Obituary: Prof William R. Roff (1929-2013)

I received news today from Dr Lubis, of Prof. Roff's passing.

Professor William R. Roff (1929-2013)

Prof Roff was born in Scotland in 1929. He was Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia. He passed away on 3 May 2013. He was best known for his life-long study of Islam which he learned from the Malays. He was at sea for 6 years, 3 years with the British & Burmese Steam Navigation Co. Roff worked as a journalist with NZ broadcasting service & enrolled for university studies in NZ. He studied P/T at Victoria College, Wellington in 1952 and obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degrees. He then went to Australia before visiting the SEA countries. Various universities have published his writings.

Photos of Prof Roff at Hidayah Amin's blog

AHA website: In Memoriam - William R. Roff (1929-2013) - written by M Laffan, B Metcalf and U Sanyal 2013 

Select Bibliography of Works by William R. Roff

Guide to Malay periodicals 1876-1941, with details of known holdings in Malaya
(Dept. of History, University of Malaya: Eastern Universities Press, 1961)

"The Malayo-Muslim World of Singapore at the Close of the Nineteenth Century,"
The Journal of Asian Studies 24.1 (November 1964): 75-90

The Origins of Malay Nationalism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967)

"The Persatuan Melayu Selangor: An Early Malay Political Association," Journal of Southeast Asian History 9.1 (March 1968): 117-46

"Indonesian and Malay Students in Cairo in the 1920s," Indonesia 9 (April 1970): 73-87

"Autobiography & Biography in Malay Historical Studies," Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Occasional Paper no. 13, 1972

In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History. David J. Steinberg et.al (eds.) (New York: Praeger, 1971)

Bibliography of Malay and Arabic Periodicals Published in the Straits Settlements and Peninsular Malay states 1876-1941: With an Annotated Union List of Holdings in Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom (Oxford University Press, 1972)

"The Origins and Early Years of the Majlis Agama Kelantan," in: Kelantan: Religion, Society and Politics in a Malay State, William R. Roff (ed.), (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1974), 101-52

"The Mystery of the first Malay Novel (And Who Was Rokambul?)," Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 130.4 (1974): 450-64

"The Conduct of the Hajj from Malaya, and the First Malay Pilgrimage Officer," In: Seri Terbitan tak berkala: Occasional Papers (Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Malay Langiage and Literature, National University of Malaya 1 (1975), 81-112.

The Wandering Thoughts of a Dying Man: The Life and Times of Haji Abdul Majid
bin Zainuddin. William R. Roff (intro and ed.), (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1978

Ahmad Boestamam, Carving the Path to the Summit, William R. Roff (intro and ed.),  (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979)

"Sanitation and Security: The Imperial Powers and the Nineteenth Century Hajj," Arabian Studies VI (1982): 143-60

"Whence Cometh the Law? Dog Saliva in Kelantan, 1937," Comparative Studies in Society and History 25.2 (April 1983): 323-38

Kerjasama dan koperasi di Semenanjung, 1910-1941: Petikan dari bahan-bahan
terbitan sezaman (Penerbit Universiti Malaya, 1984)

 "Islam Obscured? Some Reflections on Studies of Islam and Society in Southeast Asia," Archipel 29 (1985): 7-34

"Islamic Movements: One or Many? In: Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning: Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse. William R. Roff (ed.), (University of California Press and Croom Helm, 1987), 30-51

"An Argument About How to Argue," in: Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and
their Fatwas, Muhammad Khalid Masud et.al. (eds.), (Harvard University Press, 1996), 223-39

"Patterns of Islamisation in Malaysia, 1890s-1990s: Exemplars, Institutions and
Vectors" Journal of Islamic Studies 9.2 (1998): 210-28

"Social Science Approaches to Understanding Religious Ritual: The Special Case
of the Hajj", in: Malaysia: Islam, Society and Politics, Virginia Hooker and Norani Othman (eds.), (Singapore: ISEAS, 2001)

"Murder as an Aid to Social History: The Arab community in Singapore in the
Early Twentieth century" in: Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and
Islam in Southeast Asia, Huub de Jonge and Nico Kaptein (eds.) (KITLV, Leiden, 2002), 92-108

"Pondoks, Madrasas and the Production of 'Ulama in Malaysia," Studia Islamika
11.1 (2004): 1-21

"The Ins and Outs of Hadrami journalism in Malaya, 1900-1941: Assimilation or
Identity Maintenance?," in: The Hadhrami Diaspora in Southeast Asia: Identity Maintenance or Assimilation, Ahmed A. Ibrahim Abushouk and Hassan Ahmed Ibrahim (eds.), (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 191-202

"Onomastics, and Taxonomies of Belonging in the Malay Muslim World," Journal of Islamic Studies 18.3 (2007): 386-405

Studies on Islam and Society in Southeast Asia (NUS Press, 2009)

"Customary Law, Islamic Law, and Colonial Authority: Three Contrasting Case
Studies and their Aftermath," Islamic Studies 49.4 (2010): 455-62

"Public Art, Nationalism and National Unification in Malaya/Malaysia," Journal of
the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 85.1 (2011): 99-100

"Nasehat: Distance and Authority in a Malay Sultanate," Journal of the Malaysian
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 85.2 (2012): 99-102

 "On Going into the Field," Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society 85.2 (2012): 103-09