Who owned the books in the royal library of the Palembang Sultanate? A general answer is not difficult to provide: royal family members owned the collection of manuscripts. However, when it comes to names during a certain historical period, this basic question about book ownership is embroiled in the sociopolitical dynamics of the kingdom. Among the momentous events that changed the course of history of the Sultanate of Palembang, the early 19th century witnessed two competing sultans, and wars against the British and Dutch that eventually brought an end to local rule. In this post, we will look at this dual sultanship through some notes in a royal manuscript.

Dual kings appeared to be a conundrum from within the sultanate, although external factors might have stimulated it to occur. Thomas Stamford Raffles (b. 1781–d. 1826), a British lieutenant in Melaka, initiated British colonial expansion in the Malay archipelago, persuading the local rulers to join him to drive away the Dutch VOC in Batavia. Despite failing to convince Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin (r. 1804-1812)¹ to take the British side in 1811, Raffles successfully invaded and took over Batavia. After the fall of Batavia, an assault on the Dutch and their lodge happened in Palembang, and sultan and his son were accused of being responsible for the violence. The British in Batavia, who thought of the Dutch as under their “protection,” blamed Sultan Mahmud and sent a fleet to “punish” him, attacking the Palembang fortress and occupying the palace in April 1812. Sultan Mahmud took refuge upstream (uluan), while his brother, Pangeran Adipati, acted as the military commander and  remained in the town. Surprisingly, Pangeran Adipati took the side of Palembang’s opponent, the British, and was immediately installed as Sultan Ahmad Najamuddin by them. From that event in 1812, rivalry prevailed, with Mahmud Badaruddin and Ahmad Najamuddin taking over the throne alternately, passing it down to their respective sons, titled Pangeran Ratu and Prabu Anom, until the annihilation of the sultanate and the establishment of a Dutch colony in Palembang in 1825.

It is in this context that the scramble for the throne extended to the claims over the library collection, which are recorded in some surviving manuscripts sent to Batavia. These manuscripts came to the Batavia Society or Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (KBG) through the Khatib Imam of Palembang, Kiagus Haji Abdul Malik, who presented four Arabic works to the Batavia Society in 1875 (Drewes 1977:201-2; Iskandar 1986:60-70). The khatib imam may have acquired the manuscripts from the kraton, given the patronage relationship between the royal family and the imam heading the sultan’s mosque, or they came to him through local intermediaries after the looting of the palace. These manuscripts entered the collection of the Batavia Society. Following the transfer of the items to the library of Museum Pusat in Jakarta, and then, to Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia (PNRI), they are included in the collection of Arabic manuscripts, nos. A 160-163.