Muzaffar pitis and Mansur-Mahmud transition
In 1445, Sri Parameswara Dewa Shah, wrote to the Ming Court with 明實錄・英宗・卷一百二十七・正統十年三月・壬寅
滿剌加國使臣謨者那等，奏請賜國王息力八密息瓦兒丟八沙護國勑書及蟒龍衣服、傘盖，庶仗天威以服國人之心。
又云國王欲躬親來朝，所帶人物数多，乞賜一巨舟，以便往來。上命所司造與之。
This entry was dated 5 May 1445 and it was the last mention of Melaka in Chinese records in the 1440's. The next mention of Melaka in Ming Shilu 明實錄 was on 30 May 1455 and Muzaffar's name was mentioned as the king of Melaka, the two records were gapped by nearly 10 years. This was reasonable and it was in line with the royal keffufle between Raja Kassim and Sri Parameswara.
For an English translation of the Ming Shilu text, see Wade. The Chinese text was sourced from the Ming Shilu database maintained by National Institute of Korean History 국사편찬위원회.a list of requests (regalia + state visit).
- a command paper 護國敕書 to cement his new throne
- a new The dragon embroidered on the robe of the Chinese emperor, on the other hand, is a five-claw dragon.four-claw dragon The fact that Sri Parameswara was asking for a new garment appears to contradict the Sejarah Melayu's narrative that Raja Ibrahim was a minor when he ascended the Melaka throne.
In a Ming Shilu entry dated 4 September 1455, Muzaffar asked the Ming emperor Zhu Qizhen 朱祁镇 to issue another set of dragon robe because the old one was destroyed by fire (奏其王原賜冠服燬于火). It is not immediately whether or not if the old robe was the one issued to his half-brother.robe 蟒龍衣服 - a new parasol 傘盖
- a Before Sri Parameswara, each of three preceeding kings made state visits to China and personally met with Zhu Di 朱棣 (or Emperor Yongle 永樂).diplomatic trip to Beijing 欲躬親來朝
- a new ship 巨舟 to facilitate the travel from Melaka to China
This list cast a rather skewed and embarrasing light on Sri Parameswara and his ability to rule. Indeed, we were told by Sejarah Melayu, after a short reign of 17 months, the weak king was killed in a coup d'état staged by his half-brother Raja Kassim and Raja Kassim's Raja Kassim's mother was Tun Wati, sister of Tun Ali. Sri Parameswara, on the other hand, was purportedly of Rokan maternal bloodline.maternal uncle, Tun Ali.
The result: Raja Kassim was installed as Muzaffar (مظفر) is an Arabic term that means winner.Muzaffar.
We do not have a Fortunately the year of death of Mansur Shah can be inferred directly from his tombstone, the year marked on Mansur's tombstone was 1477.
See J. P. Moquette (1922) The grave-stone of Sultan Mansur Shah of Malacca (1458-1477 A.D) Journal of Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 85, pp. 1-3. See also Othman Mohd Yatim (1985) Batu Aceh: A study of 15-19 century Islamic gravestones in Peninsular Malaysia, PhD Thesis, Durham University (pp. 428 - 430).
The name of Mansur Shah was last mentioned in Ming Shilu on 9 Jun 1475.
明實錄・憲宗・卷一百四十一・成化十一年五月・ 甲寅
滿剌加國遣正副使端馬密等進金葉、表文、并象、馬、火雞、白鸚鵡、金錢豹等物。賜宴及襲衣、綵叚、表裏，并以綵叚、紗羅、錦歸賜其國王
及王妃王子有差。仍令齎勑諭國王蘇丹茫速沙曰：比者朝廷遣給事中等官往占城，為風飄至爾國，王遣人供餽備悉誠意茲因，使臣回便特賜王綵叚、二表裏，用示褒答至可領之。
For an English translation of the Ming Shilu text, see Wade. The Chinese text was sourced from the Ming Shilu database maintained by National Institute of Korean History 국사편찬위원회.
definitive date to mark the end of Muzaffar's reign, but we know Mansur Shah's name first entered the Chinese records in 1459, and we may use it to approximately demarcate the reign of Mansur from that of his father.
Like his father, Mansur styled himself as the Defender of Faith and the World, and we can find “Nasir al-Dunia wa al-Din" (ناصر الدنيا والدين) marked on the reverse side of the pitis coins issued by Mansur's administration, and these pitis coins were in circulation for approximately 30 years in Melaka.
Depending on the locale of the speaker, Muzaffar's and Mansur's extended regnal name can also be rendered as Nasir ud-Dunia wa ud-Din, Nasir ad-Dunia wa ad-Din or Nasir ed-Dunia wa Alauddin in rendered by Leyden as Alla-ed-din, it was transcribed according to the sound of the word read to him by Ibrahim Kandu in Calcutta.ed-Din. And if we add the honorary prefix ʿAlāʾ is an Arabic prefix that means: noble, elevated, or majestic“ʿAlāʾ" to the “ud-Din" part of the name, the word ʿAlaʾud-Din (علاء الدين) is Interestingly, the extended regnal name of Alauddin Khalji of the Turki Sultanate of Delhi (r. 1296 - 1315), was also “ʿAlāʾal-Duniā wa al-Din".formed. Thus it is reasonable to assume that the father and son were probably known also to their subjects as ʿAlāʾud-Din.
The name of Mahmud Shah was first mentioned in the Chinese records in 1478. For example, in 十四年，復因其嗣王馬哈木沙請封，命給事中林榮，行人黃乾亨往冊，還抵洋嶼，遭風溺海死。Huang Ming Xiangxulu 皇明象胥錄, the name was mentioned along with the request to have himself installed as the new king of Melaka. But he was explicitly connected to Mansur Shah in a Ming Shilu entry dated 23 August 1481, in which he was referred to as 明實錄・憲宗・成化十七年・七月・二十八日・辛丑
遣禮科給事中林榮充正使、行人司行人黃乾亨充副使，封滿剌加國故王蘇丹(茫)速沙子馬哈术(木)沙為國王。
The word is certainly 木 and not 术 since 馬哈木 was a spelling used consistently (63 times) by Ming Shilu to transcribe “Mahamud" or “Mahmud". For instance, it was used to transribe the name of a Mongol ruler named 順寧王.
For an English translation, see Wade. The Chinese text was sourced from the Ming Shilu database maintained by National Institute of Korean History 국사편찬위원회. the son of Mansur Shah. And he was again mentioned by the Chinese about three years later in an entry dated 12 Jun 1484. It was reported in the 1484 entry that the Ming envoy sent to install Mahmud Shah did not complete their mission successfully as their ship was capsized by bad weather near Champa in Although the trip to Melaka was ordered by Zhu Jianru 朱見濡 in August 1481, the preparation took some time and the mission set off from China only much later, namely, 7 February 1483. The vessel was shipwrecked six days later on 12 February 1483 (癸卯正月发舟，六日至羊屿，飓风作，舟薄于石，坏，与众溺焉)February 1483.
| Attempt | Date | Names of envoy | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1478 | Ming court received Mahmud's request | XXL |
| 1 | 23 August 1481 | Lin Rong 林榮, Huang Qiangheng 黃乾亨 were tasked as envoys | MSL |
| 1 | 7 February 1483 | Lin and Huang sailed to Melaka | MSL |
| 1 | 12 February 1483 | Lin and Huang died in a shipwreck near Champa | MSL |
| 2 | 12 June 1484 | A fresh order was issued and Zhang Sheng 張晟 and Zuo Fu 左輔 were tasked. | MSL |
| 2 | 7 October 1485 | Zhang was ill and died in Ganzhou 赣州 | MSL |
| 2 | 16 April 1487 | Zuo was back to China, but he received stern warnings for not disclosing the gifts given to him by Mahmud Shah | MSL |
The appearance of the name of Mahmud Shah in Chinese records directly contradicts the validity of the regnal range of a certain Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah of Javanese maternal bloodline, which is commonly held to be between 1477 and 1488 (totalling \(n =\;\)See for example, R. O. Winstedt (1938) The Malay annals, Journal of Malayan Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 16, p. 149: . . . setelah 33 tahun baginda di-atas kerajaan, datanglah kepada peredaran dunia (after reaching the age of thirty-three years whilst on the throne, there was a cycle of change) . . .
33 is not the number of regnal years, since 1477 + 33 = 1510 ≈ the year when Portuguese sacked Melaka.
33 is a reference to the king's age of death. Similar prosaic formulas were repeatedly used on Muhammad (57 year-old, in Winstedt's edition), Muhammad (67 year-old, in Abdul Samad Ahmad's edition), Muzaffar (40 year-old), Mansur (33 year-old), Mansur (73 year-old, Winstedt's edition), Alauddin (33 year-old).11 years). Thus we proposed the following two alternatives:
- (\(n = 0\)): Alauddin was an imaginary figure composed based on the extended regnal names of Muzaffar and Mansur and appended to the list of Malay kings.
- (\(0 < n < \tfrac{1}{2}\)): Alauddin ruled only very briefly for less than half-a-year, from October/November 1477 to June 1478.
The three ‘Alauddin’ pitis coins described by Supian Sabtu in his PhD thesis are rather problematic.
The first coin contains “Muzaffar Shah” as the father of the king, instead of “Mansur Shah". The second pitis coin has the “ʿA + L + wa + al-D = عا + (ل) + و + الد” marking. Note that the name Alauddin is usually spelt as “ʿAlāʾ + al-Din = علا + ء + الدین", so the use of “و" in the coin is really pointing us to the extended regnal name of Muzaffar Shah and Mansur Shah. The third pitis carries only a monogram that can be approximately construed as al-Sultan al-Adil, a known reference to Mahmud Shah.tin pitis attributable to Alauddin. Also, the fact that Alauddin had to be Alauddin's gravestones contain zero calendrical data.
See Othman Mohd Yatim (1985) Batu Aceh: A study of 15-19 century Islamic gravestones in Peninsular Malaysia, PhD Thesis, Durham University (pp. 321 - 325).
On the other hand, Suma Oriental suggests the place of death of Alauddin was Bertam: . . . This king having decided to go to Mecca, and being in Bretam, he wanted to come to Malacca to complete his preparations; and in seven or eight days he died of fevers. . . buried in Pagoh (about 80 kilometers from the the court of Melaka) was also quite problematic.
| Pre-regnal name | Source | Editor | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raja Husain | Between July to October 1810, Leyden did the English translation of Sejarah Melayu in Calcutta, with assistance of Penang scribe named Ibrahim Kandu, who recited the Jawi text to him. Thus we use the letter “I" to identify this manuscript. Leyden died in 1811 and his work was published by Raffles posthumously in 1821. See John Bastin (2002). John Leyden and the publication of the Malay Annal (1821), Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 75(2), pp. 99-115.I298 | John Leyden | 1810/1821 |
| Raja Hussain | ? | Abdullah Abdul Kadir | ?/1841 |
| Raja Husin | S100a | The book in 1896 was first printed in Jawi. The romanized version was printed by Shellebear two years later in 1898.William G. Shellabear | 1612?/1896 |
| Raja Husin | K286 | Ahmat Adam | 1798/2016 |
| See p. 137: Setelah 73 tahun umur Sultan Mansur Shah di atas kerajaan, datanglah peredaran dunia, maka baginda pun geringlah. Maka baginda menyuruh memanggil anakanda baginda dan Bendahara dan segala orang besar-besar. Maka titah Sultan Mansur Shah pada segala mereka itu: “Ketahui olehmu sekalian, bahawa dunia ini lepaslah rasanya pada genggamanku, melainkan negeri akhiratlah semata-mata yang kehendakku. Adapun petaruh kita pada Bendahara Paduka Raja dan orang kaya-kaya sekalian anak kita Raja Radin ialah akan ganti pada tuan sekalian . . ."Raja Radin | Winstedt noted that the last eight chapters of this manuscript was inked on paper bearning the watermark C. Wilmott 1812.B300 | R. O. Winstedt (1938) The Malay Annals of Sejarah Melayu, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 16(3), pp. 1 - 226.R. O. Winstedt | 1812/1938 |
| Raja Radin | B300 | Muhammad Haji Salleh | 1812/1997 |
| Raja Radin | B300 | Abd. Rahman Hj. Ismail | 1812/1998 |
| Raja . . . Hatta berapa lamanya, datanglah peredaran dunia; maka Sultan Mansur pun geringlah. Setelah diketahui baginda dirinya akan mangkat, maka baginda pun menyuruh memanggil anakanda baginda, Raja Ahmad, timang-timangannya Raja Hussain; and Bendahara Paduka Raja, dan segala Orang Besar-besar sekalian, datang berkampung. Maka titah Sultan Mansur Syah pada sekalian, mereka itu, "Ketahui olehmu sekalian, bahawa dunia ini telah lepaslah rasanya daripada genggamanku; melainkan negeri akhiratlah penghadapanku. Adapun pun petaruhkulah pada Bendahara dan segala Orang Kaya-kaya sekalian, anak kita Ahmad ialah ganti kita pada tuan-tuan sekalian. Jikalau barang sesuatu salahnya, hendaklah dimaafkan oleh tuan-tuan sekalian, kerana ia budak yang bebal, tiada tahu istiadat." . . . See p. 171 (Abdul Samad edition). Incidentally, when Muhammad Shah I, died in 1475, he was replaced by a certain Ahmad Shah I.Ahmad | S100b | Abdul Samad Ahmad | 1612?/1979 |
If the Chinese records are to be fully embraced, i.e. Mansur-Mahmud was a father-son pair, Mahmud must be a younger brother of W. Linehan (1926) Tomb-stones of Muhammad Shah I of Pahang, Journal of the Malayan Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 92, pp. 188 - 192.Muhammad Shah I of Pahang (b. 1455? - d. 1475), of the ancient Pahang The mother of Muhammad Shah I was the daugher of the last king of Inderapura before it was sacked by Muzaffar.bloodline of Ayutthaya stock, who died young at the age of 20. Apparently, it also invalidated the Sejarah Melayu's claim that Mahmud was the son of Alauddin and the grandson of Muzaffar, and therefore the second alternative proposed earlier is not plausible:
- Alauddin was an imaginary figure composed based on the extended regnal names of Muzaffar and Mansur and appended to the list of Malay kings.
- Alauddin ruled only very briefly for less than half-a-year, from October/November 1477 to June 1478.
So, by elimination, the following conclusion, however improbable, must be true: When Mansur Shah died unexpectedly in 1477, his son, while still a In a 1480 letter preserved in Rekidai Hōan 歷代寶案, a 6-year-old king from Melaka dispatched a letter to Shang Shin 尚真, his Ryukyuan counterpart. If this data is correct, then Mahmud Shah was only 3-year-old when his father died in 1477. Installation of Mahmud Shah as the new king of Melaka was only completed when he was 12-year-old by the second Ming mission, commissioned by Zhu Jianru 朱見濡 on 12 June 1484.minor, was installed as Mahmud Shah and officially unveil the last chapter of Melaka.
| Year | Month | Remark |
|---|---|---|
| Mahmud Shah was born. | ||
| \(\vdots\) | \(\vdots\) | \(\vdots\) |
| 1477 | October | Mansur Shah died on Wednesday of Rajab, 882 AH. Possible day of death of Mansur Shah are: October and November 5. Mahmud Shah was only 3-year-old. |
| 1477 | November | November 5, Mansur Shah's day of death, at the latest. |
| 1477 | December | \(\vdots\) |
| 1478 | January | \(\vdots\) |
| 1478 | February | The first day of the 14th Year of Chenghua was February 3. |
| 1478 | March | \(\vdots\) |
| 1478 | April | \(\vdots\) |
| 1478 | May | \(\vdots\) |
| 1478 | June | If Mahmud Shah's letter reached the Ming Court in June, then he had to be made the new king between November 1477 and May 1478. This pushes the maximum regnal length of a “rival sibling” or “father" to about than half-a-year. |
| 1478 | July | Mahmud Shah's request reach the Ming court in the 14th Year of Chenghua, which could be any date between February 3 and January 22. But since the southwest monsoon-powered vessel can only travel from Melaka to Fujian within a narrow calendrical window, the bracket can be further refined to June 1478 to October 1478. |
| 1478 | August | \(\vdots\) |
| 1478 | September | \(\vdots\) |
| 1478 | October | The dispatch from Mahmud Shah must have reached China by now. Otherwise, it cannot be captured by Huang Ming Xiangxulu or its source. |
| 1478 | November | Approximate inception of northeast monsoon, ships can now travel reversally from Nanjing to Melaka. |
| 1478 | December | \(\vdots\) |
| 1479 | January | The last day of the 14th Year of Cheng Hua was January 22. |
| \(\vdots\) | \(\vdots\) | \(\vdots\) |
| 1480 | March | 6-year-old Mahmud Shah dispatched a letter to Ryukyu. |
| Year | Source | Regnal length |
|---|---|---|
| 1470 - 1480 | R. W. McRoberts (1991) A Study in Growth: An Economic History of Melaka 1400 - 1510, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 64(2), pp. 47 - 78. The first column of Table 1 (p. 58) is a very crude timeline of Melakan kings, “Ala'uddin Riayat Shah” was placed between 1470 and 1480. R. W. McRoberts (1991) | 36 |
| about 1477 | F. Valentyn (1724) | 34 |
| 1477/1478 | MS Indo 14 was copied by Abdullah Abd Kadir around 1841, probably at the request of his employer, Alfred North (1807 - 1869), of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. It contains a king list (ff. 7r-10v) which listed 882 AH as Alauddin's year of death, the Julian bracket for 882 AH is 15 April 1477 to 3 April 1481. A Rumi transcription of MS Indo 14 was made available by Arshad Mohktar (2019). MS Indo 14 (1841) | 34/33 |
| 1478 | Yan Congjian 嚴從簡 (1529 - ) was government servant in the Ming court. He passed imperial examination in 1559 and has since served in multiple ministries. In 1574, he started to work on Shuyu Zhouzilu 殊域周咨錄 and the book was published in 1583. Kobata and Matsuda (1969) cited the book by Yan and quoted the year 1478 in p. 117, but they interpreted Yan's text as: . . . the investiture is said to have taken place in 1478, which indicates that the investiture envoys must have gone to Malacca to invest Ma-ha-mu-sha, not Su-tan Mang-shu-sha, but Kobata and Matsuda incorrectly match Ma-ha-mu-sha with Alauddin, under the influence of Winstedt (1935), since Winstedt attributed Alauddin as the sender of the enfeoffment request to the Ming Court in 1481.Yan Congjian 嚴從簡 (1583), Mao Ruizheng 茅瑞徵 published Huang Ming Xiangxulu 皇明象胥錄 in 1629 to complement the information made available in Huang Ming Siyikao 皇明四夷考, published by Zheng Xiao 鄭曉 in 1564.Mao Ruizheng 茅瑞徵 (1629) | 33 |
| about 1481 | G. Wade (1997) Melaka in Ming Dynasty Texts, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of Royal Asiatic Society 70(1), pp. 31 - 69. In pp. 40 - 41, Wade wrote: . . . in 1481, the MSL recorded his recent death and the enfeoffment of Ma-ha-mu Sha (Mahmud Shah). This is an important reference as it suggests that Mahmud Shah succeeded Mansur Shah as Sultan on the latter's death well before 1488, which is the widely-accepted date for Mahmud's accession. . . G. Wade (1997), Ahmat Adam (2021) | 30 |
| about 1482 | Raffles MS 18 (1812) | The regnal length mentioned in Raffles MS 18 is 30 years. We suppose that this must be 30 lunar years and it is equivalent to 29.11 solar years since \(30 \times \frac{354.367}{365.2425} = 29.11\)29.11 |
| about 1483 | Since the regnal length was given as 29 sanats or 28.14 solar years, the first year of Mahmud's reign can be deduced relatively by \(1511-28.14 \approx 1483\)MS Indo 14 (1841) | The regnal length mentioned in MS Indo 14 is 29 sanats and it is equivalent to 28.14 solar years since \(29 \times \frac{354.367}{365.2425} = 28.14\)28.14 |
| about 1488 | R. O. Winstedt (1932) A History of Johore, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 10(3), pp. 1 - 167. In p. 7, we have: . . . Mansur's son, Raja Husain, succeeded his father with the style, Sultan ‘Ala’u’d-din Shah (1477 - ca. 1488) . . . Winstedt attributed the Pagoh gravestone to Alauddin and the text found on the gravestone was translated by Engku Abdul Hamid b. Engku Abdul Majid (pp. 159 - 162). The gravestone does not mark the year of death of the deceased.R. O. Winstedt (1932), R. O. Winstedt (1935|1962), K. G. Tregonning (1964) A History of Modern Malaya, Eastern University Press, Singapore. In p. 37, we have: . . . that was how Sultan Ala'uddin ruled in Malaka. Unfortunately he died in 1488, and the decline had begun . . .K. G. Tregonning (1964), Ryukyuan relations with Korea and South Sea Countries, Atsushi Kobata, Kyoto. In p. 117 (Footnote 29): . . . on the bank of the Muar River in the Malay Peninsula stands Alauddin's grave stone, which gives the year 1488 as the date of his death. . . This evaluation by Kobata and Matsuda is certainly not true because Winstedt showed, back in 1932, that the Pagoh gravestone contains no calendrical data.A. Kobata and M. Matsuda (1969), A History of Malaysia, Palgrave, London, see p. 56.B. W. Andaya and L. Y. Andaya (2017) | 23 |
| about 1490 | R. J. Wilkinson (1935) The Malacca Sultanate, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 13(2), pp. 22 - 67. Did Wilkinson rounded Winstedt's number of 1932? (a) . . . Alaedin was a strong man who died in the flower of his age; he can hardly have been thirty . . . (see p. 54). (b) . . . Alaedin came to throne in 1477 AD, and, we may take it, died about 1490 AD . . . (see p. 59). In 1932, Wilkinson's estimate of Mahmud's reign is 1492. See R. J. Wilkinson (1932)The Early Sultans of Pahang, JMBRAS 10(1), pp. 45 - 54.R. J. Wilkinson (1935) | 21 |
It is clear from the following sarcastic remark, that Blagden (1897) did not trust the regnal length reconstructed by the Malays in their annals:
. . . Malays are very fond of recalling the stories of their ancestors and many a village headman even can recount his pedigree for five or six generations back, though he could not tell his ownage, to say nothing of the date of his father's or grand-father's birth . . .
Now, if we can only pick one data point from the Malay source, chances are that Mahmud's regnal length in Melaka should weigh relatively better than all the other numbers in the Malay's king list. Thus, the regnal length of 30 tahun (in Raffles MS 18) or 29 sanats (in MS Indo 14) should be taken seriously.
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