Malacca, Sultanate of

The Malacca Sultanateis a Malay sultanate centered in the modern-day state of Malacca, Malaysia.

Conventional historical thesis marks c. 1400 as the founding year of the sultanate by a renegade Malay Raja of Singapura, Parameswara who was also known as Iskandar Shah.

At the height of the sultanate's power in the fifteenth century, its capital grows into one of the most important entrepôts of its time, with territory covering much of the Malay Peninsula, Riau Islands and a significant portion of the east coast of Sumatra.

As a bustling international trading port, Malacca emerges as a center for Islamic learning and dissemination, and encourages the development of the Malay language, literature and arts.

It heralds the golden age of Malay sultanates in the archipelago, in which Classical Malay becomes the lingua franca of the Maritime Southeast Asia and Jawi script becomes the primary medium for cultural, religious and intellectual exchange.

It is through these intellectual, spiritual and cultural developments, the Malaccan era witnesses the acculturation of a Malay identity, the Malayization of the region and the subsequent formation of an Alam Melayu.

In 1511, the capital of Malacca falls to the Portuguese Empire, forcing the last Sultan, Mahmud Shah (r. 1488–1511), to retreat to the further reaches of his empire, where his progeny establish new ruling dynasties, Johor and Perak.

The legacy of the sultanate's political and cultural legacy remains to this day.

For centuries, Malacca has been held up as an exemplar of Malay-Muslim civilization.

It establishes systems of trade, diplomacy, and governance that persis well into the nineteenth century, and introduces concepts such as daulat – a distinctly Malay notion of sovereignty – that continue to shape contemporary understanding of Malay kingship.

The fall of Malacca benefits Brunei when its ports became a new entrepôt as the kingdom emerges as a new Muslim empire in the Malay Archipelago, attracting many Muslim traders who flee from the Portuguese occupation after the ruler of Brunei’s conversion to Islam.

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