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Circulations of Law: Cosmopolitan Elites, Global Repertoires, Local Vernaculars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2014

Iza Hussin
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Extract

Bernard Cohn once called the imperial point of view the “view from the boat”. There were other boats as well.

In 1893, the sovereign state of Johor adopted the Ottoman Medjelle (Meḏj̱elle-yi Aḥkām-i˚ḥʿAdliyye, the civil code applied in the Ottoman Empire since 1877), being the only state among the Muslim sultanates of the Malay Peninsula to do so. In 1895, Johor promulgated a Constitution (Undang-Undang Tubuh Kerajaan Johor), being the first state in Southeast Asia to do so. This article takes this moment, of the intersection of two types of law from quite disparate sources, as a point of departure for tracing the pathways by which law made its way from one corner of the globe to another. Taking nineteenth century Johor as our vantage point provides a new optic for mapping law's geography and temporality and for exploring the logics of law's itinerancy and its locality. The travels of law were always material, and often embodied; on ships sailing the Indian Ocean between Johor and Cairo were diplomats, merchants, pilgrims, and lawyers faced with new pressures and new possibilities; in the growing traffic in letters and newspaper reports between London and New York, Tokyo and Constantinople, were debates about empire and culture, power and authenticity; in personal relationships made possible by the technologies of nineteenth century cosmopolitanism, were similarly worldly dramas of deception and demands for justice. In the 2 short years between the adoption of the Medjelle and the Constitution in Johor, the sultan of Johor, Abu Bakar (1833–1895), typified this mobility and interconnection. In his travels across the Indian Ocean to the Near East and Europe; in his appearance in diplomatic communiques in London, Constantinople and Washington D.C.; in his prominence as a figure of exoticism and intrigue in the newspapers and the courts of the English-speaking world, the sultan not only embodied law's movements in a figurative way, he was also himself a key carrier of the law, and one of its signal articulators.

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Articles
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Law and History Review , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , November 2014 , pp. 773 - 795
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2014 

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53. These texts differ not only in language but in content and meaning. For example, the Malay copy attributed to Abdul Rahman Andak, the state secretary and one of its most important Malay drafters, is missing two paragraphs that appear in the English versions labelled as “Declaration” and “Royal Command,” which seem to emphasize a model of enlightened and rational constitutional monarchy: “We do therefore commence the same with the points, arrangements, and terms stated hereunder, they being the things which We think, consider and regard to be principally and primarily requisite to be the basis, guide, and model for the firm establishment and proper arrangement of the Government and administration of Our State.” (Declaration) The Royal Command further elaborates upon the breadth of membership in the state of Johor: “all the subjects of Our State, of all ranks, nationalities, and religions,” before asserting that “it shall be unlawful, unmanly, rebellious and criminal for any person to refuse to acknowledge and neglect to obey it.” In the printed Jawi version in the Johor state archives, these missing paragraphs appear but differ in a new way––this text has the last line of the Royal Command carry meanings the English versions do not carry: the Malay parsing of “unlawful, unmanly, rebellious and criminal” is “haram, dayus, derhaka dan berdosa”– “wrongful, corrupt, treasonous and sinful,” crimes against God as well as the ruler. More detailed discussion of the textual content of these documents and their translations may be found in Hussin 2013 and 2014.

54. Part 1.1 states: “the Raja rules and owns this State of Johor and all territories in its dominion…with the agreement of all the members of Our Council of Ministers and Council of State.” Part 2.2 allows for penalties against those who challenge the position and power of the sultan, with penalties for treason at the sultan's discretion.

55. The literature on Malay political concepts and of the concept of Malay itself is extensive (c.f.: Milner, Anthony C., Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule [Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982]Google Scholar; Hirschman, Charles, “The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology,” Sociological Forum 1 [1986]Google Scholar; and Kahn, Joel, Other Malays: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Malay World [Singapore: NUS Press, 2006]Google Scholar), but the link between the language of nineteenth century Malay constitutions and the current Malaysian constitution in the matter of race and religion has remained largely unexplored.

56. Printed by Matba’ Khairiyyah in Muar in 1913: “Kitab ini mengandungi perbicaraan hukum-hukum fiqh yang diterbitkan daripada syari'at al-Islam yang telah digunapakai oleh kerajaan Johor selama-lamanya dengan bahasa Arab.” (This book contains discussions of the fiqh rules that emerged from the shari'ah of Islam that have been in use by the government of Johor always in the Arabic language.) The phrase “selama-lamanya,” in its contemporary usage connoting “forever, always,” here adds a note of antiquity to the Majalah. During the period between the adoption of the Medjelle and its translation, administrative bodies such as the Department of Religion and Education were established that bureaucratized Islam and Muslim life further, and brought it under the formal purview of the state.

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