Penang and Its Networks of Knowledge eds. by Peter Zabielskis, Yeoh Seng Guan and Kat Fatland (review)

This book had its origins in 'The Penang Story: A Celebration of Cultural Diversity' launched in 2001. The project culminated in The Penang Story International Conference in April 2002. Since then, Penang has been the focus of much interest. Over almost two decades, narratives on Penang have proliferated. Penang and Its Networks of Knowledge represent this continued interest and advocacy on the citystate, its diasporas and proximities.

In the Introduction, 'Penang's Networks of Knowledge and Practice', Peter Zabielskis, one of the editors, enlightens us on the volume. It is an interesting fusion of collegiality of 'old friends of Penang, who, in various and separate ways over the years, have found Penang—the place, its people, its history and its culture'. There is an intellectual, interdisciplinary engagement among the writers, who see many things about Penang 'to which they regularly return in their thoughts and writing'. The volume sees Penang as an island in motion, in ways of thinking and doing. The volume is appropriately about 'the hybridity and in-between-ness'.

There are 11 chapters narrating their encounters in their various and multiple outcomes. These chapters represent a splendid link to the past, and to a broader geography and culture that was, and of what we see today in the various avatars we call Penang. The overarching theme is the exchange of ideas and knowledge that has carved Penang in the regional and global map. The volume opens with the chapter by historian Barbara Watson Andaya titled 'Gathering "Knowledge" in the Bay of Bengal: The Letters of John Adolphus Pope, 1785–1788'. Central to the chapter is information from the letters of John Pope who, at the age of fourteen, became Third Officer on an English country ship, the Princess Royal. It was suggested that this 'information order', the framework to amass the 'knowledge' considered necessary to support political and economic power, could also foster cross-cultural communication. Andaya emphasizes the importance of the accumulation of knowledge on the region by English country traders operating in the Malay archipelago between 1750 and 1820, and also by the East India Company officials. But it was in the young John Pope (1771–1821) who, at the age of fourteen, was asked to collect 'knowledge' about places he visited and to relay it back to interested parties in India. Through his letters, Pope, as described by Andaya, fits the profile of an 'orientalist', but that term conveys little of the pleasure he derived from his interactions with the Malays on 'Pulau Penang'.

Chapters 2 and 3 respectively delve into knowledge networks associated with the Penang College Général by historian Anthony Reid; and Evangelical Christianity and the Brethren Movement in Penang by Jean DeBernardi. In the latter, the writer investigates the Evangelical and Brethren movements in Penang and the networks of people, ideas and practices they helped create. Reid's story is of network of knowledge—religious in character with a bent on the College Général 'as Penang's greatest contribution to Asian "network's of knowledge".' Arguably so if one looks at it from a Eurocentric perspective.

Given the volume's orientation, there is but a certain import that this review intends to highlight—that of indigenous Malay Muslims, discussed in several chapters, and disparately captured throughout the volume. Of much interest is 'Indian Ocean Connections: Illuminated Islamic Manuscripts from Penang' by Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator of Southeast Asia, British Library, London. This chapter, based on an earlier version presented at The Penang Story Conference 2002, speaks of a 'Penang style' of Islamic manuscript art. She describes two manuscripts and subsequently explores the Indian Ocean context in which they were produced. Is there a 'Penang style'? Gallop suggests the possibility that the Qur'an in the Penang State Museum could have been decorated by an artist with Penang connections whose style was rooted in the colours, shapes and forms of the Western fringes of...