Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c14.t4.88

v2.c14.t4.88

There are many other evidences to testify to the commercial greatness of Malacca and its untold wealth. But we need not pause to refer to them at length. We may next pass on to describe the part played by this rich and powerful city as a stronghold of Islam, and a centre of propaganda of that faith in the Far East. An inscription from Trengganau, dated in 1326-7 (or 1386-7) A.D., proves that Islam had already obtained a footing in that state.² But evidently it did not make any substantial progress in Malay Peninsula until the kings of Malacca took up the cause in right earnest. We have already seen how the second king married a Muhammadan lady and himself adopted the new faith. Although it is likely, as we have seen above, that he was followed by two Hindu kings, under his son Muzafar Shah the new faith was rapidly extended, partly by force, and partly by persuasion. When he defeated the kings of Pahang, Kampar, and Indragiri, he converted them to Islam by force and married them to three daughters of his brother. A number of Muhammadan merchants from Gujarat and Persia settled in Malacca, and, with the patronage of the king, these became powerful instruments of conversion. Duarte Barbosa says that ‘the Moors of the town and foreign Moors established their trade in the city, in which they increased so much in wealth, that they revolted with the country and caused the neighbouring inhabitants to turn Moors and they set up a Moorish king over them’.³ The last statement may refer to the setting up of Muzafar Shah, in preference to other Hindu claimants, or it may be a general view, held in later days, to explain the conversion of the kings of Malacca to the Muhammadan faith. The following passage in the account of Jean de Barros clearly indicates that Malacca was a strong proselytising centre of the new faith. "At the instigation of the Moors of Persia and Gujarat who had settled at Malacca for purposes of trade, the people were converted to the sect of Muhammad. The conversion rapidly spread among different nations, and this infernal pest of Islam began to be propagated, not only in the neighbourhood of Malacca, but also at Sumatra, Java, and in all the islands situated round these countries."