SHAH ALAM - Tengku Ampuan Pahang Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah has initiated a search for the wooden chest linked to Mat Kilau that is believed to have contained the Hukum Kanun Pahang when the manuscript was discovered in 1993.
According to accounts of the discovery, the manuscript was found inside the chest together with several items associated with the legendary Pahang warrior, including a keris, an ink bottle and a writing instrument.
While the manuscript was later acquired and returned to Pahang, the remaining artefacts reportedly remained with the family as “pusaka” (heirlooms).
“I understand that the chest and the accompanying items may still be in the custody of the descendants of Encik Zainuddin, Mat Kilau’s grandson.
“If so, I respectfully appeal to the family to help locate and document these artefacts and, if they are willing, to consider placing the chest on long-term loan or in trust with the Pahang State Museum so that it may be preserved and studied as part of our shared national heritage,” she said in her “A Princess Remembers” column in Sinar Daily.
Tunku Azizah said she first learned of the chest from former Pahang State Museum director Datuk Mokhtar Abu Bakar, who travelled to Patani in 1993 to formally receive and bring home the Hukum Kanun Pahang. The manuscript was recovered from the chest, which had once belonged to Mat Kilau.
She said several questions surrounding the manuscript’s journey remain unanswered.
“How did the Hukum Kanun Pahang come to be inside Mat Kilau’s chest? Did Mat Kilau himself speak of it to his family? Why did the chest remain in Patani when he later returned to Pahang? Was the manuscript deliberately safeguarded during the turbulent years of resistance?
“These questions may never be fully resolved,” she said.
What is clear, she added, is that the chest appears to have protected the manuscript for generations.
“Without it, the Hukum Kanun Pahang might never have survived in the condition in which it was found.
“If any member of the family possesses information, photographs, documents or memories relating to the chest and its contents, I would be deeply grateful to hear from them.
“Every piece of information helps us better understand the remarkable journey of one of the greatest treasures of the Malay world.
“Perhaps, after more than a century, the chest too has been waiting for the moment when it can finally come home,” she added.