Malacca, Sultanate of
State | Defunct
1400 CE to 1511 CE
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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Ayutthaya's energies during much of the fifteenth century are directed toward the Malay Peninsula, where the great trading port of Malacca contests Thai claims to sovereignty.
Malacca and other Malay states south of Tambralinga had become Muslim early in the century, and hereafter Islam will serve as a symbol of Malay solidarity against the Thai.
Although the Thai fail to make a vassal state of Malacca, Ayutthaya continues to control the lucrative trade on the isthmus, which attracts Chinese traders of specialty goods for the luxury markets of China.
Some of the earliest records of this region are the reports of Chinese officials who served as envoys to the seaports and empires of the Nanyang (southern ocean), the Chinese term for Southeast Asia.
The earliest first-hand account of Singapore appears in a geographical handbook written by the Chinese traveler Wang Dayuan in 1349.
Wang noted that Singapore Island, which he called Tan-ma-hsi (Danmaxi), was a haven for several hundred boatloads of pirates who preyed on passing ships.
He also described a settlement of Malay and Chinese living on a terraced hill known in Malay legend as Bukit Larangan (Forbidden Hill), the reported burial place of ancient kings.
The fourteenth-century Javanese chronicle, the Nagarakertagama, also noted a settlement on Singapore Island, calling it Temasek.
A Malay seventeenth-century chronicle, the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), recounts the founding of a great trading city on the island in 1299 by a ruler from Palembang, Sri Tri Buana, who named the city Singapura ("lion city") after sighting a strange beast that he took to be a lion.
The prosperous Singapura, according to the Sejarah Melayu, in the mid-fourteenth century suffered raids by the expanding Javanese Majapahit Empire to the south and the emerging Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya to the north, both at various times claiming the island as a vassal state.
The Sejarah Melayu, as well as contemporaneous Portuguese accounts, note the arrival around 1388 of King Paramesvara from Palembang, who was fleeing Majapahit control.
Although granted asylum by the ruler of Singapura, the king had murdered his host and seized power.
Within a few years, however, Majapahit or Thai forces again drove out Paramesvara, who had fled northward to found eventually the great seaport and kingdom of Malacca.
In 1414 Paramesvara converts to Islam and establishes the Malacca Sultanate, which in time controls most of the Malay Peninsula, eastern Sumatra, and the islands between, including Singapura.
Fighting ships for the sultanate are supplied by a senior Malaccan official based at Singapura.
The city of Malacca servesnot only as the major seaport of the region in the fifteenth century, but also as the focal point for the dissemination of Islam throughout insular Southeast Asia.
The Theravada Buddhist Kingdom of Ayutthaya, or Siam, is regarded as the strongest power in Indochina by the end of the fourteenth century, but it lacks the manpower to dominate the region.
Majapahit, an Indianized kingdom based in eastern Java, has entered a period of decline with conflict over succession.
In the 1390s, Majapahit had sent thousands of ships to attack Palembang, the former capital of the ancient, partly Hindu, partly Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya that had controlled a large part of what is now Malaysia and Indonesia.
Parameswara, who had lived in Palembang as a prince within the Srivijayan empire but the conquest had forced him and many others to flee Palembang.
Parameswara in particular had sailed to the island of Temasek (an early city on the site of modern Singapore) to escape persecution and had come under the protection of Temagi, a Malay chief from Patani who had been appointed by the King of Siam as Regent of Temasek.
However, Temasek has been a vassal of Majapahit since 1365.
After several days, Parameswara had been betrayed by Temagi and had been compelled to kill him.
For the past four years, Parameswara has ruled Temasik, where he is finally attacked by the Majapahit armies when one of the ministers opens the gates for Majapahit marines to attack the palace, forcing Parameswara to evacuate.
Parameswara had headed north to establish a new settlement at Muar, where he had contemplates establishing his kingdom at either Biawak Busuk or at Kota Buruk.
Finding that the Muar location is not suitable, he had continued his journey northwards.
Along the way, …
…Parameswara had reportedly visited Sening Ujong (present Sungai Ujong) before reaching a fishing village at the mouth of the Bertam River (the present Malacca River).
This settlement will evolve over time to become the location of modern day Malacca Town, the capital of the Sultanate of Malacca established by Parameswara in about 1402.
Islam enters the region of Indonesia along maritime trade routes in the fifteenth century.
(In less than a century, it will become the predominant religion of the archipelago.)
Zheng He, the famous Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who had made the six voyages collectively referred to as the travels of "Eunuch Sanbao to the Western Ocean" makes one more voyage under the Xuande Emperor (reigned 1426–1435), but dies at sea in 1433.
On his seven voyages, Zheng had successfully relocated large numbers of Chinese Muslims to Surabaya, …
…Palembang, …
…Malacca, and other places and converted the natives to Islam.
Malacca has become the Southeast Asian center of Islamic learning and also a large international Islamic trade center of the southern seas.
The Ming Dynasty, turning inward, decommissions the Chinese navy in 1434.
This alteration of the balance of power in the Indian Ocean will make it easier for Portugal and other Western naval powers to gain dominance over the Eastern seas.