Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah is a Malay literary work that recounts the story of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, half-brother of the martyrs of Shiism, Hasan and Husayn. The story revolves around the aftermath of the battle of Karbala and Muhammad’s role in an uprising against Yazid I, the caliph of Umayyad Caliphate.
Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah was one of the Hikayats mentioned in the Malay annals read by the Malay warriors to raise their fighting spirit during the siege of Malacca by the Portuguese Empire in 1511.
The following is an extract from the Malay Annals:
The text is known through at least 30 manuscripts and a lithographed edition in Singapore. Although the story is no longer popular today, but it is extremely interesting in that it attests to a Shiite presence in the Malay world at the very beginning of Islamization.