Novel Descriptions of the Burāq in Commentaries on the Story of the Prophet’s Miʻrāj by Najm al-Dīn al-Ghayṭī Written in Ottoman Egypt (From the 17th to 18thCenturies)

This volume contains five papers relating to research on the subject of Paradise and Hell described in the kitabs-Islamic books and manuscripts-from Southeast Asia.Our research team has worked on investigations of kitabs about the tale of Isra' and Mirj transmitted in Insular Southeast Asia, and in 2016 published a volume in this series titled Comparative Study of Southeast Asian Kitabs (4): Local and Global Dynamism in Transformation of Islamic Tales.The tale of Isra' and Mirj tells about Muammad's night journey to Jerusalem and Heaven, during which he saw scenes from Hell.The results of this research made us interested in further research on the descriptions of Hell and Paradise, because there are several versions of kitabs on eschatology, which reflected the local circumstances of the researchers.In the Malay world, the Arabic kitab Daqiq al-akhbr f dhikr al-janna waal-nr (hereafter Daqiq) is the most popular and has been used as a source for local versions or has been translated into local languages.In this volume, we focus on three Malay versions of this kitab: the Akhbr al-khirah f ahwl al-qiymah written by Nr al-Dn al-Rnr in 1642 in Aceh, Kashf al-ghaibyah fi ahwl alqiymah (hereafter Kashf al-ghaibyah) written by Zayn al-bidn ibn Muammad al-Fan in 1883, and a Malay version of Daqiq translated by Amad ibn Muammad Ynus Lingga in 1894.Kawashima Midori analyzes the eschatology written by a Maranao professional singer and published in the 1930s in Mindanao, the Philippines.She compares this eschatological story and the abovementioned three Malay versions and through these comparisons, she examines the use of the book's structure and contents to stress the social morals needed in Mindanao at that time.Kushimoto Hiroko analyzes the Malay Kashf al-ghaibyah written by al-Fan, and she discovers that the author describes Paradise in extraordinarily vivid terms, frequently quoting hadiths as authentic evidence and stressing the enjoyments of Paradise rather than the fear of Hell.Sugahara Yumi compares a Javanese "Skull Tale", published in the early 19th century as an example of court literatures, with the Malay Daqiq published in the same century as a kitab for Islamic studies.The author explains that the increase in the number of kitabs helped give more concrete images of Hell and Paradise, which stress basic Islamic principles, and transmit the Islamic eschatology in Southeast Asian society beyond Islamic schools.