main purpose it is to enable a running comparison with the Persian original. Copious quotations of the Malay and Persian texts should enable the expert reader to reach his own conclusions. Another feature of this second volume is the commentaries that follow some of the chapters trans lated. Their purpose is to determine the position of the account of the H. M. H.

This book brings together a group of international scholars, inspired by the scholarly perspective of Australian philologist Ian Proudfoot, who look at calendars and time, royal myths, colonial expeditions, printing, propaganda, theater, art, Islamic manuscripts, and many more aspects of Malayan history.

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