English: Throughout Asia, the stories of the hero Amir Hamzah, a noble and brave companion and also the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, have been very popular with people of all ages due to their romantic as well as philosophical content. The stories are originally Persian, but came to the Malay and Javanese world via India. They celebrate the triumph of Islam and trace Hamzah's conquests in love and war, often coupled with fantastic elements and sequences. The text is actually written poetic stanzas in sections of different poetic metres.

The beautiful handwritten red symbol marks the beginning of a new stanza in the poetic text. The brown colored sheet has writing on both sides using a distinctive brownish-black ink. It is made of thin paper. While some have suggested a 19th century date for this manuscript, Dr. Timothy Behrend, a professor of Indonesian Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and an expert on Javanese literature and manuscripts, has more reliably suggested a date of early 20th century for this manuscript, based on laylines and chainlines (which are the horizontal and vertical watermark lines) in the paper used. Its size is about 6 3/4 in. x 8 1/4 in. Each side is ruled with a vertical line in the left column that provided the point for the scribe to begin the lines, since the writing is done from the left to the right of each line, just as in English.