The sly wit and silky eroticism of the verse genre known as romantic syair were staple dishes on the Southeast Asian cultural menu, especially in the Malay, Islamic regional centres. Yet very few examples are available in translation for the many readers interested in the genre, and attempts by academics to account for their powers of attraction are even rarer. This book is the author's effort to convey the seductive qualities of the sexiest of the romantic syair, the 'Poem of Bidasari'. Few Malay works have been loved and disseminated to the extent the Syair Bidasari...

Sanctity is a concept recognized by Muslims throughout the Islamic world, and often motivates observances with highly localized characteristics. Julian Millie spent a year attending a supplication ritual in which Muslims of West Java directed their prayers to Allah through 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaelani (d. 1166). This man, whose tomb even today is a popular pilgrimage site in Baghdad, is widely considered the most powerful intercessor of all the saints of Islam. The supplication takes the form of reading or singing the narrative proofs of 'Abd al-Qadir's saintliness in a ritual context. The ritual...