The first sultanates of Sumatra (13th century)

Part oneSumatra at the mouth of the strait

Sumatra is a long island lying along the western side of the Strait of Melaka. Every ship sailing between India and China passed its northern tip. For centuries the region belonged to the Buddhist and Hindu world. The great empire of Srivijaya, based in southern Sumatra, controlled the strait from the seventh century and was a famous centre of Buddhist learning.

By the thirteenth century Srivijaya was weak, and small port kingdoms on the northern coast grew stronger. Muslim merchants were already settled in them. Some had come from India, some from Arabia and Persia, and some had fled from China after the attacks on foreigners in Guangzhou in 879.

Part twoPerlak and Pasai

Local tradition holds that a sultanate was founded at Perlak, on Sumatra's north-east coast, as early as 1 Muharram 225 AH, 840 CE, and that its first ruler invited scholars from Arabia, Iran and Gujarat to teach. The date cannot be confirmed, but Perlak was certainly Muslim by the end of the thirteenth century. In 1292 the Venetian traveller Marco Polo stopped there on his way home from China. He wrote that so many Muslim merchants came to Perlak that they had converted the people to the law of Muhammad.

Nearby was Samudra, which joined with Pasai to form the sultanate of Samudra Pasai. Its first Muslim ruler was Sultan Malik al-Salih. His gravestone survives, carved in a style from Gujarat in western India, and it gives the year of his death as 696 AH, 1297 CE. It is one of the earliest dated Muslim royal graves in South-East Asia. According to local tradition, the first Muslim sultan of Pasai married a daughter of the ruler of Perlak, and the bond between the two Muslim courts was sealed by marriage.

The name Samudra, meaning "ocean" in Sanskrit, may be the source of the name of the whole island, Sumatra.

Part threeIbn Battuta at Pasai

In 1345 the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta stopped at Samudra Pasai on his way to China, and again on his way back. He stayed about two weeks as the guest of Sultan al-Malik al-Zahir. He was deeply impressed by the ruler's piety and his love of learning. The sultan walked to the Friday prayer, held debates with scholars after it, and followed the Shafi'i school of law. Scholars from Shiraz, Isfahan and other cities sat at his court. Teachers ran study circles in the mosques, at both basic and advanced levels, and the sultan paid for the teaching of young and old.

Ibn Battuta also noted that the sultan led raids against the non-Muslim peoples of the interior. Islam was still a faith of the coast and the court. It would take centuries more to reach the villages inland.

Pasai's scholars became famous in the region. When the new port of Melaka rose in the fifteenth century, its rulers sent questions on religion to the scholars of Pasai and relied on their answers. Later, Pasai was absorbed by its neighbour, Aceh, which became the great Muslim power of northern Sumatra.

A gravestone dated 1297 marks one of the first Muslim kings of the islands.

WatchThe lecture for this chapter

Lecture Islamic GuidanceHow Indonesia Became Muslim (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Perlak
• Samudra Pasai
• Aceh
• Palembang (Srivijaya)
• the Strait of Melaka

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter