‘Strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’_ The sayyid in eighteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia

8/4/2019 Strangers and stranger-kings_ The sayyid in eighteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia

1/17

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (2009), 40: 567-591

Copyright The National University of Singapore 2009

DOI: 10.1017/S0022463409990075 (About DOI) Published online: 2009

Table of Contents - Volume 40 - Special Issue 03 (The origins of the Southeast Asian Cold War)

Research Article

Strangers and stranger-kings: The sayyid in eighteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia

Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells

Abstract

Sayyidistrangers and stranger-kings, borne on the eighteenth-century wave of Hadhrami migration to the Malay-Indonesian region, boosted

indigenous traditions of charismatic leadership at a time of intense political challenge posed by Western expansion. The extemporary

credentials and personal talents which made for sda exceptionalism and lent continuity to Southeast Asian state-making traditions are

discussed with particular reference to Perak, Siak and Pontianak. These case studies, representative of discrete sda responses to specific

circumstances, mark them out as lead actors in guiding the transition from the last stand of autonomies to a new era of pragmatic

collaboration with the West.

Footnotes

Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, Life Member, Clare Hall, Cambridge, was Professor of Asian History, University of Malaya. Correspondence

in connection with this paper should be addressed to: [email protected] or Serendip, Illington, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 1RP. This is

a revised version of a paper originally presented at a workshop on Stranger-kings in Southeast Asia and elsewhere held in Jakarta in June

2006. The author is grateful to KITLV, Leiden; ARI, the National University of Singapore; LIPI, Indonesia; and IIAS, Leiden, for their invitation

and joint sponsorship of my participation.

The pre-eminent stranger sayyid

The sda (plural for sayyid) of Hadhrami Arab origin exerted an influence vastly disproportionate to their size as a community in maritime

Southeast Asia.1 Whether immigrant or locally born creole (muwallad), they shared an Alawi identity2 based on claims of descendence from

he Prophet Muhammad, which set them apart as non-autochthonous and, hence, foreign. This paper sets out to understand the

pre-eminence of the Hadhrami sda using the conceptual model of Southeast Asia's men of prowess, coterminous with the more broadly

observed phenomenon of stranger adventurers and stranger-kings.3

The status and religious authority of the sda ideally fitted them to the role of stranger-kings to a degree unmatched by other individuals or

communities. Their sustained socio-political influence over time was in marked contrast to the sporadic rise and fall ofparvenus of other

origins. Consider the meteoric rise and fall of the Persian merchant and court favourite, Aqa Muhammad, or the Greek Phrakhlang (minister of

rade and foreign affairs) Constantine Phaulkon during the reign of King Narai of Ayutthaya (r. 165688).4 The kingdom's Chinese merchant

elite did better. A Teochiu who married a Thai rose to be the illustrious ruler Phraya Taksin (r. 176782), but at the cost of his Chinese cultural

identity.5 Again, in the Netherlands Indies, Dutch administrators in their role as arbiters and adjudicators in conflict resolution resonated with

one of the fundamental aspects of the stranger-king phenomenon.6 Yet, their lack of indigenous blood ties through marriage a key feature

of stranger-kings sets them apart as aliens. Even the Bugis under-kings (yang di-pertuan muda) of Riau,7 who bore every mark of physical

prowess and charisma that distinguished the archetypical stranger-king and married into the Malay royal house, were excluded from the

sacred role of kingship.8 In contrast, a sayyidi stranger who, by marriage, could gain the title of tengku (Malay prince) and a place within the

sanctum of Malay power, was a potential stranger-king.

Foreignness, political genius and marriage alliances with the indigenous ruling elite were shared features of immigrant adventurers within the

international trading world of Southeast Asia. Nonetheless, exclusive religious status and the inferred cultural and social standing accounted

for sda exceptionalism. It enabled a sayyidof talent and enterprise to seal politically influential marriages so as to emerge as a stranger-king

with the ambiguous identity of a stranger-kinsman, simultaneously outsider and insider.

The preliminary section of this paper situates the sayyidstranger within the context of Southeast Asia's man of prowess. The discussion

hen focuses on the high noon of sda activity in eighteenth-century state-making in the resource nodes of Perak, Siak and Pontianak. The

sayyidi status of the respective al-Faradz, al-Syihab and al-Qadiri lineages in these three polities enhanced their credibility, facilitating their

access to royal blood lines and interior resources. The broad spectrum of the sayyidi personality, which varied from extemporary piety and

Cambridge Journals Online - Fulltext - undefined http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFull

of 17 Thursday, 11 August, 2011 09:23


2/17

humanity to extreme violence and despotism, was colourfully refracted through the prism of Southeast Asian state formation. Their discrete

response as strangers or stranger-kings to particular conditions of time and place whether in the form of resistance or accommodation

made a singular contribution to the last stand of indigenous power and prestige preceding the region's transition to colonial rule.9

The stranger as man of prowess

O.W. Wolters has emphasised the pivotal role of the men of prowess in early Southeast Asian state formation. These extraordinary persons

manifested qualities of achievement and leadership based on the cult of Shiva, borne on the wave of Indian religious and cultural influence.10

This externally sourced genius is identifiable with the stranger-king phenomenon, which Marshall Sahlins associates with exotic origins,spiritual superiority, physical prowess and charisma, all passports to marriage with indigenous women of rank.11

The metaphor of the powerful cultural broker from afar, following the path of trade to lay the foundations of supra-village leadership and

authority, informed the foundation myths of Southeast Asian polities. The origins of f irst-century Funan, progenitor of the early Southeast

Asian state, are encapsulated in the legend of Kaundinya, the Brahman who married a local naga princess, illustrating the synthesis between

Indian and indigenous cultures.12 In fact, fundamental features of Southeast Asian rulership privileged the foreign aspirant in a number of

ways, especially the prevalence of cognatic kinship over lineage and the function of rulers as spiritual heads and religious teachers.13

In the early modern Islamic period, the foreigner as charismatic dynastic founder is articulated in the hybrid myth of Iskandar Zulkarnain

borrowed from the Alexander romance. According to one version, his three sons became rulers respectively of China, Sumatra and Rum

(Turkey).14 In the Malay chronicle Sejarah Melayu, Demang Lebar Daun, the founder of the Malay kingdom of Palembang, abdicated in favour

of a descendant of Iskandar Zulkarnain who appeared at the sacred mount of Bukit Siguntang Mahameru.15 These myths established a

powerful link between the purveyors of Islam from afar and state formation.16

The wali sanga (council of Islamic holy men/saints), precursors of Giri's illustrious priest-kings and progenitors of Muslim rule and political

culture in Java played a variety of roles as traders, teachers, legalists and warriors.17 According to one tradition, the origin of the wali(14

instead of the widely accepted nine), is traced to Hadhrami genealogical sources.18 Though the validity of this claim has been questioned,19

he sda are imaged as pioneers in the transmission of Islam also elsewhere in the Archipelago.

The Sejarah Melayu associates the arrival of a sayyid, Abd Aziz from Jedda, with Melaka's conversion to Islam in c. 1400.20 The sayyid

foreigner is furthermore depicted as harnessing the power of Islam to the interest of ruler and state. During the reign of Sultan Muzafar Syah

(d. c. 1459), a sayyidis believed to have saved the city from imminent invasion by a Siamese prince, miraculously killed by a bow shot in

distant Melaka.21 In Perak, the saint Sayyid Jamalu'llah al-Hadziri is attested to have introduced the Perak Law Code in accordance with

Islamic jurisprudence. Ranked with the royalty, he was buried beside the ruler and his consort. Upholding the family's reputation, his son

Sayyid Husayn al-Faradz served as Sultan Muzafar Syah's (r. 152849) religious teacher.22 In Aceh, the title of Syeikh al-Islam, which Sultan

Iskandar Thani (r. 163741) conferred on the Sufi muwalladfrom Gujarat, Nur al-Din al-Raniri, acknowledged his theological authority.23

Distant origins and the association of sda with religious teachers and holy men connected them with spiritually endowed Southeast Asian big

men who commanded access to power. The association of kingship with magic and the recruitment by rulers of outsiders gifted withshamanistic and spiritual powers to guarantee the efficacy of kingly status were distinctly Southeast Asian traditions.24Sda foreigners

bearing mystic soul stuff married indigenous royalty by virtue of the flexibility of the Southeast Asian concept of cognatic kinship. Such

alliances between the wali sanga and local royalty formed the bedrock of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Muslim states of the north coast

of Java.25

By the second half of the seventeenth century, indigenous states under the threat of Dutch economic and political ascendance sought fresh

sources of spiritually ordained power for revitalising leadership. Contacts with Mecca and hospitality to foreign clerics, jurists, scholars and

merchant-predicants at the Malay-Indonesian harbour-capitals expressed a clear religious bias which favoured the sda. Alawi ulama

(singular alim) and awliy'(saints), some of whom were elevated to the rank of habib, appear to have had a significant role in the political life

of Southeast Asia.26Sayyidand syarif27 were among saints, miracle workers and clerics who developed a compelling attraction among a

people seeking new sources of strength and direction in the throes of the economic crisis at the end of the Age of Commerce.28

In the main theatre of power politics in the Straits of Melaka, the opportunity for leadership was readily seized by outsiders of outstanding

alent among the newly arrived Hadhrami and Bugis migrants.29

In contrast to the seizure of power by the latter, sda with their wide influenceand spiritual capital were readily recruited by beleaguered local rulers to help shore up the moral and material structures of statehood. The

ide of eighteenth-century opportunistic Arab migration was mythologised around the lives of four sda scholar-adventurers from Hadhramaut.

Able to use their ascribed religious status and personal talents, they infiltrated dynastic bloodlines to take centre stage in affairs of state. As

J.M. Gullick has pointed out, although it was difficult for a Malay peasant to enter the ruling class, [a]n immigrantadventurer could more easily

win acceptance as a member of the ruling class. His claim to aristocratic status in his own country could not easily be checked. A Sumatran

sayyid, in particular, could always make a place for himself among the ruling class of a Malay State. In recognition of their special status, the

sda, in common with the aristocracy, state officials and Islamic clerics, were exempted from kerah or corve. Moreover, they bore the special

mark of distinction as the only community of non-indigenes who were ranked in status with royalty, to whom they were commonly related by


2 of 17 Thursday, 11 August, 2011 09:23


3/17

marriage.30

Perak's stranger-kings: Religion, magic and authority

Spiritual mentors

Perak, a former dependency of Melaka, shared a common ethnogenesis with the rest of the Malay world. Richly endowed with elephants and

in, the mainstay of eighteenth-century trade in the Bay of Bengal, the state reached its apogee under the reign of Sultan Iskandar Syah (r.

175265) who wore the proud epithet Zulkarnain or the two-horned.31 Previous vassalage under Aceh, followed by close commercial linkswith Muslim Coromandel, suggests constant renewal of religious life in Perak, replicated during the era of eighteenth-century Hadhrami

migration.

During the mid-eighteenth century the religious inf luence of the al-Faradz represented a countervailing source of internal strength in the face

of Bugis challenge and alliance with the infidal Dutch. Sultan Iskandar Syah, who co-opted members of the family as religious teachers,

ministers and shamans, himself married a daughter of Sayyid Jalaludin, purportedly a fif th-generation descendant of the saint Jamalu'llah and

hirtieth from the Prophet. A brother-in-law by the same marriage, Sayyid Abubakar, a favourite of Sultan Iskandar, rose to great prominence.

Another brother-in-law, Sayyid Hassan, married the ruler's sister and an issue of this alliance, Raja Syarif Bisnu alias Sultan Muda Bisnu, in

urn married a daughter of Sultan Iskandar.32 By means of these marital ties the al-Faradz bloodline irreversibly merged with that of the Perak

ruling dynasty. As the only group of outsiders acknowledged as equals by the Perak royalty, the al-Faradz soon gained ascendance over the

distinguished Megat family of Minangkabau origins.33

As men of intellect and high birth, the sda strangers provided an important counterweight to the power of the traditional chiefs. Thus, Sultan

Iskandar appears to have used the al-Faradz for restoring stability following the civil war between Sultan Muhammad and his brother SultanMuzafar and the consequent rift between hulu (upriver) and hilir(down river) territories.34 When the Bendahara (prime minister and

commander-in-chief) from the Megat family was killed during a trip to trap elephants, Sultan Iskandar seized the opportunity to appoint Sayyid

Abubakar to fill the vacancy. As the highest ranking minister within the Orang Besar Empator council-of-four, the Bendahara managed the

personal affairs of the ruler. Viewed probably as an impartial outsider , he was secretary and administrator of the royal household and was

entrusted with the office of revenue collector, receiving in return taxes from the Kinta River.35 Sultan Iskandar also appointed Sayyid

Abubakar's brother Sayyid Husayn as Menteri di-Bota (menteri at Bota, Kinta), in the tin-rich Kinta area. As the ruler's trusted servants, the

sda, like counterpart stranger communities elsewhere in Southeast Asia, helped steer the state in the direction of economic prosperity.

Sayyid Abubakar eventually lost the position of Bendahara only to become Orang Kaya Menteri(minister of standing).36 He was responsible

for resolving disputes between princes and chiefs and matters concerning law and custom, tasks the sda customarily fulfilled. Rights of

revenue collection were withheld from the incumbent, possibly as a safeguard against conflict of interest; instead, he received a personal

appanage in the form of Cegar Galah. Later inherited by Sayyid Syamsuddin, Sayyid Abubakar's son and successor, Cegar Galah remained

with the al-Faradz family.37

Situated north of the capital of Kuala Kangsar, Cegar Galah placed the Arab family within easy reach of Ulu Pelus, a valuable source of

elephants, which figured next in importance to tin in Perak's international trade. The association of the al-Faradz with the extraction of

hinterland resources was in character with the reputation of the Hadhramis as traders in forest produce since pre-Islamic times.38 The Arab

quest for Southeast Asia's natural resources, which originated in the seventh century and peaked around the tenth was given a fresh boost by

eighteenth-century Hadhrami trade and immigration.39 Botanical, pharmaceutical and magico-religious knowledge associated with the trade in

forest produce a feature of Arab expertise gave the sayyidi adventurer a distinct advantage.40

As elsewhere in the region, Perak's stranger entrepreneur relied on the quest for upriver forest resources for capital accumulation. The sda,

who unlike the court-bound Malay princes were as much at home exploring the resources of the forest interior as they were conducting state

affairs, successfully harnessed indigenous herbal traditions, supernatural beliefs and shamanistic skills to their spiritual status. Deeply rooted

in the Malay psyche was the belief in the ability of sda to drive out pestilence and disease, evoke good fortune and cast spells.41 These

qualities ideally fitted a sayyidfor the prestigious post of Sultan Muda or state shaman. Wilkinson, who has traced the origin of this office to

Melaka, describes the Sultan Muda as a king-coadjutor whose duties were entirely in accordance with the magico-religious powers ascribed

o strangers.42

As Wilkinson has put it, Any stranger is credited with greater magic than life-long acquaintances.43

The office of Sultan Muda, associated with spiritual, herbal and shamanistic powers (ilmu pawang) was conferred by Sultan Iskandar on his

nephew and son-in-law, Raja Bisnu, son of Sayyid Hassan.44 As state medicine-man and shaman, Raja Bisnu assumed the title of Sultan

Muda Ala'ud-din, who in the image of a spiritually potent stranger alleviated sickness within the royal family and annually evoked the

guardian genii of the country and blessed the regalia and holy musical instruments. The sorcerer-sultan also officiated triennially at a feast

conducted in the upriver wilderness, at the al-Faradz base of Cegar Galah. Here the bad spirits were coaxed to board a raft, which was then

escorted downstream before it was cut adrift into the sea.45 The title of Sultan Mudasuperseded that of Raja Muda (young ruler, heir to the

hrone) when the heir apparent was a sayyid, the spiritual and shamanistic attributes of the former potentially augmenting his claims to political

succession. A case in point was the nephew and heir presumptive of the childless eleventh ruler, a man of Hadhrami origin from Siak who as




4/17

Sultan Muda subsequently became Sultan Alauddin Mugayat Syah (r. 172028).46

Indelible bloodlines

The interpenetration of the royal and the sayyidi lineages through marriage remained a central motif of the stranger phenomenon in Perak.

Among the sda, those who married into royalty assumed the princely titles of Raja and Tengku while still retaining their sayyidi status. In

contrast to marriage on the distaff side restricting the union of syarifah to sayyid, the sda of the al-Faradz clan employed the freedom of

exogamous marriage to penetrate the rival Mandeling Megat clan. Sayyid Mahmud, a grandson of Sayyid Syamsuddin, acquired by marriage

o a Megat the prestigious office of Orang Kaya Besar. The post, which combined the duties of royal treasurer, secretary and chamberlain andhad originally been held by the Megat, was transferred to the al-Faradz with the endorsement of Sultan Ismail (r. 187174), himself of

Hadhrami extraction. Sayyid Ja'afar, who subsequently inherited the post, enjoyed the revenue rights in Pecat again an important elephant

area in the hulu as well as exemption from tolls at the mouth of the Perak River.47

The mid-nineteenth-century civil war in Perak, associated with the rivalry over tin, offered the ideal opportunity for a sayyidto emerge as a

full-fledged stranger-king in the form of Sultan Ismail, the son of Sayyid Hitam of Siak and Raja Mandak, a daughter of Sultan Ahmaddin (r.

17861806). His entry into Perak politics demonstrated the trans-regional receptivity of sda strangers and their socio-political mobility. Raja

Ismail gained insider status through marriage with a daughter of Sultan Ja'afar (r. 185765), qualifying him for the office of Bendahara.48 On

he death of Sultan Ali , he usurped the rulership (r. 187174) in the tradition of stranger-kings, superseding the superior claims of the Raja

Muda, Raja Abdullah.49

So powerful an influence did Raja Ismail exert that the new British administration's efforts to demote him to the position of Sultan Muda were

frustrated by his refusal to surrender the royal regalia for the formal installation of Sultan Abdullah (r. 187476). Abdullah's subsequent

banishment for his alleged implication in the murder of Resident J.W.W. Birch in November 1875 only returned to centre stage another

member of the al-Faradz clan in the form of the British protg, Raja Yusuf.50 His mother was Raja Perempuan Ngah Aminah, a great-

granddaughter of Sayyid Hassan and Sultan Abdullah Mohammed Syah (r. 185157).51 Appointed regent in 1877, Raja Yusuf became Sultan

Yusuf Syafuddin Muzzafar Syah (r. 188687), bearing testimony to the unquestioned credibility the sayyidstranger enjoyed among

indigenes.

The stranger-kings of Siak: Kinship and violence

The centrality of marriage

The Alawi way, transmitted through diasporic genealogical networks, linked the al-Faradz with the al-Syihab in Siak through the marriage of

Siti Hitam, a sister of Sayyid Jalalu'd-din, to Sayyid Ibrahim panjang hidung (long nose),52 whose son Sayyid Uthman became a prominent

figure in Siak politics. In contrast to the al-Faradz who were engaged wholly in civil and spiritual affairs, the Syihab, in common with other

Hadhrami strangers, exploited the prevailing conditions of civil war to harness violence to prowess and kinship so important in Southeast

Asian state making.53 It meant setting aside, like other Hadhrami adventurers in the Indian Ocean, the original sayyidi principle of not bearing

arms.54

Within the rapidly changing eighteenth-century political landscape of the Melaka Straits, Johor as the scion of a far-flung Malay empire was

he object of conflicting claims and challenges. Following the murder of Sultan Mahmud in 1699, Raja Kecik from the Minangkabau court in

Pagaruyung, who claimed to be his posthumous son, made an unsuccessful bid for the throne. This created a rift between Raja Kecik's

dataran (riverine and coastal territorial) base in Siak and the kepulauan (the island and maritime) component of the Johor empire. When Raja

Kecik died in 1746, the conflict deepened with the long-drawn-out rivalry for succession between his two sons, Raja Mahmud and Raja Alam,

who respectively headed rival Malay and Minangkabau factions. Into this epic struggle moved Hadhrami strangers, representing the

undercurrents of a new and powerful force.

Attracted by the resources and commercial potential of Siak, Hadhramis of talent and enterprise proved indispensable for the processes of

state building. The initial victor, Sultan Mahmud (r. 174660), co-opted the support of a certain Sayyid Muhammad Ba Husain, a prominent

merchant of the al-Saqqaf family who was much loved by his people.55 The sayyid, an experienced trader with a shrewd appreciation of

inland resources, was appointed Syahbandarat Senapelan, strategically placed to secure the Minangkabau gold and tin trade of Petapahan in

defiance of the Dutch.56 Sayyid Muhammad's commercial activities formed part of a growing network of Arab trade in the archipelago.57

Sultan Mahmud also drew on the physical valour and moral rectitude of a charismatic stranger in the form of Sayyid Umar, the son of Sayyid

Muhammad, popularly known as Tuan Besar(chief). When Sultan Mahmud's faction, frustrated by Dutch commercial restrictions, massacred

he VOC garrison at Pulau Guntung in 1759, it was Sayyid Umar who performed the heroic act of stabbing the Dutch agent.58 On hand also

was Syeikh Salim, a distinguished theologian and a committed opponent of the Dutch who, with a fitting aphorism ever on his lips, lent spirit

o the attacking forces.59

Foremost among the Hadrami strangers, however, was the Syihab scholar turned trader and warrior, Sayyid Uthman, who helped Raja Alam




5/17

wrest power from Raja Mahmud. According to Alawi genealogical folklore, he was one of the four pioneers from Tarim who headed the

eighteenth-century wave of Hadhrami migration to Southeast Asia. Following a period of tutelage under Muhammad ibn Hamid in Malabar, the

four sailed east from Calicut and, on reaching the archipelago, fanned out in different directions.60 According to Winstedt's genealogy,

however, Sayyid Uthman's father Sayyid Ibrahim was already settled in Siak and, unlike many sayyidwho married outside the community,

ook for his wife Siti Hitam, a woman of equal rank and a sister of Sayyid Jalalu'd-din al Faradz of Perak.61 Sayyid Uthman's standing as a

member of a distinguished Alawi family was enhanced by his own experience and knowledge as a trader based in Batu Bahara where Raja

Alam had his temporary headquarters. Calculating on the overall importance of the Minangkabau trading community in the political economy

of Siak, Sayyid Uthman placed his stakes on Raja Alam's illustrious maternal connections with Pagarruyung. By marrying a daughter of Raja

Alam, Tengku Embong Badaria, whose maternal grandfather was the Bugis warrior Daeng Perani, Sayyid Uthman acquired a prominent placewithin the Malay-Minangkabau-Bugis ruling elite. He was conferred the princely title of Tengku and, revered as an Alawi, was popularly

known as Tengku Sayyid.62

From Raja Alam's perspective as well, the alliance with Sayyid Uthman was potentially valuable. Apart from his skills as a warrior, Sayyid

Uthman's impeccable credentials as the maternal grandson of Sayyid Jalalu'd-din added credit to Raja Alam's cause. Raja Alam could rely on

Sayyid Uthman's loyalty as a son-in-law, as well as his inf luence as a sayyid, for courting Bugis support against Sultan Mahmud.63

Marauding and political capital

Within the trade-oriented environment of maritime Southeast Asia, freebooting was a political affair and an accepted means of resource and

power accumulation while simultaneously demonstrating prowess.64 Consider the years preceding Parameswara's founding of Melaka in

1402 when the founder-ruler is alleged to have lived on what his people managed to plunder from enemies. Despite this, he was etched in

memory as a great knight and a very warlike man. 65 Similarly, Sayyid Uthman's buccaneering activity had the ring of heroism. The charisma

of the stranger sayyidraised freebooting to a new level of intensity and violence.66

It earned him popularity with theAnak Raja, thedistribution of spoils potentially augmenting the size and strength of his following. As an outsider with no legitimate claims to the throne,

Sayyid Uthman's display of power and charisma through ruthless acts, imaged as valour, was a necessary means of gaining political

validation.67

A shared love of maritime adventure, closely allied with state building, served as a strong bond between Raja Alam and Sayyid Uthman.68

Sayyid Uthman's marauding skills, boosted by British arms and ammunition distributed in Riau, were used to bring to heel political and

commercial rivals within the wider arena of the Straits. According to a report of 1760, Sayyid Uthman was sighted off the coast of Selangor, in

command of a well-manned fleet comprising six ships, equipped with heavy cannon and rentaka (swivel guns) and well supplied with guns

and gunpowder purchased from the British.69 Dutch ships and east Sumatran vessels trading with Melaka were obvious targets of violence

hat disrupted vital rice supplies to the port.70 Tin-rich Perak, identified as a Dutch ally and a commercial competitor, was also terrorised.71

These acts were inspired by the twin objectives of undermining the Dutch alliance with Raja Mahmud and acquiring goods and captives as

booty. Sayyid Uthman's acts of maritime violence, committed both independently and in company with Raja Alam, formed part and parcel of a

wider agenda that ultimately brought victory over Raja Mahmud.72

As an outsider and a sayyid, customarily acknowledged as adjudicator and diplomat, Sayyid Uthman served as Raja Alam's chief mediator.

At the same time, he shared with other Arabs the reputation as good friends and very dangerous enemies.73 A shrewd military strategist, he

contributed to Raja Ismail's defeat in 1761 by feigning friendship with the enemy, only to spy on them.74 Once Raja Alam was installed as

ruler, Sayyid Uthman collaborated in the business of territorial and commercial integration, for which his early years of adventurism served him

well. A man of talent and charisma, he capitalised on the interlinked activity of trade and marauding to build an extensive network of influence

on the commercially prosperous east coast.75 While based at Batu Bahara, he had forged important links with the neighbouring commercial

settlements of Asahan and Deli.76 These early connections enabled him to play a key role as Prime Minister and Panglima Besar(military

commander), extending Siak's suzerainty from Tamiang in the north to Panei in the south.77 The Panglima Besar's awesome personality and

reputation easily won over the compliance of the east coast settlements with Siak's demands for regular tribute and corve, in addition to

assistance with vessels and manpower in times of war.78 Siak's rulers appear to have gained, for the first time, reasonable control over trade

along the east coast.

Sayyid Uthman's reputation, military skills and political acumen would have proved equally important for Raja Alam's task of integrating the

core regions of the Siak and Kampar river valleys and their coastal mashes. To secure trade along the Siak River, the capital was shifted fromMempura to Senapelan (Pekanbaru), closer to the prosperous Minangkabau market town of Patapahan.79 Control established over the

adjacent Kampar River centred at Pelalawan gained direct access to the Minangkabau heartland of Lima Puluh. The interior resources of gold

and tin complemented the marine wealth of Bukit Batu, overlooking the coastal marshes of the Bengkalis at the heart of Siak's rich fishery and

naval and maritime base. Neither the ruler-biased VOC accounts, nor the raja-centred Malay chronicles give due recognition to the crucial role

of the stranger in Raja Alam's project. However, the core areas of the Siak and Kampar Rivers, tightly administered by the royalty and nobility

of which the stranger element was an integral part, became ultimately the locus of the Syihab dynasty founded by Sayyid Uthman. Sayyid

Uthman remained a key figure in Siak politics under Raja Alam's son and successor, Raja Muhammad Ali Muazzam Syah (r. ?176579).80 A

stranger-kinsman to the last, his interment beside Raja Alam, in the grounds of the royal mosque in Senapelan, was an honour comparable

o that accorded to the stranger Sayyid Jamalu'llah al-Hadziri in Perak.81




6/17

Stranger as outsider-insider

Like his father Sayyid Uthman, Sayyid Ali's political rise was prefaced by prowess displayed as maritime violence. Apart from extending Siak's

maritime power in the Straits, Sayyid brought the Syihab to the forefront of political influence by gaining control over internal markets and the

flow of goods between coast and interior.82 Apart from the customary exemption of sda from taxes and tolls, the Syihab as political insiders

would have had an advantage over other Arab traders in the upriver markets. A letter carried by Sayyid Ali's brother Sayyid Abd al-Rahman to

he Dutch in Melaka stated the Siak ruler's decision to transfer the existing privileges of the Chinese gold traders at Patapahan to the Arabs,

probably through Syihab leverage.83

Where civil war had failed to resolve the factional conflict in Siak, Sayyid Ali shrewdly accommodated to the formula adopted for peace and

reconciliation by his uncle, Raja Muhammad Ali, by means of reinforcing familial ties. The latter's marriage to Raja Mahmud's daughter Tengku

Ambang Besar facilitated the restoration of her brother Raja Ismail as Sultan (r. 177981). To similarly secure his own position, Sayyid Ali

married a daughter of Raja Mohamed Ali, reaffirming Syihab connections with the Minangkabau interior and coastal peripheries (rantau

Minangkabau) that crucially underpinned Siak's geopolitics.84 In a corresponding alliance with the rival faction, he also married Tengku Sadia,

a daughter of Tengku Musa and grand-daughter of ex-Sultan Raja Mahmud, while his brother Abd al-Rahman married her sister.85 Through a

hird marriage with Tengku Mandak, a grand-daughter of Raja Haji, Sayyid Ali affirmed connections with the powerful Bugis line at Riau.86

Described by the Dutch Commander J.P. van Braam as a quick-witted and intrepid prince,87 Sayyid Ali took advantage of the stability at the

capital and of Muhammad Ali's political patronage to use piracy as a potent means of resource and power accumulation for enhancing the

Syihab political image. More than mere acts of raiding, Sayyid Ali's acts of violence, supported by his brothers Sayyid Abd al-Rahman and

Sayyid Alwi (Tengku Lung Putih), were entrenched in a political agenda for containing Dutch influence in Perak and Selangor.88 At one and

he same time, using Raja Muhammad Ali's alliance with the VOC for the procurement of arms, Sayyid Ali and the Siak princes attacked and

raided vessels in the Straits with the view to undermining the trade of Riau and curbing the independence of dependencies such as Asahan.89

Syihab charisma won the support of a new maritime force in the form of the formidable slave-raiding Iranun of the Sulu Archipelago,

strategically based at Retih in east Sumatra. Filling the vacuum left by the enfeebled Orang Laut after the fall of Riau in 1784, the Iranun

helped to extend the reach and ferocity of Syihab raids.90 In 1787, Sayyid Ali personally led the raid on Banka for tin and, two years later,

used Kedah's grievances against Siam to attack Singgora (present-day Songkhla), returning with a rich booty of gold and silver.91 It was from

Bukit Batu that the abortive grand Malay-Iranun alliance against Perak and Penang set sail in 1791, headed by Sayyid Ali's brother-in-law, the

Yamtuan Muda (young ruler, junior ruler) Raja Endut.92 The following year, Sayyid Ali participated in Pontianak's assault on Sambas.93

These buccaneering activities reaped rich dividends in opium, tin and arms. Sponsored largely by Tengku Muhammad Ali, they bore the stamp

of official sanction but did not fall strictly within the category of privateering which, according to the strict Western definition, related to attacks

on vessels carrying the flag of a declared enemy.94

On the home front, the ambiguous insider-outsider identity of the sayyid, with the simultaneous advantage of closeness and distance, was

skilfully used by the Syihab for executing a well-calculated strategy of political consolidation. In 1788, Sayyid Ali gained the governorship of

Bukit Batu through the influence of his father-in-law, Tengku Musa.

95

The area, which became the springboard for his broader ambitions,paralleled the resource pools appropriated by the sayyidi stranger-kings in Perak, Terengganu96 and Pontianak. Sayyid Ali substantially

increased his power by using the rich resources of Bukit Batu to build some 30 vessels, in addition to those given by his brother-in-law, Raja

Endut.97 Once secure in the core region, Sayyid Ali next set his sights on Pelalawan, the catchment for trade flowing down the adjacent

Kampar River. Sensing Sayyid Ali's bid for power, Muhammad Ali proposed transferring to Sayyid Ali his own authority as Raja Tua under the

incumbent ruler, Raja Yahya (r. 178191). The scheme, which the Yamtuan Nuda Raja Endut found unacceptable,98 evinced the strong bond

hat still subsisted within the original faction of Raja Mahmud. Its tentative link with the Syihab was irretrievably broken when Raja Muhammad

Ali died in 1791. No longer held in check by the Malay political ethos of playing relatives, Sayyid Ali took on the mantle of the usurper to

establish Syihab supremacy as full-blown stranger-kings.99 He assumed the title of Sultan Abd al-Jalil Syaifuddin (r. 17911811) at the new

capital of Kota Tinggi (Siak Sri Inderapura), with Sayyid Abd al-Rahman acting as Yamtuan Muda. Pelalawan and Kota Tinggi, backed by

maritime power, gave the new Syihab dynasty effective control over a flourishing trade with the interior. Sayyid Abd al-Rahman, who also ruled

Pelalawan after driving out Tengku Abdullah, was installed in 1810 as Sultan al-Jalil Syaifuddin of Kampar.100

Sayyid Ali's violation of the succession rights was fully in keeping with the tradition of stranger-kings, as was his subsequent effort to

appropriate aspects of Siak's historical past for the localisation of a dynasty perceived in the Malay world as Arab.101

With the same aim offorging links with Siak's past, the Syihab appropriated and made their own the Syair perang Siak, originally composed for Raja Ismail and

cherished by his faction.102

In the conflict between the Minangkabau and Malay factions, Sayyid Ali had placed his bets on the former, with its superior claims for crafting

an autonomous state on the Sumatran mainland. At the same time, he acknowledged the reality of Siak's deep-rooted connections with the

Malay royal house across the Straits and its indestructible ethos and prestige, despite its political decline. Not surprisingly, therefore, Sultan

Mahmud of Riau-Johor was one person who commanded Sayyid Ali's respect and deference.103 The political coup brought successfully to

fruition the Syihab claim to the awesome legacy of Raja Alam, but Sayyid Ali saw the wisdom of having the new order legitimised by Sultan

Mahmud of Riau, the powerless yet respected scion of the Malay world. The Tuhfatrecords that in receiving Sayyid Ali at Riau, Sultan




7/17

Mahmud honoured him following the customs for greeting a dependent. It was on this occasion that Sayyid Ali married Tengku Mandak,

reinforcing the old SiakJohor kinship ties.104 Once again, he was playing relatives within a society that was kacukan, mixed/hybrid and not

pure, through the intertwining of outsider and insider.105

The Syihab stranger-kings of Siak successfully transformed what the European powers regarded as a pirate state into a polity commanding

a thriving trade, coveted by the British and Dutch alike. They had long recognised profit from commerce as the means to political power. Kota

Tinggi and Pelalawan led the trade with Penang and, later, Singapore.106 Apart from promoting the export of forest produce and terubuk

(tenualosa macrura), the Syihab dynasty presided over the proto-industrial production of pearl sago, timber and some of the region's finest

gold-threaded cloth (songket).107 Although by the 1820s, Siak's trade was on the decline, the British agent John Anderson considered it still

impressive. Some 400 ships based at the capital serviced the export of Minangkabau gambier and coffee to Penang and Singapore.108 On

he east coast, Batu Bahara, Bulu Cina and Langkat conducted a brisk trade in pepper and gambier exports to Penang and Singapore.109

Siak's continued survival was contingent upon appropriate adaptation to the changing political dynamic in the region, a fact the Syihab were

quick to recognise. Adaptability was for the outsider an indispensable tool for localisation and, ultimately, the way to achieving the privileged

dual identity of stranger-kinsman. As Anglo-Dutch cooperation against maritime violence got under way, the Syihab opted to take advantage

of new opportunities in the Straits for trade and investment, raising their profile as orang kaya (lit. rich men). Commanding the

interdependent forces of power and wealth, the orang kaya of the maritime world, predominantly foreign and cosmopolitan, functioned as

mediators of internal-external relations, a role the sayyidi stranger-kinsmen ideally fulfilled. Sayyid Ibrahim (r. 182127), who succeeded his

father Sayyid Ali was a patron of trade. He stirred Siak in the direction of change, exchanging conflict and violence for political stability within

he new structure of commerce introduced by the rise of Singapore.110 In 1822, following its 1818 treaty with Major William Farquhar, Siak

renewed its 1761 agreement with the Dutch bringing into play the sayyidi genius for political brinkmanship.111 The British unease, represented

o the ruler by their agent, James Anderson, was encountered by the consummate diplomacy of a sayyid: Mana bulih buang Janji dangan

Orang Engris [!](How can a treaty with the English be broken [!]).112 By confirming the Farquhar agreement, Sultan Ibrahim successfully

neutralised his position.113

In 1858, almost a century after the Syihab staked their fortunes on establishing Siak's viability as a state, Sayyid Ismail (r. 182764), who

succeeded his brother Sayyid Ibrahim, accepted Dutch intervention. Among reforms undertaken by the forward-looking Sultan Syerif Kassim II

(r. 191545), last in the dynastic line of Siak's stranger-kings, was a revised version of the manual Babul Qawaiddescribing the structure of

government.114 It evinced the strategy of adaptability Siak's stranger-kings had unflinchingly embraced as their passport to success.

Symptomatic of the Syihab strategy of accommodation was the reformed Panglima Besar(commander-in-chief) of Siak. The erstwhile daring

pirate who had killed so many men that their eyes could fill a [cupak] measure, settled into a life of comfort and dignity, elegantly attired in

gold and silk.115 As successful merchant entrepreneurs, the sda stranger-kings of the new era developed a taste for good living with a

weakness for opium consumption, in stark contrast to their pious and abstemious forebears. These features were as much a part of the courtly

life of the Syihab in Siak as they were for the al-Qadri in Pontianak. The sumptuous and elegant lifestyle observed by John Anderson on his

mission to Siak was representative of the social habits of a new generation of entrepreneurial sda strangers and stranger-kings who

dominated the commercial bridgeheads of the maritime region, adroitly negotiating the interconnected spaces of trade and politics. The

accoutrements of good living fine attire, furniture, books, carpets and carriages and lavish entertainments marked the superior social

standing of the politically ambitious sda. The urbanity and material wealth, which Sayyid Hussein al-Aidid of Penang best exemplified,

facilitated easy mingling with Europeans, whether for private or public business.116

Pontianak's stranger-kings: Accommodation and collaboration

Man of virtue

Hadhrami transformations from strangers to stranger-kings were played out equally spectacularly in the remote quarters of western Borneo

(Kalimantan), again in an area of immense natural resources in the region of the Kapuas and Landak Rivers. The way was led by Husayn

al-Qadri, one of the four Alawi scholar-adventurers from Tarim, who followed the directions of his mentor in Malabar to pioneer a settlement

amidst the dense forests further eastwards. On arriving in the Malay Archipelago, Husayn, descended from a long line of habib, took on the

role of the archetypical peripatetic merchant-predicant. He visited Aceh, Batavia and Samarang along the main commercial route, trading,

making influential contacts and enlarging his reputation before arriving in Matam.117 Here, as well as in Mempawah where Habib Husaynfinally settled in 1747, he established his pre-eminence as theologian, preacher and lawgiver.118 Daeng Menanbun, the Pangeran Tua who

reigned further upriver at Si-Bukit, considered it a rare honour to have in their midst a sayyidand a renowned jurist. The habib, who also

earned the respected title of syarif, was assigned a strategic spot near the river mouth. The former pirate hideout gave way to a settlement

centred on the mosque, court house and school complex established by the habib. His reputation for justice and the port's low taxes offered a

haven of peace where trade and religion fed off each other.119 Having extended the reach of Muslim trade at Mempawah, the habib duly

relinquished control to Adi Wijaya when he succeeded his father, Daeng Menanbun, aspenambahan (ruler/sovereign).120

Man of muscle and soul-stuff




8/17

In the typical manner of the stranger adventurer, Habib Husayn forged indigenous relations by marrying Nyai Tua, a former slave from Matan

by whom he had a son, Abd al-Rahman.121 Born in c. 1742, Abd al-Rahman grew up to be starkly different from his pious father. Faced with

he challenge of European ascendance, he pursued an aggressive programme for the accumulation of power through the inter-related

activities of trade and marauding.

Abd al-Rahman's reputation for prowess, combined with his identity as the son of a respected habib and an indigenous mother, proved

impeccable credentials for winning influential marriages. In 1759, he married Candera Midi, sister of the ruler of Mempawah, Pangeran Adi

Wijaya. Their father, Daeng Menambun, was a brother of Daeng Marewah, the first Bugis under-king at Riau. Abd al-Rahman freely drew on

his Arab and Malay-Bugis connections when roving the seas and coastal waters during the 1760s, mixing trade and marauding. His

commercial links with Palembang's large Arab community, as well as with Kutei and Pasir, were backed by a large fleet of armedperahu

(native sailing boat) and trading vessels, including a brig and a ketch.

Abd al-Rahman's ruthless attacks on trading vessels and his cruel treatment of captives outraged his father, but in a region where historically

violence and political influence were indivisible,122 Abd al-Rahman's atrocities enhanced his stranger mystique. Sultan Sepu of pepper-rich

Banjarmassin gave his daughter in marriage to the young adventurer, raising him to the rank ofpangeran. All the same, Abd al-Rahman's

ruthless ambition and Machiavellian tendencies soon raised the apprehension of the rulers of both Banjarmassin and Mempawah, whose

favour he duly lost.123

Left with no power base, Pangeran Abd al-Rahman set out to carve out a state for himself. Capitalising on his attractiveness as a fearless

fighter, he successfully garnered support and, with a 200-strong fleet, sailed in 1771 to take Pontianak. Strategically located at the confluence

of the Kapuas and Landak rivers, the place was uninhabited due to its perceived notoriety for sheltering a female ghost that gave the place its

name. According to Malay folklore, thepontianakstruck terror as she preyed on the lives of children and pregnant women. Drawing on the

perceived spiritual and supernatural powers of a sayyid, Abd al-Rahman ostensibly exorcised the ghost. Through a show of extraordinary

physical strength and fortitude, he cleared the forest and built a small mosque, which served as a sanctified foundation for the pioneer

settlement.124 Under the sayyid's protection, Pontianak resonated with the Hadhrami hawta or sacred enclave, protected from the perils of the

surrounding forest.

Abd al-Rahman's role as a charismatic stranger-king proved critical for state building by way of introducing overall power over the tribal

chiefs.125 This process was facilitated by the stranger-king formula for localising exotic origins through exogamous marriage alliances. Of all

his marriages, that with Utin Candera Midi, the grand-daughter of Daeng Menambun, was pivotal bringing Pontianak into a grand alliance

with the Bugis both at Mempawah and, further afield, at Riau.126 Raja Haji, son of the Daeng Marewah and fourth under-king at Riau, was a

cousin of Utin Candera Miti and a strong ally who assisted the ruler in his policy of expansionism. In 1778, the Bugis leader helped Abd

al-Rahman defeat Sanggu for the purpose of gaining access to the gold resources of the upper Kapuas.127 Following the victory, Raja Haji

installed Abd al-Rahman as Sultan. The grand investiture, conducted in accordance with the customs of Johor-Riau and witnessed by

representatives and princes of subject territories, was analogous to Sayyid Ali's legitimisation at Riau.128 It evinced the common desire shared

by the sda outsiders for accommodation within the larger Malay world with Johor-Riau at its epicentre.

However, Abd al-Rahman, who like Siak's Sayyid Ali was guided by political expediency, abandoned familial ties with as much ease as hecultivated them. Ignoring Dutch enmity with the Bugis, he sought accommodation with the VOC and its interests in Landak, Borneo's only

source of diamonds.129 In 1779, he accepted Dutch vassalage largely with the view to bringing Landal within Pontianak's economic orbit and

winning Dutch financial and military support.130

In 1786, Abd al-Rahman again broke ranks with the Bugis when he secured Dutch assistance to capture Mempawah, with his sights on the

potential taxes and trade to be accrued from the prosperous Hakka gold mines in upland Mandar.131 A successful outcome saw the

installation of his son Syarif Kassim (r. 180819) aspanembahan but also the ruthless expulsion of the Bugis under-king Raja Ali, son and

successor to Raja Haji, who had taken refuge in Mempawah following Riau's fall in 1784.132 Dislodged from Mempawah, Raja Ali fled to

Sukadana, which the Dutch soon laid to waste with Pontianak's cooperation.133

End of an era

The initiative, charisma and insight Abd al-Rahman displayed in founding Pontianak bore the hallmarks of a stranger-king who set the

al-Qadiri ruling house high above the rival dynasties of west Borneo. Pontianak's meteoric rise, superseding Sukadana as the foremost power

in that part of the island, was undoubtedly the result of Abd al-Rahman's genius. Unscrupulous and irreverent in his youth, he matured into an

astute politician, tempering firmness with affability and hospitality.134 A prominent nose and burning dark brown eyes stamped his

outstanding personality and gave him the appearance of a European. He was described by P.J. Veth as perhaps the most unusual man that

Borneo has ever known.135 His politeness and forbearance in dealing with the tactless and arrogant Dutch representative, Nicolaas Kloek,

while at the same time holding his own ground, were a mark of his supreme political craftsmanship.136 Not least was his credibility as a sayyid

and a Muslim ruler in his scrupulous abstinence from opium, betel and tobacco and in the protection of his women.137

Illustrating the centrality of religious status in the emergence of the sda as stranger-kings was Abd al-Rahman's unquestioned authority over




9/17

he coastal and maritime Muslim communities, in contrast to his weak influence over non-Muslim communities upriver. Dayak collusion with

Chinese kongsis and Bugis traders in the gold and diamond trade left the ruler with ineffective control over interior resource.138 At Mandor, the

Chinese were in a sufficiently strong bargaining position to minimise the ruler's gains.139 Pontianak's revenues could meet neither the ruler's

personal needs nor the expectations of the VOC, which withdrew its post in 1791.140

Particularly with Dutch support withdrawn and diminishing opportunities for the display of valour through maritime exploits, Pontianak's

stranger-king sought other means of winning manpower and loyalty among the politically fluid and disparate Bornean people. Converting

ascribed spiritual status to political reality to counter the European challenge made heavy claims on resource-based patronage, hospitality and

courtly ostentation, to which the ruler's personal vanity succumbed readily. The expensive lifestyle maintained at his sprawling dalam (palace)

proved to be Sultan Abd al-Rahman's Achilles heel.141 A large clientele and some 24 wives and their relatives strained his resources and

kingly bounty (anugerah), as did his lavish entertainments for Raja Haji's entourage over a 1617-month sojourn.142 His partiality towards

Arab merchants who ran a substantial trade with the interior on preferential terms contributed in no small measure to his financial ills.

Importantly, his seeming anxiety to win their loyalty and support betrayed his indelible identity as a stranger.143 Abd-al Rahman's creation of

a deceptively prosperous theatre state cast him into mounting debt, which his son and successor Kassim (r. 180919) failed to redeem

despite his own more modest life style.144 However, through their partial identity as outsiders with greater awareness of external realities, the

stranger kings were better able to adapt to the winds of change than their autochthonous counterparts.

A pragmatist

Kassim successfully subverted his father's nomination of his brother as heir apparent, only to inherit the former ruler's huge debts. However,

like all sayyidstrangers, Kassim lived by his wits, placing his trust in the efficacy of trade, capital and good inter-personal relations. He saw in

expanding Chinese and British private trade, triggered by the founding of Penang (1786), an expanding market for west Borneo's resources

from which the royal coffers might well benefit. He cultivated a close friendship with the private trader James Burn to develop commercialinvestment though, in adherence to Islamic principles, he declared that interest [on credit] was contrary to his religion. Again manifesting the

stranger talent for balancing practicality and orthodoxy, he abstained from the consumption of opium but traded in the article, which he

received in exchange for gold from James Smith of Carnegy and Co. of Penang.145 Through a major shift in political strategy involving an

alliance with the British, Kassim turned to Pontianak's advantage the new commercial opportunities opened up for private trade by the British

occupation of Java (181116). Responding to Raffles's agenda for commercial expansion in Borneo, he received Burn as political and

commercial agent and, two years later, accepted British protection.146 Furthermore, despite his own indirect connections with piracy, Kassim

capitalised on Raffles's move against the institution as a means of defeating his arch-enemy, the ruler of Sambas.147

Kassim bore the cosmopolitan stamp of a sayyidi stranger-king who was knowledgeable and well travelled, unlike many of his Malay

counterparts. Venturing beyond the sphere of Malay influence he had, during a three-year tour of Java, visited various rulers and the Dutch

Governor-General himself.148 Bearing the marks of shrewdness, charm and urbanity that characterised the sayyidi stranger-kings, Kassim

was intimately acquainted with European etiquette and social values as they related to rank and influence. As B. Hall noted, recording Sir

Samuel Hood's meeting with the Sultan in mid-1814:

The Sultan appeared to enter into his guest's character at once, and neither overloaded his attentions, nor failed to treat him as

a person to whom much respect was due. I heard Sir Samuel (who had lost his right arm) say afterwards, that he was

particularly struck with the Sultan's good breeding, in not offering to assist him in cutting his meat. The sultan merely remarked,

that few people were so expert as his guest even with both hands.149

The position of the al-Qadri in Pontianak was compromised by the large non-Muslim Dayak population in the interior, Chinese economic

ascendance and regional Malay power at its nadir; but the sayyidi talent for engaging with counterpart strangers from the west stood Kassim

in good stead. Upon the restoration of Dutch power, Kassim, in his characteristic pragmatism, wrote to the Commissioners-General in Java

hat he gave thanks to God and the Dutch, that his sometime brotherly friends had again taken possession of the island of Java.150 Renewed

political negotiations that led to the treaty of 1819 were again a testament to the sayyidi genius for adaptability. According to the second article

of the treaty: His Highness fully aware of the wholesome benefits to himself, will ally himself strongly and closely with the Dutch government,

which had built up its reputation in its Eastern Seas for more than two centuries151

Conclusion: An abiding image

In a region inherently open to external influences, ascribed religious status set the sda apart as strangers and stranger-kings

extraordinaire. In the case of Sultan Abd al-Rahman, spiritual rehabilitation during his old age saw his vindication as a sayyidi stranger-king

with a moral public duty. He sought forgiveness from Burn, whom he had earlier defrauded over a commercial transaction and was deeply

roubled by his son's violence and cruelty, equal to his own during his youth.152 He considered Kassim allegedly responsible for the

poisoning of his Chinese creditor and the murder of a European trader unfit to rule and advised him to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca to

atone for his sins.153

Violence, which enhanced the mystique of the outsider, apparently did not pollute Muslim religious virtue, attained through a lifetime of




10/17

adherence to prescribed ritual and followed by atonement and charitable acts in old age. In fact, Sultan Abd al-Rahman, like Sayyid Ali bin

Uthman of Siak, found a place within the pantheon of Hadhrami scholars who played a significant role in shaping the religious life of the

people around them.154 Notwithstanding his acts of marauding and cruelty during his early career, Abd-al-Rahman was venerated in after-life.

His tomb at Batu Layang, built by Kassim through raising public funds, became a pilgrimage site and a focal point on feast days, just like his

father's, the Keramat Makam Tuan Besar at Mempawah.155 The culture of Malay royal mausoleums and the indigenous cult of the keramat(a

spiritually potent object or person) intersected with the practice ofziarah or visits to the tombs of saints and holy men popular among the

Hadhramis.156 Such pilgrimages enfolded strangers and kinsmen within the composite temporal and spatial landscape of Malay kingship. At

one and the same time, the significance of the graves for genealogical mapping of sda within the Indian Ocean diaspora symbolised the

ambiguous status of the Hadhrami strangers and stranger-kings.

157

Taking advantage of their trans-regional religious status within the fluidand hybrid Malay world, the sda remained irretrievably separate, yet indivisibly part of the Malay world.

The long association of sayyidi religious influence paved the way for the distinctive role of the eighteenth-century Hadhrami strangers.

Pre-eminent as teachers, spiritual mentors, administrators and men of prowess, some emerged as full -fledged stranger-kings. Distinctive

lineage, personal talent, charisma and an ambiguous outsider-insider identity conducive to wide-ranging adaptation contributed to the

dynamism of the sayyidstranger-king, pivotal to eighteenth-century state formation and the non-violent transition of a number of states into

he modern era.

Notes

1 The number of persons of Arab origin in the Netherlands Indies almost doubled between the 1805s and 1880s but was estimated at around

20,500 in 1883, with some half resident in Java. See van den Berg, L.W.C., Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes dans l' Archipel indien

(Batavia: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1886), pp. 1059 [Google Scholar].

2 The eponymous term Alawi refers to an ancestor of the Hadhrami sayyid, the grandson of the migrant Ahmad b. Isa, denoting common

descent from him. See Ho, Engseng, The graves of Tarim: Genealogy and mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley: University of California

Press, 2006), pp. 278 [Google Scholar].

3 Wolters, O.W., History, culture, and region in Southeast Asian perspectives, rev. edn (Ithaca/Singapore: Cornell University Southeast Asia

Program Publications/Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1999), pp. 11213 [Google Scholar]; Fernndez-Armesto, Felipe, The stranger-

effect in early modern Asia, in Shifting communities and identity formation in early modern Asia and Africa, ed. Bluse, Leonard and

Fernndez-Armesto, Felipe (Leiden: CNWS, Leiden University, 2003), pp. 80103 [Google Scholar]; Sahlins, Marshall, The stranger-king or

Dumzil among the Fijians, Journal of Pacific History, 16, 3 (1981): 10732 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

4 Na Pombejra, Dhiravat, Crown trade and court politics in Ayutthaya during the reign of King Narai (165688), in The Southeast Asian port

and polity: Rise and demise, ed. Kathirithamby-Wells, J. and Villiers, J. (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990), pp. 1345, 1389

[Google Scholar].

5 Kathirithamby-Wells, J., The age of transition: The mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, in The Cambridge history of Southeast

Asia, ed. Tarling, N. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), vol. 1, p. 577 [Google Scholar].

6 Henley, D., Conflict, justice, and the stranger-king: Indigenous roots of colonial rule in Indonesia and elsewhere, Modern Asian Studies, 38,

1 (2004): 87, 98101 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

7 See Ahmad, Raja Ali Haji ibn, The precious gift (Tuhfat al-Nafis), trans. and anno. Matheson, V. and Andaya, B. Watson (Kuala Lumpur:

Oxford University Press, 1982), Table 2, p. xiv [Google Scholar].

8 See ibid., Table 2, p. xiv. Jan van der Putten has pointed out the absence of Bugis genealogical links with the sacred Bukit Si-Guntang, the

vital prerequisite for Malayness and leadership within the Malay poli ty; van der Putten, Jan, A Malay of Bugis ancestry: Haji Ibrahim's

strategies of survival, in Contesting Malayness: Malay identity across boundaries, ed. Barnard, T.P. (Singapore: Singapore University Press,

2004), pp. 1223 [Google Scholar].

9 See Reid, A., Introduction, in The last stand of Asian autonomies: Responses to modernity in the diverse states of Southeast Asia andKorea, 17501900 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1997), p. 10 [Google Scholar].

10 Wolters, History, culture, and region, pp. 11112, 164.

11 Sahlins, The stranger-king or Dumzil among the Fijians, pp. 10119.

12 Hall, K.R., Maritime trade and state development in early Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), pp. 4950 [Google

Scholar]; K.R. Hall, Economic history of early Southeast Asia, in ed. Tarling, Cambridge history of Southeast Asia, p. 193.

13 Wolters, History, culture and region, pp. 301.




11/17

14 Wilkinson, R.J., Some Malay studies, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society [hereafterJMBRAS), 10, 1 (1932): 758

[OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Winstedt, R.O., The romance of Alexander the Great, JMBRAS, 16, 2 (1938): 1123 [OpenURL

Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Kathirithamby-Wells, J., Ahmad Shah ibn Iskandar and the late 17th century holy war in Indonesia,

JMBRAS, 43, 1 (1970): 934 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

15 Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), trans. C.C. Brown (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 15; Winstedt, R.O., Kingship and

enthronement in Malaya, JMBRAS, 20, 1, (1947): 35 n.1 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

16 Milner, A.C., Islam and the Muslim state, in Islam in South-East Asia, ed. Hooker, M.B. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983), pp. 38 [Google Scholar],

45.

17 J.G. de Casparis, Religion and popular beliefs of Southeast Asia before c. 1500, in ed. Tarling, Cambridge history of Southeast Asia, p.

331; H.J. de Graaf and G. Th. Pigeaud, De eerste Moslimse vorstendommen op Java (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff), pp. 201, 138. See

Ricklefs, M.C., Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi 17471792: A history of the division of Java (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp.

38 [Google Scholar]; Sutherland, H., The priyayi, Indonesia, 19 (1975): 612 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]; Roff, W.R., Islam

observed? Some reflections on studies of Islam and society in Southeast Asia, Archipel, 29 (1985): 25 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google

Scholar].

18 Alatas, Syed Farid, Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami diaspora: Problems in theoretical history, in Hadhrami traders, scholars, and

statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s1960s, ed. Freitag, U. and Clarence-Smith, W. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p. 33 [Google Scholar]; Alatas,

Syed Farid, The Tariqau al-Alawiyyah and the emergence of the Shi'i school in Indonesia and Malaysia, Oriente moderno, 18, 2 (1999):

3345 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. The Hadhrami genealogical claim is supported by the conversion myth as recorded in the

central Javanese text, the Babad Dipanegara. See Fox, J., Ziara visits to the tombs of the wali, the founders of Islam in Java, in The 1898

Annual AIA-CSEAS Lecture Series organized by Bambang Pranowo and M.C. Ricklefs, ed. Ricklefs, M.C. (Monash University: Centre forSoutheast Asian Studies, 1991), pp. 267 [Google Scholar].

19 van Bruinessen, M., Najmuddin al-Kubra, Jumadil Kubra and Jamaluddin al-Akbar: Traces of Kubrawiyya influence in early Indonesian

Islam, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde [hereafter BKI], 150, 2 (1994): 3246 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

20 The sayyid's endorsement of the ruler's conversion in a dream parallels the story of Pasai's earlier conversion linked with the arrival of

Syaikh Ismail; Sejarah Melayu, pp. 434, 94; Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai, trans. and intro. Hill, A.H., JMBRAS, 33, 2 (1961): 11819 [OpenURL

Query Data] [Google Scholar].

21 Sejarah Melayu, pp. 5960.

22 Wilkinson, R.J., Papers on Malay subjects, ed. Wilkinson, R.J. (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971, first published 1923), p. 85

[Google Scholar]; Winstedt, R.O., The Hadramaut saiyids of Perak and Siak, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 79

(1918): 51 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar], 53; Andaya, B.W., Perak: The abode of grace (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press,

1979), p. 208 [Google Scholar] n. 77.

23 Riddell, P.G., Islam and the Malay world: Transmission and response (Singapore: Horizon Books, 2001), p. 116 [Google Scholar].

24 Fernndez-Armesto, The stranger-effect in early modern Asia, p. 91.

25 De Graaf and Pigeaud, De eerste Moslimse vorstendommen op Java, pp. 1401, 157, 15960.

26 Farid, Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami diaspora, p. 31.

27 The title syarif is associated with descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his grandson Husain and the tit le sayyidwith those

who trace their descent through his brother Hasan. However, in the Malay region syarif was used more generally as an honorific for a person

of illustrious descent and the head of a prominent family, tribe or religious community. See Hurgronje, C. Snouck, Mecca in the latter part of

he nineteenth century (Leiden: Brill, 1970), p. 9 [Google Scholar] n. 1; H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, Shorter encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden:

E.J. Brill), p. 529.

28 See Kathirithamby-Wells, Ahmad Shah ibn Iskandar, pp. 4863; Ricklefs, M.C., A history of modern Indonesia (London: Macmillan, 1981),

pp. 7991 [Google Scholar]; Reid, A., Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 14501680 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), vol. 2,

pp. 31928 [Google Scholar].

29 Andaya, L., The kingdom of Johor, 16411728 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 2936 [Google Scholar]; Trocki, C.A.,

Prince of pirates: The Temenggongs and the development of Johor and Singapore, 17841885 (Singapore: Singapore University Press,


30 Gullick, J.M., Indigenous systems of Western Malaya (London: Athlone Press, 1958), p. 81 [Google Scholar].




12/17

31 Chula, Raja, Misa Melayu (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbitan Pustaka Antara, 1966), p. 52 [Google Scholar].

32 Winstedt, The Hadramaut saiyids, p. 53; descended from the al-Faradz family, Raja Bisnu was a sayyidbut was evidently conferred the

more prestigious title of syarif; Winstedt, R.O. and Wilkinson, R.J., A history of Perak, JMBRAS, 12, 1 (1934): 132 [OpenURL Query Data]

[Google Scholar].

33 Andaya, Perak, p. 165.

34 Ibid., pp. 734.

35 Winstedt and Wilkinson, A history of Perak, pp. 13740; Winstedt, The Hadramaut saiyids, p. 53; Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects,

p. 143; Andaya, Perak, p. 174.

36 The position of Bendahara was later recovered by another stranger, Raja Ismail, of sayyidiorigin.

37 Winstedt, The Hadramaut saiyids, p. 53; Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects, pp. 82, 1367, 143.

38 Hitti, P., History of the Arabs: From the earliest times to the present (London: Macmillan, 1964), pp. 36 [Google Scholar], 4850; Warner,

W.H. Lee, Notes on the Hadhramaut, Geographical Journal, 77 (1931): 217 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

39 Wheatley, P., The golden Khersonese (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1961), p. 210 [Google Scholar]; Tibbetts, G.R., Early

Muslim traders in Southeast Asia, JMBRAS, 30, 1 (1957): 1322 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

40 For example, intimate knowledge of forest resources enabled Sayyid Zin, a pioneer Sumatran entrepreneur, to identify some 16 timber

species suitable for shipbuilding; see Anderson, J., Acheen and the ports on the north and east coasts of Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford

University Press, 1971), p. 198 [Google Scholar].

41 Shorter encyclopaedia of Islam, p. 532.

42 Wilkinson, Some Malay studies, p. 94; Van den Berg, Le Hadhramout, p. 50.

43 Winstedt and Wilkinson, A history of Perak, p. 135.

44 Andaya, Perak, pp. 34, n. 40, 102, 199; Misa Melayu, pp. 1023, 219.

45 Wilkinson, Some Malay studies, pp. 967; Winstedt,The Hadramaut saiyids, p. 53. The title of Sultan Muda, often confusingly recorded in

genealogies as Sultan, was later held by Raja Mansur, a brother of Sultan Iskandar, the future Sultan Mansur/Ahmaddin (17921806), whose

connection with Cegar Galah associated with the al-Faradz, suggests shared shamanistic skills (Winstedt and Wilkinson, A history of Perak,

p. 132).

46 Other sda associated with the title of Sultan Muda were Raja Ahmad, the son-in-law of Sultan Abd Malik Mansur Syah (180625), and

Raja Ismail, for whom it was proposed as a consolation prize as part of the British plan to demote him. The elder brother of Sultan Idris

(18871916) acted as state magician but there is no evidence of his having carried the title of Sultan Muda (ibid., p. 135).

47 Winstedt, The Hadramaut Saiyids, p. 53; Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects, pp. 82, 137, 143; Winstedt and Wilkinson, A history of

Perak, pp. 141, 145. In 1862, however, the sda lost the title of Orang Kaya Besarto Ngah Ibrahim, the de facto ruler of Larut and a

descendant of the original holder of the office, Sri Nara di-Raja.

48 Winstedt and Wilkinson, A history of Perak, pp. 140, 144; Kim, Khoo Kay, The Perak sultanate: Ancient and modern, JMBRAS, 59, 1

(1986): 8 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

49 Sahlins, The stranger-king or Dumzil among the Fijians, p. 113; Sadka, E., The protected Malay states, 18741985 (Kuala Lumpur:

University of Malaya Press, 1968), p. 33 [Google Scholar] n. 1. Contrary to custom, on Sultan Ja'afar's death, Ismail as Bendahara was not

promoted to the office of Raja Muda, vacated by the previous incumbent who became Sultan Ali al-Mukammal (186571). Instead, Sultan

Ja'afar's son, Raja Abdullah, rose to be Raja Muda, a transgression matched by Raja Ismail's usurpation. Wilkinson, Papers on Malaysubjects, p. 136; Winstedt and Wilkinson, A history of Perak, p. 140; Gullick, Indigenous systems, p. 62.

50 Sadka, The protected Malay states, pp. 33 n. 1, 88 n. 3; Khoo, The Perak sultanate, pp. 1216.

51 The Hadramaut saiyids, p. 53; Winstedt and Wilkinson, A history of Perak, p. 132.

52 A Dutch account similarly describes Sayyid Abd al-Rahman of Pontianak as having a distinctly long nose.

53 Wolters, History, culture, and region, pp. 69; F. Fernndez-Armesto, The stranger effect in early modern Asia, pp. 8191.




13/17

54 Warner, Notes on the Hadhramaut, p. 218. For sayyidi political and military activities in Kerala in the eighteenth century and their

leadership of the modernised Hyderabad state forces, see Omar Khalidi, The Hadhrami role in the politics and society of colonial India,

1750s1950, and Stephen Dale, The Hadhrami diaspora in south-western India: The role of the sayyid of the Malabar coast, in Hadhrami

traders, ed. Ulrike Freitag and William G. Clarence-Smith, pp. 7880 and 1779 respectively. In the Hadramaut, some sda took up arms

against Wahabi incursions. As Freitag has observed, [T]he widespread assumption that the sayyids collectively renounced the bearing of

arms after being introduced to Sufism [by Muhammad b. Ali al Alawi, d. 1155] ought to be considered more a moral standard than the

historical reality. Freitag, U., Indian Ocean migrations and state formation in Hadhramaut (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 42 [Google Scholar], 91,

1289.

55 Harrison, B., Malacca in the eighteenth century: Two Dutch Governors reports', JMBRAS, 27, 1 (1954): 29 [OpenURL Query Data]

[Google Scholar].

56 The Dutch commercial claims and restrictions were based on Johor's gift of Siak to the VOC in 1746, disputed by Siak's de facto rulers.

See Lewis, D., Jan Compagnie in the Straits of Malacca, 16411795 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Centre for International Studies, 1995), pp.

6971 [Google Scholar], 834; Harrison, Malacca in the eighteenth century, p. 32; Barnard, T.P., Multiple centres of authority: Society and

environment in Siak and eastern Sumatra, 16741827 (Leiden: KITLV, 2003), pp. 89 [Google Scholar], 102; Tuhfat al-Nafis, p. 364, n. 4.

57 B.W. Andaya, Adopting to political and economic change: Palembang in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in ed. Reid,

Last stand of Asian autonomies, pp. 197, 207; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, Siak and its changing strategies for survival, c. 17001870, in the

same volume, Tables 9.1 and 9.2, pp. 22930; A. Reid, A new phase of commercial expansion in Southeast Asia, 17601850, in the same

volume, Table 3.1, p. 63; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 89 90, 1012; Knaap, G.J., Shallow waters, rising tide: Shipping and

rade in Java around 1775 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996), pp. 657 [Google Scholar], 834, Appendix 8, pp. 2089.

58 Vos, R., Gentle Janus, merchant prince: The VOC and the tightrope of diplomacy in the Malay world, 17401800, trans. Jackson, B.(Leiden, KITLV: 1993), p. 112 [Google Scholar]; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 102. Sayyid Umar later married a daughter of Raja

Ismail, the son of Raja Mahmud (Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 138).

59 Tuhfat, p. 97; Syair perang Siak, ed. and trans. D.J. Goudie (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1989), p. 145.

60 Ho, Engseng, Before parochialization: Diasporic Arabs cast in creole waters, in Transcending borders: Arabs, politics, trade and Islam in

Southeast Asia, ed. de Jong, H. and Kaptein, N. (Leiden: KITLV, 2002), p. 22 [Google Scholar]; Ho, The graves of Tarim, pp. 1623.

According to Hadhrami folklore, the other three eighteenth-century Alawi teachers from Tarim settled in various parts of the archipelago:

Sayyid Aydarus Abd al-Rahman al-Aydarus founded a settlement in Kubu, southwestern Borneo, and later settled in Aceh; Sayyid Uthman in

Siak; and Muhammad ibn Ahmad in Terengganu (Ho, The graves of Tarim, pp. 1623); however, the al-Quadri history cites not Sayyid

Uthman but Sayyid Umar as the young adventurer who went to Siak; see Netscher, E., Geschiedenis der eerste al-Qadris met eene vertaling

door E. Netscher, TBG, 4 (1855): 287 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar]. Furthermore, contrary to Hadhrami accounts, neither Sayyid

Umar nor Sayyid Uthman were pioneers but were probably born in Siak where their fathers had settled.

61 Winstedt, The Hadramaut Saiyids, p. 53.

62 Syair Perang Siak, ed. and trans. D.J. Goudie (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1989), pp. 36, 136, 139 n.

234c.

63 Netscher, E., De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak 1602 tot 1865 (Batavia: Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten

en Wetenschappen (hereafter VBG), 35, (1879): 96, 103 [Google Scholar].

64 For a recent assessment of Western perceptions of piracy in Southeast Asia, see Campo, J.N.F.M., Discourse without discussion:

Representations of piracy in colonial Indonesia, 181625, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34, 2 (2003): 199215 [OpenURL Query Data]

[Google Scholar].

65 Wolters, O.W., The fall of Srivijaya in Malay history (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 79 [Google Scholar], 11718;

Tarling, N., Piracy and politics in the Malay world (Singapore: Donald Moore Gallery, 1963), pp. 401 [Google Scholar].

66 Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, p. 94.

67 Wolters, History, culture, and region, p. 164; Day, A., Fluid iron: State formation in Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,


68 The Tuhfatgives a detailed description of Raja Alam's impressive military base with well-armed vessels at Siantan where in 1748 he

successfully repulsed Sultan Sulaiman's forces. Subsequently dislodged from Siantan by the Daeng Kamboja, he turned to marauding (Tuhfat,

pp. 97100; Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 76).

69 Andaya, Perak, p. 218.




14/17


71 Andaya, Perak, pp. 218, 2201, 228.

72 Between 1746 and 1755 alone, control over Siak changed hands no less than five times. Goudie, What the text said to its audience, Syair

perang Siak, p. 51.

73 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 96; Francis Light, quoted in Andaya, B. and Andaya, L., A history of Malaysia, 2nd edn (London:

Palgrave, 2001), p. 92 [Google Scholar].

74 Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 99; Syair perang Siak, pp. 55, 66, 163 vs. 3323.

75 Said, Tungku, Hikayat Siak, trans. Hashim, Muhammed Yusoff (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1992), p. 188 [Google

Scholar].

76 Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, pp. 76, 110, 131; Tuhfat, pp. 87, 102, 107, 108, 109, 124; Barnard, Multiple centres of

authority, pp. 11620.

77 Goudie, The people of the text and those off stage, Syair perang Siak, p. 45.

78 Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, pp. 1413.

79 Kathirithamby-Wells, Siak and its changing strategies for survival, p. 225; Kathirithamby-Wells, J., The long eighteenth century and the

new Age of Commerce in the Melaka Straits, in On the eighteenth century as a category of Asian history, ed. Bluss, L. and Gaastra, F.

(Ashgate, Aldershot: 1998), p. 68 [Google Scholar].

80 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 124. Tengku Muhammad Ali was installed as Sultan following the death of Raja Alam (Netscher,

De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 133) but the Syair perang Siakdoes not acknowledge this. The reason, explains Goudie, is that the

syair is a statement of the claim of Raja Ismail to succeed Raja Alam. Any acknowledgement of Tengku Muhammad Ali as a primary legitimate

successor to Raja Alam would undermine the central purpose of the text (Goudie, The people of the text and those off stage, pp. 38, 39).

81 Syair perang Siak, p. 133; Hikayat Siak, 1992, pp. 1978; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 158.

82 For an elaboration of this concept, see Andaya, B.W., Recreating a vision: Dataran and kepulauan in historical context, in Riau in

ransition, ed. Chou, C. and Derk, W., BKI, 153 (1997), pp. 4834 [Google Scholar].

83 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 13940.

84 Tuhfat, p. 166.

85 Ibid., pp. 188, 191, 373 f. 526 n. 1.

86 Goudie, The people of the text and those off stage, p. 36; Tuhfat, p. 211.


88 Andaya, Perak, pp. 3412, 3701; Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, p. 175; Tuhfat, p. 369, f. 242 n. 2; ARA (Algemeen Rijksarchief,

The Hague): VOC 3702, Secret, Report by C.G. Baumgarten in P.G. de Bruyn to Batavia, 9 May 1784.

89 Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, pp. 152, 155; VOC 3734: letter to the king of Siak, 17 June 1786, 2 Aug. 1786; VOC 3703: No. 10,

letter from Riau, 17 May 1786; VOC 3907: A. Coupers to Raja Mohd. Ali, 27 Apr. 1789.

90 Illanun collaboration with the Syihab stranger-kings as indeed with the counterpart Arab syarifof Sulu contrasted with their volatile

relations with Sultan Mahmud of Riau and the displaced ex-Sultan Yahaya of Siak. See J.F. Warren, The Sulu zone, 17691898 (Singapore:

Singapore University Press), pp. 789, 1537; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, 161.

91 Vos, Gentle Janus, merchant prince, pp. 1934; Tuhfat, pp. 1889; Warren, The Sulu Zone, p. 158. The marriage of Sayyid Ali's brother,

Sayyid Alwi (Tengku Lung Putih), to a sister of the Sultan Ahmad Tajud'din of Kedah formed the basis of the Kedah-Siak alliance. See Bonney,

R., Kedah, 17711821 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 118 [Google Scholar], 1445; Tarling, Piracy and politics, pp. 278.

The son of Tengku Lung Putih, Tengku (Sayyid) Ahmad Tajuddin alias Tengku Kudin, was to play a major role in Kedah's conflicts with Siam;

Othman, Muhammad Isa, Politik tradisional: Kedah 16811942 (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1990), pp. 301 [Google

Scholar].

92 Bonney, Kedah, pp. 901; Andaya, Perak, pp. 3756; Warren, The Sulu Zone, p. 158; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 155.




15/17

93 Hikayat Siak, pp. 1906; Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak, p. 301; Willer, J.T., Eerste proeve eener kronijk van Mampawa en

Pontianak, Tijdschrift voor taal-, land- en volkenkunde van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, (hereafter TBG), 3

(1855): 553 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

94 Risso, P., Cross-cultural perceptions of piracy: Maritime violence in the western Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region during a long

eighteenth century, Journal of World History, 12, 2 (2001): 195 [OpenURL Query Data] [Google Scholar].

95 Bukit Batu, traditionally the appanage of the Laksamana (admiral), stretched from Tanjung Senebui, off Rokan, to Tanjung Balai, fringing

he Riau-Lingga Archipelago and including the islands of Rupat and Bengkalis.

96 Goudie, The people of the text and those off stage, p. 40; Barnard, Multiple centres of authority, p. 152. In Terengganu, the influential

al-Idrus family was founded by the revered mystic and theologian Sayyid Abd al- Rahman al-Idrus, popularly known as To' Ku Paloh. His son

Sayyid al-Saqqaf was the archetypical holyman (keramat)-cum-merchant whose influence in Ulu Terengganu was evidently tied up with his

business activities, including money-lending. See Sutherland, H., The taming of the Trengganu elite, in Southeast Asian Transitions:

Approaches through social his

‘Strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’_ The sayyid in eighteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia

Documents

Transcript of ‘Strangers’ and ‘stranger-kings’_ The sayyid in eighteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia