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Karel Steenbrink [email protected] Last modified: December 2016The Portuguese, as part of their journey eastwards in search of spices for trade and souls to be converted to Christianity, conquered Malacca…

BiographyLittle is known about the childhood and early career of Livinus Bor. He entered the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1639 as a naval cadet and worked in modest positions in Ternate after arriving in the Indies. In 1650, he became the secretary to Arnold de Vlaming van Oudshoorn, superintendent for the three governors in East Indonesia: Banda, Ambon and Ternate. He joined his superior when, in early 1652, the sultan of Ternate was brought to Batavia to sign a treaty in wh…

'Account of India and a history of the Mughal Empire' Francisco Pelsaert Date: Probably 1627 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionThe Dutch in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) considered the Dutch settlements in Arabia, Persia and India to be western settlements ( Westerkwartieren) of the expanded VOC. In the mid-1620s, the central office in Batavia requested that reports be sent from these regions. Within this context, Pelsaert wrote his Remonstrantie, a report from Agra as the central location of the Mughal Empire. The work has no true title and there is no title page in the manuscript. R…

Nicolaas de Graaff Date of Birth: 18 August 1619 Place of Birth: Alkmaar, Netherlands Date of Death: Shortly before 14 October 1688 Place of Death: Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands BiographySon of a seaman, Nicolaus de Graaff entered the service of the Dutch East India Company, Hoorn Chapter, as a chirurgijn, the lowest degree of medical worker, commonly connected to a barber’s shop. He made 16 voyages, from several months to several years long, visiting nearly the whole known world of the time: from Greenland to Brazil, Denmark and the Mediterrane…

Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Death: Place of Death: Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsAcehnese, Dutch and Malay authors on the Aceh War (1873-1903)Karel Steenbrink

- Dutch and Malay accounts of the conflicts known as the Banjar War, 1859-1905 Date: 19th century Original Language: Dutch DescriptionIn order to situate works on Christian-Muslim relations related to the Banjar War, it is necessary briefly to outline the historical context in which they were written. Almost at the same time as the Portuguese arrived in the Malay Archipelago (Malakka 1511, Ternate 1522), the princedom of Banjar accepted Islam as its official religion. In 1526, a complicated transfer of rulers took place. During a war of succ…

Compendium of decrees by the Government of the Dutch East Indies Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek Date: 17th/18th century Original Language: Dutch DescriptionAfter exploratory trips to Asia between 1595 and 1600, traders in the young Dutch Republic established the VOC ( Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie; Dutch East India Company). The VOC built, or captured from the Portuguese, fortifications along the route, or in key locations, for the spice trade from Arabia and India to the Malay Archipelago. Jan Pieters­zoon Coen and his Dutch fo…

Date of Birth: Unknown Place of Birth: Unknown Date of Death: Unknown Place of Death: Unknown Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsRepen RipangiKarel Steenbrink

‘The Ambonese wars of Arnold de Vlaming van Ourhoorn’ Livinus Bor Date: 1663 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionLivinus Bor’s book on the Ambonese wars (its full title is  Amboinse oorlogen door Arnold de Vlaming van Oudhoorn als superintendent over d’oosterse gewesten oorlogaftig ten eind gebracht, ‘The Ambonese wars waged in a violent manner by Arnold de Vlaming van Ourhoorn as superintendent of the eastern districts’), printed in small type, and consisting of xxxix + 369 pages, is written as a tribute to Arnold de Vlaming, the superi…

- Salomon Keijzer Date: 1854 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionIn a short period of 12 years, between 1853 and 1864, Salomon Keijzer published 13 works on normative Islam, as well as an abridged reprint in three volumes of the great work by François Valentyn,  Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën (‘The old and new East Indies’). For his first publication on Islamic law, he took an Arabic work by the 14th-century scholar, Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Fayrūzābādī (1329-1414), which was among the Leiden collection of Arab manuscripts. He wrote a quite free Dutch translation 426 …

Francisco Pelsaert Date of Birth: Approximately 1595 Place of Birth: In or near Antwerp Date of Death: 1630 Place of Death: Batavia (present-day Jakarta) BiographyFrançois Pelsaert was born into an impoverished middle-class family in Antwerp and as an adult probably sought a career in Holland. In 1616, he sailed with a fleet of the VOC to the Indies, arriving in Banten in April 1617. He was later appointed to the Western sections of the VOC and travelled to Surat, from where he was posted as an assistant to the office …

- Acehnese, Dutch and Malay authors on the Aceh War (1873-1903) Date: 1873-1903 Original Language: Dutch, Malay and Acehnese DescriptionAccording to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London of 1824, the Sultanate of Aceh, in the north-western region of the island of Sumatra, lay outside the colonial sphere. However, in 1871 a new treaty between the two colonial powers gave the British the African Gold Coast, while the Dutch received a free hand to move into Aceh. By 1858, the Dutch had established control westward as far …

Jan Baptist Jozef van Doren Date of Birth: 2 March 1791 Place of Birth: Gent/Gand Date of Death: 14 August 1873 Place of Death: Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands BiographyNothing is known about Jan Baptist Jozef van Doren’s family, or his early life. In 1808, he began a military career when he entered the French-Belgian revolutionary army. After the defeat of Napoleon, he continued his profession in the Dutch-Belgian army. The Dutch King Willem I (r. 1815-40) decorated him for his bravery at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Ho…

- Documenta Malucensia and the Jesuit Makasar documents Date: 1542-1682 Original Language: Dutch Description Documenta Malucensia ( DM) was compiled by Hubert Jacobs in 1974-84 in three chronological volumes, totalling about 2,200 pages: volume 1, 1542-77; volume 2, 1577-1606; and volume 3, 1606-82. The  Jesuit Makasar documents (1615-82) ( JMD), also collected by Jacobs in 1988, appear as a single volume, running to about 320 pages. They draw on documents found mainly in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), together with others from …

Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Documenta Malucensia and the Jesuit Makasar documents Karel Steenbrink

‘Concerning the spread of the Gospel among the Javanese’; ‘Who is the cause of the terrible events in Banjarmasin?’ Jan Baptist Jozef van Doren Date: 1852; 1861 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionIn his brief pamphlet  Het voor en tegen van de uitbreiding des evangelies onder de Javanen (‘Concerning the spread of the Gospel among the Javanese’), only some 20 pages long, Van Doren attacks the prominent Protestant Reformed minister and politician Wolter Robert van Hoëvell, as well as some other contemporary authors, for their views about mi…

‘Old and New East-Indies’ François Valentyn Date: 1724-6 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionValentijn’s  Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, vervattende een naauwkeurige en uitvoerige verhandelinge van Nederlands mogentheyd in die gewesten (‘Old and New East-Indies, presenting an accurate and extensive treatment of the Dutch government in those regions’) is the largest work written by an individual European on Asia between 1500 and 1900. It occupies five volumes, though most copies have the last three volumes bound in two books. R…

‘Brief account of the experiences of Frederick de Houtman in Aceh during the 26 months of his captivity’ Frederick de Houtman Date: 1601 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionTwo pages into Cort verhael, his 49-page account of his second voyage to the Indonesian archipelago, Frederick de Houtman engages in a three-page description of the Maldives, expressing much admiration for the many beautiful mosques on these tiny islands. He then recounts his arrival in Aceh on 24 June 1599, paying much attention to the ceremonies of the …

Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Death: Place of Death: Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information    Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsDutch and Malay authors on the Paderi Wars in west SumatraKarel Steenbrink

- Javanese court chronicles on the rising power of the Dutch, 17th and 18th centuries Date: 17th and 18th centuries Original Language: Javanese DescriptionThis entry concentrates on Javanese works produced for the major courts of the Sultanate of Mataram, located in the Yogyakarta-Surakarta area. These court chronicles were not written for entertainment, devotion or moral edification, unlike the many works on Muslim romantic figures such as Amir Hamzah, Iskandar Zulkarnain, Sultan Ibrahim, Muhammad Hanafiyya and many …

‘A history of Ambon’, and ‘A general description of the Islands of Ambon’ Jeuriaen Everhard Rumpf; Georg Eberhard Rumpf Date: 1678 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionThe two works De Ambonse historie, behelsende een kort verhaal der gedenkwaardigste geschiedenissen, zo in vreede als oorlog voorgevallen, sedert dat de Nederlandsche Oost Indische Comp. het besit in Amboina gehadt heeft, and  De generale lant-beschrijvinge van het Ambonese Gouvernement behelsende en wat daaronder begrepen zij, mitsgaders een Summarisch verhaal van de Ternataanse en Port…

BiographyJan Pieterszoon Coen was born in Hoorn, one of the seven towns with a representative in the VOC (Dutch East India Company). His father was a trader, and in 1601 he sent Jan to Rome to be educated in international commerce. The young Coen learned double-entry bookkeeping, a skill that would serve him well in future endeavours.In December 1607, Coen departed for the East Indies on a fleet of 13 ships as a junior official of the VOC. In April 1609, the fleet visited the harbour of the small archipelago of Banda, the sole provider of nutmeg at …

Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Death: Place of Death: Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsDutch and Malay accounts of the conflicts known as the Banjar War, 1859-1905Karel Steenbrink

'The Acehnese' Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje Date: 1893-4 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionThe sultanate of Aceh (also written as Atjeh or Acheh) in northern Sumatra had remained independent from the Portuguese, Dutch and other powers since the mid-16th century. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London of 1824, when Sri Lanka was ceded to the British and Bencoolen to the Dutch, its independence was still guaranteed. However, around 1870 the Dutch wanted to prevent the ‘smuggling’ of pepper and other commodities from Sumatra to the fr…

Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Death: Place of Death: Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsCorpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-IndicumKarel Steenbrink

Date of Birth: 10 October 1845 Place of Birth: Haarlem Date of Death: 3 March 1927 Place of Death: Delft BiographyLodewijk Willem Christiaan van den Berg was born into a family of artists; his father was a painter and his mother worked as a musician. As a child, he lost the sight in one eye, hit by an arrow while playing. This may have contributed to his calm and very serious character, contrasting with the somewhat Bohemian lifestyle of his parents. He was a brilliant student in languages and law, and in 1868 gained his doctorate with a dissertation on Islamic law ( De contractu 'do ut des' jure…

Jan van Cotwyck, J(oh)an van Cotwijck, Ioannes Cotovicus, Jean Cootwich, Ioan van Kootwyck Date of Birth: Around 1550 Place of Birth: Utrecht Date of Death: 1629 or thereafter Place of Death: Unknown Biography Very little is known about Jan van Cotwyck, who was probably born around the middle of the 16th century. He was a learned Catholic priest from the diocese of Utrecht, where the ‘alteration’ or change to Calvinism took place on 15 June 1580 with a ban on the public practice of Roman Catholicism. In 1609, he published Eenen geestelijke[n] schilt waer mede alle simpele catholijcke…

‘Memorandum to the noble governors about the condition of the Dutch Indies’ Jan Pieterszoon Coen Date: 1 January 1614 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionJan Pieterszoon Coen wrote many letters and reports for the VOC central office in Amsterdam, and the substantial memorandum of 1 January 1614 was known as his vision statement for the VOC. It occupies 24 pages in his biography (Colenbrander,  Jan Pietersz. Coen . Levensbeschrijving, pp. 451-74; all the references that follow are to this edition), and is divided into 14 sections. The first five discuss the VOC…

‘The journey to Jerusalem and Syria’ Jan van Cotwyck, J(oh)an van Cotwijck, Ioannes Cotovicus, Jean Cootwich, Ioan van Kootwyck Date: 1619 Original Language: Latin Description Van Cotwyck’s Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Syriacum; in quo variarum gentium mores et instituta; insularum, regionum, urbium situs, unà ex prisci recentiorisq[ue] sæculi usu; unà cum eventis, quæ auctori terrâ mariq[ue] acciderunt, dilucidè recensentur. Accessit synopsis Reipublicæ Venet[a]e runs to 518 pages and begins with an admonition to the reader about the dangers of travel…

‘Official advice of C. Snouck Hurgronje’ Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje Date: 1889-1906 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionFrom 1889 to 1906, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje was Advisor on Native Affairs in the Dutch East Indies. Even after his return to the Netherlands, he continued as advisor to the Dutch minister of colonial affairs until his death in 1936. Some 1,400 pieces of advice are listed in the Ministry’s archives. Of these, 675 are of minor importance or just repeat earlier texts, 75 are lost, and only …

VOC treaties with Muslim rulers of Indonesia Frederick de Houtman Date: 1605-20 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionFrederick de Houtman attracted most attention for his second trip to Indonesia, while his two periods as colonial administrator, in Ambon and the Moluccas, are only documented in his own official reports. These are stored in the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague and published partly in the collected works of Jan Pietersz. Coen ( Bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië, ed. H.T. Colenbrander, The Hague, 1919-34, 6 vols).One report of 1607 gives a s…

- L.W.C. van den Berg Date: 1873-95 Original Language: Various languages Description De beginselen van het Mohammedaansche recht, volgens de imāms Aboe Hanīfat en asj-Sjāfe‘ī ‘Handbook of Muslim law according to the Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī schools’ Published in 1874, this book was written in 1871-2 when the author was teaching Islamic law at the Gymnasium Willem III in Batavia (xv + 269 pages long). The only comparable work in European languages at the time was N. von Tornauw’s  Das moslemische Recht (Leipzig, 1855), though his book concentrates on Shīʿa law. Van den Berg’s boo…

Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Death: Place of Death: Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsJavanese court chronicles on the rising power of the DutchKarel Steenbrink

Jacob Corneliszoon van Neck Date of Birth: About 1564 Place of Birth: Amsterdam Date of Death: 15 March 1638 Place of Death: Amsterdam BiographyJacob Cornelisz. van Neck was born into a prominent family in Amsterdam. Very little is known about his youth except that his father died when he was two years old and his mother when he was about 11. He received a good general education and then special training in nautical sciences, and he became involved in various forms of trade.The oldest company for trade with Southeast Asia selected him as the admiral for its second fleet of ei…

‘Daily account of what has taken place here in Batavia since 1 January 1624, as well as some reports about other settlements’ Dagh-register Date: 1624-1799 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionOn 6 December 1621, Governor General Jan Pieterszoon Coen ordered all settlements of the VOC to keep a diary ( Dagh-register) of important events. This was to include reports about local politics and trade rivals, especially the British but also the French, Danish, Portuguese, Gujarati and others. An account was entered for every month, detailing the shi…

‘Travels’ Nicolaas de Graaff Date: Unknown; before 1688 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionThe first 100 pages of this book (its full title is  Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaff, na de vier gedeelten des Werelds, als Asia, Africa, America en Europa, mitsgaders sijn Oostindische spiegel) contain brief and concise reports of de Graaff’s first 13 voyages. The following 130 pages cover his last three voyages.  Oost-Indise spiegel (98 pages) is re-printed with new pagination in the same volume. On his first voyage, de Graaff arrived in Aceh, Sumatra, where he saw th…

- Dutch and Malay authors on the Paderi Wars in west Sumatra Date: First half of the 19th century Original Language: Dutch DescriptionDuring the 17th century, the west Sumatran coastal town of Ulakan was a significant catalyst in the spread of Islam in the region through its famous mystical teacher Syaikh Burhanuddin (1646-1704). In the later 18th century, students from Ulakan promoted religious study in the mountainous central regions of west Sumatra, targeting perceived deviations from the pure practice of Islam. These included the four major vice…

'The Moroccan woman' Willem Bilderdijk Date: 1805 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionThis didactic poem of 33 quatrains is a dialogue between a Christian prisoner in Morocco, who is waiting for his ransom to arrive, and a Moroccan Muslim woman. She expresses her love for him, but also fears that he despises her religion. She asks: ‘Why do you honour Allāh, but do not include Muḥammad?’ The Christian responds that he believes in Allāh, the One, but also honours His only born son, Issa. The woman declares that Muslims know the stories about Jesus, like Christians, and respect him.After they…

Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Dagh-register van ‘tgene hier in Batavia ‘tsedert Primo January 1624 gepasseert is gelyck mede verscheyden tydingen van andere Qartieren becomen et cetera Karel Steenbrink

‘The Ripangi poem’ Repen Ripangi Date: 1886 or before Original Language: Javanese Description Repen Ripangi is a poem written in the style of traditional Javanese literature, following strict rules in which the length of each line and the rhyme are fixed, and suited for sung performance. It is divided into seven cantos, and occupies 60 pages in the printed edition. The first three cantos describe the religious teacher Ripangi, the familiar name for Aḥmad al-Rifaʾi, who successfully establishes a  pesantren or boarding school in the village of Kalisalak in central Java. H…

Date of Birth: 7 September 1756 Place of Birth: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Date of Death: 18 September 1831 Place of Death: Haarlem, The Netherlands BiographyBorn in 1756, Willem Bilderdijk was the son of a physician who had political vision and ambitions, but who worked mostly as a tax collector. At the age of six, Willem seriously injured his left foot and, for the next ten years, he had to remain at home, where he developed his knowledge through wide reading. He proved to be multi-talented, excelling in drawing, poe…

The VOC ( Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Dutch East India Company, 1602-1799) and its European partners were often seen primarily as a trade link between Europe and Asia. They brought Asian spices, and later also coffee, tea, valuable timbers, textiles, garments and other commodities to Europe, for which the Europeans initially paid in precious metals or diamonds and later also in goods produced by the developing European industries. One of the first Dutch traders to come to Aceh to buy spices, Fr…

‘Islam or Turcism opened and rejected’ Simon Oomius Date: 1663 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionOomius wrote this work, which is 991 pages long, with the twin purposes of correcting false representations of Islam and of giving examples of piety among Muslims, all for the benefit of his fellow Christians. But he also wrote to argue against the teachings and practices of Islam, because in his view Islam was built upon a combination of fragments of heresies and false teachings. His major sources were the wor…

Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Death: Place of Death: Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsNederlandsch-Indisch PlakaatboekKarel Steenbrink

Date of Birth: 1 March 1630 Place of Birth: Heenvliet, The Netherlands Date of Death: 25 November 1706 Place of Death: Kampen, The Netherlands BiographySimon Oomius (also Omius, Ooms) was born into a family of teachers and Reformed ministers. He studied Eastern languages, philosophy and theology in Leiden and Utrecht between 1647 and 1652, and in 1674 was awarded a doctorate in theology from Harderwijk University. He served as a minister in Purmerland (1654-74), in the Dutch army (1674-7) and in Kampen (from 1677 until his death). In Leiden, he studied Arabic and Islam with Jacob …

‘Journal of the second voyage to the East Indies’ Jacob Corneliszoon van Neck Date: 1601 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionJacob van Neck wrote an account of the major events of his first trip to the Indonesian archipelago, from 1 May 1598 to 16 July 1599, as a report to the Amsterdam directors of the undertaking. This is often referred to as an account of the ‘second trip’ because it was in fact a follow-up to the first Dutch voyage under the leadership of Cornelis de Houtman (1595-7). The first report of this first voyage undertaken by van Neck (only preserved in English translation, True re…

'The Meccan festival' Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje Date: 1880 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionAt the age of 23, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje published and defended his doctoral dissertation at Leiden University on the Meccan ḥajj. In this book of 191 pages, he sought to reconstruct the original Arab festival at Mecca that preceded the preaching of Muḥammad, as well as to identify the changes that were introduced to it by the Prophet Muḥammad in the last five years of his life.The first chapter discusses references to the ḥajj within the Qur’an. Here, Snouck Hurgonje emphasise…

‘Grammar and dictionary of the Malay and Malagasy languages with many Arab and Turkish words’ Frederick de Houtman Date: 1603 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionDuring his nearly two-year imprisonment in Aceh (1599-1601), de Houtman acquired a good command of Malay. On the basis of this, he wrote Spraeck ende woord-boek inde Maleysche ende Madagaskarsche, a practical guide to the language, comprising 243 pages in the 1603 edition. The work follows the format of 12 conversations followed by a Malay-Dutch vocabulary, a model used in Europe, and by…

VOC Treaties;Collected contracts of the Dutch Indian Administration, 1596-1799 Corpus Diplomaticum Date: 1596-1799 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionOn 23 June 1596, Cornelis de Houtman arrived in Bantam, West Java, at the head of the first Dutch fleet to reach Indonesia. On 1 July 1596, the first of many treaties with Asian rulers was signed with the sultan of Bantam, pioneering a practice of peace-making between the locals and the VOC (Dutch East India Company) that lasted from 1602 to 1799. These treaties …

François Valentyn Date of Birth: 17 April 1666 Place of Birth: Dordrecht Date of Death: 6 August 1727 Place of Death: s'Gravenhage (The Hague) BiographyFrançois Valentijn (also Valentyn) was born into a middle-class family in the important Dutch harbour town of Dordrecht. His father was rector at the local grammar school. François studied theology in Leiden and Utrecht, and in May 1685, as a 19-year-old minister, he left for the Dutch East Indies, arriving on 30 December. He was appointed to the eastern island of Ambon…