Recently scholars in the West have speculated that it makes more sense to speak of cultural integration rather than political acquiescence in the pre-modern era. This theme of societal linkage is developed in the chapter on "Religious Developments in Southeast Asia, c. 1500-1800" in the Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Its authors postulate that the sixteenth century was an era of particularly acute cultural linkage, especially between Southeast Asia and the regions to its north and west, which were also Southeast Asia's primary trade partners. The common cultural variable was the Islamic faith among the trading populations who traveled to and sometimes settled in Southeast Asia's ports of trade.

This essay proposes that these patterns of Islamic communication had their foundation at least two centuries before, by the fourteenth century. It will not reexamine the well-documented studies that stress regional communication as a consequence of Southeast Asia's external interchange -- both economic and ideational -- with the centers of Islamic civilization in India, the Middle East, and in the South China Sea (south China and Champa). Instead it asserts the role of internal networking in the Southeast Asian maritime region that provided the opportunity for religious conversion. It highlights the conversion to Islam of Samudra-Pasai on the Sumatra coast, which became the inspiration for the broad, regional conversions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the fifteenth century the exchange of Islamic symbols, as well as material goods and services, reinforced previous linkages among people who shared the Strait of Melaka and Java Sea.

Recently historians have focused on two lines of argument in explaining the penetration of Islam into the island world. One centers on the extraordinary expansion of regional and international maritime trade in the Indian Ocean during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This activity was a result of the lessening use of land-based trade routes following the Mongol invasion of Central and West Asia. At the same time the demand for Southeast Asian spices increased in Europe. Thus an exceptionally cosmopolitan atmosphere emerged in the Strait of Melaka and the Java Sea that was multiethnic. This included traders from south China, Gujarat, south India, Bengal, and the Arabian Peninsula, who were ideologically unified in Islam. Scholarly controversy addresses the identity of Islam’s source -- south India and south China are currently leading contenders. But such debate misses the point: the whole Indian Ocean region had become so culturally fused, its port cities so saturated with overriding Islamic values, that the ethnic identity of particular maritime travelers mattered little.

Currently historians are focusing on the societal networks that emerged as a consequence of, or along with, the heightened trade contacts in the Indonesian archipelago during the second millenium C.E., more than on the quickened pace of commerce as such. In 1512-15, Portuguese traveler Tome Pires reported that foreign merchants in archipelago port towns were accompanied by “chiefly Arab mullas.” These could have been Islamic scholars, Sufi mystics, or preachers. Building on the fragmentary writings left by the earliest Sufis and court-based scholars and chroniclers, one can partially reconstruct the intellectual and spiritual environment of the port-polities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One can also explore the nature of their contacts, both with their archipelago hinterlands and with scholars in India or Arabia. By the painstaking study of who, where, when, and under whose (if anyone’s) patronage these scholars operated, the hope is that we may one day be able to make more meaningful statements about the process of Islamization.

The available sources do allow us to conclude that in this era of economic and ideational development, beginning in the fifteenth century, Strait port-polities more directly interacted with their interiors. In Java, new Islamic north coast ports --notably Demak -- confronted the Hindu-Buddhist hinterland society of the Majapahit polity, with its hierarchically organized social structures, refined literati, elaborate court rituals, revenue-collecting aristocracies, lowland population clusters of rice-cultivating peasants, and neighboring upland hunters and gatherers. But these events were subsequent to upstream and downstream developments in the Melaka Straits region, notably the emergence of the initial Islamic port-polity at Samudra-Pasai on the north Sumatra coast in the thirteenth century.

Here now is the full story that tells of the king who first embraced Islam in this land of Pasai. In the account we have received it is said that . . . it was Pasai that first took to the faith of God and His Prophet. There were two rajas who were brothers . . . each wished to make for himself a city in Semerlanga. [The younger brother] made the first move. He set out with his followers to clear a stretch of jungle. Now in the middle of the jungle there stood a clump of bamboo canes of quite extraordinary thickness. Although the people went on cutting it back they could not clear it. The clump grew up as before. [When the young raja went to cut the bamboo himself a young girl emerged; he took the child home to his wife and raised it as their own] . . . To the child he gave the name Princess Batong. He treated her as a real princess . . . and provided her with an appropriate set of clothes. . . . the raja’s people set to work building . . . a palace and an audience-hall. [When it was completed] the raja went to live in his new city, where he enjoyed his days giving feasts and entertainments to his ministers, his chiefs, and followers. [The second brother miraculously received a male child, who was protected by a huge elephant. The child grew to be a handsome young man, eventually married the Princess Betong, and therein reunited the realm. She had two sons, Merah Silu and Merah Hasum, who departed the court after a prolonged civil war to found the new twin cities of Samudra and Pasai].

The Hikayat Raja Pasai recounts that when the new Samudra-Pasai port-polity came into existence its rulers at first paid reciprocal homage to the rulers of the Barus coastal enclave to their north. They followed this with a marriage alliance with the Perlak rulers to their south. Although these two neighboring port-polities were seen as the new society’s most likely threats (or most among relative equals), Majapahit Java, China, and India were listed as holding enough power to “surely prevail against [us].” The Hikayat ends with an entry that explains the severing of Majapahit’s interests in the Strait. Majapahit sent a fleet of one hundred ships to attack Pasai’s forces. Pasai’s leaders won only by trickery -- and their victory legitimized the succession of Minangkabau authority in the Sumatra upriver hinterland.

Such "remembered" ties to historical figures or places are important source of distinctions in archipelago society. They define "who you are" in a world marked by geographical diversity. Associations with historical figures and places, as well as sacred objects derived from them, define the community. They serve especially as a source of integration and common polity among peoples of numerous ethnicities. Archipelago society, it is argued, defines itself not by shared language, custom, or birth, but by a shared perception of historical experience.

In this regional order, various alliances were assertions of social rather than individual identity. They were statements that either built upon or invalidated past tradition, or rebelled against the contemporary ones. The common thread among these initiatives was the desire to preserve local society. Societal hierarchy was at first not based on purity of religious performance, language used, or social manners, but on a conception of "indigeny." This allowed one community to claim superior status because of historical contacts with a person or center of perceived power, rather than it becoming part of a larger political unit. Real political or economic subordination was not important. What was vital to local statements of legitimacy to rule were ancestral ties that could be confirmed -- as demonstrated by marital exchanges, titles bestowed, and historical treasures received from those of perceived power or from places associated with power. Ancestors were important not in themselves, but because of the status distinctions they initiated. Those who could demonstrate an ancestor's closeness to those of power in the "historical past” could claim that they themselves were worthy of status in the present. For example, the author of the Hikayat Raja Pasai asserts its validity as “that which is owned” by the collective social unit.

Pasai looked to the Java-based Majapahit polity as its collective point of reference. In chronicle references to Majapahit, there is a notable absence of the Majapahit monarch’s personal name -- only inclusive references to the title of the individual who ruled the Majapahit realm with which Pasai interacted. In contrast, the only meaningful time markers are associations with the reign of a specified Pasai monarch. In the several Majapahit episodes there is little precise accounting for the passage of time, except that the events portrayed take place sometime after the beginning of the Samudra-Pasai polity. In the Hikayat Raja Pasai, the local port’s submission to Majapahit’s interests in the Strait is explained to be a result of the unpredictability and vanity of Sultan Ahmad. When Sultan Ahmad refused to welcome a Majapahit diplomatic mission with the expected and appropriate courtesy, Majapahit’s monarch sent a retaliatory military expedition that forced Pasai into a tributary relationship with the Majapahit court. The chronicler’s theme is that local success or failure was a result of a monarch’s initiatives in establishing laws of conduct, which became the basis for meaningful networks of alliance, or lack thereof. In the Hikayat, Majapahit also has a collective territorial identity beyond its ruler. This is not so in Pasai, where the monarch was the source of his society’s self-definitions -- in the mind of the local chronicler, Pasai could not stand alone without its ruler, while the “land of Majapahit” could.

In the Hikayat Raja Pasai the sense of the “magical endowed” ruler is perceived by a Sufi visitor from India, who was said to himself possess supernatural powers:

. . . . overcome by the sanctity of the Sultan’s presence, the [Sufi mystic] fell to the ground in a faint. The Sultan was amazed to see what had happened to him in spite of his deep knowledge of the magic arts.

The Hikayat’s stress is not on a community of the faithful (ummah) governed by law (sharia) as appropriate to Islamic orthodoxy, but on a ruler-centered, ceremonial community. Merah Silu, the first Pasai sultan, is proclaimed to be “God’s Shadow on Earth” by his subjects. He ruled on earth in place of God, as the “shadow of God,” who by his “divine graciousness” (anugerah) created a state of spiritual welfare, peace, and prosperity as his gift to humanity. The Pasai monarch was a saintly figure as appropriate to the Sufi tradition, yet similar to the Buddhist bodhisattva in earlier regional tradition. Through his mystical prowess the sultan realized his essential oneness with the Divine Being, and thus could guide his disciples along a path he had previously walked. In one notable Hikayat episode the Indic yogi, skilled in the magical arts, competes against the Sultan in the performance of miracles. Acknowledging defeat, the yogi falls to the ground in awe of the Sultan’s sanctity, which is called the kermat (Arabic karama), the “magical gift of ‘saints’.” The ruler of the neighboring fifteenth century Melaka polity later acknowledges this same ‘saintly’ prowess in an episode of the Melaka court chronicle, when he sends an Islamic manuscript to Pasai for the Sultan’s explanation.

The Hikayat literature also has a sense of place; empowerment is associated with the place of rule. The chronicle develops an elaborate rationale for the selection of a court site, stressing its magical properties that, when properly drawn upon by the ruler, could enhance the society’s well-being. Prosperity was therefore seen as being the result of the conjunction of person (the ruler) and place (the court). There was no permanent commitment to place, however. Power was centered in the person of the ruler; a court center lost its hegemony during the ruler’s absence. This court-centered place thus enhanced, or even hindered power -- a locale might have harmful spiritual properties that negated the ruler’s potency. Thus, in addition to person and place, possession was the third element of effectual hegemony. Spirits could either roam about, or stay in one place and have an impact on an individual, who became their intermediary. With changing internal and external circumstances it was easy to rationalize why a ruler might move his center of dominion to a new court site that had spiritual attributes that were more conducive to prosperity. For example, in the Hikayat Raja Pasai account the two young brothers, Merah Silu and Merah Hasum, leave, reasoning that the first Semerlanga court had become spiritually polluted after a prolonged civil war:

If we remain in this place we too will share the fate [of Semerlanga] for no good at all can come to us from living here. Let us leave the city and search elsewhere for a good place which we can make our home. . . .

Merah Silu came to a river, where “by the grace of God, he [was] able to turn worms into gold [i.e., it was a place that produced silk].” Later, on a hunting expedition, his dog submits to a magical mousedeer on high ground. Thus he reasons that “this is the right place for me to build a city where my son . . . shall become ruler.”

In the archipelago world reflected in the chronicle literature, when an individual was bestowed with sovereignty (daulat) this individual became the common representative of his community. There were undoubtedly times when the subject population would have liked to dissociate themselves from a particular ruler, but not from the institution of sovereignty. The rulers of Samudra-Pasai were not democratic leaders, but neither were they oppressive dictators. Theory and practice made the ruler dependent on ministers, chiefs, and lesser royalty, as well as their common subjects. In the Hikayat Raja Pasai’s retelling of Samudra-Pasai’s earliest history, at the time of succession there was open competition for the vacant throne. The Royal Audience Hall was the first building constructed in a new court, and the chronicle texts portray this as a sign of openness by the new ruler. Thus in the Hikayat Raja Pasai, successful candidates for kingship, because of their deep sense of community, built palaces with adjacent “Audience Halls” during the competition for power; unsuccessful candidates, due to their personal vanity, conspicuously built only a palace. But there is some question as to how open a forum the royal audiences were. Most of the participants were dignitaries and local chiefs. Although taking advice was highly valued by monarchs and subjects alike, these audiences were intended as a means of keeping the elite in line rather than a model public forum, and acknowledgments of hierarchy loom large in chronicle records of such audiences.

A corps of officers, subject to the chief minister, patrolled night and day in order to check on thieves, on people fighting, people committing adultery, people taking liberties with other men's wives or daughters, and especially people who displayed the symbols of status without permission. The ultimate concern was not only protecting innocent victims, but also guarding against perceived threats to the spiritual, social, and economic order of the whole. Maintaining civil justice was the sovereign's responsibility. Without rulers and moral order there would be no prosperity. Stable succession brought both order and organization. Interregnums brought chaos. Underlying this theme is the assumption on the part of the chroniclers that human society tends toward conflict if unchecked. What was needed to avoid the tendency for strife inherent to all humans was the renunciation of individual power, and the rechanneling of power into the common Islamic society centered in the Sultan.

In one deathbed scene from the Hikayat Raja Pasai the soon-to-be deceased monarch proclaims the problems that result when a ruler ignores his court elite:

. . . . Do not transgress the commandments of God, the Exalted, or the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the Apostle of God. My child, you must not fail to heed well the counsel I am giving you. When there is anything you wish to do you must consult the eldest among your ministers. Do not hastily embark on any course of action.

In another deathbed scene, a dying monarch repeats this warning against the abuse of power, and then concludes by proclaiming the approaching problems of materialism and vanity that eventually resulted in the conquest of Pasai by Majapahit:

. . . do not covet material wealth, for this world is full of vanity. Do not hanker after things that will be of no value to you in the world to come.

In an enduring, well-established traditional center of power there would have been less immediate need for material or this-worldly reward. But the old rules became antiquated as local archipelago society became unstable, as marketplace transactions increasingly dominated society. In this new order, status became based increasingly on external political and economic ties, especially ties to contemporary political or economic (rather than cultural) centers that could redistribute civic favors or tangible rewards to those who became administrative as well as commercial clients. Such new networks of alliance were perceived as a rebellion against past tradition that was based in localized magical prowess. The new order was constantly in a state of flux that was dependent upon a ruler’s capacity to secure resources from external networks for local society, which would materially (rather than spiritually) reward his followers.

Depicting the fourteenth century era of transition, the Hikayat Raja Pasai especially highlights the ceremonial function of cloth. In the Pasai chronicle episodes, cloth was magical. It bestowed vitality, well-being, fertility, and connected the living to the spiritual or ancestral forces. It enhanced the moral and legal obligations that bound partners to transactions. Frequent references to textiles in the Hikayat Raja Pasai chronicle set the stage for important actions, and demonstrate a value judgment on the local population's behalf. Significantly, in the chronicle's account cloth exchanges were an integral part of early Samudra-Pasai’s societal evolution. Above all, cloth was valued above gold or silver, largely because of its role in the differentiation of hierarchy. While those of lesser dignity received gold and silver in gift exchanges, only those of highest status had their dignity proclaimed in presentations of cloth.

In summary, cloth in the Hikayat Raja Pasai assumes importance in six ways:

1. Payments for services. Cloth was personally bestowed by the monarch and honored state elite for services rendered, in payment to those who performed services critical to the court. The honorific cloth presentation was stressed as appropriate reciprocity for valued service on the monarch’s behalf. In one example a man from India came to visit and the monarch “gave him a full set of clothing as was customary” after the man developed gold mines for the monarch. One Majapahit monarch, who was said to possess immense wealth, set the standard and presented clothing to “his ministers, his commanders, his captains, and all the people, to each man according to his rank” after successful military expeditions against the Sumatra coast. Critically, when the Pasai monarch rewarded his followers for services rendered, those of highest status received cloth, while others were awarded gold and silver. When an expedition to Perlak successfully secured a princess to marry Pasai’s ruler, to celebrate the occasion the

. . . raja gave fine clothing to his chiefs, to the needy he presented gold and silver . . . to the state minister were given robes of finest material, and all the [other] people who came with him were rewarded with gold and silver.

The ultimate gift of clothing was that bestowed by the monarch:

. . . [the Sultan] had a chest opened and the clothing taken out of it, so that he could provide his friends, his comrades, and his captains with the finest clothing. . . .

War Booty. Notably, it was the Majapahit ruler, not Pasai’s, who brought back “spoils of victory,” including “objects of every color and clothes of variegated hue.” These he divided into three parts, one for himself (for his own conspicuous display of status as well as the source for future redistribution), one to his ministers, and the third for his troops. The next chronicle passage links this material wealth “in such vast quantities that nobody could count them,” to the Majapahit monarch’s “love of justice:”

. . . [The Majapahit ruler] was famous for his love of justice. The empire grew prosperous. People in vast numbers thronged to [Majapahit]. At this time every kind of food was in great abundance. There was a ceaseless coming and going of people from the territories overseas that had submitted to the king, to say nothing of places inside Java itself . . . . The land of Majapahit was supporting a large population . . . . Food was in plentiful supply.

The chronicler’s point is that material wealth insured Majapahit’s prosperity only when placed in the hands of Majapahit’s capable ruler, who understood the importance of ritualized redistributions of wealth. This sense of “social justice” had more to do with redistributions of war booty that reinforced social hierarchy rather than egalitarianism. The interests of Majapahit’s generalized population were in turn served by the resulting social order, which was the basis for the abundance of food - the repetition of the chronicler’s reference to Majapahit’s plentiful supply of food is notable. In the mind of the Pasai chronicler Majapahit’s success, built in part on the vast store of wealth that its ruler acquired by conquest, is contrasted to the success of Samudrai-Pasai’s rulers, which was achieved through moral (“Islamic”) rule rather than aggressive militarism.

3. Ceremonial display. Cloth is the focal point in descriptions of ceremonial events, which include elaborate references to the clothing and dress of participants. Royal audiences receive extensive attention in the chronicle. These were important displays of clothing and dress that proclaimed the status and rank of those in attendance:

The king ordered the palace to be decorated and the two young princesses to wear dresses of cloth-of-gold embroidered with precious stones . . . and to one daughter (of lesser status) he gave a skirt of silk bandanna cloth, a jacket red in color like the jambu flower, rings studded with gems and ear-pendants . . . [the place made for the most important sister to sit] shows that her status is much above that of her [other] sisters. . . .

In another episode, regalia is sent to Samudra-Pasai from Arabia, via south India, and the Islamic “fakir” who brings the regalia is said to have “donned the clothing appropriate to his position” prior to his instillation of the Sultan. At the coronation, before the assembly of his chiefs who were facing the ritual, sitting in long rows according to their rank, “the Sultan wore his robes of state.”

These “robes of state” included:

. . . a cloth of fine yellow silk, with the back in iridescent colors, the border neatly worked in gold thread with a trellis pattern of . . . gold, the fringe decorated with tinkling bells; a coat shimmering like the rays of the sun . . . ; buttons encased in gold and bespangled with myriads of scarlet gems; a headcloth . . . [and] jewel-encrusted armlets; bracelets in the form of dragons, [their bodies] in seven coils; a kris inlaid with precious stones mounted in a scabbard of gold; a sash held the sword which could flash like lightning. He wore a jeweled guard and had a golden bow slung from his left shoulder . . . his coat flashed in the colors of the rainbow . . . .

4. Diplomatic exchanges. Cloth was the basis of diplomatic initiatives. The exchange of ceremonial cloth was both the dramatic introduction to and climax of the Hikayat's account of diplomatic missions. Once again, reference is made to the standard set by Majapahit when the Majapahit monarch sent a diplomatic mission to Pasai to secure a prince to wed his daughter:

. . . the fleet was decorated with the finest materials presented by the Emperor to the princess; pieces from the king’s regalia, cloths of the finest materials, ornaments of gold, silver, and gems, and costumes of various kinds . . . [were sent].

5. Local mythology. Cloth redefined and "localized" myth. The foremost example of this is the story involving the son of Sultan Ahmad, Tun Abdul Jalil, who was so handsome that the daughter of the King of Majapahit fell in love with his portrait. She selected him out of ninety-three portraits of princes she had commissioned:

. . . if he dressed in Javanese costume he looked like a man of Java. If he dressed in Thai costume he looked like a man of the Thai state. If he wore the costume of India he looked like a man of India. If he wore the costume of Arabia, like an Arab. His renown spread to Java and became known to Princess Gemerenchang [also known as Radin Golah in Malay], daughter of the King of Majapahit. . . . .

These references to Tun Abdul Jalil -- whose versatility in clothing himself enhanced his already notable bearing -- reflect both the material and psychological value of cloth and is a record of the differences in the cloth traditions among the various societies that were active in the Strait as well.

6. Initiating historical change. This noted episode and its cloth references also introduce the tale of Pasai’s fall to Majapahit’s forces. Sultan Ahmad, jealous of his son, has him murdered. When the Princess Gemerenchang, who comes to Pasai on a diplomatic mission to meet the handsome prince, is told of the prince’s death, she is shattered. She prays to God, the Exalted, “I want to be united with Tun Abdul Jalil.” In response, God, the Exalted, sinks her ship and she drowns. Fearing Majapahit’s certain reprisal, Sultan Ahmad breaks every bone in his fingers and then retreats into his hinterland to hide, leaving the palace compound -- but taking with him a core of followers and the royal regalia that would together insure Pasai’s future.

The King of Majapahit sends four hundred ships against Pasai. His forces include supportive troops supplied by all his allied and subordinate polities. Majapahit’s troops occupy Pasai for some time, and carry away significant quantities of booty and prisoners, returning by way of Jambi and Palembang where they also conquer and pillage. These two port-polities then become direct vassals of Majapahit. Pasai, however, after a period of Majapahit occupation, regains its autonomy. But it acknowledges Majapahit’s interests in the Strait -- as expressed in the extended Hikayat proclamation of Majapahit’s glory, quoted above. The Pasai chronicle ends with the symbolic victory of Sumatra’s allied forces over those of Majapahit, which results in the losers “dressing down to the ankles in women’s clothing.” This final reference to clothing is a highly appropriate stage setting in an age in which cloth defined status. Improper dress -- “dressing like women” -- was the extreme indignity and a powerful statement about the loss of personal worth.

An earlier extended study of the historical symbolism of textile exchanges in Southeast Asia explores the archipelago’s indigenous perceptions of the inherent power of cloth, and cloth’s ability to bestow, or mask, power. This article shows that cloth has achieved widespread societal significance by the sixteenth century, when Indic textiles were widely sought after. Similarly, the Hikayat Raja Pasai author understands the power of textiles and their role as marks of social hierarchy, and uses references to cloth to reflect bridges from a more traditional and less interactive societal order. In the Hikayat’s account, ritual feasts and royal audiences still celebrate the generalized reciprocity that was common to a village-based community. But material goods -- the individual’s quest for them, or the desire to secure the privilege of displaying them -- were beginning to predominate in a court-based societal network. The dangers of evolving into a highly personalized and overly obsessive material culture are directly reflected in two key passages. As previously noted, on his deathbed the monarch warns his successor:

. . . do not covet material wealth, for this world is one full of vanity. Do not hanker for things that will be of no value to you in the world to come.

In the case of Pasai, this material culture resulted from Pasai’s role as a source of pepper and as a prominent port-polity in the Strait. Failing in his diplomatic efforts with Majapahit (he was responsible for the death of his son, the intended of Majapahit’s princess who subsequently committed suicide), and facing certain Majapahit reprisal, Sultan Ahmad admits that it was his own vanity that caused him to initiate the murders of his two sons. He asks in despair: “You, my chiefs, why did you not stop me from murdering my sons?” One chief replies with this symbolic riddle of critique that alludes to Sultan Ahmad’s seduction by personal greed:

Whose pepper is it in the shed?

Since from the stems the corns were parted.

Whose place is it to mourn the dead?

You are to blame that they’ve departed.

The “corn from the stems” reference assails the monarch, who stands accused of removing the community’s material resources - pepper as well as his sons -- for his own personal rather than the collective good. That is, he has betrayed the community and his leadership obligations to it. In response to his plea that his followers fulfill what he assumes to be their duty to share in his guilt, he is informed that, since he chose to selfishly behave against the community’s best interests, he should now stand alone in facing the consequences of his actions. In time Majapahit extracts its vengeance upon the entire community, and the Sultan’s individual failure is responsible for this collective harm.

The Hikayat Raja Pasai describes the founding of Samudra-Pasai kingship. Here the chronicle notes that there was a falling out among a number of the elite at the Semerlanga port-polity in northern Sumatra. As a result two brothers, Merah Silu and Merah Hasun, leave their old “state,” and wander until they settle at the mouth of the Pasangan River. However, a quarrel breaks out between the brothers, and Merah Silu leaves, traveling to the headwaters of the Pasangan River upon the invitation of Megat Iskandar, a local chief. There Merah Silu becomes very wealthy, collecting worms that miraculously turn into gold when he boils them. Merah Silu also becomes very popular with the local population. Megat Iskandar, in consultation with his subordinate chiefs, decides that Merah Silu would make a worthy head chief, a raja. This action allows the local population to break their relationship with their former downriver raja, Sultan Maliku’l-Nasar, who promptly attacks Merah Silu’s upstream confederation, only to lose. Merah Silu follows this victory with others and becomes raja over Sultan Maliku’l-Nasar’s former riverine system terrritories.

This is the story of a politically “out” group, as represented by Merah Silu, which is able to gain power by forging new political alliances. One of the most significant aspects of this tale is the dichotomy between upstream and downstream polities. Merah Silu goes upstream from the coast where he receives sovereignty by the recognition and concensus of the existing powers of the hinterland. Once bestowed with acknowledged legitimacy, he leads the forces of the upstream to victory over the coastal sultan and assumes rightful sovereignty, in the eyes of the riverine system population, over the downstream. The Samudra-Pasai ruler, thus, owes his initial legitimacy not to Islam, but to Sumatran tradition, wherein enduring sovereignty was based in the upstream hinterland. This legitimacy is bestowed by group acclamation, which is appropriately followed by the conquest of the coast.

In a similar manner, studies of the Minangkabau populations of Negri Sembilan on the western Malay Peninsula coast, who are of similar heritage, indicate that the leader of the jungle peoples of the upstream was regarded as the original source of political legitimacy and held rights over all the land. Groups of the population who wanted to leave the jungle to settle coastal areas came to the “head chief” (batin) to ask his consent. As holder of hereditary titles, the batin assigned the title penghulu (“territorial chief”) to one of the group and gave him the duty of protecting the people of the community who chose to live “outside” the jungle. Well into the twentieth century the Negri Sembilan batin was still performing rituals of sacred installation, burning incense and ritually bathing penghulu, and was still regarded among the coastal chiefs as the mythical source of their title.

The tale of Merah Silu follows this same pattern. It establishes legitimacy via the proper channels of traditional society. The Hikayat Raja Pasai describes the tribal council’s deliberations:

What shall we do about our friend, Merah Silu? In my opinion it would be a good thing if we made him raja. For, in fact, he is a raja, and he is wealthy. Then we can all have confidence in him . . . .

Thus Merah Silu was a rightful ruler because he had special prowess (“he is, in fact, a raja”) and he was wealthy. Merah Silu’s wealth was due to his magical power that allowed him to turn worms into gold -- this symbolizes the prosperous local silk industry. The text stresses that Merah Silu, who was of the royal lineage of Semerlanga, was indeed rightfully a raja. Being both royal and rich was seemingly proof of Merah Silu’s ability to promote the general well-being of the group. Personal wealth in this instance insured the reciprocities that are paramount in the Hikayat text. Merah Silu was expected to lead his followers to prosperity. He initially did this by leading his hinterland confederacy to victory over surrounding groups, ultimately establishing control over the coast. He then achieved new levels of prosperity through trade with the international commercial community.

Interestingly, the Hikayat Raja Pasai informs us that some hinterland populations in Merah Silu’s confederacy did not like the new coastal habitat, because they were unwilling to convert to Islam, and desired instead to return to the upstream jungle:

There were in the city members of the community who would not embrace the religion of Islam. So they fled to the upper reaches of the river Pasangan. It is for that reason that the inhabitants of the region call themselves Gayau, and have so called themselves up to the present time . . .

Study of the Negri Sembilan Minangkabau indicates similarly that the coming of Islam to the Malay Peninsula caused a permanent split of the inhabitants of the region. Some choose to become Muslims and to live in clearings near the banks of rivers, while others retained their traditional jungle lifestyle.

The Hikayat Raja Pasai notes that contact with the upstream jungle groups was continuous. It describes periodic royal journeys far up the Pasangan River to the populated hinterland. It was this hinterland to which the Pasai ruler looked not only as the birthplace of his legitimacy, but also as the source of trade commodities. The importance of the upstream connections was demonstrated when Thai forces attacked. In the battle, Thai warriors fled upstream and were slaughtered by Samudra-Pasai’s upstream allies. Pasai’s ruler undertook regular upstream ventures, which the Hikayat depicts as holidays that allowed him to inspect villages and hamlets while enjoying himself hunting. On these trips he ritually feasted and participated in “merrymaking” with his upstream allies. In reality these were ceremonial renewals of the alliance between the downstream court and the upstream members of the riverine system community.

Merah Silu was able to make the local reciprocity networks work for him. He was recognized as a raja via the proper channels, and then proved to be more than a normal chief by his personal accomplishments. He next sought a new legitimacy to signify his very special stature, and undertook a search that ultimately led to his conversion, by divine intervention, to Islam.

Although international considerations undoubtedly prompted his conversion, Merah Silu’s decision to convert may be seen as equally motivated by indigenous considerations. Islam was a new source of prestige for Samudra-Pasai’s ruler. Interestingly, the previous individual claiming sovereignty whose power was confined to the coast -- Sultan Maliku’l-Nasar -- seems to have converted, but due to his own lack of initiative, never did receive the upstream’s acknowledgment. Merah Silu, who owed his initial legitimacy to his upstream connections, founded a new state. Merah Silu’s conversion to Islam represented a significant break with the past tradition of local society. The memory of Srivijaya was still a reality during this age, as shown in the Melaka chronicle that drew its inspiration from the Hikayat Raja Pasai, but whose sultans ultimately connected their genealogies to Srivijaya. One may argue that the old networks of the Srivijaya era were somewhat tarnished by the thirteenth century, including the Hindu-Buddhist traditions that were a significant part of earlier proclamations of sovereignty. Islam was likely regarded as a powerful new source of prestige. Yet the Sufi emphasis on magical and mystical possession was consistent with this Hindu-Buddhist past. Islamic conversion also benefited the ruler by allowing him to personally participate in the intellectual discourse that paralleled the commercial exchanges among other Indian Ocean port-polities. The Hikayat acknowledges these international links. Tun Abdu’l-Fazil, an Islamic scholar who became a resident of the Pasai court was:

. . . well read in all branches of knowledge . . . [assumed residency, and] . . . learned men from the west came to put questions to him. But he was never at a loss to answer, so great was his wisdom. His fame spread throughout the West . . . .

The world traveler Ibn Battuta, who visited Pasai in 1345/6, noticed little difference between his reception at Pasai and the one he received at various South Asian Islamic courts. A number of the Pasai court aristocracy even held “Indic titles.”

Yet, according to the Pasai chronicle, these elite with Indic titles depended on the real power of the Pasai domain, the chiefs (hulubalang and penghulu) and leaders of fighting forces (pendikar, pengilima, phalawan, and penggawa) bearing Malay titles. These were the source of the new Pasai ruler’s power, not only in a military sense, but also in the economic reality that made possible the effective flow of commercial commodities into and out of the Samudra-Pasai port. Despite his conversion to Islam, the ruler was still very much a traditional chief, whose power depended equally upon maintaining his internal and external networks.

The introduction of the mystical, less legally oriented Sufi tradition of Islam along the trade channels during the late thirteenth century was critical in promoting Samudra-Pasai’s conversion. Ibn Battuta’s 1345/46 account of Pasai reports that the ruler of Pasai took a lively personal interest in the religious discussion of Sufi theologians resident at his court. As noted above, in the local chronicles as well as in the minds of other archipelago rulers, the Pasai sultan was himself a capable participant in such discourse. The Sufi sect was better able to utilize the existing elements of the pre-Islamic culture that were so significant to the Pasai ruler’s legitimacy, although the conversion process made little real impact on social structure or belief beyond the coast. Acceptance of Islam provided the basis for integration under a common view of proper living, prayer, and Islamic culture. The court elite sponsored literary works and an educational system that was based on Islamic scholarship, which stressed grammar, law, theology, and mysticism. It promoted these common values and had the capacity to permeate society with them, although this diffusion among the hinterland populations would not occur until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

While the chronicle may be less than precise in its record of historical detail, it shows local values and common perceptions in the time of the Islamic conversion -- what the archipelago populations would call "the body beneath the cloth." The Hikayat Raja Pasai highlights the conversion experience as the turning point for the local society, which was previously in turmoil. After that all prosperity came from the leadership of a newly converted chief, who established a successful court-based Islamic polity.

One contemporary scholar proposes that in the past historians have overstressed integrations of the societies of the coasts and hinterlands in the archipelago regions that were initiated by market-based coastal populations, where it is assumed that coastal elites became preeminent over their upriver neighbors. This Malay specialist asserts that it is equally reasonable to assume that hinterland populations had their own reasons to participate in downriver affairs. Upriver populations controlled resources demanded by foreign traders. But with a vast, largely underpopulated, and life-sustaining hinterland behind them, upstream populations did not need to submit to the commercial initiatives of the coastal port-polities. There had to be some incentive other than physical threat to insure their participation in the downstream trade. This same historian posits an upriver desire for the commodities that the coast could supply and documents the demand for imported textiles among Sumatra's Minangkabau.

The present study points to the potential for cultural dialogue as another inducement for this upstream-downstream relationship. Based on the cited evidence, it would seem that coastal elite actively drew upon previous regional history to postulate a common community that included upriver and downriver populations. In an era in which coastal elite needed an upstream relationship to supply a heightened export market, this downstream elite found Islam to be especially supportive of the notion of an inclusive community, in ways that went beyond the Indic tradition that had previously proven useful to local societal definitions.

The Hikayat Raja Pasai documents the local understanding of the unifying capacity of external sources of ideas. The fourteenth and fifteenth century elite selectively promoted Islam, especially the Islamic ideal that the Sultan was the leader of an Islamic spiritual community/society. This in turn reinforced previous notions of magical and possession-based sovereignty. The blending of the two traditions is evident in the conversion episode, in which Merah Silu, the ruler of Pasai, had a dream in which the Prophet spit or urinated in his mouth and thus converted the local ruler. Merah Silu awakes miraculously circumcised and with the ability to recite the Koran (Qur’an). Herein the Pasai monarch is converted by the Prophet in much the same way that the Prophet himself received the message of God from the Archangel Gabriel. In theory, thus, the Pasai sultan is subordinate to God (and the Prophet) alone, and not to any mortal. Shortly after his conversion, a Muslim scholar comes by boat to teach the ruler about the new faith. But as he provides instruction it is clear that Merah Silu already understands the message of Islam, and thus the two enter into a dialogue rather than Meru Silu being subordinate to the scholar.

In addition to these assertions of local Islamic authority, Pasai’s rulers also claimed that they were the legitimate rulers as the heirs to Majapahit and its traditions, especially to the Majapahit’s spiritually empowered, hierarchical kingship. The ruler’s capacity to present himself as empowered by these external connections increased the likelihood of local acceptance of the downriver court among populations in the upstream "hinterland" who had had no need for regular interaction before. Previously the coastal population's only concern was that the upstream swidden groups should not raid their settlements and that they provide periodic supplies of upstream jungle products for export. Both of these concerns were critical to downstream security and subsequent productivity. By the end of the fifteenth century, however, Sumatra’s downstream port-polities found that they needed to regularize upstream cooperation. This was necessary because they wanted to extend their commercial pepper cultivation to the fertile lands in the domain of the upriver populations. They could do this either by moving downstream populations into the upstream, or by expanding cash crops among the indigenous clusters of the upstream dwellers.

These new upstream-downstream potentials for relationship were also brought about by the enhancement of the marketplace. It offered the opportunity for upstream populations to secure cloth and other culturally valuable commodities in exchange for their pepper and produce. This study places less stress, however, on the economic gains that this new international market rendered, and more on the social and cultural needs of an evolving upstream-downstream society. Imported textiles assumed significance as marks of social distinction. Thus in the Hikayat Raja Pasai the local society is not seduced by the marketplace. Instead it moves from an order based on isolated population clusters to a more integrated public. This new civilization is defined by realm-wide networks in which Samudra-Pasai’s new Muslim rulers were the source of societal order in an emerging Islamic moral community.

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