Profiles of wives in Hikayat Fartana Islam and Hikayat Siti Latifah: A comparative literary study

Hikayat Fartana Islam and Hikayat Siti Lathifah are two classical Nusantara manuscripts that preserve profound discourses on marital ethics, female agency, and spiritual salvation in Islamic thought. Although originating from distinct linguistic traditions, Malay and Acehnese, both texts construct romantic commitment not merely as a domestic contract, but as an existential nexus bridging human obligations and divine transcendence. This study aims to analyze the structure of marital discourse, representations of the ideal wife, and mechanisms of spiritual transformation across human and metaphysical entities in both manuscripts. Employing a qualitative descriptive method combined with comparative literature and philological text analysis, this study examines the edited texts and translations of both manuscripts. The findings reveal that while Hikayat Fartana Islam utilizes an instructive-didactic dialogue between the Prophet Muhammad and Fartana Islam to enforce reciprocal domestic duties and eschatological accountability, Hikayat Siti Lathifah individualizes these religious tenets through an intense narrative hagiography. In both texts, love operates across entities, connecting the mortal sphere of spousal relations to transcendent spiritual realms, where female marital fidelity, patience, and bodily sacrifice function as direct conduits for divine favor and spiritual salvation.