2023 - Wan Mohd Saghir’s Collection: A Survey in Kuala Lumpur
Wan Mohd Saghir’s collection is truly massive: collected by the eponumous Shaykh, it encompasses over a thousand 50–150-year-old items including manuscripts, letters, original receipts, writing tools, printing artefacts, and early lithographic prints of Malay newspapers and magazines. The objects come from Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Most are related to religion, but a large number relate to science, economics, politics, and culture. It is a critical point of reference to anyone conducting research on Malay civilisation.
Since Wan Mohd Saghir’s passing in 2008, the collection has been taken care of by his family. However, despite it being known that there are many unique and rare items in the collection that are not attainable elsewhere, there was no catalogue, which greatly hindered research and aided a threat of loss or theft.
To develop this essential catalogue, and thus help scholars the world over who are interested in Malay civilisation, this project trained up five local research assistants. The team then cleaned the objects and removed damaging elements like bookworms. A full identification and cataloguing of 500 of the items were carried out (the collection was too large for a complete catalogue). Finally, a seminar was held, and dissemination work began to ensure everyone could benefit from this important new catalogue.
