The Hikayat Abdullah An Annotated Translation By A H Hill

This book, Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi, is the most comprehensive, multi-disciplinary studies on Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, widely known as Munshi Abdullah (1796-1854). He was a prominent literary figure and thinker in the Malay world in the 19th century and was also an early 'pioneer' of Singapore.The author, Professor Hadijah Rahmat, has spent more than 25 years studying Munshi Abdullah since her PhD studies in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 1992 to date. This book is covered in two volumes and is based on her research conducted using unexplored primary sources at several missionaries' archives at SOAS, London, Houghton Library, University Harvard, Library of Congress, Leiden University, KITVL, Holland, and the Perpustakaan Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta.The book consists of numerous academic papers presented at the regional and international seminars, and also published in international journals and as chapters of books. Besides academic papers, the excerpt of play titled Munsyi, sketches, poetry, and song, and interviews by the national media are also included.This book provides new insight into Abdullah's life, backgrounds, writings, his influences and legacies and the reactions and thought provoking views of the western and eastern scholars on Abdullah. The book is indeed the key reference for studies on Munshi Abdullah, Malay literature, and the history of Singapore, Malaysia, and colonialism in Southeast Asia.

The pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj, has been a yearly phenomenon of great importance in Muslim lands for well over one thousand years. Each year, millions of pilgrims from throughout the Dar al-Islam, or Islamic world, stretching from Morocco east to Indonesia, make the trip to Mecca as one of the five pillars of their faith. By the end of the nineteenth century, and the beginning of the twentieth, fully half of all pilgrims making the journey in any given year could come from Southeast Asia. The Longest Journey, spanning eleven modern nation-states and seven centuries, is the first book to offer a history of the Hajj from one of Islam's largest and most important regions.

Presents a genealogy of the social networks and power struggles of the major influential group of Indonesian educated Muslims called 'intelligentsia'.

When C.M. Turnbull's A History of Singapore, 1819-1975 appeared in 1977, it quickly achieved recognition as the definitive history of Singapore. A second edition published in 1989 brought the story up to the elections held in 1988. In this fully revised edition, rewritten to take into account recent scholarship on Singapore, the author has added a chapter on Goh Chok Tong's premiership (1990-2004) and the transition to a government headed by Lee Hsien Loong. The book now ends in 2005, when the Republic of Singapore celebrated its 40th anniversary as an independent nation. Major changes occurred in the 1990s as the generation of leaders that oversaw the transition from a colony to independence stepped aside in favour of a younger generation of leaders. Their task was to shape a course that sustained the economic growth and social stability achieved by their predecessors, and they would be tested towards the end of the decade when Southeast Asia experienced a severe financial crisis. Many modern studies on Singapore focus on current affairs or very recent events and pay a great deal of attention to Singapore's successful transition from the developing to the developed world. However, younger historians are increasingly interested in other aspects of the country's past, particularly social and cultural issues. A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005 provides a solid foundation and an overarching framework for this research, surveying Singapore's trajectory from a small British port to a major trading and financial hub within the British Empire and finally to the modern city state that Singapore became after gaining independence in 1965.