The Concept of Happiness of the Malay Hero Hang Tuah

DOI

10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.70How to use a DOI?

Keywords

happiness, hero, Malays, origin, Islamic perspectives

Abstract

Hang Tuah is a Malay hero who is traditionally portrayed as someone who pledges his loyalty solely to his king. When Malacca was defeated by the Portuguese in the 1511, the fall of their great empire sent the heart, mind and soul of the Malays into disarray to such an extent that it had enthused the writing of the Hikayat Hang Tuah in the 18th century purportedly to reclaim and empower a sense of Malay nationalism. It allows the rebuilding of the Malays’ weakened sense of national identity due to the devastating impact of Portuguese colonialisation of the sultanate around the character of Hang Tuah. A closer examination of the Hikayat Hang Tuah however, suggests that the main purpose of the hero’s struggle is for the salvation of the Islamic faith from a nation that appeared to have alienated its own religion. Interestingly, Hang Tuah left the palace and his responsibility as the admiral (Laksamana) seemingly after finding eternal happiness at the end of the text. Thus, this paper attempts to explore whether or not the ‘element of happiness’ that Hang Tuah had found is the ultimate form of happiness that identifies him as an Islamic Malay hero. Grounded by Syed Naquib al-Attas’ concept of Islamic (psychological and spiritual) happiness, this paper will analyze the element of happiness of characterized by the iconic Malay warrior and its relevance for the new generation of Muslim Malays today.

Copyright

© 2013, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - R. Hamdan
AU  - S.B.Md. Radzi
PY  - 2013/12
DA  - 2013/12
TI  - The Concept of Happiness of the Malay Hero Hang Tuah
BT  - Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on the Modern Development of Humanities and Social Science
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 269
EP  - 272
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.70
DO  - 10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.70
ID  - Hamdan2013/12
ER  -