Founding of the Malacca Sultanate (c. 1400): Parameswara

The Malacca Sultanate was founded around 1400 by Parameswara, a prince from Palembang in Sumatra, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Within a few decades the small fishing settlement had become the busiest port of Southeast Asia, controlling trade through the Strait of Malacca between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. As its rulers adopted Islam, Malacca also became a leading centre for the spread of the faith across the Malay world.

Background: the Strait after Srivijaya

For centuries the Strait of Malacca had been dominated by Srivijaya, a trading kingdom based at Palembang in southern Sumatra. By the 14th century Srivijaya had declined, weakened by Chola raids in the 11th century and later by the rise of other ports.

Two powers now competed for influence in the region. In Java, Majapahit claimed overlordship over Palembang and much of the Malay world. On the mainland, the Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya claimed authority over the northern and central Malay Peninsula, including the island of Temasek, modern Singapore.

Parameswara’s flight

The story of Malacca’s founder comes from two main sources that do not fully agree: the Malay Annals (Sejarah Melayu), a court chronicle compiled in later centuries, and the Suma Oriental, an account of Asian trade written around 1512-1515 by the Portuguese apothecary Tome Pires.

According to Pires, Parameswara was a prince of Palembang who rejected Majapahit’s overlordship in the late 14th century. A Javanese attack drove him from Palembang, and he fled to Temasek. There he killed the local ruler, who was linked to Siam, and seized the island. Forces from Siam or its vassal Pattani then expelled him, and he moved up the coast to Muar and finally to Malacca.

The Malay Annals tell a different version in which the founder belongs to a line of kings of Singapura descended from the legendary Sang Nila Utama. Historians use both texts with caution, but agree that the founder came from the Palembang royal tradition and reached Malacca after leaving Temasek.

The founding of Malacca

Malacca lay at the mouth of a small river, with a hill that offered protection and a sheltered anchorage. Most importantly, it stood at the narrowest part of the Strait, where ships sailing between India and China had to pass and wait for the changing monsoon winds.

The Malay Annals preserve a famous foundation legend. While hunting, the king rested under a melaka tree and saw a small mouse-deer kick one of his hunting dogs into the river. Taking the courage of the little animal as a good omen, he founded his city on the spot and named it after the tree.

The date of the founding is not recorded. Estimates based on the Portuguese and Chinese sources range from about 1396 to 1403, and around 1400 is the usual compromise.

The Ming connection

Malacca’s rise owed much to China. In 1403 the Yongle Emperor sent the envoy Yin Qing to the region, and Parameswara soon sent missions of his own to the Ming court. In 1405 the emperor recognised him as king, giving Malacca protection against Siam.

The Ming admiral Zheng He used Malacca as a base and depot on several of his great voyages from 1409 onwards. In 1411 Parameswara himself travelled to China with his wife, son and a large retinue, recorded in Chinese sources as more than 540 people, and was received by the emperor.

Chinese recognition made Malacca a safe place for merchants and helped it overcome rival ports in Sumatra and the peninsula.

Islam and the sultanate

Parameswara was born into a Hindu-Buddhist royal tradition. According to some accounts he married a princess of Pasai, a Muslim port in northern Sumatra, and converted to Islam late in life, taking the name Iskandar Shah. Others think Iskandar Shah was his son. He died around 1414.

By the reign of Muhammad Shah (r. c. 1424-1444) the court was Muslim, and Muzaffar Shah (r. c. 1445-1459) was the first ruler to use the title sultan. Islam strengthened Malacca’s ties with Muslim merchants from Gujarat, Bengal, Persia and Arabia, who dominated much of the Indian Ocean trade.

Under Sultan Mansur Shah (r. 1459-1477) and the powerful chief minister (bendahara) Tun Perak, Malacca extended its control over much of the Malay Peninsula and the eastern coast of Sumatra.

Tun Perak, who served four rulers from the 1450s until his death around 1498, is remembered as the architect of Malacca’s greatness. He organised the defence of the city against Siamese attacks in the 1440s and 1450s and guided the expansion that brought Pahang, Kampar, Siak and other territories under Malacca’s authority.

Malacca also became a centre of Islamic learning. Scholars from Pasai, India and the Middle East taught at the court, and Muslim merchants and teachers who traded through the port carried the faith to Brunei, the Moluccas, northern Java and other parts of the archipelago. Conversion of rulers in many of these places followed close contacts with Malacca.

Key people

Parameswara (died c. 1414) was the founder, a refugee prince who turned a small settlement into a recognised kingdom through skilful diplomacy with Ming China. Muzaffar Shah and Mansur Shah were the sultans under whom Malacca reached its height. The last sultan before the Portuguese conquest, Mahmud Shah (r. 1488-1511), ruled a wealthy but divided court.

How the port worked

Malacca’s prosperity rested on efficient administration. Four harbour masters (shahbandars) each handled a different group of merchants, such as those from Gujarat, from other parts of India and Burma, from the Indonesian islands, and from China and Ryukyu. Fixed customs duties and law codes, later collected as the Undang-Undang Melaka, gave traders a predictable framework.

Pires wrote that 84 languages could be heard in Malacca’s streets. Spices from the Moluccas, pepper from Sumatra, cloth from India, and silk and porcelain from China all passed through its markets. The Malay language spread along these trade routes and became the common language of commerce across the archipelago.

Legacy

Malacca fell to the Portuguese under Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511 (see the capture of Malacca). The royal family fled and founded the sultanate of Johor, and Malacca’s court traditions passed to the later Malay sultanates.

The sultanate is remembered in Malaysia as the classical age of Malay civilisation. Its court culture, its laws and the Malay Annals shaped later ideas of Malay kingship, and the city of Melaka, with George Town, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2008. The Malacca Sultanate Palace Museum, built in the 1980s, reconstructs a royal palace based on descriptions in the Malay Annals.

Timeline

• Late 14th century: Parameswara rejects Majapahit overlordship and is driven from Palembang.
• c. 1390s: Parameswara seizes Temasek and is later expelled.
• c. 1400: Founding of Malacca.
• 1403: The Ming envoy Yin Qing visits the region.
• 1405: The Yongle Emperor recognises Parameswara as king of Malacca.
• 1409: Zheng He’s fleet visits Malacca.
• 1411: Parameswara visits the Ming court in China.
• c. 1414: Death of Parameswara.
• c. 1445: Muzaffar Shah becomes the first ruler to use the title sultan.
• 1511: Malacca falls to the Portuguese.

Why it matters

The founding of Malacca created the greatest trading city of 15th-century Southeast Asia. It became the hub through which spices, textiles and porcelain moved between the Indian Ocean and East Asia, and its rulers made Islam and the Malay language central to the culture of the region.