By studying the portrayal of the Turkic peoples and the Ottoman Turks in a wide range of Malay literary texts of the 14th-19th centuries, this book reveals how this theme informed the religious and political ideals and political mythology of Malay society.

Vladimir Braginsky, Ph.D. (1975) in Asian literatures, is Professor Emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. Among his many publications on Malay literature, comparative literature and Sufism are The Comparative Study of Traditional Asian Literatures (Curzon, 2001) and The Heritage of Traditional Malay Literature (KITLV Press, 2004).