TRACKING OF FAMILY HERITAGE IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO
By Muhammad Isa Selamat & M. Fadhil Junery
The collection of the Malay region, also known as the Malay archipelago is an area where the Malay community lives in an established social and family order into a fully developed civilization.
Historically, most of the centres of government in the archipelago come from the same family and lineage. They were united as one large community.
But with the arrival of the western colonizers, the harmony of the government in the Malay clique became disturbed. To maintain power, the Malay rulers sometimes had to move the centre of government in other regions.
This crisis caused the leaders or kings in the Malay community to migrate to the archipelago and turn them into sites where they are able to develop the ideology and spirit of Islam and of the Malays.
However, after the colonisation by western powers, the archipelago became several independent countries. With that phenomenon, the tombs of leaders, kings and among them scholars and other figures from certain kingdoms were eventually dispersed outside the territory of their government.
Take for example Sultan Mahmud Syah, the last king of Malacca whose reign in 1511 ended with the Portuguese invasion. He was forced to transfer his government in Bintan after that to Kampar. He finally died in 1528 in Pekan Tua, Kampar (now Pelalawan) Riau Indonesia. Tun Fatimah, his wife, was also buried in the village of Sungai Tonang, Kampar
Similarly, Bengkalis leader Datuk Bandar Jamal, (1720-1767) and his father Datuk Laksamana Raja Dilaut, Datuk Ibrahim (1767-1807) ruled in Bengkalis but in the end spent the rest of his life in Ketapang Melaka, Malaysia. Another example, the seventh Sultan of Siak Indrapura (Riau-Indonesia), Sultan Yahya Abdul Jalil Muzaffar Syah (1782-1784) passed away in Dungun Trengganu, Malaysia and was buried there with the title Marhum Dungun.
The fact is that most leaders in the archipelago consist of rulers or kings from the same lineage and family. This region is their playground and is where they run the government and the development of Malay culture.
These events illustrate how the Malay archipelago was an area inhabited by large Malay groups with strong family ties among each other.
Based on the history, a stronger lineage will be found in the traces of the heritage of the past Malay leaders who were living in the archipelago. They are divided by the current state of geopolitics in the region but these factors do not separate them or cut the family ties built over the years.
December 16, 2020